‘Gosh!’ Aimée exclaimed, as delighted as she’d been by the picture of the shepherds and by the hen I’d bought. ‘Otmar, isn’t it fantastic?’
Otmar was always there, unobtrusively behind her. His devotion was remarkable, and constantly she turned to him, to share a detail that had caught her imagination or to tell him something she’d thought of, or just to smile.
‘It is fantastic,’ he said.
‘What’s “fantastic” in German, Otmar?’
‘Phantastisch.’
‘Phantastisch.’
‘That is good, Aimée.’
‘Would a German understand me?’
‘Ja. Ja.’
‘Tell me another word. Tell me the name of a bird.’
‘Taube is for dove. Möwe is for seagull.’
‘How do you say “beautiful”?’
‘Schön is for beautiful.’
‘Schön.’
‘That is good.’
‘Möwe.’
‘That is good too.’
Mr Riversmith bought her a little red and green box with drawers in it, and then we climbed back to where the General awaited us. He had found a tea-room and was reading about flowers again.
‘It’s really beautiful down there,’ Aimée told him. ‘A monk patted my head.’
As we moved towards the car I managed to draw Otmar aside, to reassure him that his proposal for paying what was owing was quite acceptable, and to repeat that he, too, was welcome to remain in my house for as long as he wished.
‘I have no skills for the work. I bring no knowledge.’
I reassured him on this point also, and for some reason as I did so a vivid picture came into my mind: of his buying the railway tickets to Milan on 5 May and counting the notes he received in change. ‘Shall we have a cappuccino?’ Madeleine suggested. ‘There’s time.’ I might have placed a hand on the shoulder from which his arm had been cut away, but somehow I could not bring myself to do so. I might have said he must not blame himself. Without knowing anything, I might have said it was all right.
‘It is possible,’ I said instead. ‘A life you did not think of when you lay in that hospital is possible, Otmar.’
For a second the eyes behind the large spectacles fearfully met mine. I remembered his fingers interlaced with Madeleine’s, and the old man as straight as a ramrod beside his daughter. I remembered the two children arguing in whispers, and a workman with a shovel, standing by the railway line.
‘She is going back to America,’ Otmar said, and there our conversation ended.
In the car Quinty regaled Mr Riversmith with information he’d picked up somewhere about St Mary of Egypt. ‘Singer and actress she used to be,’ his voice drifted back to where I was sitting, and he went on about how scavenging dogs wouldn’t touch the remains of St Bibiana, and how the Blessed Lucy endured a loss of blood through her stigmata every Wednesday and Friday for three years. I was unable to hear how Mr Riversmith responded and didn’t particularly try to, because that Quinty was having a field day didn’t matter any more. What mattered was that Mr Riversmith was an ambitious man: that hadn’t occurred to me before. He was ambitious and Francine was ambitious for him, and for herself. There were other professors with microscopes, watching other colonies of ants in other trees. He and Francine had to keep ahead. They had to get there first. What time could they devote to a child who had so tiresomely come out of the blue? Would serious ambition be interrupted in Virginsville, Pennsylvania? That’s what I wondered as Quinty continued to be silly and Mr Riversmith, poor man, was obliged to listen.
When we returned I lay down for an hour; it was almost seven when I appeared downstairs again. Aimée was in bed, the General said, and wished to say good-night to her uncle and myself. He and I went together to her room, where the shutters had been latched to create an evening twilight. When Mr Riversmith spoke her name she answered at once. I sat on the edge of the bed. He stood.
‘Aimée, I would like you to have the hen I bought. It’s a present for you.’
To my surprise, she seemed bewildered. Her face puckered, as if what I’d said made no sense. Then she turned to her uncle.
‘I didn’t ever know there was a quarrel.’
‘It wasn’t important.’
‘But it happened.’
‘Yes, it happened.’
Since that seemed inadequate, I added:
‘Disagreements don’t much matter, Aimée.’ And deliberately changing the subject, I added: ‘Remember the picture of the shepherds?’
‘Shepherds?’
‘The shepherds with their dog.’
‘And a hen?’
‘No, no. The hen was what I bought for you.’
‘What else was in the picture?’
‘Well, sheep in a pen.’
‘What else?’
‘There were hills and houses,’ Mr Riversmith said, and although I wasn’t looking at him I guessed that that familiar frown was gathering on his brow.
‘And eight trees,’ I added. ‘Don’t you remember, we counted them?’
Through the gloom I watched her shaking her head. Her uncle said:
‘I guess you remember the angel in the sky, Aimée?’
‘Have you come to say good-night? I’m sleepy now.’
I mentioned the visit to the monastery, but the entire day except for that reference to a quarrel appeared to have been erased from Aimée’s memory. Her breathing deepened while we remained with her. I could tell she was asleep.
‘This isn’t good,’ her uncle said.
Of course the man was upset; in the circumstances anyone would be. He asked if he might telephone Dr Innocenti, and did so from the hall. I listened on the extension in my private room, feeling the matter concerned me.
‘Yes, there will be this,’ Dr Innocenti said.
‘The child’s suffering from periodic amnesia, doctor.’
‘So might you be, signore, if you had experienced what your niece has.’
‘But this came on so suddenly. Was it the excitement today, the visit to Siena?’
‘I would not say so, signore.’
Mr Riversmith said he had arranged to return to Pennsylvania with Aimée in four days’ time. He wondered if he’d been hasty. He wondered if his niece should be taken back to the hospital for observation.
‘The journey will not harm your niece, signore.’
‘All day she seemed fine.’
‘I can assure you, signore, she has recovered more of herself than we once had hopes of in the hospital. What remains must be left to passing time. And perhaps a little to good fortune. Do not be melancholy, signore.’
Naturally, in all honesty, Dr Innocenti had had to say that the journey would not be harmful. It was not the journey we had to dwell upon but the destination. And this was not something Dr Innocenti could presume to mention. There were further reassurances, but clearly Mr Riversmith remained far from relieved. No sooner had the conversation with Dr Innocenti come to an end than he made a call to his wife in Virginsville. I guessed he would, and again picked up the receiver in my room. She was not surprised, the woman said. In a case like this nothing could be expected to be straightforward. Her voice was hoarse, deep as a man’s, and because I’d heard it I at last pictured without difficulty the woman to whom it belonged: a skinny, weather-beaten face, myopic eyes beneath a lank fringe, eyebrows left unplucked.
‘What you need’s a good stiff drink,’ I said a little later, when Mr Riversmith appeared in the salotto. He looked shaken. For all I knew, she’d given him gip after I’d put the receiver down. For all I knew, this weather-beaten woman blamed him for the mess they’d got into – having to give a home to a child who by the sound of things was as nutty as a fruitcake. Added to which, the heat in Siena might well have adversely affected the poor man’s jet-lag. I poured him some whisky, since whisky’s best for shock.