The Bay of Foxes: A Novel Page 14

  When the couple arrive that bright, sun-filled morning, he tells them he is leaving for Rome. “So soon,” Adrianna exclaims, looking disappointed. They ask if the signora is coming back this autumn, and he says he doubts it. He hasn’t heard from her for a while. He says good-bye to Adrianna in the big blue-and-white-tiled kitchen, giving her a kiss on her smooth, fragrant cheek. He tells her to take any food that is left in the refrigerator and asks her to close up the house and make sure all is safe.

  “As we always do,” she says proudly. She adds, “We do hope you will come back soon, signore,” obviously sincere in her wish, and gives him an affectionate hug. “It’s lovely here at Christmas. You can even come and stay with us if you like,” she says generously.

  He climbs the hill and takes a last look at the sweep of the beautiful bay, the sun sparkling on the water, standing there with Michelino—who has insisted on carrying his bag—beside him. He has asked Michelino to drive him to the airport in M.’s Jaguar and leave him there.

  Inside the airport, he buys them both a cappuccino at the bar and thanks Michelino for all his help this summer. It has been a privilege getting to know the couple, he says truly. He gives Michelino the money, telling him M. has asked that he pay him.

  Michelino takes the wad of lire and looks at Dawit somewhat dubiously. “So much? The signora is very generous this year,” he says, looking Dawit in the eyes. Obviously Dawit has given the couple much more than they usually get. He wonders if this was wise. Michelino hesitates a moment, seems on the point of saying something, but then he just gives Dawit a big smile, a hug, and thanks him. He wishes him good luck. He waves as Dawit leaves to catch his flight. Dawit wonders what they would say about him, if the police ever questioned the couple.

  He sits in the airplane shifting restlessly in his seat all through the short flight, thinking about Enrico, what he will have to tell him, and how he might react. Enrico has given Dawit the address and telephone number of the apartment in Rome. He has told him to take a cab from the airport and meet him in the street near the Spanish Steps.

  Dawit tries to imagine holding Enrico again in his arms, but what he sees is an Italian policeman waiting for him at the airport.

  PART THREE

  Rome

  XXXIII

  DAWIT WAITS FOR ENRICO ANXIOUSLY, WATCHING THE PEOPLE pass by in the Roman street, in the sunlight. It is still warm in late September, and the trees retain their leaves. He watches the people’s faces and admires their elegance, and often, their beauty. They stare at him frankly, too. He has the impression that unlike the French, they really see him, looking him up and down. He wonders what they think about this tall, well-dressed Ethiopian in his fancy sunglasses. He has dressed up for Enrico, put on his smartest navy linen suit and Panama hat, pulled down slightly to one side.

  He sees a group of Gypsies begging on the street corner. A young, thin girl with a dirty face, dressed in a long, bright skirt with little glittering pieces of metal embroidered on her blouse, beats a tambourine and dances, turning and lifting her arms, her skirt swaying. Dawit thinks of his mother dancing in the palace hall. The girl’s little brother, who has the streaks of tears on his cheeks, reminds Dawit of Takla. He goes over and drops a bill in the hat they have left on the pavement, and the young girl smiles at him and picks up the little boy. “Say thank you to the nice signore,” she tells him.

  Dawit wonders how Asfa’s family is getting on. He remembers Takla looking up at him with big eyes as he consumed his pain au chocolat, sitting on the floor, little legs before him. It seems to have happened long ago.

  Now that he is here, safely in Rome, he is filled with a sudden exhilaration. Clearly, Gustave has not sent the police to pick him up, or not yet. He is overjoyed to have escaped Cala di Volpe, where something unspeakable has happened. He is excited to see Enrico, uplifted by the beauty of the city around him as he was driven through the streets: the long-stemmed pine trees, reaching up to the sky, the brief glimpses of the famous Roman monuments he recalls from the postcards his parents sent him from a trip they had made with the Emperor: the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus, Hadrian’s Arch. He hears his mother say, “Levavi oculos!” How he feels her presence here!

