A 'SLITTOVIA' IS AUCTIONED
Joe Wesson looked tired and cross when I met him at breakfast the next morning. He had been up until the early hours playing stud poker with two Americans and a Czech. 'I'd like to get Engles out here,' he rumbled morosely. 'I'd like to put him on top of that damned col, cut the cable of the slittovia and leave him there. I'd like to give him such a bellyful of snow that he'd never even face ice in a drink again.'
'Don't forget he's a first-class skier,' I said, laughing. Engles had been in the British Olympic team at one time. 'He probably likes snow.'
'I know, I know. But that was in his early twenties, before the war. He's got soft since then. That's what the Army does for people. All he wants now is comfort — and liquor. You think he'd enjoy it up here in that hut — no women, no proper heating, nobody around to tell him how marvellous his ideas are — probably not even a bath?'
'Anyway, there's a bar,' I told him.
I I He gave a snort. 'Bar! I'm told that the man who runs that bar can trace congenital idiocy back through his family for three generations, that he specialises in grappa made from pure methylated spirits and, furthermore, that he is the dirtiest, laziest, stupidist Italian any one has ever met — and that's saying something. And here I'm supposed to drag my camera up to the top of that God-damned col and prance about in the snow taking pictures to satisfy Engles's megalomania. And I don't feel like going up a slittovia this morning. Those sort of things make me dizzy. It was constructed by the Germans and the man who owned it was arrested only a fortnight ago as a German War Criminal. The cable is probably booby-trapped.'
I must admit that when I saw the thing, I didn't like it much myself. We stood at the bottom of it and looked up to the rifugio more than a thousand feet above us. Its gabled roofs and wooden belvedere were just visible at the top of the sleigh track cut through the pinewoods. It was perched high on the shoulder of Monte Cristallo, the great bastions of the mountain towering above it. It was about as remote from civilisation as an eagle's nest.
Our chauffeur got out of the car and shouted, 'Emilio!' A little man, wearing British battle-dress and the most enormous pair of snow boots, emerged from the concrete building that housed the cable plant. The boots dated back to the German occupation when there had been a flak position in the Tre Croci pass.
The snows had only just started down in Cortina, for it was early in the season yet. But up here it was already getting thick and the previous night's fall lay like a virgin blanket over everything.
We transferred our gear to the sleigh, putting our skis in the ski rack at the back. The black case of my typewriter and Joe Wesson's camera equipment seemed out of place. We climbed in. The man with the snow boots got up behind the steering wheel. He pulled over a switch and the cable tightened in front of us so that here and there it jerked clear of the snow. A soft crunching sound and we were gliding forward along the snow track. Almost immediately we were on the slope and the sleigh tilted upwards in an alarming fashion so that I found myself lying on my back rather than sitting on the seat. It was a peculiar and rather frightening sensation. We lost sight of the rifugio. We were looking up a long white avenue between the dark pines. It rose straight into the blue sky and was steep as the side of a house.
I looked back. Already the square Tre Croci hotel was no bigger than a large black box resting on the white blanket of the pass. The road to Austria snaked through the pass like a dirty brown ribbon. The sun shone, but there was no sign of that 'sunny snow paradise' referred to in the tourist brochures. It was a lost and barren world of snow and black forest.
Ahead of us, the cable was strung taut like the string of a violin. There was no sound save the soft slither of the sleigh runners on the snow. The air was still between the dark pines, We were climbing at an angle of about sixty degrees. Joe leaned across me and spoke to the driver in English. 'Do these cables ever break on these things?' he asked.
The driver seemed to understand. He smiled and shook his head. 'No, no, signore. They have not never break. But the funivia—' that was the overhead cable-way down at Cortina, and he let go of the wheel for an instant and spread his hands in an expressive gesture. 'Once he break. Pocol funivia. Molto pericoloso.' And he grinned.
'What happened?' I asked.
'The cable, he gone. But the cable which draw him hold, so they fall twenty metres and do not touch earth. The passengers, they were much frightened.'
'Suppose this cable goes?' I enquired.
'It no go. It is a cable of the tedesci.' Then he crinkled the corners of his blue eyes. 'But if he do go — you see, signori, there is nothing that will not stop you.' And he pointed with a grin down the frightful track behind us.
'Thanks very much,' I said. And I was as glad as I have ever been to get out of that perilous vehicle at the rifugio.
It was large for a rifugio. Most of them only cater for the day visitor and have no sleeping accommodation. Col da Varda, however, had been designed to cater for those who come to the Dolomites for skiing alone and who do not want to dance till the early hours.
