‘I don’t understand,’ I said, confused.
‘Understand?’ Edgar groaned, as our cousin began to spit the truth:
‘Your mother was born into the poorest part of our family, clever but feckless, lost in books and not business. Her father found her a husband, a kind man with a good business in London, many years older than she, and what did she do? She seduced a Christian man – one of their employees – and when her husband conveniently died, she married this other man!’
Edgar had gone very still. Suddenly, the door to the room burst open and the old man and the young lad started tearing at us, yelling furiously in Spanish and French. I pulled my brother away with one hand whilst pushing back our assailants with the other. Seconds later, in a blur of fists and curses, Edgar and I fell blinking into the Paris sunshine. The door to the house – to our past – slammed shut and we stood in the street, the two of us, alone.
‘We shall have to leave Paris,’ Edgar cried, staring at the ground. He did not lift his face to mine. ‘Tomorrow. We cannot risk encountering … that person again. I shall write to Sir Gideon and say that we have to leave and ask that we remain friends and meet up again, further along the route.’
‘What are you talking about, Edgar?’ I asked. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘Why does it matter?’ he shrieked at the top of his lungs. People passing in the street stopped to stare at the two young Englishmen making fools of themselves in public. ‘No one will befriend a Jew in London!’ he said. ‘Do you know nothing? Englishmen can have nothing to do with Jews! Every person knows it! If anyone finds out the truth about our mother, we will be destroyed! I cannot be destroyed!’ He paused, and looked up at me. His eyes were red and misted. ‘And you must never tell anyone, Benjamin. Not even in jest.’
‘In jest?’ I cried.
He shook his head, in anger and frustration. ‘You must never tell anyone!’
I stood in that street and thought, but at least we have taken a step closer to the truth. ‘Give me your word!’ he thundered. ‘Anyone!’
‘All right,’ I said, not yet knowing that this was a promise I would not be able to keep.
THE ITALIAN ALPS
Aosta was our first stop on Italian soil. It is beautiful there, in the high green pastures that fall away from white Alpine peaks. The sun sparkles on the snow; the air is pure. But Aosta is only the cusp of Italy. From there, Florence and Bologna and Venice and Siena and Rome – all the masterpieces of European civilisation – beckon. Visitors do not linger in Aosta. The young people who come on Tour, the English Quality, stand outside log-lined chalets above vast flower meadows, in high wigs, holding pet dogs, counting luggage and huffing loudly. ‘How far is it from here to Milan? Two days? How can it be two days?’
On the day we arrived, our bodies sore from the coach rattling down the stony slopes from Zermatt and the Valais, Edgar hungrily eyed these splendid youths. ‘We will soon make new friends. Don’t worry,’ he said urgently. ‘Benjamin, don’t worry.’ But I hadn’t been worried about that. What did worry me was the truth that we had come so close to in Paris, before Edgar had hastened us away. Whilst travelling through the endless, dull cities of Germany, he had begun to imagine that we might see our friends from Paris again. But I knew one thing: I did not want to see Sir Gideon and Augusta. I hoped never to see them again.
On our second day in Aosta, Edgar was struck down with a sickness. He was one of several guests in our chalet poisoned by some spoiled yoghurt. The owner was mortified and called for a physician, insisting that he would pay the bill, although, in fact, he never did. I sat at the edge of Edgar’s bed in our shared room, and asked him if there was anything I could do.
‘You should go out,’ he said.
‘Go out?’ I replied. My brother’s skin was as green as mint jelly, and his eyes as white as lard. But now he told me to go out by myself, when I had never been outside on my own in my life.
‘You can’t stay here.’
‘But don’t you want to meet people with me? I am nervous to go on my own, Edgar.’
He let out a heaving, puking sort of groan. ‘You can speak to people, Benjamin,’ he said. ‘Don’t be such a child.’ I had forgotten how, as children, he’d liked to advertise his year’s seniority over me. I heard it again then. His annoyance was down to his sickness, but still, it worked. I agreed, and took my leave for the day.
That day and the next, I drifted around Aosta, whilst Edgar remained, liverish and sweating, in his sickbed. Even at that high altitude, the Italian summer sun was hard on an English wool coat. I ate alone in a tavern, a luncheon of air-dried meats and oily salad, and watched French diners twirling their hands and making appalled pronouncements on the quality of the cuisine. This seemed to somewhat bolster their mood. I shrank into the corner, hiding behind my table, and uttering no word except the occasional grazie to the serving girls. A group of English Tourists stood near me once. One raised a hand, recognising that I was one of their nation. I looked away, afraid that they might initiate any conversation. What little black thing inside me made me turn my face away? A voice in my head, saying, they won’t want you. The voice, I imagined initially, belonged to Augusta Anson.
Keeping myself to myself, I decided to see what remained of the ancient Roman city. I stared up at old arches, remnants of a long-dead empire. I visited the amphitheatre. Inspecting it, I thought only: so much grey brick. The Porta Pretoria: more grey brick. The Arch of Augustus: yet more grey brick. Somewhere, in my mother’s guidebook, were the instructions of what we should see, and implicitly, what we should think. Admire the Doric entablature! The symmetry of the triglyphs! I stared at grey brick, and thought, I hate Aosta. I hate this. I hate all of it. This voice surprised me too. It certainly was not the voice of Augusta Anson.
I dragged myself out to see the church of Sant’Orso. I had never even visited the churches of London. My parents were not churchgoers and certainly had not encouraged us to go rolling around the city looking at things. I therefore had no idea whether Sant’Orso was in any way noteworthy. I walked around its shadowed and candlelit spaces at a funereal pace, looking at things, but I hadn’t a clue if they were significant or not. On painted panels, sad-eyed Marys gazed up at accusatory Jesuses. My mother, when talking about the history of art, would often speak of the ‘mysteries’ of religious artworks, yet we were never educated to experience that mystery. We merely observed it, repeating what renowned art historians had written.
Upon reaching the dull Gothic nave, I stared up into its featureless ceiling. Various gaunt and exhausted Christs in multiple states of dishevelment hung from crosses. Somewhere nearby, a group of despairing nuns stood gazing up. One of them whispered in Latin, ‘He died for our sins.’ What a bloody stupid thing to do, I suddenly thought. No one had asked him to.
I heard a voice at my shoulder: ‘I say, are you English?’ The voice was clear, bell-like. I turned. An unwigged, golden-haired young man was peering at me. His skin had the gilded pinkness of an Englishman in the South. I felt myself wince; my eyes flickered, even in the gloom of the church. He was a few years older than me, a man rather than a boy. He wore a royal-blue coat, so deep in hue it seemed to jump off his body. His cravat was badly tied. No one in Paris would wear their cravat other than tightly wrapped like a tourniquet around their Adam’s apple. And he was handsome, very handsome; as handsome a man as I had ever seen. ‘I am Mister Horace Lavelle,’ he said, a marvellous half-smile on his lips. He was gazing at me, with amused intensity. ‘You are English, aren’t you? I can tell.’