The Vengeance of Rome - [Between The Wars 04]

by Michael Moorcock

  ‘What happened to you there?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, darling, I arrived in Harbin, by a most unseaworthy Chinese steamer, to discover that I was the entire company and was expected to create an alternative to the Bolshoi out of absolutely nothing. Darling, believe me, I did my best. Every silly little Russian girl that had ever had a dance lesson was auditioned, every little boy who had ever yearned for toe-shoes. And I put something together for them. They thought it was wonderful. But then, of course, they didn’t’ want to pay for a ballet company. Eventually I found myself in financial trouble. A stupid, pointless scandal. Nobody would give me my salary! Luckily, I became great pals with a successful fur trader, late of Nizhny Novgorod and now of La Paz, who told me that the Bolivians were simply crying out for a good ballet master. He promised to back me, but by the time we arrived in Bolivia we’d quarrelled over a stupid matter and he wasn’t speaking to me. I gave private lessons for a while. Then that bastard Salamanca overturned the government and it was all gone. I’d become rather a friend of the president’s wife, who was a keen balletomane, and I suppose I was identified with the ruling class. Luckily, I’d made a couple of German chums there and when they got the chance to leave I went with them. It’s a familiar tale, isn’t it, ma’mselle, for these days? But we soldier on.’

  She had not heard my question and had scarcely understood anything Seryozha had said. ‘And you’re performing at the Arts Festival?’

  ‘I’m here as an observer only.’ A dissolute steer, Seryozha widened his huge bloodshot brown eyes and shrugged at me, as if asking whether he had played his part properly.

  Miss Butter was in no way confused. ‘It’s thrilling,’ she said, ‘to be in the company of people with such experience of the world. I have experienced so little.’

  ‘Then stick with Dimka, sweet mademoiselle,’ guffawed the dancer. ‘No one has had more varied experience!’ He reached to kiss me but this time I avoided him.

  ‘So I gather.’ She smiled in a way which suggested she was privy to arcana which would astonish even Seryozha. This further alarmed me since, given the opportunity, I knew what a gossip my old acquaintance could be. I was very surprised that he had successfully kept his purpose in Venice unknown to us. I guessed he must be extremely afraid of his employer. Either that or he had been told nothing at all by someone who knew him as well as I did.

  He had money to spend. Producing a handful of large-denomination notes he ordered ‘real’ champagne. When Miss Butter had retired to the ladies’ room, he leaned forward and in a thick whisper, begged me to let him have some sneg for old times’ sake. I was glad to hand him the rest of a pillbox I was carrying and privately told myself that I had at last settled the account with him I had had since he left his own snuffbox behind all those years ago on the Petersburg train. That box had proven very helpful to me in my first days as an engineering student at the Institute.

  By the time Miss Butter returned Seryozha had pocketed my pillbox, muttered something mysterious about putting in a good word with the ‘vozhd’ for me, kissed me affectionately on the lips, and informed me to my great relief that he was due to leave in the morning, taking the early train to Vienna and from there to Berlin, where he had been promised his own apartment. ‘I’m an official emissary now,’ he said before he staggered back to his ‘business contacts’. By his gestures, I knew he was dismissing me as an old colleague from the ballet.

  Miranda Butter complimented me on my fascinating friends. She had a sparkle to her which contrasted rather sharply with the slightly seedy appearance of those around us. ‘This is exactly why I came to Europe. We Americans are all so unsophisticated. You were right to leave when you did, Max. I admire your courage. So few could turn their backs on all you had - Hollywood, fame, wealth . . .’

  ‘We are too old a family to set much store by such things,’ I told her. ‘We are trained to public service. It is the only kind of work we ever take seriously.’

  I saw Seryozha shake hands with everyone at his table and show signs of leaving. He was eager, I was sure, to get back to his hotel and try my gift. He now possessed the contented, almost complacent look of an old cat which has made a successful raid on a well-stocked dustbin.

  He waved to us once as he went out, a picture of seedy ebullience. When he had gone, the people he had left leaned back, as if in relief, and were obviously joking about him. One German with the face of an unsuccessful prizefighter made some attempt to imitate him, to loud applause and backslapping.

  Seryozha was irritating, but his acquaintances were genuinely sinister. I had never had time for arms dealers. Karl May had given me a clear idea what to think of people who sold guns to Natives. Old Shatterhand would have known how to deal with them and Ace Peters, the Masked Buckaroo, would have rounded them all up and taken them off to jail in an instant. Seryozha’s friends continued occasionally to glance across at our table and discuss us in a speculative way. Eventually I called for our bill. We left earlier than we had planned and dropped in at one of the little tent-theatres erected in a quiet piazza where we watched some rather shrill Moliere before returning to the Palazzo da Bazzanno where our friend’s father awaited us.