It was timber-built of pines from the woods and had been constructed two years ago by the one-time owner of the Excelsior. It was built over and around the concrete housing of the cable machinery for the slittovia. With Teutonic thoroughness the Germans had placed the electrically operated haulage plant at the top of the sleigh track. The hut itself was a long building with great feet of pine piles driven deep into the snow. Its main feature was a large belvedere or platform, protected by glass like the bridge of a ship. It looked south and west across Tre Croci and down the pass to Cortina. The view was a magnificent study in black and white in the sunshine. And though it was still early and we were nearly 8,000 feet up, it was already warm enough to sit outside.
Back from the belvedere was a large eating room. It was lined with resined match-boarding and had big windows and long pine tables with forms on each side. In one corner was a typically Italian bar with a chromium-plated coffee geyser and, behind it, a shining array of bottles of all shapes in the midst of which swung the brass pendulum of a cuckoo clock. Between the bar and the door leading to the kitchen and the rest of the hut was a big tiled stove of Austrian pattern and there was an old upright piano in the far corner.
We went through the door towards the kitchen. Our first sight of Aldo was a head popped through the servicing hatch in the kitchen door. It was a hairless head, sparsely garnished with a few grey tufts and both scalp and face gleamed as though freshly polished. The eyes had a dumb look and the mouth smiled vacantly as though apologising for the rest of it. The man was an ape. A moment's conversation with him convinced me of it. His smile was the only human thing about him. His brain was primordial. Joe Wesson said of him later that he was the sort of man who, if you told him to take away a plate and his hands were full of glasses, he would drop the glasses to pick up the plate. I asked him to show us to our rooms. He began to gobble at us confusedly like a turkey. His face became red. He gesticulated. Though his Italian was almost unintelligible, I gathered that he had received no booking. I told him to ring up the Splendido. I had seen a telephone at the end of the bar. He shrugged his shoulders and said he had no room anyway.
'What's he gibbering about?' Joe asked. And when I told him, his cheeks began to quiver with anger. 'Nonsense,' he said. 'Tell the oaf to take his head out of that ridiculous hatch and come out here where my toe can get acquainted with the seat of his pants. I'd be delighted to have an excuse to go back to that nice comfortable hotel. But I'm damned if I go down that slittovia again. Once is quite enough for one day.'
I opened the door that framed Aide's face and he came out, looking scared. I told him that my friend and I were getting angry. He began to gabble Italian at us again. 'Oh, to hell with it!' Joe exclaimed. 'Let's have a look at the rooms. There should be six and I was told only two were occupied.'
I nodded and we tramped up the uncarpeted stairs, Aldo following with a flood of Italian. At the top was a long corridor. The rooms were little match-board cubicles leading off it. The first door I opened revealed an empty room. I turned to Aldo. He spread his arms and drew down the corners of his mouth. The next door I opened showed a room with the bed unmade and clothes strewn around. The third room was actually occupied. Aldo had rushed to prevent my opening it, but Joe had swept him aside. A short, neat little man with long, sleek hair turning grey at the temples and a face that looked like a piece of dark crinkled rubber stood facing the door as I opened it. He was wildly over-dressed for a man living in the Col da Varda hut. He wore a natty near-dun-coloured suiting, a blue silk shirt and a yellow tie with red yachts sailing across it. He held a comb in his left hand and his attitude was curiously defensive. 'You are looking for me?' he asked in almost perfect English.
I hastened to explain. Aldo ducked beneath Joe's arm and became voluble. It was a duet in English and Italian. The occupant of the room cut Aldo short with a gesture of annoyance. 'My name is Stefan Valdini,' he said. 'This man is a fool,' he added, pointing to Aldo. 'He tries to save himself work by discouraging people from staying here. He is a lazy dog.' He had a soft purring voice that was a shade better than suave. 'Cretino!' He flung the offensive term mildly at Aldo as though it were common usage. 'There are four rooms vacant. Give the English the two end ones.'
I had expected Aldo to become angry — you can call an Italian a bastard and give the crudest and most colourful description of his entire family and he will do no more than grin, but call him 'cretino' and he usually becomes speechless with rage. But Aldo only grinned slavishly and said, 'Si, si, Signer Valdini — pronto.'
So we found ourselves ushered into the two end cubicles. The window of Joe's room looked straight down the trackway of the slittovia. Mine, however, faced south across the belvedere. I could only see the slittovia by leaning out and getting the drips from the over-hanging snow down my neck. It was a grand view. The whole hillside of pines fell away, rank on rank of pointed treetops, to the valley. And to the right, above me, the great bastions of Monte Cristallo towered cold and forbidding even in the sunlight. 'Rum place, Neil.' Joe Wesson's bulk filled the narrow doorway. 'Who was the little man who looked like a pimp for a high-class bordello') Behaved as though he owned the place.'
'Don't know,' I said. I was busy unpacking my things and my mind was thinking what a place it was for the setting of a skiing film. 'Oldest inhabitant, perhaps — though he certainly looked as though he'd be more at home in a night club.'
