Читать книгу The Sun Between Their Feet: Collected African Stories Volume Two - Doris Lessing - Страница 7

There are some countries in which the arts, let alone Art, cannot be said to flourish. Why this should be so it is hard to say, although of course we all have our theories about it. For sometimes it is the most barren soil that sends up gardens of those flowers which we all agree are the crown and justification of life, and it is this fact which makes it hard to say, finally, why the soil of Zambesia should produce such reluctant plants.

Zambesia is a tough, sunburnt, virile, positive country contemptuous of subtleties and sensibility: yet there have been States with these qualities which have produced art, though perhaps with the left hand. Zambesia is, to put it mildly, unsympathetic to those ideas so long taken for granted in other parts of the world, to do with liberty, fraternity and the rest. Yet there are those, and some of the finest souls among them, who maintain that art is impossible without a minority whose leisure is guaranteed by a hardworking majority. And whatever Zambesia’s comfortable minority may lack, it is not leisure.

Zambesia – but enough; out of respect for ourselves and for scientific accuracy, we should refrain from jumping to conclusions. Particularly when one remembers the almost wistful respect Zambesians show when an artist does appear in their midst.

Consider, for instance, the case of Michele.

He came out of the internment camp at the time when Italy was made a sort of honorary ally, during the Second World War. It was a time of strain for the authorities, because it is one thing to be responsible for thousands of prisoners of war whom one must treat according to certain recognized standards; it is another to be faced, and from one day to the next, with these same thousands transformed by some international legerdemain into comrades in arms. Some of the thousands stayed where they were in the camps; they were fed and housed there at least. Others went as farm labourers, though not many; for while the farmers were as always short of labour, they did not know how to handle farm labourers who were also white men: such a phenomenon had never happened in Zambesia before. Some did odd jobs around the towns, keeping a sharp eye out for the trade unions, who would neither admit them as members nor agree to their working.

Hard, hard, the lot of these men, but fortunately not for long, for soon the war ended and they were able to go home.

Hard, too, the lot of the authorities, as has been pointed out; and for that reason they were doubly willing to take what advantages they could from the situation; and that Michele was such an advantage there could be no doubt.

His talents were first discovered when he was still a prisoner of war. A church was built in the camp, and Michele decorated its interior. It became a show-place, that little tin-roofed church in the prisoners’ camp, with its whitewashed walls covered all over with frescoes depicting swarthy peasants gathering grapes for the vintage, beautiful Italian girls dancing, plump dark-eyed children. Amid crowded scenes of Italian life appeared the Virgin and her Child, smiling and beneficent, happy to move familiarly among her people.

Culture-loving ladies who had bribed the authorities to be taken inside the camp would say, ‘Poor thing, how homesick he must be.’ And they would beg to be allowed to leave half a crown for the artist. Some were indignant. He was a prisoner, after all, captured in the very act of fighting against justice and democracy, and what right had he to protest? – for they felt these paintings as a sort of protest. What was there in Italy that we did not have right here in Westonville, which was the capital and hub of Zambesia? Were there not sunshine and mountains and fat babies and pretty girls here? Did we not grow – if not grapes, at least lemons and oranges and flowers in plenty?

People were upset – the desperation of nostalgia came from the painted white walls of that simple church, and affected everyone according to his temperament.

But when Michele was free, his talent was remembered. He was spoken of as ‘that Italian artist’. As a matter of fact, he was a bricklayer. And the virtues of those frescoes might very well have been exaggerated. It is possible they would have been overlooked altogether in a country where picture-covered walls were more common.

When one of the visiting ladies came rushing out to the camp in her own car, to ask him to paint her children, he said he was not qualified to do so. But at last he agreed. He took a room in the town and made some nice likenesses of the children. Then he painted the children of a great number of the first lady’s friends. He charged ten shillings a time. Then one of the ladies wanted a portrait of herself. He asked ten pounds for it; it had taken him a month to do. She was annoyed, but paid.

And Michele went off to his room with a friend and stayed there drinking red wine from the Cape and talking about home. While the money lasted he could not be persuaded to do any more portraits.

There was a good deal of talk among the ladies about the dignity of labour, a subject in which they were well versed; and one felt they might almost go so far as to compare a white man with a kaffir, who did not understand the dignity of labour either.

He was felt to lack gratitude. One of the ladies tracked him down, found him lying on a camp-bed under a tree with a bottle of wine, and spoke to him severely about the barbarity of Mussolini and the fecklessness of the Italian temperament. Then she demanded that he should instantly paint a picture of herself in her new evening dress. He refused, and she went home very angry.

