Foreign Affairs

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

HUGH FLEETWOOD

VALANCOURT BOOKS

Foreign Affairs by Hugh Fleetwood

First published by Hamish Hamilton in 1973

First American edition published by Stein and Day in 1974

First Valancourt Books edition 2015

Copyright © 1973 by Hugh Fleetwood

Preface and cover painting copyright © 2015 by Hugh Fleetwood

The right of Hugh Fleetwood to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the copying, scanning, uploading, and/or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher.

Published by Valancourt Books, Richmond, Virginia

http://www.valancourtbooks.com

PREFACE

Re-reading Foreign Affairs some forty-three years after I wrote it, I was struck by two things. The first was that while later I might have done things differently, I wasn’t at all ashamed of my youthful effort, and felt that, nasty as it was, the story still worked. The second was that the underlying theme that I have come to see runs through virtually all my work was here almost nakedly on show.

Again and again, however different my individual plots and settings, and however often I have set off intending to do something quite else, I have found myself writing about an artist—whether a writer, a painter, or in the case of Foreign Affairs a musician—who either commits a murder, or gains a knowledge of murder and ends up condoning it. And ironically, as a result finds his or her art, or even humanity, enriched.

Being so struck, I then went on to reflect that while for a novel to be counted a success the story must, as I say, work, for a novel to be of more than passing interest there must also be what some might call a sub-text and Henry James termed a Figure in the Carpet, but I prefer to think of as a body that the author keeps more or less hidden beneath the surface of his or her tale. A body that nevertheless constantly threatens to—and sometimes does—bob up into the light, and of which the reader is always vaguely aware. To be horrified by, disquieted by, amused by, but always, with luck, intrigued by. A body, moreover, that however much the author pretends otherwise, and however hard he or she has tried to remove all trace of him or herself from the surface, tends on closer inspection to bear a close resemblance to that author—if not to reveal his or her true face.

Hugh Fleetwood

London, 2015

1

Paolo Levin opened his eyes. He looked at the red plastic clock on the table by his bed. Eleven. He looked up at the photographs on the wall. Giant framed photographs. Of himself. Paolo in the city. Paolo in the country. Paolo in blue jeans. Paolo in a heavy sweater. Paolo in bathing shorts. Paolo nude.

Then he looked at the posters on the wall. He read his name. Paolo Levin. A concert . . . pianist, Paolo Levin. A concert . . . soloist, Paolo Levin. A recital. Paolo Levin. Paolo in Florence. Paolo in Siena. Paolo in Catania, in Munich, Berlin, and Paris. . . .

He felt reassured. He closed his eyes.

Elaine would call soon. They would talk for half an hour or so. Then he would get up and make some coffee and take a shower. After that he would go out and buy a newspaper, and something to eat for lunch. When he had read the paper, and had his lunch, and spoken to a few other friends on the phone he would . . . he should practice, he supposed. But unless the weather was bad, or Elaine was busy, or he really had nothing else to do, he knew that he wouldn’t. He would go to the beach, or go out with his camera and take some photographs and hope he met someone he knew who could take some photographs of him. Or he would go and buy a book and sit outside somewhere and read.

He opened his eyes again and looked at the closed shutters and wondered what the weather was like. He hoped it was fine.

The red telephone on the table by his bed rang. He lifted the receiver and said, Hello, how are you? Recovered?

Paul? a hesitant voice said.

Oh, it’s you. He frowned. He didn’t feel like speaking to his mother—especially as she was going to complain.

You could sound a little more friendly.

I just woke up.

It’s eleven o’clock.

I was out late last night.

Paul, his mother repeated. He imagined he heard her sigh.

Yes?

Why didn’t you tell us you were playing in Milan last Monday? I would have liked to come. So would your father.

You know I don’t like family or friends listening to me.

Well, I think you might have told us anyway. And you could have come up to see us since you were so near. We haven’t seen you for six months.

I had to get back to Rome immediately to see someone. How did you find out?

"I saw a little review in the Corriere."

Oh. That.

Yes, dear. It wasn’t very good.

I thought it was. ‘Great sensibility and musicality.’

‘Marred by careless execution.’

It didn’t say that.

Well, something very like.

Paolo sighed.

His mother continued. "Paul, dear, do you practice enough? Do you practice every day? I know that all the great pianists do. And if you can do something well it seems so silly to me to ruin it just out of laziness."

I can’t help it if I’m lazy.

Of course you can, dear.

Anyway, I do practice.

I was calling you yesterday all day and you were never in, and I called you the day before yesterday.

I don’t answer the phone when I’m practicing.

