Coveting the Neighbour's Wife

Krish Day

Description

A character-driven tale revolving around three main figures: Ursula Fussli, the grand-daughter of a Wehrmacht officer perished in the plot against Hitler; Leonardo Bellini, a Milanese lawyer and tortured soul whose life of promise is derailed by a passing incident; Armin von Gottner, scion of Prussian nobility, fled from his native land with the Russian advance at war's end, to become one of the great names of the classical music world. Three disparate lives, each with a past tortuous and stormy, whose chance encounter provokes a series of events extreme and unforeseen. Framed in a world of high culture, art and music, and drawing on the many shades of human experience, passions and perversions compulsive, love, loyalty, faith and infidelity, private grief and public shame, a lively cast of minor figures also lends its variegated presence. Presenting a fractured landscape of alienation, mainly it is a story of men and women at war with themselves, their own ambitions and illusions, inclinations and desires. The narrative, ironic, comic and sombre in turn offers the adult reader an intriguing and engrossing human tale.Thenovel brings together the more significant strands of human sentiment and experience, twining them in a narrative colourful and compelling. Set in the Italian lake town of Como, Geneva and the forestlands of northern Switzerland, the events unfold over an arc of several decades, from World War Two to recent times.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 17 août 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800465862
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FAT DOG
A Canine Odyssey Across the Human Landscape

CHRONICLES OF RAMPUR

The Mysteries of Ranipur

The Secrets of Rajpur






Copyright © 2021 Krish Day

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781800465862

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd


For
Aaron J. Buckley
&
Ragnhild Dahl Johansen
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife...
Should not the neighbour’s wife covet thee.


