THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

Photo by Katie Smetherman on Unsplash

February 1963

I remember meeting Benjamin Messenger when I was sixteen years old. The first time meeting him, you’d never say he was a handsome man. In fact, the sight of him brought up more questions for me, than answers, the first one being: What happened to your face? It was obviously something I’d never ask him, because the obvious, and only answer, was that he’d been a casualty of war. I suppose that it was pretty-well self-explanatory; we weren’t that far removed from the war, after all. He had a long scar that was a deep, scarlet fold, running down from his left temple to his lower jaw; a second scar came creeping out from behind the stub of his left ear, crisscrossing the first one and staggering across the bridge of his nose. And then there was that stoop and limp he had—he leaned a little to the left—and when I’d pointed it out to him, he smiled, saying he’d been more than tall and straight-limbed in his youth; and that’s how he said it, too: ‘tall and straight-limbed in my youth’—as if people still talk like that. Later, I’d found out they’d taken a piece of bone out of his thigh rather than have to amputate his leg.

Something about him made me think of how things used to be back in the olden days—and by that I mean those days we all seem to call our more recent past. That’s why I thought it was safe to assume anyone his age had been in the war—on one side or the other, it doesn’t really matter—because the world’s at peace now, or almost. Hell, most of the priests running in and out of the Vatican gates are war vets, so why should he be any different? I heard someone in a bistro one day saying how contrition was good for the soul, and if a man wants to turn to God having gone through the war, who was he to say the man was wrong? I didn’t know what the word contrition meant, so I went home and looked it up. It made no sense to me at the time, except that it was listed between contrite and contrivance, which are both interesting in their own right, because they deal with guilt and plotting, just like the Church and the Mafia.

But that first day I met Benjamin Messenger, he was standing in the rain under a wind-swept umbrella that had seen better days. He had a violin case strapped to his back. He was wiping his wet hair out of his eyes and searching through his pockets at the same time. I couldn’t stop staring at him. Momma wiped her hands on her apron after saying something I didn’t hear, and walked around the counter, peering out of the window to see what I was staring at.

I was quick to duck out of her way, thinking she was going to hit me.

Zia Fatima laughed and asked Momma who it was.

“There’s a man at signora Rabizzi’s door.”

“Go help the poor man,” Zia said to me, looking out at the rain pounding the pavement and leaving spots like stained halos on the street. 

“You shouldn’t have to be told,” Momma added.

“Maybe he’ll tip me if I help him up the stairs?” I said.

 “Why take the stairs when there’s a perfectly fine lift?”

“No, it’s the smart thing to do, isn’t it?” Zia laughed. “But then again, who’d ever think Lorenzo would be smart enough to come up with something like that?”

“Are you saying I’m not smart?” I asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying! Why do you think boys get married late in life, when they get older? It takes them that long to grow up.”

“Maybe they’ve all got aunts and mothers who won’t let them grow up? How am I ever going to ever meet a woman if you won’t let me out of your sight? That’s why we get married when we’re old,” I said, grabbing my coat to the sing-song shouts of Momma and Zia both screaming after me to pull my zipper up as I fought the door against a cold, harsh, February day.

“You see? You think I don’t know enough to do my jacket up in the rain?” I added, just before I closed the door.

Mamma and Zia were busy making gelato. They ran a small gelateria at via Candia 99, two doors down from the apartment we rented from signora Rabizzi who used to watch over me while Momma and Zia worked. Not that I need her watching over me any more; like I said, I was sixteen. But we’d been living in the same apartment with Zia for eight years—Momma and I—moving in with her three years after Papà died. Momma was always telling me what her life was like before Papà died.

“I don’t want you to ever forget that you had a father,” she was quick to say.

I don’t, even now.

But whenever I asked her how Papà died, she was always eager to change the subject. I have a pretty good idea as to what happened, but you can’t be too careful about what you say, or who you say it to. Everybody knows somebody, who knows somebody else, and Momma still has to pay her lira to the man who does his rounds every other Saturday. Twice a month is what I was told—because Zia told me. When Papà was alive, it was once every two months. It had something to do with the war and how Papà had earned his respect.