It happened that she was the wife of one of our most important citizens, a General or something of that kind, who was at that time engaged in planning a military tattoo or show for the benefit of the civilian population. The whole of Westonville had been discussing this show for weeks. We were all bored to extinction by dances, fancy-dress balls, fairs, lotteries and other charitable entertainments. It is not too much to say that while some were dying for freedom, others were dancing for it. There comes a limit to everything. Though, of course, when the end of the war actually came and the thousands of troops stationed in the country had to go home – in short, when enjoying themselves would no longer be a duty, many were heard to exclaim that life would never be the same again.

In the meantime, the Tattoo would make a nice change for us all. The military gentlemen responsible for the idea did not think of it in these terms. They thought to improve morale by giving us some idea of what war was really like. Headlines in the newspaper were not enough. And in order to bring it all home to us, they planned to destroy a village by shell-fire before our very eyes.

First, the village had to be built.

It appears that the General and his subordinates stood around in the red dust of the parade-ground under a burning sun for the whole of one day, surrounded by building materials, while hordes of African labourers ran around with boards and nails, trying to make something that looked like a village. It became evident that they would have to build a proper village in order to destroy it; and this would cost more than was allowed for the whole entertainment. The General went home in a bad temper, and his wife said what they needed was an artist, they needed Michele. This was not because she wanted to do Michele a good turn; she could not endure the thought of him lying around singing while there was work to be done. She refused to undertake any delicate diplomatic missions when her husband said he would be damned if he would ask favours of any little Wop. She solved the problem for him in her own way: a certain Captain Stocker was sent out to fetch him.

The Captain found him on the same camp-bed under the same tree, in rolled-up trousers, and an uncollared shirt; unshaven, mildly drunk, with a bottle of wine standing beside him on the earth. He was singing an air so wild, so sad, that the Captain was uneasy. He stood at ten paces from the disreputable fellow and felt the indignities of his position. A year ago, this man had been a mortal enemy to be shot on sight. Six months ago, he had been an enemy prisoner. Now he lay with his knees up, in an untidy shirt that had certainly once been military. For the Captain, the situation crystallized in a desire that Michele should salute him.

‘Piselli!’ he said sharply.

Michele turned his head and looked at the Captain from the horizontal. ‘Good morning,’ he said affably.

‘You are wanted,’ said the Captain.

‘Who?’ said Michele. He sat up, a fattish, olive-skinned little man. His eyes were resentful.

‘The authorities.’

‘The war is over?’

The Captain, who was already stiff and shiny enough in his laundered khaki, jerked his head back, frowning, chin out. He was a large man, blond, and wherever his flesh showed, it was brick-red. His eyes were small and blue and angry. His red hands, covered all over with fine yellow bristles, clenched by his side. Then he saw the disappointment in Michele’s eyes, and the hands unclenched. ‘No, it is not over,’ he said. ‘Your assistance is required.’

‘For the war?’

‘For the war effort. I take it you are interested in defeating the Germans?’

Michele looked at the Captain. The little dark-eyed artisan looked at the great blond officer with his cold blue eyes, his narrow mouth, his hands like bristle-covered steaks. He looked and said: ‘I am very interested in the end of the war.’

‘Well?’ said the Captain between his teeth.

‘The pay?’ said Michele.

‘You will be paid.’

Michele stood up. He lifted the bottle against the sun, then took a gulp. He rinsed his mouth out with wine and spat. Then he poured what was left on to the red earth, where it made a bubbling purple stain.

‘I am ready,’ he said. He went with the Captain to the waiting lorry, where he climbed in beside the driver’s seat and not, as the Captain had expected, into the back of the lorry. When they had arrived at the parade-ground the officers had left a message that the Captain would be personally responsible for Michele and for the village. Also for the hundred or so labourers who were sitting around on the grass verges waiting for orders.

The Captain explained what was wanted, Michele nodded. Then he waved his hand at the Africans. ‘I do not want these,’ he said.

‘You will do it yourself – a village?’

‘Yes.’

‘With no help?’

Michele smiled for the first time. ‘I will do it.’

The Captain hesitated. He disapproved on principle of white men doing heavy manual labour. He said: ‘I will keep six to do the heavy work.’

Michele shrugged; and the Captain went over and dismissed all but six of the Africans. He came back with them to Michele.

‘It is hot,’ said Michele.