  Now he is standing on a narrow side street near the Spanish Steps. Everywhere he looks, history was made, Italian history, with all its ambiguity. He thinks of the efforts the Italians made to colonize his country and his countrymen’s brave resistance: his grandfather’s stories of the Battle of Adwa, where the Italians expected an easy conquest and instead suffered a humiliating defeat. How proud his grandfather was of the soldiers he had led as a very young man into battle. How ironic that Dawit should be here now.

  He begins to fear that Enrico will not show up. What will he do? Why had they decided to meet on a street corner? He is almost giving up, deciding he will have to look for a hotel, when he sees Enrico walking toward him, hurrying through the crowd, the sunlight shining in his red-gold curls. He is in his shirtsleeves, his linen jacket over his arm, almost running, his face lit up with joy. He lifts one arm to wave gaily from a distance. “My God, you made it!” he says exuberantly, as though Dawit is the one who is late. He grins widely, kissing him on both cheeks effusively and once again. “You look wonderful to me,” Enrico says, waving his fine hands in admiration. Dawit looks back at the round amber eyes, the long lashes, the straight nose, and thinks how beautiful he is. “I’m so pleased to see you,” Dawit says, realizing just how much pleasure this man has given him, how this ordinary Italian, in no way remarkable, has filled his life, has become his sole source of sorrow and joy. At the same time, with Enrico beside him, he is aware of how terrified he is of losing him completely, afraid of how he will react to what Dawit feels he must tell him.

  Enrico leads him down the street, opens the heavy wooden door to a palazzo, and goes before him into a cool courtyard, with plants in big earthenware jars. He holds Dawit in his arms, pushing him back against the ancient stone wall, pressing his lips against his. Dawit can feel Enrico’s whole body trembling. “Come, quickly come,” Enrico says. “I’ve missed you too much. I’ve been a dreadful grumpy husband and father without you,” he says, then grabs Dawit by the wrist, wrenches his suitcase from him, and half drags him up the worn marble steps.

  XXXIV

  INSIDE THE FOURTH-FLOOR APARTMENT, ENRICO CLOSES THE door and leans against it, panting and laughing, holding Dawit’s hand, pulling him close. He drops Dawit’s leather bag to the floor with a groan. “God, you feel good to me,” he says, running his hands all over Dawit’s body, pressing himself against him. Dawit feels the warmth of Enrico’s soft body. He would like to rest in his arms and tell him everything.

  But Enrico has other things in mind. He strips Dawit’s clothes off, first the linen jacket, then the shirt. He wants Dawit to take him here and now on the floor. He cannot wait, it has been too, too long, why has he not called? What has been going on? But Dawit resists. He pushes Enrico away, saying they must talk first, he has something he must tell him, must ask him, a big favor. He has come to him because he does not know whom else to ask.

  They walk into the small living room, and Enrico strides across to open the French windows on the sunlight and the small terrace with its round earthenware pots and vines climbing up the wall. Dawit follows him into the light, draws in a great breath of delight. He looks down onto the Spanish Steps, the boat-shaped fountain below. “My God, what a view!” he says. Enrico stands beside him looking across Rome, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “My gift to you,” Enrico says, then turns and kisses him.

  How can Dawit tell him what has happened? How can he burden him with it all? He looks into Enrico’s eyes with longing. Enrico puts his hands around Dawit’s waist and drags them down his thighs. All he wants, it is clear, is to lie beside Dawit and have him enter his body. He says, “I’ve done nothing but think of you and that white room at the club, the most beautiful place in the world. Lovemaking will forever be filled with the soun
d of people swearing and tennis balls being hit!” he says, laughing.

  Dawit tries to stall, to curb Enrico’s ardor. He asks for a drink. Enrico brings him a tall glass of cool mineral water from the small kitchen that opens onto the living room. They sit side by side on the gray love seat, which looks out over the steps, but Enrico looks at Dawit, frowning, puzzled. He rubs the end of his pointed nose, sighs, and says, “So what is so urgent that you have to tell me first? What can I do for you? I’ll do anything,” holding his freckled hands like a basket and thrusting them forward, to convey the extent of his willingness.

  Dawit doesn’t know what to say.

