Authors: Hammond Innes
“I think a word with the small boy would help,” I said, and the driver beamed with relief as we climbed into the car.
Back at the church we found the boy sitting on a tombstone swinging his legs and carving a boat out of a piece of wood. The mention of the word
Polizia
and the offer of a bar of chocolate had the desired effect. The priest had told him to tell Signora Mancini to send the girl to a neighbouring farm and to tell the English when they came that she was up in the hills with the goats.
“Where is the farm?” I asked.
He pointed beyond the broken arches of the bridge back along the road to Vicovaro. For twenty lire he agreed to show us.
It was a little mud and stone building in the valley below the main road. We left the car and went down a footpath through a field of bare sticks where tomato plants had already yielded their crop and on through a field of ripening maize that was a warm yellow in the sunlight. A donkey stared at us disinterestedly and a few hens picked in the dirt around the one door. A mangy cat was asleep on the stone doorstep. The sound of running water from the stream mingled with the low hum of flies.
We knocked on the door. But not even a dog barked. The place seemed lifeless in the heat. We went on round the back where a dirt track wound along the banks of the stream to the Mancini farm just visible in its screen of trees about a kilometre away.
A rough vegetable patch sloped to the tree-lined banks of the stream. The sound of water was now mingled with the shriller sound of women’s voices. We continued down the dusty path until we could see the yellow pebble bed of the stream. A grey-haired peasant woman was kneeling down on an outcrop of shingle rubbing at clothes in the thin trickle of the stream.
Near her was the girl we had seen with the bullock cart. Her fair hair was tumbled over her eyes and she was washing the grey film of dirt off her feet. She had the drab skirt of her dress drawn up to her thighs and her limbs were whiter than those of any Italian girl I had seen.
She was laughing at a small sheep-dog that ran in and out of the water, barking for her to throw it stones.
Boyd and I both stopped involuntarily on the bank and stared at her. But then the dog saw us and ran barking at the bank. She looked up and saw us—and the spell was gone.
I dropped down to the bed of the stream. She smoothed
out her dress hurriedly and came hesitantly towards us. “Monique Dupont?” I asked.
She stopped then and frowned in a puzzled way.
I repeated the question. “Are you Monique Dupont?” I asked.
She opened her mouth as though to speak and then stopped it with her hand. Her eyes widened. She seemed incapable of speech.
I had no doubt in my mind then. And to tide her over the first shock of being enquired for, I told her briefly how her mother had written to me and how I had traced her from Naples to Itri and on to Pericele. I spoke in English. And because her eyes remained wide and wondering, I knew that she understood. “You are Monique Dupont, aren’t you?” I asked again.
She nodded and her lips framed a “Yes.” She was standing very rigid, her whole body tensed so that her damp dress clung to her body, making it clear that it was the only clothing she wore. Then suddenly her face crumpled and she began to cry. She sank down on the pebble bed, making no attempt to hide her face, but staring straight at me and crying silently so that the tears streamed down her cheeks without her uttering a sound.
It was horrible.
I had never seen any one cry because a miracle had happened before. She was crying because she was happy. It made me realise, more than words could have done, all that she had suffered.
I went over and sat down beside her on the shingle. She was sitting in a patch of sunlight and the pebbles were hot to the touch. But I didn’t notice it. I didn’t notice anything but that brown elfin face with the wide full mouth that was quivering now and the grey eyes that no longer looked hurt but were shining through a smother of tears.
I didn’t say anything. But at length she broke the silence. “I had almost given up hope of anybody coming. I prayed and prayed. And now you’ve come and everything
is all right. I don’t know who you are, but thank you very much for coming.” She spoke in English, haltingly, as though it were a forgotten language. “What has happened to Daddy and Pierre?”
I told her and she nodded her head slowly. “But Mamma—she is all right, yes?” I let her know as much as I thought she needed to know. Then she said something which hit me like a jab in the stomach. She said simply, “It will be lovely to see Mamma again, and England and France. I thought nobody would ever come for me—and I prayed each day, many times.” She was laughing through her tears.