‘Very,’ said the Captain. They were standing in the middle of the parade-ground. Around its edge trees, grass, gulfs of shadow. Here, nothing but reddish dust, drifting and lifting in a low hot breeze.

‘I am thirsty,’ said Michele. He grinned. The Captain felt his stiff lips loosen unwillingly in reply. The two pairs of eyes met. It was a moment of understanding. For the Captain, the little Italian had suddenly become human. ‘I will arrange it,’ he said, and went off down-town. By the time he had explained the position to the right people, filled in forms and made arrangements, it was late afternoon. He returned to the parade-ground with a case of Cape brandy, to find Michele and the six black men seated together under a tree. Michele was singing an Italian song to them, and they were harmonizing with him. The sight affected the Captain like an attack of nausea. He came up, and the Africans stood to attention. Michele continued to sit.

‘You said you would do the work yourself?’

‘Yes, I said so.’

The Captain then dismissed the Africans. They departed, with friendly looks towards Michele, who waved at them. The Captain was beef-red with anger. ‘You have not started yet?’

‘How long have I?’

“Three weeks.’

“Then there is plenty of time,’ said Michele, looking at the bottle of brandy in the Captain’s hand. In the other were two glasses. ‘It is evening,’ he pointed out. The Captain stood frowning for a moment. Then he sat down on the grass, and poured out two brandies.

‘Ciao,’ said Michele.

‘Cheers,’ said the Captain. Three weeks, he was thinking. Three weeks with this damned little Itie! He drained his glass and refilled it, and set it in the grass. The grass was cool and soft. A tree was flowering somewhere close – hot waves of perfume came on the breeze.

‘It is nice here,’ said Michele. ‘We will have a good time together. Even in a war, there are times of happiness. And of friendship. I drink to the end of the war.’

Next day, the Captain did not arrive at the parade-ground until after lunch. He found Michele under the frees with a bottle. Sheets of ceiling board had been erected at one end of the parade-ground in such a way that they formed two walls and part of a third, and a slant of steep roof supported on struts.

‘What’s that?’ said the Captain, furious.

‘The church,’ said Michele.

‘Wha-at?’

‘You will see. Later. It is very hot.’ He looked at the brandy bottle that lay on its side on the ground. The Captain went to the lorry and returned with the case of brandy. They drank. Time passed. It was a long time since the Captain had sat on grass under a tree. It was a long time, for that matter, since he had drunk so much. He always drank a great deal, but it was regulated to the times and seasons. He was a disciplined man. Here, sitting on the grass beside this little man whom he still could not help thinking of as an enemy, it was not that he let his self-discipline go, but that he felt himself to be something different: he was temporarily set outside his normal behaviour. Michele did not count. He listened to Michele talking about Italy, and it seemed to him he was listening to a savage speaking: as if he heard tales from the mythical South Sea islands where a man like himself might very well go just once in his life. He found himself saying he would like to make a trip to Italy after the war. Actually, he was attracted only by the North and the Northern people. He had visited Germany, under Hitler, and though it was not the time to say so, had found it very satisfactory. Then Michele sang him some Italian songs. He sang Michele some English songs. Then Michele took out photographs of his wife and children, who lived in a village in the mountains of North Italy. He asked the Captain if he were married. The Captain never spoke about his private affairs.

He had spent all his life in one or other of the African colonies as a policeman, magistrate, native commissioner, or in some other useful capacity. When the war started, military life came easily to him. But he hated city life, and had his own reasons for wishing the war over. Mostly, he had been in bush-stations with one or two other white men, or by himself, far from the rigours of civilization. He had relations with native women; and from time to time visited the city where his wife lived with her parents and the children. He was always tormented by the idea that she was unfaithful to him. Recently he had even appointed a private detective to watch her; he was convinced the detective was inefficient.

Army friends coming from L—where his wife was, spoke of her at parties, enjoying herself. When the war ended, she would not find it so easy to have a good time. And why did he not simply live with her and be done with it? The fact was, he could not. And his long exile to remote bush-stations was because he needed the excuse not to. He could not bear to think of his wife for too long; she was that part of his life he had never been able, so to speak, to bring to heel.

Yet he spoke of her now to Michele, and of his favourite bush-wife, Nadya. He told Michele the story of his life, until he realized that the shadows from the trees they sat under had stretched right across the parade-ground to the grandstand. He got unsteadily to his feet, and said: ‘There is work to be done. You are being paid to work.’

‘I will show you my church when the light goes.’