  “Do you need money? You can have all I’ve got,” Enrico says extravagantly, throwing up both his white hands as though throwing money to the sky, and grinning. Dawit shakes his head. “No! No! Not money,” he says angrily.

  “Well, then what on earth is it ?” Enrico asks.

  “That would be too simple,” Dawit says bitterly and looks out the window. He cannot ask this man for anything, he decides. He has made a mistake. “Look, forget it. I can’t ask you for this. I can’t drag you into this. It’s all too, too sordid.”

  “But I want to help you. I can see you are in trouble. I feel for you, as I would for myself!” Enrico says, holding on to him, both hands on his arms, looking concerned, his ancient face filled with melancholy.

  “I don’t want your pity. I don’t want anything from you, from anyone. Do you understand?” Dawit shouts, suddenly enraged. He should never have come here. He’s tempted to get up and go. He stands up, looks wildly around the elegant room.

  “Are you crazy? What is the matter with you?” Enrico says, getting up, holding him tightly, his arms around him, looking into his eyes. “Why didn’t you call me right away? Did something happen with M. after my visit? You had a quarrel? It was my fault? She is jealous? She turned you out? What happened?”

  Dawit twists free and walks back and forth. He cannot speak truthfully even to this man he loves, because he loves him. He cannot drag him into something that might be dangerous to him and his whole family, the loving wife, the small children. Why make them suffer, too? He says, “It’s nothing, I keep telling you. Forget it. I cannot ask this of you.” He feels in that moment that he has never before experienced such awful sadness. It is a physical sensation that takes hold of his whole body. He feels he cannot move, can hardly speak at all. A fog of suffering seems to come down over him, envelop him. His head throbs, his throat feels raw, his eyes prick with tears. He will have to tell him as little as possible. He slumps down on the sofa, leans forward, puts his aching head in his hands.

  Enrico takes him by the arms and shakes him hard, forces him to look at him. He says, “So you’re in big trouble, no? I feel it. I will help you. Tell me now, you must. You must let me help you!”

  Dawit looks at him and says, “Will you lie for me?”

  Enrico grins and slumps back against the gray cushions, his hair rumpled, the buttons on his blue shirt undone. He has a wonderfully expressive face. There is no one in the whole world as precious to him. Enrico draws his shoulders up and lifts his hands. He says, “Of course, with ease. We Italians are pretty good at lying when we have to. I’d say no one else was quite as good at it. We can also steal. Do you need any stealing?” He opens his eyes wide, grinning, and then, seeing Dawit’s expression, he looks serious, draws him close. He says, “I would lie and steal for you, Dawit. What else do you want? Why do you have to even ask? You want me to lie for you to M.? But why would she believe me? Never mind, I’d do anything for you, surely you know?” and he drags his hands over Dawit’s chest, his thighs, his sex. Like M., he cannot keep his hands off his body, Dawit thinks, annoyed. All they want from him is his youth, his young body.

  He looks at Enrico’s fine patrician face, one of ancient privilege. His ancestors have known nothing but privilege. He has never known real hardship, hunger, or thirst. People have always come to his aid. No one has ever beaten the soles of his feet, plunged his head and shoulders in filthy water, put electrodes on his sex. How can he possibly understand? He is not so sure what Enrico would do for him, not sure at all. Would he betray him?

  He says, “If they ask you, will you say you spent the night with me? The night when you left the villa? The night when M. found us together. Will you simply say you met me in a bar, and we went together to the beach, that we spent the night together there?”

  “If who asks me?” Enrico asks, looking at him warily, his gaze fluttering back and forth across the room, as though he were watching a game of tennis. His face looks a little green around the fine nose.

  Dawit looks at him and says, “The police.”

  Enrico draws a breath sharply, looks out the window, and then looks at Dawit. He says, “I’ll say whatever you want me to, but now just make love to me.”

