Free The Gospel Of Judas by Simon Mawer

distant, departing roar against the spring day. ‘American,’ agrees one of the men, and Herr Huber begins a lecture, directed mainly towards the youngest of the men, the dark, Latin one, a lecture about how the great tragedy of the war is that it has given the Americans an excuse to get into Europe, and things will never be the same again, whatever happens …

Figures in a Distant Landscape
    The Villa was built by some Polish count in the nineteenth century during the brief and hopeless flowering of the Kingdom of Poland. It is a grandiose pile, all pillars and porticoes, cupolas and pediments, as though the architect had a rudimentary grounding in the work of Palladio but none of his sense of harmony and balance. But the garden that surrounds it is another thing altogether: formal and classical behind the building, it transforms into a Piranesi fantasy below, a temperate jungle with Roman brickwork (the remains of one of the aqueducts that used to supply the city), falling water, sinuous paths, damp, vegetable shade. Columbine, clematis, honeysuckle, dog rose, the heavy scents of jasmine and orange (a small orangerie with the blossom as white as distant doves amongst the lucid leaves), the elusive perfume of box, the vulgar scent of tuberose, everywhere a litter of Roman marble fragments found during the building of the garden in the previous century and left scattered around, mossy and mildewed,for the passer-by to rediscover for himself. Halfway down the hill is a small
tempietto
, modelled on Bramante’s masterpiece. The whole is a perfect Roman phenomenon, at once artefact and natural, fantasy and reality, past and present.
    Two figures are in the garden. They have made their way from the formal garden on the far side (still ponds, an artificial grotto, clipped hedges, parterre paths) round the side of the building and down the paths of the lower garden. The woman appears to be giving her companion instructions, and the instructions (a shock to any would-be eavesdropper) are in English.
    ‘If you were to over-water the plants they might easily die,’ she says.
    ‘If I were to over-water the plants, they might easily die,’ the young man enunciates. Then he repeats the phrase
they might easily die
as though trying to consign it to memory.
    Frau Huber pauses to inspect a casual blossom beside the path, a florid fuchsia dancing in the shadows, the Adelaide variety she happens to know. ‘To tell you the truth,’ she admits, ‘I’m not certain whether it should be
might
or
may
.’
    He seems shocked. ‘You don’t know? Are not there rules?’
    ‘You’d say
aren’t
. In ordinary conversation.’
    ‘
Aren’t
, then.’ He is slightly impatient. ‘You see, there
are
rules.’ His face is solemn, bright, made up of contrasting lights and shadows. You might hesitate to use the word of a young man, but he is beautiful. No one would have any hesitation in his own language:
bello
.
Un bel uomo
.
    ‘Yes, I suppose there are rules. But English is a funny language. Perhaps you could describe it as …’ The woman pauses, as though the word that has occurred to her is rather shocking ‘…
democratic
. So the rules get broken,and then people forget them, or don’t bother with them, and …’
    ‘I like your definition of democracy. I will remember it. It sounds very like Italy. And yet there
are
right words, because you say I have wronged.’
    ‘You say, I
am
wrong.’ She glances round from the plant. ‘It’s difficult, Checco. It’s an
instinctive
language.’ Her own use of it is almost perfect. A native speaker might wonder about her origins, about the overemphasised vowel sounds and the precision of her consonants, but the wondering would not lead anywhere very much. There are no real clues. Frau Huber. Gretchen. Blonde, sharp of both body and mind, possessed of a kind of beauty. You might hesitate to use the word of a woman, but she is handsome. You wouldn’t hesitate in her own language:
schön
.