along a dirt road between lemon groves.
His study was a hideous room with a tessellated floor and red, leather-covered walls. The writing table was a Second Empire monster with a matching chair of throne-like proportions. He had a mop of white hair and very black eyes. Sitting in that enormous chair, he looked like an illustration depicting the king greedy for gold in an art-nouveau edition of Grimm’s fairy tales.
‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that you wish to return to France. Why, young man? In order to gamble away all the wages I have been paying you these past weeks?’
His wife had told me of his stuffiness about gambling, but I had forgotten about it, along with the fiction that I was a gambler myself. So, instead of replying that what I did with the money I earned was my own affair, not his, I answered his silly question as if he had been entitled to ask it.
‘No, Sir. I merely wish to regularize my position. As the captain pointed out, I still have no labour permit for Italy or Italian possessions.’
It could have been more happily put. He gave me a long, smouldering stare.
Then he said deliberately: ‘For the work you are paid to do in Italian possessions, the only necessary permission is mine.’
Iwas very innocent in those days. It took me a moment or two to grasp what he had said. When the penny dropped, though, several things seemed to happen atonce. For the only time in my life I felt myself blushing. I had an almost overwhelming desire to hit him and, along with it, an equally compelling determination to get out of the room before I did anything stupid. Good sense won. I turned quickly and walked to the door.
‘Come back here,’ he snapped. ‘ Ihaven’t finished with you.’
I didn’t go back, but I stopped and faced him again. After all, I still had to know what the score was.
‘You had better understand me,’ he continued. ‘I have considerable influence with the authorities both here and in Rome. I could have you in prison within the hour if I chose. I could also have you deported. Inthat case, you would certainly pay your own travel expenses. The only way that you can, as you put it, regularize your position is to do as you are told, not by that fool of a woman, but by me.’
He let that sink in, a smile hovered. ‘You may even find it less inhibiting to do as you are told here, rather than on the far side of a yacht bulkhead.’
When he was sure from my expression that I had thoroughly understood him, he sat back and seemed to relax. ‘I leave for Rome tomorrow afternoon and shall be away for some weeks. You will place yourself at my wife’s disposal for as long as she continues to find you useful. When she has finished with you, then you may go.’ He paused, savouring the final insult before delivering it. ‘One other word of warning. There are some possessions of value to me in this house. Don’t try to steal them. My servants will know immediately if anything is missing. Now get out.’
I left without seeing her and walked to the bus stop in the village. When I got back to the yacht, however, there was a note from her waiting for me. It said that I must ignore her husband’s bad manners. They were the result of too much association with politicians. She would expect me for lunch on Friday. From then on I would be her guest, not his. In case I had not yet been able to make arrangements for cashing cheques with a local bank, she was enclosing five thousand lire to cover taxi fares and any other incidental expenses I might wish to incur.
At that time five thousand lire would have gone some way towards buying a taxi, the kind of taxi they had in Tripoli anyway. Two days later I moved into the farmhouse; but one thing I had to ask her about before finally deciding to stay. Had she known from the first that he had listened to us?
The question seemed to perplex her. ‘But he didn’t listen to us from the first,’ she said. ‘How could he have listened to us in your
His study was a hideous room with a tessellated floor and red, leather-covered walls. The writing table was a Second Empire monster with a matching chair of throne-like proportions. He had a mop of white hair and very black eyes. Sitting in that enormous chair, he looked like an illustration depicting the king greedy for gold in an art-nouveau edition of Grimm’s fairy tales.
‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that you wish to return to France. Why, young man? In order to gamble away all the wages I have been paying you these past weeks?’
His wife had told me of his stuffiness about gambling, but I had forgotten about it, along with the fiction that I was a gambler myself. So, instead of replying that what I did with the money I earned was my own affair, not his, I answered his silly question as if he had been entitled to ask it.
‘No, Sir. I merely wish to regularize my position. As the captain pointed out, I still have no labour permit for Italy or Italian possessions.’
It could have been more happily put. He gave me a long, smouldering stare.
Then he said deliberately: ‘For the work you are paid to do in Italian possessions, the only necessary permission is mine.’
Iwas very innocent in those days. It took me a moment or two to grasp what he had said. When the penny dropped, though, several things seemed to happen atonce. For the only time in my life I felt myself blushing. I had an almost overwhelming desire to hit him and, along with it, an equally compelling determination to get out of the room before I did anything stupid. Good sense won. I turned quickly and walked to the door.
‘Come back here,’ he snapped. ‘ Ihaven’t finished with you.’
I didn’t go back, but I stopped and faced him again. After all, I still had to know what the score was.
‘You had better understand me,’ he continued. ‘I have considerable influence with the authorities both here and in Rome. I could have you in prison within the hour if I chose. I could also have you deported. Inthat case, you would certainly pay your own travel expenses. The only way that you can, as you put it, regularize your position is to do as you are told, not by that fool of a woman, but by me.’
He let that sink in, a smile hovered. ‘You may even find it less inhibiting to do as you are told here, rather than on the far side of a yacht bulkhead.’
When he was sure from my expression that I had thoroughly understood him, he sat back and seemed to relax. ‘I leave for Rome tomorrow afternoon and shall be away for some weeks. You will place yourself at my wife’s disposal for as long as she continues to find you useful. When she has finished with you, then you may go.’ He paused, savouring the final insult before delivering it. ‘One other word of warning. There are some possessions of value to me in this house. Don’t try to steal them. My servants will know immediately if anything is missing. Now get out.’
I left without seeing her and walked to the bus stop in the village. When I got back to the yacht, however, there was a note from her waiting for me. It said that I must ignore her husband’s bad manners. They were the result of too much association with politicians. She would expect me for lunch on Friday. From then on I would be her guest, not his. In case I had not yet been able to make arrangements for cashing cheques with a local bank, she was enclosing five thousand lire to cover taxi fares and any other incidental expenses I might wish to incur.
At that time five thousand lire would have gone some way towards buying a taxi, the kind of taxi they had in Tripoli anyway. Two days later I moved into the farmhouse; but one thing I had to ask her about before finally deciding to stay. Had she known from the first that he had listened to us?
The question seemed to perplex her. ‘But he didn’t listen to us from the first,’ she said. ‘How could he have listened to us in your
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