‘No.’
‘Then you do not know what damage it does to metal. Anything metal — watch, cuff-links, anything — should be given to the attendant. You cannot buy a new leg here in Napoli.’
‘I’ll give it an extra polish to-night,’ I said in an endeavour to allay her fears. ‘You’ve no idea the amount of care and attention I lavish on this leg of mine.’
She didn’t smile. She sat and stared at me as though I were a child and she would like to whip me. Then she relaxed and gave a little pout to her lips. ‘You are a stubborn man.’ She smiled. ‘I should not have tried to reason, eh? A woman should know nothing about radioactivity, she should be all emotion and no brain. Very well then.’ Her voice softened. ‘Will you let me look after your leg for you while you are in your bath?’
The idea of her even seeing it seemed quite horrible. It made me into a piece of machinery that unscrewed and took to pieces so that it could be passed part by part through bathroom doors. ‘No,’ I said sharply.
She gave an angry sigh. ‘You are an obstinate fool,’ she said and got to her feet. ‘I ask you to do something and all you say is No. I shall not speak to you again unless you do as I ask you.’ She left me then, cold as ice, quite remote. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. The obvious thing was to do as she said, but somehow I couldn’t. The queer contraption that was my leg was my own affair, whether it got rusty or not.
A few minutes later the attendant came in to say that my bath was ready. ‘Is the Contessa having her bath?’ I asked him.
‘Si, si, signore.’ He leered up at me as we crossed the lounge. ‘She is in the next cubicle to yourself, signore, so that you will be able to talk. I arrange it myself.’ Apparently his clients enjoyed bathing with only a partition between them. I gave him some lire.
He took me through to the back of the hotel and down some stone steps. The atmosphere became hot and humid as we descended. By the time we had reached the electrically-lit cellars of the hotel I could see the steam and feel the moisture settling on the inside of my lungs and throat. He took me through to a room lined with doors. He opened one and as I entered the steam-filled interior he said, ‘Please pass your clothes out very quickly, otherwise they will become damp. Also anything of metal, even rings, signore. The steam is very bad for metal, you understand.’
I passed out everything, but I was damned if I was going to hand him my tin leg. I unstrapped it and wrapped it up in my towel. Then I got into the bath. It seemed to me much the same as any other bath. I could hear Zina splashing in the next cubicle. Then the splashing ceased, there was the sound of a door opening and a whispered conversation. I heard the bath attendant say, Wo, no, Contessa.’ Then the door was closed and the splashing began again. I called out to her, but she didn’t answer.