Momma always gives the man a gelato to take with him on hot days, or a hot cocoa when it’s cold, before he sets off on his rounds of the neighbourhood, finishing his day with a visit to signora Rabizzi’s—just as he did that day.

There was a large puddle on the twisted, broken, sidewalk and I tried to step around it, but it seeped through the sole of my left shoe and I shivered as it sought out my toes. I asked the man if he needed help with the door, offering to hold his umbrella while he searched his pockets. It felt as if I was fighting a losing battle with the wind the whole time I held the umbrella. He looked at me and smiled, showing me the address he had scribbled on a crumpled wad of paper, and I nodded.

While he looked at the names listed beside the door, I reached up, pressing signora Rabizzi’s button. I stepped back and waited for her to answer. He looked down at me and I smiled up at him.

“It always takes her a minute to answer. She paints,” I said awkwardly, not really knowing what else to say. I was speaking Italian, and he smiled at me and shook his head ever so slightly.

“I’m sorry, my Italian’s not very good,” he said. “I haven’t spoken it since I was here during the War.”

“Artiste,” I said slowly, as if talking slower would make it easier for him to understand me. “Pittore,” I added, pretending to paint.

“An artist? She’s not a nurse?”

“Nurse?”

“Si? You understand me?” he smiled.

“Si. I understand the English,” I said, nodding as a gust of wind threatened to flip the umbrella inside out.

“Learned it in school, did you? That’s pretty smart with the Olympics just around the corner.”

“Signora Rabizzi teached me,” I laughed.

“Did she now? Well, good on her for that,” he said, and I didn’t know whether he was being sincere and meant it, or if he was mocking the idea of her teaching me at all; either way, it left me feeling confused.

It was more than a moment before the intercom crackled and she called out, knowing it was me. Her breathless voice was deep and intoxicating.  It’s always two quick buzzes and one long one; that was the code she told me to use. That way, she’d know it was me. It would be our little secret, she said, and me, five years old at the time, fell in love for the first time.

I spoke quickly, knowing the man wouldn’t understand.

“There’s a man here. I think he wants a room. He’s got the address, but he asked if you were a nurse.”

“A nurse?”

“Why would he ask that?”

“Because I was, once upon a time…but that was a long time ago—during the war.”

“You never told me,” I said, as if it made a difference.

“I haven’t told you a lot of things, now help him with his bags and I’ll send the lift down.”

“He doesn’t speak Italian.”

“Of course he doesn’t.”

“He’s English.”

“All my guests are English. I thought you would have noticed that.”

“I thought they spoke American?” I asked, looking up at the man and noticing his scars for the first time.

“That’s not what that means, now help him in; I’ll give you a treat when you get here.”

I gave the man his umbrella and turned to pick up his suitcase. It was big and heavy, and he had to help me get it in through the door.

At that moment, the mafioso came through the door, holding it open.

“Am I supposed to give you a tip? Is that what she said?” Benjamin Messenger asked, thanking the man as he made his way out.

“Si,” I said, flashing the man my best smile.

“Si? Well, of course you’re going to say that, aren’t you?”

“Si. Five lira.”

“Five lira?” he smiled, waiting at a second door as I struggled down the narrow path of the inner courtyard. It was called an atrium, signora Rabizzi told me. I was careful to step around the old fountain. It was a fish pond now, with seven koi, and I’d been feeding the fish at one o’clock, everyday, rain or shine, since I was nine years old.

“I don’t suppose you have a key for this door as well?”

“Si,” I smiled. “I do. I live here.”

“You live here? Where?”

“At the top floor, with signora Rabizzi. Two lira.”

“Two?” he laughed. “You’re a regular little Medici, aren’t you?”

“Medici! Si! Lorenzo! That’s me!”

“Lorenzo? Your name’s Lorenzo?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

I nodded.

I struggled with the suitcase while the rain came down with what I thought could only be spite; the rain puddled in the narrow courtyard, seeping through the ancient cobblestones, and I watched as he leaned on a cane I hadn’t noticed earlier as he waited. I took heart seeing he had a cane and stood a little straighter, determined to give him my best effort. I knew I had to earn my money now that I’d set my price. Seven lire was a lot of money. I looked at the pool as the fountain suddenly came to life with raindrops bristling across the dark mirror-like surface, blurring the reflection of the windows around us, as well as the heavy clouds darkening the sky. I looked at him and forced a  smile.