  As one of the chief architects of the festival, da Bazzanno was constantly busy. Moreover, almost as soon as we had arrived Signora Sarfatti had been forced to leave unexpectedly for Rome. Thus we were left to our own devices. Bazzanno’s father complained that he might as well have stayed at their apartment in Rome, but he was a jovial old soul and glad to entertain us in his huge reception room. Da Bazzanno père had given up his girlfriend, he said, to move back to Venice. He had to admit, all in all, that he preferred it here. Rome had become so rowdy. ‘That man he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, referring to Mussolini — ‘he loves to hear himself talk. And if he can do it through a loudspeaker or on the radio, so much the better. Honestly, it’s like having some garrulous relative staying with you for ever!’ He did not share his son’s admiration for Il Duce, but had to admit things had improved considerably for them since the March on Rome in which Fiorello had taken part. ‘For every one really there, a thousand claim to have been on the march. You would think the whole of Italy followed Mussolini to the royal palace!’

  There were always some, I proposed, who would demand legitimacy for themselves by making such claims.

  ‘As you say, signor,’ I continued, ‘we have a thousand liars for every honest man. With so many lies in the world is it surprising things are as they are? You lie to people enough and they are forced to make up their own ideas about reality. Is that not the secret of Mussolini’s success? He thinks and acts with plain common sense, in ways we can all understand. He does the practical thing, just like the man in the street. We need more such leaders.’

  But old da Bazzanno, his long face full of bafflement, said he was not sure. ‘The secret of power is not action,’ he thought, ‘but inaction. It is what you do not do that brings you the greatest rewards. Often the “common sense” of the “ordinary man” leads to unmitigated disaster. I am a dyed-in-the-wool republican, I’ll admit. The secret of self-respect is self-rule and noble action — but that brings a politician little power, merely influence, which is only worth so much.’

  I was familiar with his old-fashioned fatalistic attitude. An attitude which so weakened Italy and which Mussolini specifically sought to fight. Yet the ancient patriarch was so sweet-natured and so fond of his son, I could not bring myself to argue with him. Unlike modern British children who are without any manners or grace, I was brought up to respect my elders. However, today was not the appropriate time for cynicism. Italy was again making a place for herself in the world. She was the most vibrant force in Europe, an acknowledged leader. While the others sat passively by and let pipsqueaks order them about, Italy expanded and went forward, increasing her territories, bringing enlightenment to her African possessions and fresh pride to her citizens. Was he, too, not proud of his nation?

  He told me that he was n
ot sure.

  The old house was still in a state of disrepair, with electrical wires emerging from bare brick and piles of plaster scattered here and there. But at night, with the candles and the oil lamps burning, it seemed to come alive, to be its old self.

  Da Bazzanno’s complaint that the place had hardly been touched since 1797 was legitimate. His house was full of peculiar bits of furniture, oddly woven tapestries and rather mysterious paintings. Maddy and I explored the rooms together, expecting to come upon a secret chamber or a whole suite where a previous tenant still lived, unaware that their relatives had moved away. The place certainly had its ghosts, but they seemed in no way malignant. Had we turned a corner to confront some ethereal nobleman in doublet and hose on his way to the bedroom of a lover dead five hundred years, I doubt if either of us would have been alarmed.

  As the festival progressed with vast water-borne processions and almost everyone you met wearing some kind of costume or at least a mask, da Bazzanno’s house grew more and more in tune with its surroundings. Venetians, no matter how respectable and conservative, love a disguise. They have made the masque their own, and they are proud of it. By early evening the streets and canals of Venice were crowded with men, women and children in the finery of every previous age. There were cave people and eighteenth-century exquisites. There were ladies from the Second Empire and boys who might have served Lorenzo the Magnificent, soldiers from France and Spain, Huns and Mongols, Japanese samurai, Vikings, condottieri, courtesans and harlots, Amazons and Scythians, Chinese mandarins and a thousand varieties of commedia characters — Pierrots and Pierrettes, Harlequins and Harlequinas, grotesque old Pantaloons and sweet young Colombines, not to mention all the mooning inamoratos who, with guitars and lutes, wailed their passion to the skies or swaggered with a captured mistress on quilted arms.

  Soon anyone not in costume or uniform became fair game for these strolling commedia actors so skilled at staging impromptu scenarios, usually from the classic repertoire. No one was safe. They would attack young and old alike, involving respectable grandfathers and their dignified dames as cheerfully as self-important youths and their squealing consorts. Willy-nilly all became characters in ‘The Comedy of Venice’. For all the victims’ threats or cries for mercy, the play would be performed from beginning to end frequently under the good-humoured gaze of local police or blackshirts who joined in the fun as enthusiastically as the rest of us.