'Well, now we're in we may as well have a drink to celebrate,' Joe muttered. 'I'll be at the bar. I'm going to try some of that red biddy they call grappa.'
The first sleigh-load of skiers arrived whilst I was still unpacking. They were a colourful crowd, sunburned and brightly clad. They thronged the belvedere, lounging in the warm sun, drinking out of tall glasses. They were talking happily in several languages. I watched them, fascinated, as in groups of two or three, or alone, they put on their skis and swooped out of sight down the slalom run to Tre Croci or disappeared into the dark firs, whooping 'Liberal' as they took the gentler track back to Cortina. Anna, a half-Italian, half-Austrian waitress, flirted in and out among the tables with trays laden with salami and eggs and ravioli. She had big laughing eyes and there was a quick smile and better service for the men who had no women with them. What a scene for Technicolor! The colours stood out so startlingly against the black and white background.
The novelty of the setting was a spur to my determination to write something that Engles would accept. If I couldn't write a script here, I knew I should never be able to write one. I was still planning the script in my mind as I went down to join Joe at the bar.
At the bottom of the stairs, I came upon a tall, rather distinguished-looking man who was having a heated argument with Aldo. He had long, very thick-growing hair, strangely shot with.grey. His face was deeply tanned, except where the white of a scar showed against the bulge of his jaw muscles. He was wearing an all-white ski suit with a yellow scarf round his neck. I realised what the trouble was immediately. 'Have you booked a room here?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'This man is either a fool or he has given the room to somebody else and doesn't want to admit it.'
'I've just had the same trouble,' I said. 'I don't know why he doesn't want visitors. He just doesn't. But there are two rooms vacant at the moment. There's nobody in the one at the top of the stairs, so I should go up and stake your claim.'
'I will. Many thanks.' He gave me a lazy smile and took his things up the stairs. Aldo gave a shrug and dropped the corners of his mouth. Then he followed on.
Joe and I spent the remainder of the morning sitting out in the sunshine drinking cognac and discussing the shots Engles would expect. The multi-coloured plumage of the skiers and the babel of tongues that ranged from the tinselled guttural of Austrian to the liquid flood of Italian was a background to our conversation; absorbed, but not remarked in detail. Joe was no longer disgruntled at being perched up here on the cold shoulder of an Alp. He was a cameraman now, interested only in angles and lights and setting. He was an artist who has been given a good subject. And I was doubly preoccupied — I was listening to Joe and at the same time rolling an idea for a script round my mind.
I did not notice her arrive. I don't know how long she had been there. I just glanced up suddenly and saw her. Her head and shoulders stood out against the white backcloth of a snow-draped fir. For a second I was puzzled. I thought I knew her and yet I could not place her. Then, as I stared, she took off her dark glasses and looked straight at me, dangling them languidly between long slender brown fingers. And then I remembered and dived for my wallet and the photograph Engles had given me.
The likeness was striking. But I wasn't sure. The photograph was old and faded, and the girl who had signed herself 'Carla' had shorter, sleeked-back hair. But the features looked the same. I glanced up again at the woman seated at the table on the other side of the belvedere. Her raven black hair swept up in a great wave above her high forehead and tumbled in a mass to her shoulders. The way she sat and her every movement proclaimed an almost animal consciousness of her body. She wasn't particularly young, nor was she particularly beautiful. Her mouth, scarlet to match her ski suit, was too wide and full, and there were deep lines at the corners of her eyes. But she was exciting. She was all of a man's baser thoughts come true. She caught my eye as I compared her with the photograph in my hand. Her glance was an idle caress, speculative and not disinterested, like the gaze of an animal that is bored and is looking for someone to play with.
'My God, Neil!' Joe tapped me on the arm. 'Are you trying to bed that woman down?'
'Don't be revolting,' I said. I "felt slightly embarrassed. Joe was so solidly British in that foreign set-up. 'Why make a vulgar suggestion like that on a lovely morning?'
'You were looking at her as though you wanted to eat her,' he replied. 'She's got that little Valdini chap for boyfriend. You want to go steady with these people. Knives, you know. They're not civilised. He struck me as an ugly little fellow to start an argument with over a girl.' He was right. The man sitting opposite her was Valdini. He had his back towards us.
'Don't be absurd, Joe,' I said. Then I showed him the photograph, keeping my thumb across the writing. 'Is that the same girl?' I asked him.
He cocked his head on one side and screwed up his little bloodshot eyes. 'Hmm. Could be. How did you get hold of that?'
'It's the picture of an Italian actress,' I lied quickly. 'I knew her in Naples just before Anzio. She gave it to me then. The point is — is the woman sitting over there the girl I knew or not?'
'I don't know,' he replied. 'And frankly, old man, I don't give a damn. But it seems to me that the best way to find out is to go and ask her.'