“Determined,” he said with a laugh. “I like that. Shows grit.”

“What’s that? Grit?”

“It’s an American word.”

“I thought you were English?”

“I am.”

“And you speak American?”

“No such thing; I speak English. Americans speak English as well, just not as well,” he said, laughing at what I imagine was the quickness of his own wit.

“Do you like Americans?” I asked.

“Compared to who?”

“What about the Germans?”

He gave me a look I thought told me I’d gone too far.

“Anyone then,” I said.

“Sure,” he smiled as he looked down at me and pulled the suitcase out of the rain. “I like Kennedy.”

I searched the key out of my pocket and pushed the heavy door open with my shoulder, then reached back and pulled the suitcase inside, closing the door behind us. I could hear the lift’s caged door closing, and looked up at the small wooden car riding its way down. What little light there was came in through a set of narrow stained-glass windows, the colours mottling the bright tiled floor and up along the walls.

“Is that her?”

“Si.”

“Alma?”

“You know her name?”

Some years ago, Signora Rabizzi told me she bought the building we lived in with profits from several of her paintings. The building was a burned out shell at the end of the War, and had stood empty for five years before she bought it. As a war widow, she said she’d received government benefits. The government felt guilty, she said. They always feel guilty whenever they think of those days, she laughed, but the better for her, she added. I never understood any of that, except that Momma and Zia opened their tiny shop two doors down—when Papà was still alive. Signora Rabizzi said Papà was lucky, her husband had been sent to the Russian Front in 1943, where he was captured and force-marched to Siberia. She said the war had been hard for everyone, but it was nothing compared to what life was like in Rome under Mussolini and the Fascists.

“Ah, signore Messenger?” she asked, walking to meet him with her hand held out. That’s how you conduct business, she told me.

“Signora Rabizzi? Alma?”

“Si,” she replied, letting go of his hand. The smile playing on her face was somehow accented by the slight tilt of her head. She was a beautiful woman—there was no denying that—and was probably close to my mother’s age; which if I had to guess, I’d say she was maybe forty. She had striking blue eyes though, and a Roman nose, with sensuous lips and high cheekbones—the result of having lost her back teeth during the war to scurvy, she told me. She was dressed in a wrinkled grey skirt with a white blouse; her normal hosiery was noticeably absent, and her legs bare. Her hair looked a mess.

“I was given your name by Roger Stanfield. Do you remember him?” signore Messenger asked, looking around the wide expance of the foyer.
“With the London Symphony?” she asked, searching her memory.

“You do remember. He said you would. Remarkable, that; it was more than three years ago.”

“Si.”

“He was here for a year, so I don’t see why you wouldn’t remember him,” he said with a smile.

“I have several guests who sometimes stay for long sabbaticals.”

“And what do you consider a long sabbatical?”

“A year,” she said with a playful laugh as he finished his coffee and stood up; she walked him to the small lift, sliding the door open.

“Well, I won’t be staying that long, but I could be here for several months,” I heard him say as he stepped into the small cage.

“The only guests who’ve been here longer are Lorenzo, his mother, and Zia—his aunt,” I could hear her say to him in her sing-song voice. “They own the gelateria. I’ve been watching over Lorenzo since he was five. I’ve practically raised him. I taught him English.”

“Indeed? He said you did. He speaks it quite well. He’s certainly lived up to his name.”

“His name? I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Lorenzo? de Medici? The kid certainly knows the value of a pound.”

“Does he?” She turned, looking at me standing in the doorway. She pulled the caged door closed.

“I offered to carry his luggage up; he offered to pay me,” I said with a smile.

“And how much did he offer? Or was it something you suggested?” she asked.

“I may have suggested a price,” I said, looking down at my feet rather than her; I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

“What did he charge you, signore Messenger?”

“Five lira,” he said, looking at me with a grin. “And then two more to open the door.”

“Too much?” I asked.

Signora Rabizzi smiled as she shook her head.

“Not when you considered how long it will take you to carry his suitcases up six flights of stairs.”

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