September in the Rain Read online

  ‘What shall I get you?’

  ‘A hot chocolate,’ you replied.

  ‘That’s a good idea. How about a brioche? They’ve got some by the look of it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ you murmured. ‘My stomach’s not feeling that well.’

  Rehearsing the phrase in my head, I crossed the café to where the woman was putting things into a case on the bar.

  ‘Due cioccolate, e un brioche, per favore.’

  The proprietress had her hair in curlers under a floral headscarf. She pointed to the transparent container that opened on the customer’s side. It displayed a few doughnuts, croissants, and biscuits.

  After what seemed like forever the two hot chocolates were placed on her wooden bar top. At the table with its red gingham cloth, barely raising the cup from its saucer, you drank in slow, loud sips—the rain-despoiled hair in fronds like cypress trees about your face, a face in shadow.

  Giving all my money to you had been such a stupid mistake. As if putting myself at your mercy could have possibly been a token of trust. That way I had seemed to make the promise, but you would have to keep it. If only we’d gone into any of the restaurants whose menus we studied that day. It was just a few minutes after not going in that last one when everything went horribly wrong, and then worse and worse in a helpless slide. Why didn’t I just insist on staying at a hotel in Rome till the trains were running again? If only I hadn’t got into the back.

  Those loud sipping noises at an end, you put the drained cup down. Drinking like that was a thing that always managed to get under my skin, and despite what had happened in the last four hours it was painfully upsetting to feel it once again. Now your speechlessness sank in to me like a mute rebuke. What was there to say that might ease or appease you? What was there to say at all? Brought together in adversity, or driven apart by it, now the worst thing that would ever happen to me—it had happened to you.

  After quite some while lost in tangles of thoughts like those, with both our chocolates finished on the gingham, I finally managed to say something.

  ‘We needn’t wait for the police station to open, need we? We could just try and get to Switzerland somehow, and there’ll be trains.’

  But you looked up at me in blank astonishment.

  ‘No,’ you said. ‘It has to be reported.’

  ‘But why put yourself through even more? What good would it do?’

  ‘What is it with you? Don’t you understand? If he gets away with it this time … don’t you see?’

  So that was how you would do the right thing in the circumstances, whatever came of it. Since you could never guarantee the results of your actions, and people always blamed the social worker, the only course was to do what you believed to be right. Not that I thought anything like this at the time, feeling even more crushed by what seemed my cowardice in the suggestion that we go straight home. Leaving the table, going up to settle the bill, I felt myself retreating towards the woman at the bar. Now the proprietress was announcing a price. Then there was the usual fumbling to match what the woman had said with a tiny bundle of dirty coloured paper. Muttering the word ‘moneta’, she handed back five caramels and a piece of chewing gum for change.

  At a distance, on the far side of the road from the Questura, we stood waiting. Then, finally, someone appeared. He was wearing what looked like a fireman’s uniform, but without the helmet. Approaching the heavy wooden doors of the Questura, the custodian unlocked them and stepped inside. We remained still a moment, then, picking up our rucksacks, crossed the road and paused at the entrance while I tried once more to decipher its public notice.

  ‘Go on, just open the door.’

  The building’s central entrance let onto a waiting room with a grilled reception cubicle immediately opposite. There were doors on either side of it. All round the room were dark-varnished wooden benches. Its walls had been painted a deep matt green, but, nevertheless, there were scuff marks of soles clearly visible at the floor angle, the signs of recalcitrant suspects perhaps.

  You sat down on one of the benches. The officer had taken up his place inside the cubicle. He must have cut himself shaving that morning: a minute piece of tissue paper remained attached to his chin by the tiny circular bloodstain on his jaw.

  ‘Buon giorno. Dica.’

  ‘Polizia? Parlare … con la polizia … per favore?’

  After looking into the foreign face, the man spoke and must have been asking why we needed the police. But receiving by way of reply no more than an embarrassed shake of the head, he must have been trying to explain that we needed to wait, in response to which there came neither reply nor movement. So the uniformed man was obliged to jab a finger firmly towards the benches where you were already sitting against those dark green walls.

  A clock above the grilled aperture moved slowly round with stubborn shudders. At some distance down a corridor, behind one of the two doors opposite, came the sound of another door banging. Then through the entrance, somebody arrived for work. He greeted and spoke briefly with the custodian in his cubicle. Now it was happening at shorter and shorter intervals. Before disappearing through one of the doors, each new arrival would glance momentarily over towards us sitting there. The clacking of their leather soles resounded along the marble passages that extended beyond those doors.

  Did the uniformed man understand what we needed? When he spoke with the other men arriving for work, was the custodian even mentioning our existence? We would just have to wait and see.

  ‘Seguitemi, ragazzi,’ said a stocky man in his mid thirties, a plain-clothes detective whose gesture beckoned towards the left-hand door. We followed him along a narrow passageway with offices off to the left and a faded red carpet. Then the detective invited us into a small room crammed with wooden desks, heavy black phones, big grey typewriters, and filing cabinets. On the desks were dark sunglasses; overflowing ashtrays; pink newspapers filled with sports reports … Half a dozen large policemen, mostly in shirtsleeves, were lolling against the walls, slumped in swivel chairs, or casually perched on the edges of desks. An acrid smell of stubbed-out cigarettes assailed my nostrils.