Were you practicing yesterday?

No. I went to the beach.

Oh, his mother said in quiet triumph.

Anyway, after I’ve given a concert I always give myself a week off.

You treat yourself very well. But if you give yourself a week off I do think you could have come up to see us. Even if it was just for lunch. I know you had to see someone, but even so—

I’ll be up at Christmas.

Yes, dear.

And you know I really do practice. It’s just that I prefer to wait until I can see a concert’s about a month away, and then I do nothing else—eight, nine hours a day. He bit his lips. He felt furious with himself. His mother spoke so calmly, so patiently, with such an air of defeat—and yet she always managed to make him feel weak and defensive, and tell lies.

She said now, more calmly and patiently than ever, Oh, well, I suppose you know best, dear, but it doesn’t seem the ideal way of going about things, and it does seem a shame, and—

How are you all?

We’re very well. Your father’s out at the moment. Aunt Mary’s here.

Oh, my God. And you wanted me to come and see you with her there! Are you mad?

Well, she is a bit difficult.

I guess Dad’s taking her for a trip round the lake on the steamer?

Yes, he is, actually.

That’s all he ever does when she’s there.

Well, she is his sister. We have to get her out of the house somehow and she does like the lake. His mother laughed. Oh, and I got a letter from your grandmother.

Isn’t she ever going to die?

She said she’s feeling very healthy. She thinks she’s getting tired of Florida. Everyone’s so old there, she said. She wants to move somewhere else.

Ah.

She said when are you going to get married, because she would like to make some of her money over to you while she’s still alive but she wants an excuse for doing it. So she said if you get married she will.

Hell, Paolo said. Blackmailing old bitch. If I thought I was never going to get her money I guess I just might do it, but since I am going to anyway, and she can’t live much longer, I’m damned if I’ll give her the satisfaction of seeing me rich and miserable. If you write, tell her I’m thinking about it, but if she wants an excuse, what’s wrong with my birthday?

She doesn’t like to think about birthdays.

How old is she now, for God’s sake?

She must be ninety-three.

How disgusting.

Oh, Paul— and his mother went on to speak about all her other relatives, and about what she had been doing that summer, and what she was going to do that winter.

It was eleven-thirty when Paolo finally said goodbye and hung up. He lay back in his bed and felt exhausted. The day had started badly.

Five minutes later the phone rang again. This time Paolo lifted the receiver more carefully, prepared for whoever might be on the line.

"Who have you been talking to?"

A nasal Bostonian voice. Elaine. He smiled. Thank God it’s you. My mother has been on the phone for half an hour.

You poor dear. Where is she?

Oh, safely up in Stresa. But—you know. Why didn’t I go up to see them when I was in Milan on Monday. Why don’t I practice more.

Elaine laughed.

I guess I should just be thankful that she only calls once every three months.

It’s your own fault in any case. You should never have persuaded them to come over.

"How could I know they’d want to live here. I only said they should come and visit me because I didn’t want to drag back to the States that year. I never dreamed they’d stay."

They never think of going back to America?

No. Not for a moment. It’s almost three years now. Still, it could be worse. They could have come to live here in Rome.

Elaine laughed. They wanted to be near you in their old age.

Well, I think it was very tactless of them. Why did they think I left America if not to get away from them? And after all, my mother left Italy when she was a year old. There can’t be any great attraction to the motherland for her, or anything like that. Anyway, let’s talk about something else. What’s the weather like?

Beautiful.

Good. Because my mother’s made me so nervous I shall be in a bad mood all day, and I’d never be able to practice. Shall we go to the beach?

At twelve o’clock Paolo got out of bed. He made some coffee, took a shower, put on some blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and went out onto his balcony. It was a beautiful day. He went into his living room and looked at the paintings and sketches of himself that various friends had done. Then he sat down in an armchair in the sun and lit his first cigarette of the day.

He looked at his piano and thought of the review his mother had read in the paper. Great sensibility and musicality—above all in his performance of Schubert’s posthumous sonata, spoiled somewhat by a certain technical carelessness. Romantic nonsense. Whoever had written that couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was his technical ability alone that had got him to the end of the work with as few mistakes as he had made. That got him to the end of everything he played. If he had relied on sensibility and musicality he wouldn’t have been able to play a note, any more than he would have been able to ask for directions in an unknown foreign language in an unknown foreign country. He found his way through the music only by following, with a sense of desperation at times, all that he had learned—as he would have been able to understand the directions in that foreign country only if they were given in sign language. It was when he stopped to consider the unknown world of musicality and sensibility—as if trying to utter a word in that foreign language—that his hands refused to do exactly what he had taught them to do, and he hit a wrong note.