Joe, of course, did not realise the difficulty. Engles had said, do nothing. But I had to be certain. It seemed so fantastic that she should turn up on the very first day I was at Col da Varda. But the likeness was certainly striking. I suddenly made up my mind and got to my feet. 'You're right,' I said. 'I'll go and find out.'
'Well, don't go treading on the corns of that overdressed little pimp. I'm a good chucker-out in a London bar. But I'm too big a target to play around with people I suspect of being expert knife-throwers.'
She had seen me get up and her eyes watched me intently as I crossed the belvedere. Valdini looked up as I reached the table. 'Excuse me,' I said to her, 'but I feel sure I met you when I was in Italy with the British Army.'
There was an awkward pause. She was watching me. So was Valdini. Then she gave me a sudden warm smile. 'I do not think so,' she said in English. Her voice was deep and liquid. It was like a purr. 'But you look nice. Come and sit down and tell me about it.'
Valdini, who had been watching me guardedly, now sprang to his feet. Polished and suave, he produced a chair for me from the next table.
'Well,' she said as I sat down, 'where was it that we met?'
I hesitated. Her eyes were very dark and they were looking at me with open amusement. 'I think your name is Carla,' I said.
The eyes suddenly went blank. They were cold and hard — hard like the eyes in the photograph.
'I think you have made a mistake,' she said coldly.
Valdini came to the rescue. 'Perhaps I should make an introduction. This is the Contessa Forelli. And this is Mr Blair. He is from an English film company.' I wondered how he had found that out and why he had taken the trouble.
'I am sorry,' I said. 'I thought your surname might be — Rometta.'
I was convinced she caught her breath. But her eyes did not change. She had control of herself. 'Well, now perhaps you know you have made a mistake, Mr Blair,' she said.
I was still not sure. I pulled the photograph out of my pocket and showed it to her. 'Surely this is a photograph of you?' I said. I kept the bottom part covered.
She leaned forward quickly. 'Where did you get that?' There was nothing purrful about her voice as she shot the question at me. It was hard and angry and brittle. Then, with an abrupt change of tone, she said, 'No, you can see for yourself that it is not my photograph. But it is strange. It is a great likeness. Let me look at it.' And she extended a strong brown hand imperiously.
I pretended not to hear her request. I put the photograph back in my pocket. 'Most extraordinary!' I murmured. 'The likeness is quite remarkable. I felt certain—' I rose to my feet. 'You must excuse me, CON-TESSA,' I said, bowing. 'The likeness is quite extraordinary.'
'Don't go, Mr Blair.' She gave me a hard, brilliant smile and the purr was back in her voice. 'Stay and have a drink — and tell me more about that photograph. It is so nearly myself that I would like to know more about it. I am intrigued. Stefan, order a drink for Mr Blair.'
'No, please, Contessa,' I said. 'I have been guilty of sufficient bad manners for one day. Please accept my apologies. It was the likeness — I had to be certain.'
I went back to Joe. 'Well,' he said, as I resumed my seat, 'was she the girl or not?'
'I think so,' I told him.
'Couldn't you make certain?'
'She didn't want to be recognised,' I explained.
'I don't blame her,' he grunted. 'I wouldn't want to be recognised in the company of that little tyke, especially if I were a woman. Look at him getting up now. He positively bounces with his own self-importance.'
I watched the Contessa rise and put on her skis. She did not once glance in my direction. The incident might never have happened. She took the dapper little Valdini out on to the snow for a moment's conversation. Then, with a flash of her sticks, she swooped out of sight down the slalom run to Tre Croci. As he came back, Valdini darted a quick glance at me.
We had lunch out on the belvedere and, afterwards, Joe went out with his camera and a pair of borrowed snow-shoes and I retired to my room to start work on the script. But I could not settle down. I could not concentrate. My mind kept wandering to the mystery of Engles' interest in Col da Varda. First the story of Heinrich Stelben's arrest. Now the Contessa Forelli, who looked so like Carla. It was stretching coincidence too far to believe that there was no connection. And what was it about the place that drew them here? If only Engles had told me more. But perhaps he hadn't known much more. The slittovia was beginning to dominate my thoughts as it dominated the rifugio. I could hear it even up in my bedroom, a low, grating drone whenever the sleigh came up or went down. And in the bar, which was right over the concrete machine room, the sound of it was almost deafening.
At length I gave up any attempt to write. I tapped out a report for Engles and went down to the bar in time to see Joe returning with his camera. The snow-shoes were circular contraptions fixed to his boots. He looked like a great clumsy elephant as he floundered up the slope of the Cortina run. The day visitors had all left long ago and it was getting dark and very cold outside. The rifugio seemed to be shrinking into itself for the night. Aldo stoked up the great tiled stove and we gravitated naturally to the bar and anisetto.