I did not know what to say. Stuart would be furious. It would complicate everything.
She scooped up a handful of water and washed her face. As she dried her face on the hem of her dress, she was looking at me shyly, her grey eyes big and very bright. I just could not leave her here.
“I was told you were naturalised,” I said. “Is that correct?”
She nodded. “It doesn’t mean anything though. He made me sign. He said I could not stay unless I became an Italian. I did not see how signing a piece of paper made me an Italian. I am not like an Italian at all.” She stared at me and I was silent. Her eyes gradually lost their brightness. “Does that make it difficult?” she asked. “Can’t an Italian leave Italy?”
“Look, Monique,” I said. “I didn’t come to take you back to England. I came just to find out for your mother whether you were still alive and if you were all right.”
Her eyes dropped then, the long lids closing over them so that her face was a mask. She did not say anything for a moment and I knew that it was because she could not trust herself to speak. “I am sorry,” she said at last. “I was being stupid.” She sat for a moment clutching at a handful of pebbles so that the knuckles of her small brown hand, delicate as a pianist’s but ingrained with dirt and scarred with work, showed white through the
tan. “Is it possible that it be arranged?” Her voice trembled.
“I’ll do what I can,” I promised. I dared not commit myself further. I had no idea what the legal difficulties might be. “This man Mancini,” I said, thinking of the scene by the ford. “The priest told me he was your guardian?”
She nodded. “He made Aunt Maria do it. He was determined to have me tied to him legally as well as through need. He said that if she didn’t agree, he’d turn me out and I could sell my body for the food I’d need.”
“But why did he want you tied to him legally?” I asked.
She flung back her hair from her eyes with a toss of her head and looked directly at me. “Because he’s a beast,” she said.
“You mean he beats you?” I asked.
She laughed at that, and it was not a nice laugh in a young girl. “Yes, because he beats me. But he does not beat me because I have done something stupid or wrong. He beats me because he likes beating me. He wants me. But he won’t take me by force. To force me to lie with him would weaken his sense of power. He’ll only have me when I crawl to him on my hands and knees and kiss his feet and swear to be his slave, body and soul.” The words poured from her, her face white and her voice scarcely above a whisper.
“I have to tell you this,” she went on, “so that you can realise how much it means to me to get away from Pericele. He told me this the first time he beat me. He had me wait at table. And as I was serving him—there in front of his wife, he touched me. And when I drew back, he flew into a rage and sent me to my room. Then he came and flung me on the bed and beat me with a bamboo cane. I’m sorry to tell you, but—I’ve nobody else to tell. His wife—have you seen her? She hates me, poor thing. He has made life unbearable for her. He has had so many girls in the village. And the priest ignores it because he is very dependent on Mancini for his living.”
“Has he beaten you since then?” I asked.
She nodded. “The least thing will send him into a rage. He hates me because I refuse to do what he wants. The last few times he has hit me standing until I have stripped off my clothes. Sometimes he waits a long time before beating me; just standing and looking at me. But he has never touched me since that first time.”
I sat for a moment, completely stunned by what she had told me. The sunlight seemed strangely brittle as a backcloth to the dark thread of her story. It seemed incredible. I was almost prepared to believe that she had made it up in order to persuade me to get her away from Pericele. Then I looked at her face again and saw those grey eyes fixed on me, unhappy because she had told me something that was shameful to her. And I remembered the impression of the primitive that Pericele had made on my mind.
I put my hand over hers to show that I understood. It quivered like the body of an animal that’s been trapped. She took her hand away. “I—I don’t like to be touched,” she said apologetically.
“Why didn’t you leave Pericele?” I asked to hide my embarrassment.
“Where was I to go?” she asked. “I did run away once. It was after he beat me that first time. That was last winter. It was cold and I had no food. I got as far as Vicovaro. But it snowed that night. And nobody would help me. They thought I was just a dishonest girl who hadn’t got a man. It was worse than being at the farm. He came for me next morning and I was glad to go back because I was so cold. I have never tried again. I know what life is like in Napoli. I was afraid Roma would be the same. A city is more lonely than the country. It is more cruel. Here I have friends. They cannot help me, but it is good to have friends. The dogs know me and the children, and there are women like Emma Scafelli here who are kind to me. It helps when you do not belong to nobody.”