He had more than a month before his next concert, he thought with relief. He looked at the calendar above the piano. September 18. Then he closed his eyes and lay back in the sun and realized that he should have known, an hour and a half ago when he had wakened, that today was going to be a bad day. He should have known that when the telephone rang at eleven it would not be Elaine. September 18. March 18. Exactly six months to the day. Six months ago. . . .

He had wakened at eleven and the telephone had rung and he had picked it up and said, Hello, how are you? There had been no reply, and he had thought it had been a wrong number, and had forgotten about it by the time Elaine called him five minutes later. But that afternoon, at five o’clock, when the police had called and had asked him to come, immediately—and he had gone around to Christopher’s apartment and been asked to identify the corpse—it was then, standing by the bloody bed, that he realized that that call, at eleven, had been made by Christopher. Christopher, calling to say goodbye; or calling to ask Paolo to come to him. . . .

He put out his cigarette. It would have been out of the question to practice today. Out of the question to do anything today except go to the beach, eat, get drunk, play cards, go to a movie. Christopher, his mother . . . he stood up and his mouth twitched with irritation. Pursuing him, checking up on him, trying to pin him down, trying to trap him, trying to make him feel guilty. . . .

He went into his mirror-lined hall and, taking his camera from the coat rack where it hung, left the apartment. He ran down the stairs and out into the street; a deep, narrow street, and dark after the brightness of his rooms on the top floor.

He went down an alley and came out into Via Cavour; out into the sun. He paused and breathed in. He smelled the heat and the traffic fumes, and the smell was pleasant to him. He smiled up at the blue sky. Since he had decided he was going to have a bad day he would probably enjoy himself—have rather a good day, in fact. He hoped so. But first, the newspaper. There was a stand on the corner, but he didn’t like to buy his paper there; he preferred to walk a hundred yards up the road to a little shop. There he could thumb through all the magazines he would never buy.

He went in and smiled at the woman behind the counter, and then turned to the rack on the wall opposite her and started thumbing through the pages of Newsweek. Then A.B.C. Then Stop. There was no news that interested him. The usual economic crises. The usual people pregnant, about to be married, about to be divorced.

As he flicked through the magazines someone came into the shop and stood next to him and started doing the same. After a couple of minutes Paolo glanced up to see a tall, very thin boy with an enormous mop of brown curly hair around his very thin face. But the boy wasn’t doing quite the same as him. Yes, he was flicking through the magazines in the same way. But he wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at Paolo.

Paolo lowered his eyes and turned back toward the counter. He picked up La Stampa and paid for it and went to the door of the shop. Pausing for a moment, he looked back over his shoulder. The tall boy was no longer flicking through the magazines, or even pretending to look at them. He was staring at Paolo, and his eyes in his thin—appallingly thin—face seemed black. His mouth was slightly open, and its lips were very wide and wet.

Paolo felt embarrassed and uncomfortable, and started to walk down the street. There had been something obscene about the boy. Something frightening. He shivered, even though he was in the sun, and felt suddenly tired and afraid. Today wasn’t going to be bad. Today was going to be dreadful. Because of course it had been in that same shop that he had seen Christopher for the first time. Had looked up and seen someone staring at him; someone who had said, Excuse me, are you American? Someone who, when he met him again by chance in a friend’s house two weeks later, had introduced himself as Christopher Rawlings. It was there, at the friend’s house, that they had started to talk, become friendly. But the first time he had seen Christopher had been in that newsagent’s shop, when Christopher had asked him for directions—he had wanted to find St. Peter’s in Chains—and had thought Paolo was American because he had been looking through Time magazine. That had been three years ago.

He walked down the street and looked in shop windows and tried not to think about Christopher. Christopher looking at him in the newsagent’s; Christopher talking to him; becoming friendly with him; becoming almost a brother to him . . . Only Paolo had never wanted a brother. He didn’t want any sort of family. He had left his home, left America, when he was fourteen, to get away from his family. He didn’t want anyone.

He had had a brother, and his brother had died. And Christopher had died. In his bloody bed, with a hole in his head and, on the floor by the bed, a small black gun. A dead Christopher, naked except for a brown glove on his right hand. On the glove there had been traces of cordite, which had made the police conclude that Christopher had been wearing the glove when he pulled the trigger. A few of the more scandalous newspapers had suggested that someone else could have worn the glove to shoot the gun, and then put the glove on Christopher’s hand. But there had been no evidence to support this hypothesis, and a verdict of