Contents
I
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

II
1
2
3
4

III
1
2
3

Acknowledgements


I


1
The contract signed with an elegant flourish, he put away the Montblanc, rose to his feet and gave me a well-manicured hand, the palm smooth to the touch. Moving to the tall window, looking out towards the range of smoke-blue mountains and the waters of the lake placid as a mill-pond, he drew a deep breath.
“ Bello! Some of the older folk still call it by the ancient Roman name Còmm. Bellissimo! You’ll like it here, I’m sure.”
Scenic beauty not always matching the interior landscape, that remained to be seen. No doubt about it, the view was a splendid one. I nodded in agreement. He drew the mitred cuff of his shirt an inch out of the jacket sleeve and turned to me with a smile, warm and amiable.
“But why Como, Professor? If I may ask.”
Why indeed? Odd that wanting to distant oneself from the past, one should choose a place that closed the distance in some small measure. A very long time ago, in another life, Myrna and I had visited the town, stayed for several days, Myrna’s wish years later to revisit the place denied by her journey’s end.
“It’s as good a place as any,” I replied.
“And better than many,” he nodded affably to my lame words.
Outside, as we stepped on the gravel path, Signor Fabbri raised his eyes to look across the garden at the tall, close-knit laurel hedge that shut off from view the adjoining property, a sizeable grande dame of a villa set on extensive grounds. “You have an illustrious neighbour.”
“Oh!”
No name mentioned, my mild curiosity less than satisfied, I walked him down to the gate. Pausing, he glanced at the house behind us. With a courteous bow of the head, he remarked with an aloof air, “This place has a history. A secret, they say.”
“All human habitats have secrets, I expect.”
He nodded with a brief smile. Earnest once again, he said, “You have my number. Call me any time you need.”
I strolled back under the warming, early spring sun, no wiser about the illustrious neighbour, the secret history of the house still very much a secret. It would be a while yet before the veil of the estate agent’s mannered discretion lifted, to reveal the face of the great man next door, as too the secret silently stalking the house.
Everything about Signor Fabbri bespoke taste and finesse. Reasonably tall, trim, a fine head of dark-brown hair carefully coiffured, the youthful lineaments soberly handsome, it was the smile that made the man, the signature of a cordial and mannered nature. And unusually refined and discerning in dress for an estate agent, with a custom-tailored suit, a silver-grey silk shirt, Bordeaux tie with tiny paisley knit, he had all the air of a gentleman of leisure, elegant and prosperous.
But then, Roberto Fabbri was no run-of-the-mill estate agent. Of little interest to him the narrow-balconied, modest apartments of the concrete box-like condos in the town, his speciality was mainly the mansions and villas along the lake shore and dotting the slopes above, properties much in demand by the new Croesuses cruising the seven seas in their luxury yachts and criss-crossing the skies in private jets.
One afternoon some weeks later, coming across him on the road skirting the lake, following his accustomed amicable greeting and query if all was well, he pointed my attention through the tall, wrought-iron gates at a stolid, château style manor house set on several acres of ground planted with aged palms.
“Gone. Finally!” he said with a breath of relief. “Took a bit of time, though.”
Owned by a Milanese banking family since the end of the Great War, he explained, later bought by a German steel magnate, the property had now been sold to a Russian tycoon, one of the many emerged from the woodwork of the Soviet era to find themselves overnight heirs to vast oil and gas fields and mineral wealth.
Some days after, a minor plumbing problem at the villa occasioning a visit to Fabbri in his offices overlooking the embarcadero lined with sail and motor boats, I caught a glimpse of the Russian, a heavy-set figure with a rubicund face, the young woman on his arm in colourful couture wear and overly bejewelled, with all the gait and grace of a night club hostess. Seeing the pair off with hearty salutations, Fabbri showed me in, as he wearily indicated his secretary through the glass panel.
“Franca was told by the young lady that she wears only Dolce and Gabbana. Down to her underwear, presumably. Dolce and Gabbana!” he exclaimed laconically, settling into his seat across the desk, And then, letting fall a mannered sigh, added quite as drily, “These folk are the future.”
The morning-long visit of the Russian couple to settle the final details of the sale must have been oppressive. Fabbri loosened his tie a notch and his talk took on an unexpected loquacity.
About a year ago, visiting Como, out for a stroll one morning, the Russian woman had set eyes on ‘my’ villa and it was love at first sight. Nothing denied the young bride, and the going price the merest grain of gold in the husband’s treasury, Fabbri’s office had arranged the sale. The paperwork proceeding with utmost haste, the preliminary contract drawn up, due process and formalities carried out, hour and date scheduled at the notary’s office, a mere week before the final signing the buyer withdrew. Somehow snatches of the ‘secret’ had reached the couple’s ears.
“First dog in space, very first man in space, a nuclear arsenal to flatten the earth many times over. But… dio mio! These Russians are a superstitious lot.”
The modest initial deposit, mere beggar’s coins for the nabob of Novgorod, forfeited nonchalantly, part of the estate agent’s commission happily paid, Fabbri was directed to search out another property, possibly larger and more stately. Worth many times over the Villa Serena, the German steel magnate’s mansion had recently come on the market, and it fitted the bill.
Fabbri held up his hand, index and middle fingers crossed. “Hopefully no skeletons in Villa Frieden!”
I wished Fabbri well, but one never knew. With their unsavoury sympathies and generous donations to the Führer’s cause, many a German industrialist was known to have had whole cupboards full of rattling skeletons! Indeed, much later, I saw in a corner of Fabbri’s office a large, framed photograph he had removed from Villa Frieden just prior to the sale. Of the German steel mogul seated at a banqueting table, with the corpulent figure of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring looming above him raising a toast.
Meanwhile, I myself was still no wiser about the secret lurking in my villa!


2
Settling in was slow and wearying. The Art Deco exterior pleasant enough, it was inside the house that one lost one’s way through the maze of rooms, small and large, on the two floors. Built as a family residence, with an expansive hallway, nursery space and playrooms tucked here and there, oversize bed chambers, a dining room for a numerous gathering, a spacious kitchen with vintage stove and oven still in place, claw-footed tubs and old tapware in the baths, the place was outsized for a single person. But the rent was surprisingly modest, the peace and quiet of the surrounds especially welcome, and Fabbri’s suave, persuasive voice had done the rest. No regrets, but if the settling in was slow, perhaps in part the fault was in the unsettled spirit of the new tenant.
The Foundation had been generous, overly liberal in funding me a whole year to put my thoughts on paper in a locality of my choosing. A welcome recess from the mundane academic routine, the interminable talk among colleagues about tenure and oversight, it was more a sabbatical from oneself, a retreat from private grief to a quiet corner for a time of convalescence. Familiar with the country, with a passing smattering of the language and local habits, the distance and new air, one thought, would be balm for the healing. Hopefully, the writing too would proceed apace. It would not do to inform the Foundation that in the twelve months I had merely fattened myself with Signora Maria’s cooking, even less that I had coveted, and more, the neighbour’s wife!
Fabbri had arranged for Signora Ma