The sun dropped, darkness fell, and Michele made the Captain drive his lorry on to the parade-ground a couple of hundred yards away and switch on his lights. Instantly, a white church sprang up from the shapes and shadows of the bits of board.

‘Tomorrow, some houses,’ said Michele cheerfully.

At the end of the week, the space at the end of the parade-ground had crazy gawky constructions of lath and board over it, that looked in the sunlight like nothing on this earth. Privately, it upset the Captain; it was like a nightmare that these skeleton-like shapes should be able to persuade him, with the illusions of light and dark, that they were a village. At night, the Captain drove up his lorry, switched on the lights, and there it was, the village, solid and real against a background of full green trees. Then, in the morning sunlight, there was nothing there, just bits of board stuck in the sand.

‘It is finished,’ said Michele.

‘You were engaged for three weeks,’ said the Captain. He did not want it to end, this holiday from himself.

Michele shrugged. ‘The army is rich,’ he said. Now, to avoid curious eyes, they sat inside the shade of the church, with the case of brandy between them. The Captain talked endlessly about his wife, about women. He could not stop talking.

Michele listened. Once he said: ‘When I go home – when I go home – I shall open my arms …’ He opened them, wide. He closed his eyes. Tears ran down his cheeks. ‘I shall take my wife in my arms, and I shall ask nothing, nothing. I do not care. It is enough, it is enough. I shall ask no questions and I shall be happy.’

The Captain stared before him, suffering. He thought how he dreaded his wife. She was a scornful creature, gay and hard, who laughed at him. She had been laughing at him ever since they married. Since the war, she had taken to calling him names like Little Hitler, and Storm-trooper. ‘Go ahead, my Little Hitler,’ she had cried last time they met. ‘Go ahead, my Storm-trooper. If you want to waste your money on private detectives, go ahead. But don’t think I don’t know what you do when you’re in the bush. I don’t care what you do, but remember that I know it …’

The Captain remembered her saying it. And there sat Michele on his packing-case, saying: ‘It’s a pleasure for the rich, my friend, detectives and the law. Even jealousy is a pleasure I don’t want any more. Ah, my friend, to be together with my wife again, and the children, that is all I ask of life. That and wine and food and singing in the evening.’ And the tears wetted his cheeks and splashed on to his shirt.

That a man should cry, good Lord! thought the Captain. And without shame! He seized the bottle and drank.

Three days before the great occasion, some high-ranking officers came strolling through the dust, and found Michele and the Captain sitting together on the packing-case, singing. The Captain’s shirt was open down the front, and there were stains on it.

The Captain stood to attention with the bottle in his hand, and Michele stood to attention too, out of sympathy with his friend. Then the officers drew the Captain aside – they were all cronies of his – and said, what the hell did he think he was doing? And why wasn’t the village finished? Then they went away.

‘Tell them it is finished,’ said Michele. ‘Tell them I want to go.’

‘No,’ said the Captain, ‘no. Michele, what would you do if your wife …’

‘This world is a good place. We should be happy – that is all.’

‘Michele …’

‘I want to go. There is nothing to do. They paid me yesterday.’

‘Sit down, Michele. Three more days and then it’s finished.’

‘Then I shall paint the inside of the church as I painted the one in the camp.’

The Captain laid himself down on some boards and went to sleep. When he woke, Michele was surrounded by the pots of paint he had used on the outside of the village. Just in front of the Captain was a picture of a black girl. She was young and plump. She wore a patterned blue dress and her shoulders came soft and bare out of it. On her back was a baby slung in a band of red stuff. Her face was turned towards the Captain and she was smiling.

‘That’s Nadya,’ said the Captain. ‘Nadya …’ He groaned loudly. He looked at the black child and shut his eyes. He opened them, and mother and child were still there. Michele was very carefully drawing thin yellow circles around the heads of the black girl and her child.

‘Good God,’ said the Captain, ‘you can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘You can’t have a black Madonna.’

‘She was a peasant. This is a peasant. Black peasant Madonna for black country.’

‘This is a German village,’ said the Captain.

‘This is my Madonna,’ said Michele angrily. ‘Your German village and my Madonna. I paint this picture as an offering to the Madonna. She is pleased – I feel it.’