  ‘Avete carte d’identità o passaporti, per favore?’

  From an inside pocket came the blue booklet with its gold lettering. The detective began to leaf over the pages, stopping first at the one that said it remained the property of Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom and might be withdrawn at any time. Then he opened the page that asked those to whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary. Finally, he found the page with the personal details. There was the photograph of a seventeen-year-old boy in a black school blazer. His unwashed strands were tucked back behind the ears to avoid compulsory haircuts. There were traces of acne above the bridge of the nose. He had a peculiarly pouting mouth caused by the need to suppress an urge to giggle at the photographer’s fuss and palaver. The detective glanced into the face of the bedraggled twenty-two-year-old standing in front of him just to confirm that they were one and the same person. They were.

  Rummaging in your rucksack’s front pocket, there you found the official piece of paper, issued by the British Consulate in Rome not twenty-four hours before, valid for one journey only: a return to the British Isles. The detective who asked for the documents opened a drawer in the heavy wooden desk, took out a form and inserted it into the Olivetti typewriter. He would mispronounce a detail from the papers, turn, receive a nod, and type the details onto the form with just one fleshy finger. He was making mistakes. Neither of us corrected him. As the letters of your family address were being stamped into the thin white sheet of paper by the typewriter keys, your face appeared a mask of homesickness and longing. There you stood, the personification of a desire to be removed at once from that place and returned, against the dictates of distanc
e and time, into somewhere warm and secure, somewhere like your own bed in the family home beside the Solent. But you would not die, not for now anyway, nor, for that matter, be changed into a nightingale. Yes, you would undergo the physical examination. It could be no worse than what you’d already endured.

  When the detective finished his typing and handed back the documents, another older-looking man took over. Then he must have asked you to tell him what happened. You were trying your best, first in a smattering of high school French —

  ‘Nous sommes venus ici par la pousse … et à l’heure du quatre du matin … quelqu’un …’

  Perhaps the detective didn’t know the language or couldn’t fathom your accent, because he shook his head and turned to one of his colleagues.

  ‘Cosa dice?’

  ‘Non lo so.’

  ‘Qui c’è qualcuno che parla Inglese?’

  ‘Penso di no.’

  ‘Beh, devo trovare un interprete.’

  The detective picked up the phone and spoke quickly into its dark shell. As he returned the receiver to its cradle, he began again chatting with those around him. He was half-sitting, half-leaning on the edge of the desk, one leg swinging nonchalantly. After some minutes the phone rang and the same detective listened, the receiver balanced between his ear and hunched shoulder.

  ‘Squadra volante, Como,’ he said. ‘Si, si.’

  Then he pointed towards a second handset on the desk nearby. One of the other detectives picked it up and offered it to you.

  This was how the exchanges went. First the detective standing beside you would ask a question:

  ‘C’era un atto sessuale completo, con penetrazione ed eiculazione?’

  Then you would hear an adaptation of the phrase:

  ‘Would you tell him if the sex act was complete; if the man achieved complete intercourse and an orgasm?’

  And I heard you answer: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Il consenso per quest’atto era estorto con minaccia o violenza?’

  ‘Did the man use threats or force to be permitted to do this act?’

  ‘Yes, he threatened us with a gun.’

  ‘Si, l’uomo lì ha minacciati con una pistola … e in quale luogo si sono verificati questi fatti?’

  ‘And where did these events take place?’

  ‘In his car.’

  ‘Nella sua macchina.’

  Then you remembered we had tried to memorize the car’s number plate.

  ‘The number plate …’

  ‘La targa della macchina …’

  The detective leant towards a note-pad lying on the table.

  ‘Do you remember what it was?’ You turned and asked me.

  ‘MI653420 … or possibly 4320.’

  So you repeated it to the voice in the receiver.

  The translator said the numbers in Italian. Then the detective spoke again.

  ‘Tipo della macchina?’

  ‘A dirty beige Ford Escort,’ I said, and remembered one more detail. ‘There was a World Cup football in the boot.’

  ‘Cosa?’ said the detective, and you repeated that fact.

  ‘Un pallone dei mondiale di calcio nel bagagliaio.’

  ‘E l’uomo?

  ‘Could you describe the man?’

  You glanced around once more, inviting further help from my memory.

  ‘Yes: he was short, dark-haired, fairly thin, with a small moustache, and he was wearing a dark red tie …’

  You repeated the details into the mouthpiece then added:

  ‘… and he’d been drinking.’

  When the detective had all the information he needed, he thanked the interpreter at the other end of the line and replaced the receiver. Now he was speaking to a colleague at his elbow. The other man immediately telephoned to what must have been the offices in Milan where vehicles were registered. His sentences contained the possible numbers and make of car. More details were jotted down on the desk pad. The detective nearby suddenly pulled open a drawer, took out a large black automatic pistol, a magazine and handful of bullets, assembled the clip, pushed it into the handle, and inserted the gun into a shoulder holster under his light-weight shiny grey jacket. He closed the desk, announced something to the others, and immediately two of them left the office. They appeared to be almost in a hurry.

