Then, a couple of hours later, she had heard them talking on the stairs as they returned. She had cautiously opened her door and peered down from the landing to see that all was well. What she saw was Irene holding Ulysses as she waited for Stuart to open the door. Bertie was there too, and he seemed cheerful enough, so she had gone back into the flat, reassured that all was well.
What she heard next was more slamming of doors. When she looked out of the window this time, she saw the entire Pollock family, including what she thought was Ulysses, again getting into a taxi and again racing off up the road at some speed. This time, it was not much more than an hour before she heard the door at the bottom of the stair close with a bang and the sound of Irene’s voice drifting upwards.
Domenica could not help but hear, even had she not been standing close to her front door, which was held open very slightly.
“Humiliation!” said Irene. “Sheer, utter humiliation! How dare she say that we should have checked the baby first to see that it was the right one! Isn’t that her job? Isn’t she meant to make sure that she’s handing over a boy rather than a girl? It’s easy enough, for heaven’s sake!”
Stuart muttered something which Domenica did not quite catch. But she did catch Irene’s reply.
“Nonsense! Complete nonsense! Your trouble, Stuart, is that you’re a bureaucrat and you’re too willing to forgive the crass ineptitude of your fellow bureaucrats. What if Ulysses had been given to somebody else . . . ?”
The door slammed, and the conversation was cut off.
Domenica smiled. It sounded as if there had been some sort of mix-up over babies. But she was not sure how this could have occurred, and it had obviously been sorted out in the end. Her curiosity satisfied, she was about to close her door when she noticed that Antonia’s door on the other side of the landing was open. For a moment, she thought that her neighbour had perhaps been doing exactly what she was doing – listening to the conversation below, and she felt a flush of shame. It was a most ignoble thing to do, to listen in to the conversation of others, but there were occasions when it was, quite frankly, irresistible. And if we can’t be ignoble from time to time, then we are simply failing to be human.
For a moment or two, Domenica hesitated. There were no sounds coming from Antonia’s flat, so the builders were probably not there. But if they were not there, then who, if anybody, was? Had Antonia perhaps left the door open by mistake when she went out on some errand? If that were the case, then it was Domenica’s duty, she felt, to check up that all was well and then close the door for her.
Domenica crossed the landing and pushed Antonia’s door wide open. “Antonia?” she called out.
There was silence, apart from the ticking of a clock somewhere inside the flat. She went in, peering through the hall and into the kitchen beyond. There was no sign of anybody.
“Antonia?”
Again there was only silence. Then, quite suddenly – so suddenly, in fact, that Domenica emitted a gasp – a man appeared from a door off the hall. It was Markus, the builder.
“You gave me a fright,” Domenica said.
Markus looked at her. He was frowning.
“Where’s Antonia?” she asked. There was something about his manner which worried her. It was something strange, almost threatening.
“Where is she?” Domenica repeated.
Markus said nothing as he moved behind Domenica and closed the front door.
This may not matter if one is studying a group of people not known for their violent propensities, but it may matter a great deal if one is, for instance, taking an interest in organisation and command structures within the Shining Path in Peru. Or looking at gift-exchange patterns among
which revealed that anthropology is one of the most dangerous professions in the world, with risks ranging from military attack (2 per cent) to suspicion of spying (13 per cent) and being bitten by animals (17 per cent).
Domenica had experienced her fair share of these dangers in the course of her career and had discovered that physical peril had a curiously calming effect on her. While some of us may panic, or at least feel intense fear, Domenica found that danger
merely focused her mind on the exigencies of the moment and on the question of how best to deal with them. Now, trapped in Antonia’s flat – or so it appeared, once Markus had closed the front door and was standing, solidly, between the door and her – Domenica quickly began to consider why it was that she should feel threatened.
The closing of the door may have been a perfectly natural thing for Markus to do; a builder working within a house would not normally leave the front door open. And, of course, the Poles would not be affected by the paranoia and distrust which have affected those countries where it is considered unwise for a man to be in a room with a woman unless the door is left open. That ghastly custom, insulting to all concerned, would not yet have reached the less politically correct shores of Poland, thank heavens, and long may they be preserved from such inanity, thought Domenica.
She found her voice. “Now, Markus,” she said. “I know that you don’t speak English, and I, alas, do not speak Polish. But my question is a simple one: Antonia?” As she pronounced her neighbour’s name, Domenica made a gesture which, she thought, would unambiguously convey the sense of what she was trying to say – a sort of tentative pointing gesture, ending in a whirl of a hand to signify its interrogative nature.
Markus looked at her in puzzlement. “Brick?”
