A La Carte Read online

  ‘But of course,’ he said, standing up with obvious relief. ‘We are your friends.’

  During the day I managed to see the Frenchwomen and the elderly couple. I asked them whether they thought there was anything odd about the boys. They all said no, they thought them charming. I did not go on.

  I do not know what to do. They might do it again, kill someone I mean.

  October 31st

  I notice them more now. I notice the black hairs on the back of Poney’s hands, and the tight line between the eyebrows on Sig’s white face. I notice how they both have the same strutting walk, how close they walk and how they never touch. I notice the metallic tone in Sig’s voice, the sleepy softness in Poney’s. I notice how light they are on their feet, how controlled; and yet I’ve seen, in Sig’s eyes only and only when he is looking at Poney, an occasional doubt. I think this must be when the veil of fantasy momentarily twitches. I don’t think Poney doubts. He has been handed his myth and he is living it out.

  I watch them. I think they are watching me. I want to go, but I must stay. They are bound to make some move, and then I can send for help and run away myself. But I can’t leave them, knowing what I do. I am not yet so disgusted with the human race. They must be caught, and stopped.

  What will they do? I lurk about the pensione, pretending to read, watching them. The other guests look at me oddly, wondering what I am doing, but I can’t talk, not yet. I feel ill and desperately anxious.

  November 2nd

  And now it is all over.

  The next morning I followed them in the Piazza and sat down a few tables away to drink some coffee. A girl whom I knew slightly in London came up to speak to me. She said that some friends of hers, with whom she was staying, were giving a party that night after dinner. Would I like to come?

  I had not seen anyone from London for some time. Indeed for the last few days I had had no conversation except with other people at the pensione. I said I would go to the party.

  Later when I was in my bedroom changing I heard the voices of the boys and Frau Engels in the next room. I opened the window and leaned out. I heard Frau Engels sobbing, ‘No,’ and the two voices together, one high and one low, repeating, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’

  I finished changing quickly and went downstairs. What else could I do? What could I tell to whom? Who would be concerned to know what went on in a bedroom between a middle-aged proprietress of the pensione and her two young lodgers: who would do more than shrug knowingly?

  I stayed late at the party. Not so much because it was a good party as because I did not want to go back to the pensione. It was a boring party really. My friend’s friends were stuffy Italians who lived in a comfortable little flat at the top of a fine flaking palazzo. One or two of the other people there looked quite interesting, but my Italian was not good enough to find out whether the impression was misleading, and I spent most of the evening talking to an American professor and his wife. I almost forgot about the boys, but not quite. I stayed until I was too tired to stay any longer. Then I walked out into the damp darkness. The vaporetto was still running. I got off at the Accademia bridge and walked towards the pensione, along the narrow way between the houses, over the little canal and up to the door. It was open. No one was at the desk. There was a light on the stairs, none in the hall.

  I moved quietly towards the stairs. There was a sound above me. I stopped. There was silence. I went on. Another soft dragging sound, very slight. I went on. The weak bulb revealed the landing much as usual, shadowy, the faded Turkish carpet, the row of doors, mine, theirs, the Frenchwomen’s, the couple’s, the businessman’s: Frau Engels slept on the top floor.

  The faint sound seemed to come from the businessman’s room. There were shoes outside some of the doors, ready for the maid to clean when she came in in the morning the two Frenchwomen’s and the daughter’s, and the elderly couple’s – there were none outside the businessman’s door, or the boys’, or mine. There were long shadows beside the shoes. They were not shadows. They were marks. Something had been spilt. But beside all the shoes? I moved closer. All the shoes had a long dark stain coming from them. They were neatly placed outside the doors but surrounded by this dark wet stain. But the shoes were not empty. They had feet in them. There was a lot of blood.

  A handle turned quietly. The businessman’s door opened very slightly. A hand came out holding a pair of shoes. It placed them neatly outside the door.

  I ran, stumbling on the stairs.

  I battered on the door of the restaurant.

  At last they came.

  ‘It’s happened. They’ve done it again. They’ve killed everyone in the pensione.’

  ‘All right. Steady now. Come in.’

  Mario and his wife were both there, in their nightclothes, looking startled, and then annoyed. I saw the beginnings of disbelief on their faces and for the first time in my life I collapsed into hysterics.

  They slapped my face, made me swallow several pills, and put me to bed. I kept begging them to hurry, to get the police, to go round there before it was too late. They promised they would, and left me. I must have been quite heavily drugged because I fell asleep almost immediately.

  And in the morning, unbelievably, they had done nothing.

  I woke, heavy-headed, at nine o’clock, dressed as quickly as I could and went downstairs. They were in the kitchen drinking coffee.

  ‘What happened?’ I said.

  The wife did not look at me. Mario said quite kindly, ‘You had a nightmare.’

  ‘But the police …?’

  ‘We didn’t want to wake them in the middle of the night. Now come and have some coffee.’

  I made a great effort and remained calm.

  ‘Please will you come round there with me now.’

  Mario came.

  The pensione seemed very quiet as we approached. The front door was still open. We walked into the dim hall. A figure moved slowly towards us from the kitchen door. It was Frau Engels. Her face was very white except for where several raw red scratches ran down one side of it.

  ‘Good morning, Frau Engels,’ said Mario, in English for my sake. ‘Have you had an accident?’

  It was in the fog. I walked into a tree,’ she said brusquely. ‘Have you come to collect your luggage, madame?’

  But I had already passed her without answering and was rushing up the stairs. The stairs were still there. I burst into the boys’ room. It was empty. Their clothes and luggage had gone. I went into the next room, and the next. They were all empty. There was no sign of anyone. Frau Engels and Mario had followed me up the stairs. I confronted them.

  ‘Where are they?’ I said. ‘Where are the boys?’

  ‘They left this morning,’ she said, looking at me with the oddest hatred. ‘Everybody left this morning.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is November the 1st. I told you. I am closing down.’

  ‘These stains …’

  She explained them away. She said they were varnish, which had run when the wooden boards had been stained brown. I tried to insist that they should send for the police and have the stains tested to prove that they were blood. I asked where the two servants were, but Frau Engels said they had already left for a holiday with their family in Naples. I heard Mario murmur to her in Italian that he would telephone for a doctor.

  ‘I go to get the police,’ he said to me soothingly as he turned to go downstairs.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll take my luggage now and come back later with the British Consul.’

  I packed and left. I went to the hotel where my acquaintance from London was staying. I found her and told her my story. I took her with me back to the pensione. It was locked and shuttered. Frau Engels had left.

  It is of course an impossible story. I can hardly blame people for not wanting to believe it. Only I know it is true. I am not a hysterical or deluded person.

  Frau Engels also knows that I know that it is true. I do not know to what extent she wa