A Fragment of Fear Read Free Page A

commandeered by the rich.
    On another occasion, entertaining in his way, as is every fanatic, he blamed his paucity of tips on victimisation by the Pompeii administration.
    Guards in some sections with one or two special exhibits were sure of tips. The guard in the House of the Vetii, for example, was certain to win a daily quota for unlocking the cupboard which shielded his indecorous painting from eyes which might be shocked by it.
    Mario had some Roman bread ovens and corn-grinding exhibits in his Section. You could see them from the pavement. No need to hand over lire to see bread ovens and corn-grinders.
    It was the same when he had the Section which included the Amphitheatre. There were plenty of wine taverns in the Section, and plenty of graffiti on the walls. The Romans liked a drink on the way to and from the arena, and the drink emboldened them to scrawl slogans on the walls. But you could see the taverns and the graffiti for the price of the entrance ticket.
    So there were no tips there either.
    Guards were changed around, and so was he, but always to a tip-less section. It was clear to Mario Bartelli that he was the victim of anti-Communist discrimination.
    For Mario, Pompeii represented meals of farinacious food and three rooms for himself and his family in a stuffy concrete building in Castellammare. And that was all Pompeii would ever mean to him.
    I am in love with Pompeii, but Mario Bartelli hates the whole hot, arid dump. For him the problems of the present obliterate the past more effectively than Vesuvius has ever done.
    As he approached and I went into the house where Mrs. Dawson had been killed, I could not help reflecting upon the unromantic conditions in which most murdered people are found: the deserted outhouse on a chicken farm, the crumpled sheets of the sickroom with the chipped crockery which contained the poison; the bramble bushes by the side of the muddy lane.
    At Pompeii the surroundings were unique enough, but the uninteresting bare patch of parched earth and the sky into which the sightless eyes had gazed made it desolately similar to the scene of many another intolerable end.
    I turned as Mario came in through the entrance of House No. 27 and for a moment I thought his soured and lined face showed some fleeting expression of pleasure, but I may have been mistaken. He crossed himself, Communist or not, in response to some deep-seated subconscious prompting, and I could tell from the glance of his eyes in which corner Mrs. Dawson’s body had been found.
    For it was Mario Bartelli who had found her, twenty-four hours after her death, and for once he was on guard in a Section in which tips, from journalists and tourists, flowed freely.
    We had a long talk together, and from what he said, and from what I knew of his character, I was able to form what I believe to be an accurate picture of the events of that terrible morning of September 11th. This I will put on record, for even now after some considerable time, I am not certain what the future holds for me.

    At ten o’clock on the morning of September 11th the sun was already very hot. Mario Bartelli was seated on a low ruined wall almost opposite No. 27, in the shade cast by an adjacent house. He extinguished a cheap State-manufactured cigarette and put the butt in a tin box for subsequent re-rolling with other cigarette ends.
    He idly watched Aldo, the guide, go past with a small party of American tourists, and, I have no doubt, wished them all ill, including Aldo, who consistently refused to join the Communist Party of Italy.
    A moment or two later, he saw Aldo and his party cross the street a few yards away, going over from one steeply built pavement to another, walking clumsily on the great stepping-stones which at intervals link the two sides. Aldo paused, as he always did at this spot, pointing out the deep ruts in the roadway caused by the wheels of Roman chariots. Aldo’s voice droned on:
    “It is often said, ladies and gentlemen,