The Foreign Correspondent

but no tie, his chocolate-colored shirt buttoned at the throat.

“Good, you’re on time,” Emil said. “And here is your new landlord.”

The tall man looked him over, gave him a brief nod, then checked a fancy watch and said, “Let’s get busy.” From his pocket he brought out a large ring of keys, thumbing through them to find the one he wanted. “This way,” he said, heading to the far end of the tavern.

“It’s a good place, for you,” Emil said to Weisz. “People in and out, all day and all night. It’s been here since…when?”

The landlord shrugged. “There’s been a tavern on this site since 1490, so they say.”

At the back of the room, a low door made of thick planks. The landlord unlocked it, then ducked down beneath the frame and waited for Emil and Weisz. When they were through the door, he locked it behind them. Right away Weisz found it difficult to breathe, the air was an acid fog of spoiled wine. “It used to be a warehouse,” Emil said. The landlord took a kerosene lamp from a peg on the wall, lit it, then led them down a long flight of stone steps. The walls glistened with moisture, and Weisz could hear the rats as they scampered away. At the foot of the stairway, a corridor-it took them over a minute to walk to the end-opened to a massive vault, its ceiling a series of arches, with wooden casks lining the walls. The wine-laden air was so strong that Weisz had to wipe tears from his eyes. From the central arch, a lightbulb hung on a cord. The landlord reached up and turned on the light, which threw shadows on the wet stone block. “See? No torches for you,” Emil said, winking at Weisz.

“Must have electricity,” Weisz said.

“They put it in here in the twenties,” the landlord said.

From somewhere behind the walls, Weisz could hear the rhythmic sloshing of water. “Is this still in use?” he said. “Do people come down here?”

From the landlord, a dry rattle that passed for a laugh. “Whatever’s in there”-he nodded toward the casks-“you couldn’t drink it.”

“There’s another exit,” Emil said. “Down the corridor.”

The landlord looked at Weisz and said, “So?”

“How much do you want for it?”

“Six hundred lire a month. You pay me in advance, two months at a time. Then you can do whatever you want.”

Weisz thought it over, then reached in his pocket and began counting out hundred-lira notes. The landlord licked his thumb and made sure of the count while Emil stood by, smiling, hands in pockets. Then the landlord opened his key ring and handed Weisz two keys. “The tavern, and the other entrance,” he said. “If you need to find me, see your friend here, he’ll take care of it.” He turned off the light, lifted the kerosene lamp, and said, “We can leave from the other end.”

Outside the vault, the corridor made a sharp turn and became a tunnel, which led to a stairway that climbed back to street level. The landlord blew out the lamp, hung it on the wall, and unlocked a pair of heavy iron doors. He put his shoulder against one of them, which squeaked as it opened, to reveal the courtyard of a workshop, littered with old newspapers and machine parts. At the far end of the courtyard, a door in a brick wall led out to the piazza dello Scalo, where the market’s first customers, women carrying net bags, were busy at the stalls.

The landlord looked up at the sky and scowled at the drizzle. “See you next week,” he said to Emil, then nodded to Weisz. As he turned to go, a man stepped from a doorway and took him by the arm. For an instant, Weisz froze. Run. But a hand closed on the collars of his shirt and jacket and a voice said, “Just come along with me.” Weisz spun around and, with his forearm, knocked the man’s hand off him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Emil, running full speed down an aisle between the stalls, and the landlord, struggling with a man half his size, who was trying to bar his arm up behind his back.

The man facing Weisz was built thick, hard-faced and hard-eyed, a cop of some kind, with the belt of a shoulder holster, run beneath a flowered tie, across his chest. He produced a small case and flipped it open to reveal a badge, saying, “Understand?” He grabbed for Weisz’s arm, Weisz eluded him, then was slapped on the side of the face, and slapped again on the backswing. The second slap was so hard that his feet came off the ground, and he stumbled backward and sat down. “So, let’s make my life difficult,” the cop said. Weisz rolled over twice, then scrambled to his feet. But the cop was too fast, swung his leg, and kicked Weisz’s feet out from beneath him. He landed hard, realized there was a lot more of this to come, and tried to crawl under a market stall. From people nearby, a rising murmur, muted sounds of anger or sympathy, at the sight of a man being beaten.

