The Savage Garden

    'The world. Or maybe every age thinks just the same thing.'

    'Maybe.'

    'Big changes are coming. I can see it everywhere ... music, theater, films, art. Look at Harry's sculpture. Have you ever seen anything like it? Don't listen to the politicians, always look at the artists, they're the first to tell us where we're going.'

    'Have you been talking to him?'

    'Harry?'

    'It's not the first time I've heard that line of argument.'

    She laughed. 'Well, that one was mine.'

    They were approached by a passing couple. A few pleasantries were exchanged, Adam was introduced by Signora Docci, but the couple soon took the veiled hint from their hostess and moved on.

    Signora Docci ground the tip of the cane into the gravel at their feet, observing her handiwork for a moment before looking up.

    'You have a gift, Adam, don't waste it.'

    'You have been talking to him.'

    'He's right. You sense things other people don't.'

    'Or maybe I'm so ordinary that anything that isn't disturbs me.'

    She laughed. 'I'm sorry you're leaving. I'm also sorry we only met at the end of my life. I think we could have been very good friends.'

    Embarrassment left him mute. No one had ever spoken to him in such terms before.

    'Remember those words,' she said.

    'I will.'

    She turned stiffly and surveyed the villa with an approving eye—the stir and hum on the terrace, the lowering sun skimming the roof.

    'Now take this old lady back to her guests. It's time to announce dinner.'

    Harry had engineered matters so that Signora Pedretti—the new love of his life—was seated between them.

    'Make me look good,' said Harry, seeing her approach their table.

    'How?' asked Adam.

    'Just be yourself.'

    Signora Pedretti was young, petite, impishly beautiful. Her delicate wrists glistened with gold, and her mouth was a startling splash of color. She didn't appear nearly as surprised as Harry by the fact that providence had thrown them together again. Nor was she unhappy about it.

    She proved considerably better company than the woman to Adam's left, who only came to life when he finally remarked on the jewels blazing at her neck. She was French, Parisian, married to the American gentleman holding forth on the far side of the table about the benefits of the fertilizers and hybrid grains he sold to the Italians. God knows how much money he had made importing 'superior American product,' as he termed it—quite a bundle, if his wife's necklace was anything to go by—but he talked like a man on a humanitarian mission. Italy was poor, ravaged by war and desperately in need of being dragged into the twentieth century. He, of course, was proud to be playing his part in this mercy mission.

    His words clearly rankled the Italians around the table, but out of politeness, or maybe stupefaction, they held themselves in check. It took an Englishwoman to light the touch paper. Adam had been introduced to her earlier in the evening—a tall, pale creature, gaunt and ascetic, with a bony high-ridged nose and heavy-lidded eyes that lent her a misleading air of boredom. It was a distinctive and familiar look, a particular brand of ugliness reserved for the English upper classes.

    Those same lugubrious eyes now twinkled with mischief as she leaned forward, searching out the Italian faces around the table.

    'I happen to know a lot of Americans,' she said with her cut- glass accent, 'and please don't think for a moment that they are all like Seymour.'

    'Vera . . .' There was a note of friendly forbearance in Seymour's voice that suggested they were well acquainted.

    'Can't you see they're only tolerating you? They find your views offensive. As do I.'

    'I'm not trying to be offensive.'

    'I know,' replied Vera with a wicked smile, 'it comes naturally.'

    Seymour gave a hearty laugh. 'Touche.'

    'If the United States is so worried about communism and Russia's interest in Italy, which is a questionable notion now that that funny little man Khrushchev is premier, then you really should spend less time treating this country like a marketplace for your goods and more time making friends.'

    The ensuing debate ran right through the starter of blue mullet and on into the spit-roasted pork stuffed with garlic and rosemary (which tasted as good as it had been smelling all afternoon). It was a lively and generally good-natured discussion about Fascists, Monarchists and democracy, poverty, overpopulation and America's desire to create the world in its own image. Even Harry and Signora Pedretti broke off from their quiet flirtation to chip in a