Free A Dead Man in Trieste by Michael Pearce

belonged to a middle-aged man with tobacco-stained fingers, whom they referred to as Ettore. During a lull in the conversation Seymour asked if he was an artist too. Alas, no, he said: his talents lay in other directions. He worked in the family varnishing business. He would soon, he said, be going to England to set up a factory there. In preparation for this he was taking, God help him, thought Seymour, lessons in English from James. A little later he shook hands all round and left.
    After he had gone Alfredo said that although he was not an artist he understood about artists. He was a writer and had written several novels. None of them had got anywhere and he had given up writing; but recently he seemed to have started again.
    Perhaps it was the effect of Lomax’s death that they drank heavily. Seymour reckoned himself to have a good head for alcohol but he found it hard to keep level. He wondered uneasily who was going to pay and if he should. Could he put it down to expenses? Almost certainly not, he thought.
    When it came to it, they all insisted that he was their guest and that there could be no question of his paying; but as they turned out their pockets it looked rather as if they were going to be his. In fact, however, Ettore had already paid.
    As he was going away across the piazza he saw a newspaper seller standing there with his newspapers spread out on the ground before him. He was holding up a newspaper and shouting: ‘Bosnia crisis! The latest.’
    Crisis? What crisis? Almost: Bosnia? What Bosnia?
    Seymour could never resist a headline. He went across to the man and bought one of his papers.
    As far as he could see, there was no mention of Bosnia in it.
    ‘Hey, what was all that about a crisis?’ he complained to the newspaper seller.
    ‘It’s still there.’
    ‘It doesn’t say anything about a crisis here!’
    ‘It doesn’t need to. I’m saying it. It’s still on. That’s the point. I don’t want people to forget about it.’
    ‘Yes, but the newspaper isn’t saying anything about it!’
    ‘It bloody well ought to be. That’s why I’m saying it.’
    ‘Yes, well, thanks. Don’t you think you should leave editorial comment to the editors?’
    ‘No. They’re all bloody Austrian. You won’t find a word about this now that it’s happened. They want to keep it quiet.’
    ‘Look, what’s happened? What crisis is this, anyway?’
    ‘The annexation.’
    ‘What annexation?’
    ‘Christ, where have you come from?’
    ‘London.’
    ‘Isn’t it in all the papers there?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, it bloody ought to be. It’s a disgrace. More than a disgrace, it’s a conspiracy. All the Great Powers hanging together. And letting Austria hang Bosnia.’
    ‘Just tell me.’
    ‘You don’t know? Really? Christ, you’re an ignorant bugger.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Well, you know that a couple of years ago Austria annexed Bosnia. No? You really don’t?’
    ‘It had escaped me.’
    ‘What hope is there for the working class when the privileged classes are so bloody ignorant! Well, it did. Just like that. They thought no one would notice. And if you’re anything to go by, they were dead right. All right, you’re an ignorant Britisher. But you’d have thought someone would have noticed and said: “Hey, you can’t do that!” But they’re all in it together, the Great Powers.’
    ‘Yes, well, no doubt. But it’s all over, isn’t it? You said it was two years ago?’
    ‘It’s not all over. It’s never going to be all over. It’s going to blow up.’
    ‘Yes, well, maybe.’
    ‘It’ll blow up. And blow your world apart.’
    ‘Yes, yes.’
    ‘How do you think the Bosnians feel about it? How do you think we feel about it?’
    ‘We? What’s it got to do with Trieste?’
    ‘I’m speaking as a Serb.’
    ‘All right, speaking as a Serb: what’s it got to do with Serbia?’
    ‘Well, Bosnia’s bloody ours, isn’t it? Or it ought to be. It’s been part of Serbia for a thousand years.