The Captain lay down again. He was feeling ill. He went back to sleep. When he woke for the second time, it was dark. Michele had brought in a flaring paraffin lamp, and by its light was working on the long wall. A bottle of brandy stood beside him. He painted until long after midnight, and the Captain lay on his side and watched, as passive as a man suffering a dream. Then they both went to sleep on the boards. The whole of the next day Michele stood painting black Madonnas, black saints, black angels. Outside, troops were practising in the sunlight, bands were blaring and motor cyclists roared up and down. But Michele painted on, drunk and oblivious. The Captain lay on his back, drinking and muttering about his wife. Then he would say ‘Nadya, Nadya’, and burst into sobs.

Towards nightfall the troops went away. The officers came back, and the Captain went off with them to show how the village sprang into being when the great lights at the end of the parade-ground were switched on. They all looked at the village in silence. They switched the lights off, and there were only tall angular boards leaning like gravestones in the moonlight. On went the lights – and there was the village. They were silent, as if suspicious. Like the Captain, they seemed to feel it was not right. Uncanny it certainly was, but that was not it. Unfair – that was the word. It was cheating. And profoundly disturbing.

‘Clever chap, that Italian of yours,’ said the General.

The Captain, who had been woodenly correct until this moment, suddenly came rocking up to the General, and steadied himself by laying his hands on the august shoulder. ‘Bloody Wops,’ he said. ‘Bloody kaffirs. Bloody … Tell you what, though, there’s one Itie that’s some good. Yes, there is. I’m telling you. He’s a friend of mine, actually.’

The General looked at him. Then he nodded at his underlings. The Captain was taken away for disciplinary purposes. It was decided, however, that he must be ill, nothing else could account for such behaviour. He was put to bed in his own room with a nurse to watch him.

He woke twenty-four hours later, sober for the first time in weeks. He slowly remembered what had happened. Then he sprang out of bed and rushed into his clothes. The nurse was just in time to see him run down the path and leap into his lorry.

He drove at top speed to the parade-ground, which was flooded with light in such a way that the village did not exist. Everything was in full swing. The cars were three deep around the square, with people on the running-boards and even the roofs. The grandstand was packed. Women dressed up as gipsies, country girls, Elizabethan court dames, and so on, wandered about with trays of ginger beer and sausage-rolls and programmes at five shillings each in aid of the war effort. On the square, troops deployed, obsolete machine-guns were being dragged up and down, bands played, and motor cyclists roared through flames.

As the Captain parked the lorry, all this activity ceased, and the lights went out. The Captain began running around the outside of the square to reach the place where the guns were hidden in a mess of net and branches. He was sobbing with the effort. He was a big man, and unused to exercise, and sodden with brandy. He had only one idea in his mind -to stop the guns firing, to stop them at all costs.

Luckily, there seemed to be a hitch. The lights were still out. The unearthly graveyard at the end of the square glittered white in the moonlight. Then the lights briefly switched on, and the village sprang into existence for just long enough to show large red crosses all over a white building beside the church. Then moonlight flooded everything again, and the crosses vanished. ‘Oh, the bloody fool!’ sobbed the Captain, running, running as if for his life. He was no longer trying to reach the guns. He was cutting across a corner of the square direct to the church. He could hear some officers cursing behind him: ‘Who put those red crosses there? Who? We can’t fire on the Red Cross.’

The Captain reached the church as the searchlight burst on. Inside, Michele was kneeling on the earth looking at his first Madonna. ‘They are going to kill my Madonna,’ he said miserably.

‘Come away, Michele, come away.’

‘They’re going to …’

The Captain grabbed his arm and pulled. Michele wrenched himself free and grabbed a saw. He began hacking at the ceiling board. There was a dead silence outside. They heard a voice booming through the loudspeakers: ‘The village that is about to be shelled is an English village, not as represented on the programme, a German village. Repeat, the village that is about to be shelled is …’

Michele had cut through two sides of a square around the Madonna.

‘Michele,’ sobbed the Captain, ‘get out of here.’

Michele dropped the saw, took hold of the raw edges of the board and tugged. As he did so, the church began to quiver and lean. An irregular patch of board ripped out and Michele staggered back into the Captain’s arms. There was a roar. The church seemed to dissolve around them into flame. Then they were running away from it, the Captain holding Michele tight by the arm. ‘Get down,’ he shouted suddenly, and threw Michele to the earth. He flung himself down beside him. Looking from under the crook of his arm, he heard the explosion, saw a great pillar of smoke and flame, and the village disintegrated in a mass of debris. Michele was on his knees gazing at his Madonna in the light from the flames. She was unrecognizable, blotted out with dust. He looked horrible, quite white, and a trickle of blood soaked from his hair down one cheek.