  You were preparing yourself for the physical examination you supposed would be required to substantiate your story, but none of the policemen had even so much as mentioned the possibility. And now the uniformed man from reception was showing us out of their office.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ you said. ‘What’s happening now?’

  The uniformed man led the way back down the green corridor past those other doors and over the threadbare carpet weave on which the detectives walked each day with their suspects and criminals, victims and informants. Then the more senior plain-clothes officer appeared. He was explaining rapidly but with expressive gestures that we were free to go. Now you really were astonished. But it did seem as if the police would escort us to the border, still a distance to the northwest somewhere.

  ‘Fino a Svizzera?’

  In response, the uniformed man stepped into the bright morning air and pointed to the right, along an avenue.

  ‘La corriera per Chiasso si ferma lì,’ he said.

  ‘So now we have to take a bus!’ you exclaimed, seeing where his finger had pointed.

  Alone together once again, we set off in the direction of a post in the crumbling road—the sign for where the bus should stop. Family greengrocers, butchers, tobacconists and cafés were beginning to open; displays of produce, tables and chairs were arranged on the pavement edge. These businesses seemed precariously close to the flow of traffic, cars and lorries mostly travelling north. Housewives wearing headscarves were setting about their chores, dropping in and out of tiny shops, the places so modest it seemed impossible they could ever keep going. Older men sat with drained cups and newspapers, or absently scanned the familiar street. I could hear the hiss of a coffee machine. It scented the drowsy air. This one was called a Jolly Bar.

  There at the far end of summer, evidently on our way home to Germany, we must have looked to anyone who cared to examine us as if we’d had quite enough of Italy and would be glad to return to school or work or college. The sun was dispersing the last of the morning’s early mist that shimmered across the expanse of Como’s lake. Some attenuated cloud was drifting above the steep mountain slopes. Along fenced-in wharves jutting into the water, powerboats and yachts were moored. The outboard motor of a fishing craft could be heard spluttering into life. A first steamer was approaching the shore.

  Finally, a yellow bus appeared amidst the traffic. At the last minute, it halted by the post where we were standing. The bus was crowded round the entrance and the automatic doors closed so quickly they caught your rucksack, leaving half of it protruding from the bus. Some passengers had noticed this disaster and were smiling by way of consolation, trying to attract the driver’s attention. Doubtless there was the usual sign that expressly forbade doing this while the bus was in motion. Anyway the driver took no notice, and only when he pulled up at the next stop could your damp sack be retrieved from the door.

  You were gazing intently at the footprint-grimy floor of the bus, whose motion impinged in the form of legs and shoes on the pavement, passed at speed as the vehicle accelerated. The bus was taking a road that led northwards beside Lake Como and up towards the border. Early risers had loaded surfboards on to roof racks and were motoring out for a day by the shore. Now the bus was travelling along a winding road, mist plumes rising from the woodlands, slowing through almost deserted ports, past advertising signs, furniture warehouses, pizzerias, bars, telegraph and power lines. At furthest distance, through the thinly layered cloud, white tops reached above, their crevices etched with last night’s s
now. Then the Alps were emerging, and, with them, Switzerland: thick pines and outcrops of rock interspersed with tiny mountain villages, their small inns by the roadside, fairy-tale castles perched on precipices, a fogginess hanging in the highest branches of fir trees.

  Across the frontier there’d be no rail strike. Trans-European expresses would be starting out for Paris. We would probably arrive at the Gare du Lyon and have to go by Metro to the Gare du Nord. Once there, boat trains would be leaving for one of the channel ports and then Dover, then London and home at last.

  The bus was slowing to a halt within sight of the border. Everyone was picking up bags and descending. We made to follow them, shouldering rucksacks and walking with the other passengers across the frontier into Chiasso. As we went through, a customs official, or perhaps a policeman, smiled and pointed out the way to the station. Coaches of a train were rushing above as we entered its booking hall. The indicator board announced that an express for Paris would be leaving within the next half an hour. I tried to buy some tickets with the Italian money kept back for just this purpose, but the booking clerk behind her grille would not accept the currency.

  Still, there wasn’t the least problem finding a Wechsel-Cambio-Change place near the station: Chiasso was a town full of banks. The exchange rate and commission charges were better not thought about. But we didn’t have a choice. So I queued at a till and asked to get the minimum required converted into Swiss Francs. The narrow slot under its sheet of armoured glass was like nothing so much as a bocca della verità, but with yet more misunderstandings to bore the official for whom it was just another ordinary day.

  We passed the barrier and descended the underground walk that led towards the platform. Climbing the dusty steps together, your eyes were fixed it seemed on some distant, different memory. With the holiday in ruins all about us, I was feeling sorry, blankly staring at your squashed, misshapen pack, borrowed for those weeks in Italy, thickly encrusted with that same red mud.

  We had both kept looking back through the rain-speckled window of the breakdown truck’s cab to make sure our belongings, thrown against a crane outside, amongst its forest of orange cones, weren’t about to fall off and be lost on the rain-soaked road.