The cop’s face turned bright red. He shoved an old woman out of his way, then reached down, caught Weisz by the ankle, and started to pull. “Come out of there,” he said under his breath. As Weisz was dragged from beneath the stall, an artichoke bounced off the cop’s forehead. Startled, he let go of Weisz and stepped backward. A carrot sailed past his ear, and he raised his hand to ward off a strawberry, while another artichoke hit him in the shoulder. From somewhere behind Weisz, a woman’s voice. “Leave him alone, Pazzo, you sonofabitch.”

Evidently, they knew this cop, and they didn’t like him. He drew a revolver, aimed it left, then swung it right, provoking a shouted “Yes, go ahead and shoot us, you miserable prick.” The fusillade increased: three or four eggs, a handful of sardines, more artichokes-in season and cheap that day-a lettuce, then a few onions. The cop pointed his gun at the sky and fired two shots.

The market people were not intimidated. Weisz saw a woman in a bloody apron, at the stall of the pork butcher, plunge a long-handled fork into a bucket and spear a pig ear, which, using the fork like a catapult, she fired off at the cop. Who now trotted backward until he stood at the edge of the piazza, beneath a crooked old tenement. He put two fingers in his mouth and produced a shrill whistle. But his partner was busy with the landlord, nobody appeared, and, when the first basin of water flew out of a window and splashed at his feet, he turned, and with one savage glare over his shoulder, I won’t forget this, left the piazza.

Weisz, his face burning, was still beneath the stall. As he started to crawl out, an immense woman, wearing a hair net and an apron, came rushing toward him, her eyeglasses, on a chain around her neck, bouncing with every step. She held out a hand, Weisz took it, and she hauled him effortlessly to his feet. “You better get out of here,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “They’ll be back. Do you have a place to go?”

Weisz said he didn’t-he sensed danger in the idea of returning to the via Corvino.

“Then come with me.”

They hurried down a row of stalls, then out of the piazza into the vicoli. “That bastard would arrest his mother,” the woman said.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” She came to a sudden stop, took him by the shoulders, and turned him so that she could see his face. “What did you do? You don’t look like a criminal. Are you a criminal?”

“No, I’m not a criminal.”

“Ah, I didn’t think so.” Then she took him by the elbow and said, “Avanti!” Walking as fast as she could, breathing hard as they climbed the hill.

The church of Santa Brigida was not splendid or ancient, it had been built of stucco, in a poor neighborhood, a century earlier. Inside, the market woman went down on one knee, crossed herself, then walked down the aisle and disappeared through a door opposite the altar. Weisz sat in the back. It had been a long time since he’d been in church, but he felt safe, for the moment, in the pleasant gloom touched with incense. When the woman reappeared, a young priest followed her up the aisle. She bent over Weisz and said, “Father Marco will take care of you,” then gripped his hand-be strong-and went on her way.

When she’d gone, the priest led Weisz back to the vestry, then to a small office. “She’s a good soul, Angelina,” he said. “Are you in trouble?”

Weisz wasn’t quite sure how to answer this. Father Marco was patient, and waited for him. “Yes, in some trouble, Father.” Weisz took a chance. “Political trouble.”

The priest nodded, this was not new. “Do you need a place to stay?”

“Until tomorrow night. Then I’ll be leaving the city.”

“Until tomorrow night we can manage.” He was relieved. “You can sleep on that couch.”

“Thank you,” Weisz said.

“What sort of politics?”

From the way he spoke, and listened, Weisz sensed that this was not a typical parish priest. He was an intellectual, destined to rise in the church or be banished to a remote district-it could go either way. “Liberal politics,” he said. “Antifascist politics.”