‘They shelled my Madonna,’ he said.

‘Oh, damn it, you can paint another one,’ said the Captain. His own voice seemed to him strange, like a dream voice. He was certainly crazy, as mad as Michele himself … He got up, pulled Michele to his feet, and marched him towards the edge of the field. There they were met by the ambulance people. Michele was taken off to hospital, and the Captain was sent back to bed.

A week passed. The Captain was in a darkened room. That he was having some kind of a breakdown was clear, and two nurses stood guard over him. Sometimes he lay quiet. Sometimes he muttered to himself. Sometimes he sang in a thick clumsy voice bits out of opera, fragments from Italian songs, and – over and over again – There’s a Long Long Trail. He was not thinking of anything at all. He shied away from the thought of Michele as if it were dangerous. When, therefore, a cheerful female voice announced that a friend had come to cheer him up, and it would do him good to have some company, and he saw a white bandage moving towards him in the gloom, he turned sharp over on to his side, face to the wall.

‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Go away, Michele.’

‘I have come to see you,’ said Michele. ‘I have brought you a present.’

The Captain slowly turned over. There was Michele, a cheerful ghost in the dark room. ‘You fool,’ he said. ‘You messed everything up. What did you paint those crosses for?’

‘It was a hospital,’ said Michele. ‘In a village there is a hospital, and on the hospital the Red Cross, the beautiful Red Cross – no?’

‘I was nearly court-martialled.’

‘It was my fault,’ said Michele. ‘I was drunk.’

‘I was responsible.’

‘How could you be responsible when I did it? But it is all over. Are you better?’

‘Well, I suppose these crosses saved your life.’

‘I did not think,’ said Michele. ‘I was remembering the kindness of the Red Cross people when we were prisoners.’

‘Oh shut up, shut up, shut up.’

‘I have brought you a present.’

The Captain peered through the dark. Michele was holding up a picture. It was of a native woman with a baby on her back, smiling sideways out of the frame.

Michele said: ‘You did not like the haloes. So this time, no haloes. For the Captain – no Madonna.’ He laughed. ‘You like it? It is for you. I painted it for you.’

‘God damn you!’ said the Captain.

‘You do not like it?’ said Michele, very hurt.

The Captain closed his eyes. ‘What are you going to do next?’ he asked tiredly.

Michele laughed again. ‘Mrs Pannerhurst, the lady of the General, she wants me to paint her picture in her white dress. So I paint it.’

‘You should be proud to.’

‘Silly bitch. She thinks I am good. They know nothing -savages. Barbarians. Not you, Captain, you are my friend. But these people, they know nothing.’

The Captain lay quiet. Fury was gathering in him. He thought of the General’s wife. He disliked her, but he had known her well enough.

‘These people,’ said Michele. ‘They do not know a good picture from a bad picture. I paint, I paint, this way, that way. There is the picture – I look at it and laugh inside myself.’ Michele laughed out loud. ‘They say, he is a Michelangelo, this one, and try to cheat me out of my price. Michele -Michelangelo – that is a joke, no?’

The Captain said nothing.

‘But for you I painted this picture to remind you of our good times with the village. You are my friend. I will always remember you.’

The Captain turned his eyes sideways in his head and stared at the black girl. Her smile at him was half innocence, half malice.

‘Get out,’ he said suddenly.

Michele came closer and bent to see the Captain’s face. ‘You wish me to go?’ He sounded unhappy. ‘You saved my life. I was a fool that night. But I was thinking of my offering to the Madonna – I was a fool, I say it myself. I was drunk, we are fools when we are drunk.’

‘Get out of here,’ said the Captain again.

For a moment the white bandage remained motionless. Then it swept downwards in a bow. Michele turned towards the door.

‘And take that bloody picture with you.’

Silence. Then, in the dim light, the Captain saw Michele reach out for the picture, his white head bowed in profound obeisance. He straightened himself and stood to attention, holding the picture with one hand, and keeping the other stiff down his side. Then he saluted the Captain.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, and he turned and went out of the door with the picture.

The Captain lay still. He felt – what did he feel? There was a pain under his ribs. It hurt to breathe. He realized he was unhappy. Yes, a terrible unhappiness was filling him, slowly, slowly. He was unhappy because Michele had gone. Nothing had ever hurt the Captain in all his life as much as that mocking Yes, sir. Nothing. He turned his face to the wall and wept. But silently. Not a sound escaped him, for the fear the nurses might hear.