Marco Polo’s wartime detention

Marco Polo’s wartime detention turns his Italian background into the cause of a prolonged imprisonment, cutting off a man already separated from those he hoped to support. Held until the last day of the war, he emerges not into a settled homecoming but into reluctant departure, precarious work, and resentment over a large sum trapped in an eastern city.

Circumstances Before the Arrest

Before the police detained him, Marco Polo had returned to work after settling some matters in Calcutta. He managed, with difficulty, to gather about five hundred rupees and send them to Lisa, promising to send the remainder soon. He had no way to write to her or learn what was happening, and no friend who could keep him informed.

Susan did write once, to tell him she had bought a new car. Meanwhile, the expense he feared was becoming real: her lawyer asked for more money. Marco Polo borrowed it and sent it to Susan’s address. These strained attempts to meet obligations across distance preceded the arrest, leaving him with no reliable personal channel through which to understand what followed.

Arrest and Imprisonment

The arrest is presented as a sudden disaster. The police were alerted once again by Marco Polo’s connection to Italy, in the context of wartime relations between Italy and the Allied powers. His Italian background thus became grounds for suspicion and detention. He remained a prisoner until the final day of the war; the account gives no further detail about the conditions of his confinement.

Release and Its Consequences

When the war ended, Marco Polo left for Italy directly and reluctantly. Release did not restore the life he had been trying to sustain: without the inclination to concern himself with anything else, he kept himself afloat through small jobs on the Italian Riviera.

One day, he recognized what he regarded as a grave imbalance in his life: a large sum remained deposited in a frozen account in an unnamed eastern city. The account becomes an image of wealth and effort made inaccessible, and his recognition of it brings deep resentment. The passage does not specify how or when the money was frozen, but places this discovery after his imprisonment and return to Italy.

Marco Polo next sought work, first finding a well-paid position at a hotel in Rangoon because suitable candidates were scarce. He had not left the Riviera to settle in Rangoon, however, and after working there for a time he began looking for another job. The sequence carries the effects of detention beyond the prison term: his release is followed by reluctant displacement, insecure employment, and continued pursuit of a stable place in the world.

Confinement in a Wider Historical Frame

Elsewhere, the book recalls older histories of coercion in Calcutta. Hobbs describes the buying and selling of people in the city as continuing into the middle of the nineteenth century, while Rosie tells William that her ancestors were brought from Africa in chains and sold in Calcutta. Although a law later freed enslaved people, Rosie’s account emphasizes that freedom did not give them somewhere else to go: they remained in the city, bearing the names of former owners, and their descendants continued to live apart from the social mainstream.

These histories are distinct from Marco Polo’s wartime imprisonment; the book does not claim a direct connection between them. Read alongside his detention, however, they place an individual episode of state confinement within a city whose past also includes enslavement, forced migration, and freedom without social inclusion. The contrast preserves the difference between these forms of coercion while showing how the experience of being released need not mean that its consequences have ended.