70
ALBERT
J.
GUERARD
and snoring. Later we go back to our separate tables downstairs. She
returns to her scant but still unfinished meal. Almost immediately (he
must have been waiting in the dark, hiding from his companion ) one
of the two convicts appears at the door. He looks at me steadily with
the same expectancy as Serafina. So I toss him a coin, which he
scarcely acknowledges. Only a bitter nod. Then he
is
talking past
me scornfully to the innkeeper, in the old times his jailer. He is back
at his familiar complaints. What does he care that the mainland
government has collapsed? It was a contract, the obligation remained.
_"... the obligation of the Prefect to return me to the main–
land, to my province if not my city, at the end of the term.
It
is also
normal, everyone knows, to issue civilian clothes. The Prefect of
Police ..."
-"There is no Prefect, my friend. No prefect, no province, no
carabinieri, no officers, no judge. I who for two years watched over
you with compassion .. ."
-"I ask for justice not compassion. My term was three years.
Then a clean start. A new life freed of accusation and taint, and with
decent civilian clothes."
-"And if you were to reach the mainland, where it is said
everyone will starve?"
-"My term was three years. It would be my privilege to dis–
cover for myself a profession."
-"It
would be your privilege, my friend, to die."
The convict still stands in the door for a while: mute, a living
accusation. He turns then to Serafina in a silent appeal. But she leans
back, lifting her chin and preparing to spit. The convict walks off
into the night.
The innkeeper has bandit earrings and a gold tooth as handsome
as Seguros'. I have admired it on each trip to the island. And he
insists it is true the two convicts, if they returned to the mainland,
would starve. Indeed, he thinks it is foolish for me to leave the ship
and go back to the villa. Where can we be more comfortable than
on the ship, with Sangiorgio to bring us provisions?
As
for the main–
land: all chaos.
It
had taken him days, in exchange for wine and a
fine small cargo of figs, to get a single miserable goat. The taste of
other meat was a rank and dazing memory. Chaos. And
it
is true
I myself wonder about the broadcast voices: the self-sufficient, auto-