It was whilst we were standing round the bar that an incident occurred that is worth recording. It was a small thing — or appeared so at the time — yet it was very definitely a part of the pattern of events. There were four of us there at the time — Joe Wesson and myself, Valdini and the new arrival, who had introduced himself as Gilbert Mayne. He was Irish, but by his conversation appeared to have seen a good deal of the world, particularly the States.
Valdini had been trying to pump me about the photograph. It was difficult to put him off. He was what schoolboys would call 'bumptious'. You hit him and he bounced. He had a hide like a brontosaurus. But in the end I managed to convince him that I regarded the matter as being of little importance and that I really felt that I had made a foolish mistake. The talk gradually drifted to strange means of conveyance, such as the slittovia. Mayne, I remember, was talking about riding the tubs on overhead haulage gear, when the cable machinery began to drone under our feet. The steady grinding sound of it made conversation almost impossible. The whole room seemed to shake. 'Who'd be coming up as late as this?' Mayne asked.
Valdini looked up from cleaning his nails with a matchstick. 'That will be the other visitor here. He is a Greek. His name is Keramikos. Why he stays here I do not know. I think he likes Cortina better.' He grinned and, transferring the matchstick to his mouth, began to pick his teeth. 'He is of the Left. He knows all that transpires politically in Greece. And he likes the women. The Contessa, for instance — he cannot take his eyes off her. He gloats, as you would say.' And he sucked his teeth obscenely.
The sound of the slittovia slowed and ceased. Valdini kept on talking. 'He reminds me of a Greek business man I once knew,' he continued. 'I was running a boat on the Nile. It was beautiful and very profitable. For tired business men, you know. The gairls were all hand-picked.' The way he said 'gairls' made it sound like a breed of animals. 'It was a sort of show boat.'
'You mean a floating brothel," Joe grunted. 'Why the hell don't you call things by their proper names! Anyway, I don't find the subject a particularly pleasing one. I'm not interested in your brothels.'
'But, Mistair Wesson, it is so sordid the way you talk about it. It was beautiful, you understand. There was the moonlight. The moon is lovely on the Nile. And there was the music. It was a very good business. And this Greek — I forget his name — he was a wealthy business man from Alexandria — always he wanted a different gairl. He was a gold mine. I made a great deal—' He stopped then because he realised that we were not listening.
Whilst he had been talking brisk steps had sounded on the boarding of the belvedere. Then the door had opened and the cold dark of the outside world had invaded the warm room. I suppose we had all been watching the door with some interest. One is always interested in getting the first glimpse of a person one is expected to live with in an isolated place. It was mere idle curiosity.
But the man who entered stopped in the doorway at the sight of the four of us grouped about the bar. He seemed rooted to the spot, his thick-set body framed in the dark gap like a statue in its niche. He was looking at Mayne. And Mayne had stiffened. His tall figure was tensed. It was only for a second. And during that second the atmosphere was electric. Then Mayne turned to the bar and ordered another round of drinks. The Greek closed the door and came over to the bar. Everything was suddenly normal again.
I was convinced Mayne and the Greek had recognised each other. But there was no indication of this as the Greek came over to us and introduced himself. He was stockily built with a round face and blue eyes that peered short-sightedly through thick-lensed, rimless glasses. His light brown hair was very thin on top and his neck was short, so that his head seemed to be set straight into the wide powerful shoulders.
He spoke good English in a low, rather thick voice. He had a way of thrusting his head forward when making a point, a mannerism which gave him a somewhat belligerent air.
Only once throughout the evening did anything occur to support my theory that he and Mayne had met before. We were discussing the revolt of the Greek Brigade in Egypt during the war. Keramikos was extremely well informed on the details of it. So well informed, in fact, that Joe suddenly emerged from a prolonged silence and said quietly, 'You talk as though you organised the whole damned thing.' I could have sworn the Greek exchanged a quick glance with Mayne. It was not a friendly glance. It was as though on that point they were on common ground.
One other thing occurred that night that seemed strange to me. Engles had wanted full information on the people staying at Col da Varda, so I decided to send him a photograph of them. After dinner, I persuaded Joe to get his Leica and take a few shots of the group at the bar. I told him I wanted the shots to prove to Engles that the hut would have more atmosphere than a hotel for the indoor scenes. Little Valdini was delighted when Joe came in with his camera and began posing immediately. But when Mayne and Keramikos saw it, they turned their backs and began talking earnestly. Joe asked them to face the camera and Mayne said over his shoulder, 'We're not part of your film company, you know.'
Joe grunted and took a few pictures. But only Valdini and Aldo were facing the camera. I began to ask him questions about the camera. I knew perfectly well how it worked, but I was determined to get a picture of those two. He let me handle it and I took it over to the bar under the light. The cuckoo suddenly sprang out of the clock. 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' Mayne and Keramikos looked up, startled, and I snapped them.
At the click of the camera, Mayne turned to me. 'Did you take a photograph?' he asked, and there was a note of anger in his voice.
