Nightwork

When she arrived, Mr Quadrocelli had left us tactfully alone, saying, 'You must have many things you wish to talk about with your beautiful American friend. We can have lunch tomorrow, instead of today. My wife will understand. And my three daughters.' He laughed, his rumbling, robust laugh. I do not pity you anymore, Douglas.' He winked as he said it. 'Not at all.'

Then he had called during the afternoon, full of apologies, to say that he had received a telephone call, that he had to fly to Milan that evening, there had been sabotage at the plant. 'Imagine,' he said, 'even on Saturday.' But he would return as soon as possible, he said. I was to give his salutations to the beautiful American. His call had come after lunch, when Evelyn and I were in bed together, in the warm, pretty room overlooking the sea, all our hungers for the moment sated. Although I was sorry Quadrocelli's plant had been sabotaged, I was not sorry that I wouldn't have to spend time with him, nice as he was, time that I otherwise could devote, to Evelyn.

The hotel was practically empty in this off-season, and it was like having a luxurious country house, equipped with a friendly and highly efficient staff, all to ourselves. The large terrace that came with our room was shielded from observation, and we lay naked side by side for hours in the warm sunshine, tanning ourselves. It seemed to me that Evelyn's body had grown softer and rounder. In Washington it had been hard and taut, trained for competition, the body of a woman who religiously went through strenuous calisthenics and expensive massages daily to keep in shape. We talked of many things, but never about Washington or her work there. I didn't ask her how long she could stay with me and she didn't mention when she would have to leave. I did not report my conversation with Lorimer at the Tre Scalini.

It was a marvelous, in-between kind of time, sensual and carefree, untroubled by clock or calendar, in a beautiful country whose language we could not speak and whose problems were not our problems. We read no newspapers and never listened to the radio and made no plans for the future. Fabian .called me several times to say things were going swimmingly in New York and that we were growing richer daily but that because of certain complications that he wouldn't bother to explain to me over the phone he would have to stay in the States longer than he had expected. Quadrocelli had sent over the figures on the wine deal before he had left, and I had mailed them to Fabian without looking at them. They were fine, Fabian said, and when Quadrocelli got back to Porto Ercole, I could tell him his terms were acceptable.

'Incidentally,' I said, 'how was the funeral?'

'Pure pleasure,' Fabian said. 'Oh - I nearly forgot - your brother came to New York to visit me. He's a very different kettle of fish from you, isn't he?'

'I guess you might put it that way,' I said.

'Still, he says the company you and he are in on looks very promising. He told me about his eyes and I sent him to my man in New York and he's being treated with some new drug and the doctor says he'll be fine. Lily sends her love.'

It was a week in which nothing could go wrong.

* * *

We drove down to Rome to get my five suits and stayed at a hotel overlooking the Spanish Steps and like good tourists we walked everywhere, had lunch in the Piazza Navona and drank the wine of Frascati and visited the Vatican and the Forum and the Borghese Museum and heard Tosca at the opera. Evelyn said she admired my suits and pretended that all the girls we passed were looking longingly at me. I was not blind to the fact that practically all the Italian men we passed looked longingly at her.

On one of our walks I steered her to Bonelli's gallery. The painting of the American small-town street was still in the window, with my little red tab on the frame. I didn't tell Evelyn that it belonged to me. I was curious about what she thought about it. She was much more sophisticated than I and, sharing an apartment with a gallery-owner, she must have been exposed, even if it was only by this association, to a good deal of modern art. I stood silently by her side as we both studied the painting. If she said it was worthless, I probably would never claim the painting and never admit that I had bought it.

'What do you think of it?' I finally asked.

'It's beautiful,' she said. 'Absolutely beautiful. Let's go in and see the whole show. I must write Brenda about this man.'

But it was lunch hour or hours and the gallery was closed, so we couldn't go in. It was just as well, I thought. She might not have liked any of the other paintings and Bonelli would have undoubtedly spoken to me, thanking me for the check I had given him and I would have felt diminished in her eyes. I knew that after the days we had spent together since she had arrived at Porto Ercole I wanted her always to have a high opinion of me. In all fields.