“You could have married,” I suggested.
But she gave a forlorn shake of the head. “There were boys in the village who wanted me. Some would have married me. But it was no good. You do not know what an Italian mountain village is like. People are born and live and die in the village. They are lost if they leave. No man would have dared to marry and stay. Mancini would have ruined him—and his family. It is difficult to make you understand. But a man like Mancini is very powerful in Pericele.”
I sifted a handful of pebbles through my fingers. It was strange and quite horrible to hear this kid, who was born in a nice bourgeois environment, talking so matter-of-factly of things with which she should never have come in contact. It was like hearing a little child swearing. And yet despite all her farmyard knowledge of human nature, she preserved an essential air of innocence.
The sound of horses hooves drumming up the dirt bank of the stream made me turn my head. Horse and rider were coming from the direction of Pericele. As they drew near I recognised the thick-set powerful figure of Mancini. The girl had suddenly tensed with a sharp intake of breath.
I got to my feet as the man reined in his small mare on the bank above us. His temper showed in his face as he flung off the horse. He carried a heavy bullock whip and he looked ugly. Boyd bent down and picked up a stone from the bed of the stream. The old woman stood with her bare feet in the sparkling water and a frightened look on her face.
The whip cracked and cut across Monique’s back. “
Via! A casa presto!
” he roared. “And you,” he shouted at us, his Italian almost unintelligible in his rage, “get off my land, both of you.”
He stood on the bank above us—big and angry, like a bull that has been tormented by darts.
“The girl is French,” I said. “I am taking her back to her mother in England.”
“The girl stays here,” he thundered. “She is Italian and I am her guardian.”
Monique turned to me. Her face was resolute, resigned. “Please go,” she said. “I was foolish to think that you could take me away. It was kind of you to come. Tell my mother that I am alive and well. Please say nothing—of this.”
She had spoken in English. And because he could not understand it infuriated him. “You little
cretina
!” he stormed. “Get back to the farm or I’ll thrash you so that you never walk again.”
“I must go,” she said. “See, there are others coming. They have guns …”
I looked down the track towards the farm. Two men were running along the bank and the barrels of their shotguns glittered in the sunlight.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Then she climbed the bank and began to walk back along the track towards the farm, a lonely slip of a girl, her bare legs white against the black of her miserable dress.
“Now, get off my land,” Mancini ordered.
My mind was made up now. “We’ll be at the farm at two in the morning,” I called after her in English. “Try and meet us outside. If you can’t, show a white handkerchief at your window and we’ll get you out.”
She stopped at that, standing very still. She nodded her head and then turned and walked on along the dusty track.
I climbed up the bank with Boyd behind me. Face to face with Mancini I realised what a colossally powerful animal he was. He stood head and shoulders above me.
“I am going to Rome now,” I told him. “In a few days time you will hear from my lawyers. If you so much as touch a hair of that girl’s head in the meantime I’ll have you arrested by the Carabinieri.” I mentioned the name of the
Questore
in Rome and added, “He is an old friend of mine.”
I saw that I had impressed him. Friends in Italy mean power and he was not so much of a peasant that he did not understand the danger of running up against the
Questore.
But the man’s temper was so violent that his only answer was to flourish his whip. The leather thong of it cut across my upflung arm and curled with a sting across my back. “
Via!
” he shouted. “
Via!
” And he swore violently.
“You’ll regret that,” I said. “And remember—beat that girl again and you’ll find yourself in the Regina Ceoli prison.” I turned and walked back with Boyd up the path to the farmstead and through the fields to the road and the waiting car.
W
E STAYED
the night at Vicovaro, slipping out of the
albergo
at one in the morning. We let the Italian driver sleep on. We wanted no witnesses. The moon was low over the mountain tops as we drove the Lancia towards Pericele.