'I'm not sure,' I said. 'Why?'
He looked at me hard. He had cold, light-coloured eyes.
'He does not like being photographed,' Valdini said, and there was malice in his tone.
Mayne's eyes hardened with anger. But he said nothing to Valdini and turned back with a casual air to continue his conversation with Keramikos.
These are small things, but they stood out like wrong notes in a smoothly played piece of music. I had a strange feeling that all these people — Valdini, Keramikos and Mayne — were suppressing violent antipathy beneath a casual exterior.
Shortly after breakfast the next morning I left for Cortina. Mayne came with me. I had mentioned the auction to him the previous night and he had expressed a desire to come. As we were leaving, we passed Joe cursing a pair of skis on his feet. 'Feel like a pair of canoes,' he grumbled. 'Six years since I did this. Doubt if my blood pressure will stand it. If I break my neck, I'll sue Engles for it. But I can't get the pictures I want otherwise.' He had a small movie camera slung round his neck. 'If I'm not back by tea-time, Neil, you'd better call out the bloodhounds. Where are you off to?'
When I told him, he gave me an old-fashioned look. 'Far be it for me to come between you and what you apparently regard as amusement, old man,' he said. 'But Engles is expecting a script out of you. And he detests slow workers.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, well, you know the man. But maybe he was less exacting in the Army. With a film unit, he just isn't human. Why do you think I'm putting on these damned things?'
I thanked him, for he meant it kindly. He wasn't to know that Engles had already got a script.
It was a glorious morning. The sky was blue. The sun shone. But the world was deathly still. No birds sang in the dark fir woods. In all that glistening country there was no sign of life. The slittovia was even more terrifying going down. We sat facing the rifugio — or rather we lay on our backs facing it. And we travelled down through the lane between the firs backwards. As though by mutual consent we talked. And the talk developed into a comparison of the merits of various Italian composers. Mayne knew his opera and hummed snatches to illustrate his points. He preferred the gay swiftness of The Barber and the subtle comedy of lesser known operas, like I quattro rusteghi, to the heavier pieces. In this we differed, for Traviata is my favourite. But we were on common ground in our enthusiasm for the spectacle of Aida, played beneath a full moon in the open-air theatre in Rome with the colossal, shadowy bulk of the Baths of Caracalla as its setting. I must confess that, at that moment, I liked his company immensely.
As we came into Cortina by car, the streets were full of skiers moving out to the Various runs. They were a gaily coloured throng, their tanned faces glowing with the cold mountain air. The little town, with its gables and high, pencil-sharp church steeple, looked bright and gay in the sunlight. There were tourists wandering the snow-piled pavements, gazing in the shop windows or sitting in steamy-windowed cafes drinking coffee and cognac. The two overhead cable railways — the funivias — stretched out their cables, like antennae, on either side of the town. The one to the left climbed to Mandres in one cable jump and then scaled the heights of Faloria in a single sweep. It was just possible to make out the line of the cable, like a frail thread, and the little red car against the sun-warmed brown of the Faloria cliffs. On the other side of the town, a shorter cable made one bound to the rounded knoll of Pocol, with its hotels and the slittovias leading to the more advanced runs — Col Druscie and the Tofana Olympic run.
I left Mayne at the Luna and then went on to the ufficio della posta where I caught the air mail with my second report to Engles and the roll of film. When I arrived at the Splendido, Mancini was drinking in the bar with several fellow hoteliers. He greeted me as though I were the one person he had been waiting for. He had great ability as a host. 'You must have a drink, Mr Blair,' he said. 'The Luna is always so cold.' And he grinned like a playful lion at a thin, neat little Italian, whom I guessed to be the owner of the Gran' Albergo Luna. 'A large Martini — yes? It will prevent ennui. Then we will go and buy the slittovia. Afterwards we will celebrate. Whenever one of us buys something, we all celebrate. It is the excuse. Always there must be the excuse.'
The lounge of the Luna was warm and cosy when we arrived. There were between twenty and thirty people there — all men and mostly Italian. They had the indifference of spectators. They were not there to buy. They were there because it was a social function and there would be drinks afterwards. They crowded round Mancini, laughing and chattering, congratulating him on his latest acquisition. Mayne was sunk in an easy-chair with a tall glass in front of him. I went across and joined him. He pulled up a chair and ordered me a drink. But he did not seem interested in conversation. He was watching the scene closely. His interest switched suddenly to the door. I followed the direction of his gaze and was surprised to see that Valdini had entered. He moved jauntily with an air of colossal self-importance. This morning it was a darker suiting with a sheen of mauve in it. The shirt was cream-coloured and the tie red, shot with blue flashes of forked lightning. 'What's Valdini doing here?' I asked. 'Shouldn't have thought he would have been interested in an auction.'
