Page 337 - tender-is-the-night

court, whirled about in momentary confusion and located
the small guard-room whence the cries came. Two carabin-
ieri started to their feet, but Baby brushed past them to the
door of the cell.
‘Dick!’ she called. ‘What’s the trouble?’
‘They’ve put out my eye,’ he cried. ‘They handcuffed me
and then they beat me, the goddamn—the—‘
Flashing around Baby took a step toward the two cara-
binieri.
‘What have you done to him?’ she whispered so fiercely
that they flinched before her gathering fury.
‘Non capisco inglese.’
In French she execrated them; her wild, confident rage
filled the room, enveloped them until they shrank and
wriggled from the garments of blame with which she in-
vested them. ‘Do something! Do something!’
‘We can do nothing until we are ordered.’
‘Bene. BAY-NAY! BENE!’
Once more Baby let her passion scorch around them
until they sweated out apologies for their impotence, look-
ing at each other with the sense that something had after
all gone terribly wrong. Baby went to the cell door, leaned
against it, almost caressing it, as if that could make Dick feel
her presence and power, and cried: ‘I’m going to the Embas-
sy, I’ll be back.’ Throwing a last glance of infinite menace at
the carabinieri she ran out.
She drove to the American Embassy where she paid off
the taxidriver upon his insistence. It was still dark when
she ran up the steps and pressed the bell. She had pressed it

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