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PARTISAN REVIEW
since he lived in Naples for many years. But I only glanced through it before
you came. I would be glad to hear anything you can tell me about Sir
Harold."
"I never had any personal contact with him. He died in 1958. I settled
in Naples permanently in 1955; and in 1957 Malcolm, then a colonel, was
posted to NATO in Naples at his own request. But we didn't run into each
other until after his father's death. He certainly was not fond of his father,
although he inherited a substantial fortune from him in England as well as the
villa on Posillipo. I suspect Malcolm blamed him for the death of his mother.
You know, of course, Signor Commissario, how it generally was with rich
Englishmen who settled in Naples early in the century and even between the
wars. More than the climate and the beauties of the city, it was the ease in
finding young boys without fear of scandal, discrimination, or blackmail.
Naples was a paradise for homosexuals. Malcolm was born during the First
World War. Immediately after the war, Sir Harold left the diplomatic
service, sent his wife and child back to England, bought himself the villa on
the Posillipo and put down roots in Naples. In the paradise of homosexuals.
His wife joined him in the 1920s without the child, who was sent to school in
England. As far as I know, they never found out whether she was drunk
and drowned swimming off the rocks at the foot of the villa or whether she
committed suicide."
"They did, they did. She killed herself. But the matter was hushed up
out of respect for Sir Harold's position. In any case, as I understand it, Mal–
colm made his first appearance in Italy (not counting his entr), into the world)
in the uniform of a British officer. He was studying at Oxford when the war
broke out and had no longing to see his father, who naturally provided him
with generous support."
"Yes. He didn't even bother to look at the villa after Naples had been
liberated. It was uninhabited in any case, because Sir Harold spent the last
war behind a desk in some ministry in London. By the way, I am not alto–
gether sure that the father looked forward to seeing his son, what with the
obscure circumstances of his wife's death and the heat of the "paradisiacal"
rays of the Neapolitan sun. Enough of that. When Malcolm asked to be
posted to NATO in Naples, his father was on his last legs after a massive
heart attack. They lived together barely six months at Villa Melton. Soon
after Sir Harold's death his son resigned his commission, took off his colonel's
uniform , and entered into possession of the villa . He was relatively young
when he was transformed into a foreign pensioner on your marvelous bay
under this blessed mild sky of yours. Sometime before, he had heard from a
Canadian lady friend of mine who worked at NATO that I was living in
Naples, but it wasn't until May 1959 that I received a cordial letter from him