'I don't know.' Mayne spoke softly, as though to himself, and there was a puzzled frown on his dark handsome face.
Then the auctioneer entered. He moved with the self-conscious air of a man about to conjure something out of a hat. You felt there should have been a fanfare of trumpets to herald that entrance. He moved through the room as though it were an Audience, bowing to acquaintances, pausing a moment here and there to shake a hand. You felt it was his moment. He had two waiters hovering behind him. He indicated a table. He had it moved. He chose a chair. It was placed ready for him. He tossed his papers on to the table. The maitre d'hotel brought on his hammer and set it carefully on the polished table top. An imaginary fleck of dust was hastily removed. Then finally, the auctioneer settled himself behind the table. He beat upon the top of it dramatically. The room began to settle itself. Mancini moved to a vacant table just near me. The pack followed at his heels. He pulled his chair next to me. 'He is amusing — yes?' he said, nodding towards the auctioneer.
'The entrance was nicely handled,' I said.
He smiled and nodded. 'We are a theatrical race,' he said. 'That is why, when an Italian is executed, he dies well. He may not like the result, but he enjoys the moment. Now, you will see. We shall be very quiet and he will talk for a long time. We know this slittovia as well as we know our own hotels. But he will describe it to us as though we had never seen it. He will make the lyric of the description. He will become excited. He will make gestures. It will be the grand performance. And then, when he is exhausted, I shall make the bid and it will be sold for what has already been arranged. It is all very un-English,' he added with a sly twinkle. 'But I am glad you are amused. If you were not amused, you would be bored, and that would make me sad.'
The hammer crashed on to the table top again. The room stopped talking. The curtain had been rung up. The performance had begun. The auctioneer began reading the conditions of sale. He slipped through it rapidly. It gave him no scope. But then came the reasons for the sale. He told of its original purchase by the 'miserable' Sordini from the collaborator who had once owned the Excelsior. He told of Sordini's arrest, of the 'world-shaking' news that he was Heinrich Stelben, a German war criminal wanted for the most 'terrible, fearful and blood-thirsty crimes against the Italian and British peoples'. He drew a word portrait of this 'madman'. He touched briefly on the crimes of the 'terrible tedesci', and barely saved himself from a short history of how the Italian people had been 'roused by terrible and barbaric acts' and had forced the 'hated' Germans to surrender. Then suddenly, pianissimo, he began to describe the slittovia and the hut on Col da Varda. Gradually he whipped himself into a lyrical frenzy — it was a 'stupendous' opportunity for an astute business man with 'grand' ideas, an incredibly beautiful property, thoroughly equipped by 'brilliant German engineers', a 'small hotel with a finer panoramic view than the Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden'.
Then suddenly his voice ceased. The room was silent as though the performance had taken everyone's breath away. At any moment I expected a wild outburst of applause. Surely they must demand an encore. But the room remained silent. The auctioneer ran his fingers through his long hair, which had fallen in dank strands across his face. His thin features wore a disappointed look. He pushed his glasses-farther back on his long nose and offered the property for sale in a cold matter-of-fact voice.
'Due cento cinquanta mila.' Mancini's voice was quiet and there was a tired air of finality about the offer. A quarter of a million lire. The auctioneer pretended to be aggrieved. That was the low reserve placed on the property by the Government. Mancini had doubtless put in some hard social work to get the figure down as low as that. The auctioneer called for further bids. But he knew it was hopeless. He knew it was all arranged. His brief moment was over. He was no longer interested. He gave a shrug and raised his hammer.
'Tre cento mila.' The voice was quiet and smooth. A sudden flood of surprised volubility swept the room. Heads were turned, necks craned. I knew the voice before I picked out his neat little figure strategically placed where the sunlight fell on him in a shaft from one of the tall windows. It was Valdini. His chest, gaily coloured like the plumage of some elaborate tropical fowl, was puffed out importantly. His dark rubbery face beamed as he held the limelight.
Mancini was talking rapidly to the men around him. He was literally quivering with anger. I turned to Mayne to make some comment. But he did not appear to hear me. He was leaning forward, gazing at Valdini with intense interest. He was smiling slightly and there was a glint in his eyes — of amusement or excitement, I could not tell which.
The auctioneer was clearly astonished. He asked Valdini if he had heard correctly. Valdini repeated his bid — three hundred thousand lire. All eyes were turned to Mancini, to see what the great man would do. He had recovered himself. One of his friends slipped quietly out of the room. Mancini lit a cigarette, settled himself more comfortably in his chair and raised the bidding ten thousand.
Valdini did not hesitate. He went straight up to four hundred thousand. 'And ten,' said Mancini.
S3 'Fifty,' came from the window. Mancini raised to sixty. Valdini jumped to five hundred thousand. So it went on, Mancini going up in tens and Valdini in fifties till they hit the million. Word of the duel had spread quickly through the hotel. People were standing thick about the door.