  Dawit puts his hands into Enrico’s soft russet curls, he runs them over his face, his lips, down his sweet body, as Enrico pulls off the rest of Dawit’s clothes and his own and sinks down onto the carpet before him. Dawit kneels naked beside him, feels the gold fluff on his stomach, and buries his face in his chest. He strokes his pale skin, the curve of his spine as Enrico turns onto his side, offering himself up, waiting for Dawit to fill his body with his sex. But what Dawit sees stretched out before him is not Enrico but M., her white gown bubbling up and her chained body sinking down through the blue sea. As Enrico turns to him and tries to arouse him, taking his sex hungrily into his mouth, he sees himself diving from the side of the boat, plunging down in search of M.’s body, not this one beside him. His desire is gone, stolen. He has left it down there in the deep of the Sardinian sea, buried in the sand of the Bay of Foxes. M. has managed to rob him not only of his sleep but also of his desire.

  He struggles to his feet, tears on his cheeks. All he can say, as he once did to M., is “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.” Enrico, who is lying curled up on the Persian carpet in the Roman flat, the hum of the ancient city coming to them through the open door like the sound of the sea, lets out a deep, sustained moan. He calls on his God, asking for mercy, as though he has committed a crime.

  Dawit says in a sort of furor, “It was her life or mine. She would have destroyed me, crushed me like a cockroach!” and as he says this he sees the expression in Enrico’s eyes, the look of complete terror.

  Enrico rises up on his knees and presses his hands together as though praying, shaking his hands pressed together at Dawit. He says, “What are you saying? What on earth are you saying! What did you do to her?”

  Dawit explodes, “For God’s sake! How much blood has been spilled and for how many absurd reasons? What does it matter? Surely the life of one hungry child, the life of little Takla, was worth more than hers?”

  Enrico, still on his knees, looks up at Dawit and opens his arms wide, shakes his hands, his head, his whole body. He says, “Who are we to decide who is to live and die?”

  Dawit looks away and says, “There was no other way out.”

  “Don’t tell me that! Don’t tell me anything! I don’t want you to tell me what happened! I don’t want to know.” He bends over, lowering his head to the floor, touching the carpet with his forehead, covering his ears as M. once covered her eyes. Then he gets up and starts frantically pulling on his clothes. He says, “I have to go. I have to leave immediately.”

  “Go, then! Go ahead! Get away from me!” Dawit says.

  Enrico finishes dressing, sitting on the sofa to pull on his elegant Italian socks, his fine, well-polished though worn shoes. He says, “Look, I’ll lie for you. I will, if they ask me, and you can stay here for as long as you like, but try for God’s sake to keep my family out of this. I don’t want their names blasted across the papers. Do you understand? I don’t want my wife, my children, dragged into this. I’ll try and call but I don’t know when I’ll be back. Just leave the key under the mat when you have to go,” and he gets up and goes toward the door. With his hand on the doorknob, he turns
and looks at Dawit and for one wild moment Dawit hopes he might come back, take him in his arms, or at least say good-bye, but he tells Dawit there is food in the fridge, to help himself, and sheets for the couch, which folds out into a bed.

  Up to the last moment a gentleman, Dawit thinks, blinking back tears. Then Enrico looks once at Dawit, his sorrow written clearly all over his face. He says with his small, sad, ironic smile, “Ciao, Dawit, buona fortuna.” As the door clicks softly behind him, Dawit feels as if he has been cut off from everything and everybody with a sharp knife.

  XXXV

  DAWIT LIES BACK DOWN ON THE CARPET, HIS KNEES DRAWN up to his chest, as Enrico had done. He cannot stir. He can hardly breathe. His whole body aches as though he has been beaten once again. Hot and cold shivers run down his spine. He thinks he hears screams, glass shattering, the sound of boots coming near. Vaguely, he is aware that no one is screaming, but the telephone, the big black phone, which is on the counter between the living room and the open kitchen, is ringing and ringing. Finally, he manages to rouse himself and forces himself up from the floor where he has been lying curled up in a ball, beating the carpet with his fists as he would do the concrete in his cell. He picks up the receiver. At first he is not able to understand what the voice is saying, but eventually he realizes it is Gustave. “Can you hear me, for God’s sake? Dawit, I’m asking you if you have seen the papers today.”

  Dawit says no, the last thing he thought of was to buy a paper today. He has just arrived in Rome.

  “It’s all over the French papers, and I imagine the Italian ones, too,” Gustave says.