You lived a long time without marriage.
Our life has been what the French call mouvementé[308]. Now I can leave a great deal of the burden of work to you. My partner needs watching, but you can leave him to me. And I will look after relations with the police. The Chief of Police is coming tomorrow night. He has a charming daughter, by the way. Its a pity you are not a Catholic, he would make a valuable father-in-law, but perhaps we could remedy that.
You talk as if I were settling here for life.
I know that for life has a rather lugubrious sound, as in the term imprisonment for life, but here you know for life can so easily mean for a day, for a week, for a month. And you wont die in a traffic accident.
You speak as though I were a young man looking for adventure. OToole wants me to take the boat tomorrow.
But you are one of the family now, Mr. Visconti replied, putting his hand like a birds claw on my knee and digging a little with his fingers to retain a grip. I feel towards you very like a father.
His smile, which he must have meant to be a tender one, was not of the kind which one associates with paternity: the missing teeth ruined it. He must have seen me looking at his mouth, for he explained, I had very good dentures once. Some magnificent gold work. Its the only form of jewelry a man can wear that women fully appreciate. Dear things, they like to put their lips on gold. Unfortunately the Nazis were acquisitive that way, and although I tried to remain on friendly terms, I thought it safer to have the teeth removed. There was an officer of the Gestapo who had a drawer full of teeth. I noticed that he always looked me in the mouth, not the eyes.
How did you explain their absence?
I told them I had exchanged them for cigarettes. I cannot think what I would have done without those teeth when I had to run away. Before I reached Milan and Marios Jesuits I was down to my last tooth.
Aunt Augusta joined us from the house. I could do with a glass myself, she said. I hope its not going to rain tomorrow. Im keeping the dining-room empty for dancing in case. Your room is looking quite furnished, Henry. Everything is a little slow because there are misunderstandings. I keep on using Italian words, and they dont understand. I find myself looking round for Wordsworth to explain. He had a way of explaining
I thought we had agreed, dear, that his name was not to be spoken.
I know, but its so absurd to inconvenience ourselves with jealousies at our age. Do you know, Henry, Mr. Visconti was quite disturbed when I told him that I met Achille on the boat? Poor Achille. He couldnt move for gout.
I like the dead to stay dead, Mr. Visconti said. Unlike Pottifer, my aunt replied and laughed.
Who was Pottifer? I asked.
I was going to tell you at Boulogne, but you wouldnt listen.
Tell me now.
There are too many things to see about.
I could see that the only way to atone for my conduct in the restaurant of the Gare Maritime was to beg her to tell me. Please, Aunt Augusta, I want to know I felt like a child pretending interest in a story to delay bedtime. What was it that I was delaying? Perhaps the moment when I had finally to decide to catch the boat home, to find again my dahlias and Major Charge, to reply to Miss Keenes letter, or to pass the border into my aunts world where I had lived till now as a tourist only. It seemed to me, watching the champagne from Panama shooting up its bubbles like balls dancing on water at a fair, inconceivable that I could abandon forever the region of Colonel Hakim and Curran and OToole
What are you smiling at? Aunt Augusta asked.
I was thinking of OToole flying off today to Washington with the fake Leonardo.
Not today. There are no planes to the north. He will be at the party tomorrow night. I asked him before he left. When once he had got what he wanted he was quite a charming man. Good-looking in a sad way.
But perhaps today when he has time to examine the drawing
Mr. OToole is no art expert, Mr. Visconti said. The man who did that forgery was a genius. He was quite illiterate. A peasant on the princes estate, but with a wonderful hand and eye. The prince never knew what a treasure he had living there until the police descended that was in the early days of Mussolini and arrested the man. He was making counterfeit notes[309]. He had rigged up a little printing works at the back of the estate forge. They were extraordinarily good, his forgeries, but he didnt know his own value: he gave them away to his fellow labourers. The prince could never understand how it was his people had become so prosperous there wasnt a labourer without a radio set. In socialist circles the prince gained a high reputation as an enlightened employer they even wanted him to stand as a deputy. Then all the peasants began buying refrigerators and even motor-cycles. And of course they went too far somebody bought a Fiat. And the paper the forger used wasnt up to the mark. When the man came out of prison the prince welcomed him back, and he was very careful to give him the correct materials for copying the Leonardo.