At a million lire there was a pause in the bidding. Mancini had been getting slower and slower in his bids as the figures rose. He sat hunched in his seat, his jaw set and his eyes sullen. It was not the money he cared about so much as this deliberate flouting of his position in Cortina. It hurt his pride to have to haggle in public for something that everyone knew he had arranged in private. I leaned across to him and ventured to ask him what the property was worth. 'To me, perhaps a million,' he replied. 'To an outsider, nothing.'
'You mean you will boycott the place and Valdini will lose his money?' I asked.
'Valdini?' He laughed mirthlessly. 'Valdini is a dirty little Sicilian gangster. He loses nothing. It is not his money.'
'He is acting for someone then?' I asked.
He nodded. 'The Contessa Forelli, I think. I have sent someone to try and find out.'
The auctioneer had grown tired of waiting. He poised his hammer. Mancini raised the bidding ten again.
'Cinquanta,' came the monotonous voice of Valdini.
'Sessanta.'
'Cento.'
'I do not understand it,' Mancini muttered angrily to me. 'They will pay through the nose and make a bad business of it. There are hidden reasons. That Forelli woman is up to something. She is too clever with men.'
The man who had slipped out for Mancini returned and whispered in his ear. 'Ma, perche?' I heard him ask.
The man shrugged his shoulders. Mancini turned and raised the bidding again. 'It is Forelli,' he said to me. 'But why I do not know. She must have a reason. If I knew it and it was worth the money, I would give her a defeat. But I do not throw money in the drain, you understand.' He was near the limit he would go. I felt sorry for him. He did not want me to think him unsporting or lacking in courage. He did not like an Englishman to see him defeated.
The bidding crawled slowly up to the one and a half million mark. Then Valdini astonished the whole room by changing his tactics. He jumped from one and a half to two millions. There was a note of triumph in his voice. He guessed the hotelier would not follow him to that figure.
His psychology was right. Mancini shrugged his shoulders as the auctioneer glanced at him enquiringly. Then he rose to his feet. The bidding was over. Mancini was making a grand exit as though washing his hands of a preposterous business. The auctioneer raised his hammer. This time his movement was quicker.
But as the hammer rose, a sharp firm voice said, 'Due e mezzo.'
The room gasped. Two and a half million lire!
Mancini sat down again, searching the room. For a moment there was not a sound. I looked across at Valdini. The beaming importance had been wiped from his face by this fresh bid. His features had a mean look. The auctioneer searched out and found the new bidder. He was a small, pallid man in a dark grey suit seated uncomfortably on an upright chair. He looked like an undertaker. His clothes did not suggest that he was worth a lot of money. Asked to repeat his bid, he did so in the same firm voice.
The auctioneer glanced at Valdini who nodded his head with a worried look and raised the bidding five hundred thousand. 'Tre million!.' The voice was firm and impersonal. It hushed the sudden outburst of excited conversation.
'This is incredible,' I said to Mayne.
His eyes were fixed intently on the new bidder. He did not hear me. I turned to Mancini. 'Who is the little man who is bidding?' I asked him.
'A lawyer from Venezia,' he said. 'He is a partner in a firm which works for big industrial enterprises. He, too, is bidding for a client.' His tone showed his concern. I think he was envisaging a big syndicate invading Cortina with money enough to put himself and his friends out of business.
Valdini suddenly jumped five hundred thousand. His voice was pitched a shade high as he made the bid. It was a violent gesture. 'Shock tactics,' I whispered to Mayne.
He was still watching the scene intently, his eyes narrowed. I noticed the knuckles of his hands were white where they gripped the chair. He was clearly very excited by the bidding. Suddenly he relaxed. 'What? — oh, shock tactics — yes. Valdini is near his limit.' And he turned away again, tense and watchful.
The little lawyer seemed to hesitate. He was watching Valdini closely. Valdini was nervous. His eyes darted here and there around the room. Everyone was watching him. Everyone sensed that he was approaching his limit. A gust of excited whisperings filled the room. The cold voice of the lawyer stilled it. Four million and one hundred thousand, he bid.
The room gasped. The lawyer was reckoning on Valdini's limit being four million. One glance at Valdini's face showed that he was right. The bidding had passed beyond him. Valdini asked permission of the auctioneer to telephone his client. Permission was refused. He pleaded. His client, he explained, had not expected the bidding to go so high. He suggested that the auctioneer himself had not expected it. It was fantastic. In such exceptional circumstances the auctioneer should permit him to refer to his client for instructions. The auctioneer refused.
He and the room waited in suspense, watching the workings of Valdini's mind. It was clear that he wanted to go on, but that he did not dare without further instructions. The hammer rose, hesitated as the auctioneer raised his eyebrows in Valdini's direction, and then finally fell.
The astonishing auction was over. The slittovia was sold to an unknown buyer.