  Miranda Butter and I took pains to wear at least some sort of costume whenever we went out. I had bought a white papier mâché Trivelino mask, with bulbous nose and staring eyes, over which I wore a velvet cap. My ordinary suit was swathed in a cloak I had borrowed from da Bazzanno’s house. The place was full of clothing abandoned by the previous occupants, much of it threadbare or worn, covering a period of a hundred years or more. In this store Miranda discovered a large, cowled cape of tarnished silver brocade and black velvet, which completely engulfed her. She wore a simple ‘diamond’ mask to match.

  So that it would not clash with various traditional carnivals and festivals upon which Venice depended for much of her income, da Bazzanno’s was held at this time in high summer. It meant that the disguises were often uncomfortable and could scarcely be worn in daytime. As the festival proceeded, we spent more and more of the sunlit hours at the palazzo indulging our pleasures without restraint or caution. Getting dressed only for dinner, we would merge with the masked crowds which flooded through the narrow alleys and tiny squares, a noisy, colourful, good-humoured tide, caught up in the ebb and flow of the city where brilliantly coloured barges and gondolas filled the canals with blazing light and every bridge was festooned with flags, bunting and happy students full of wine and faith and a transcendent belief in a golden future.

  We could not fail to be involved in the general sense of celebration. When newspapers reported misery and disaster in all fields of human endeavour, here was the one country in Europe which actually had something to celebrate! That was the miracle of Mussolini’s rule. If history, now the private property of Bolshevik Jewry, no longer acknowledges this miracle, why should I be shocked? The interests which presently control us do not wish us to know how much better life was then. The triumphs of democracy were to produce poverty and despair, murder and general bloodshed, a nightmare without foreseeable end. Was it not surprising if Italy was involved in a long love affair with herself?

  A year before, the people had handed Il Duce the reins of responsibility and power. By popular assent, he became their Dictator, their Speaker. Italian engineering, with its style and dash, had already captured the world’s imagination. Aeroplanes like the Macchi 52R, cars like the Lamborghini, locomotives, ships, bridges, dams and public works were all on a magnificent scale. Economically, Mussolini’s personal ideas had proven it possible to escape economic disaster not merely by controlling the budget but by investing in public works. Hitler and Roosevelt learned how to do this from Mussolini but sadly Franco, the true reactionary, sold himself to the vested interests of a corrupt Church and Big Business before he ever came to power.

  Franco never did free himself from a sentimental attitude towards international Jewry shared by many Latin Catholics. Even Mussolini was forced to accommodate the threat. Neither fascism nor dictatorship in themselves are sufficient remedy. In the end they depend upon the popular will and upon the resources, courage and character of the men who install them. I am the first to admit there have been very few successful fascist regimes. That was not Mussolini’s fault. His imitators failed to grasp the most obvious fact - to achieve what Mussolini achieved, one must actually be a Mussolini! He inspired lesser men who were never able to match his achievement. To be Mussolini, one also had to be what Schiller called Selig, welchen die Götter, die gnädigen, vor der Geburt schon liebten! Or, in Mr Mix’s laconic observation, ‘born lucky’.

  Sometimes in Venice I missed the Negro’s dry wit and natural good sense, neither of which were dominant qualities in Maddy Butter’s personality. Her eagerness to learn all I could teach her was an attractive trait but she was sometimes indiscriminate. She was a happy puppy, tongue hanging out, eyes bright and utterly trusting of a life that had never given her anything but the most marvellous rewards!

  This quality is of course repellent in those Americans who display their cultural sophistication as if it were a flag when they are merely signalling their distance from the rest of their countrymen. They receive our sympathy and therefore our tolerance and as a result tend to believe that we are as isolated from our society as they feel from theirs. This, in turn, can prove an embarrassment.

  Sometimes Miss Butter’s provincial protestations of superiority (in which the name of every great artist of the past thousand years seemed to be underlined) made me a little suspicious. It was difficult to believe her so completely what she seemed.

  I even wondered briefly if Seryozha was right and Maddy was a singularly clever Bolshevik agent, maybe even working for Brodmann’s section. She shared one thing with most socialists — she discussed art as if it were a moral conviction rather than a source of sublime pleasure. Even the street mummers received her sober respect. While she had the appetites of a Barbary ape, typically she had even come up with some sound ethical reasons for indulging in cocaine and sex. Like the Arabs, Americans are forever coping with their puritanical inner conflicts and have no way merely of enjoying themselves.

  When I proposed this, Maddy laughed. No doubt I had made a meaningless joke. Americans are as incapable as anyone of seeing themselves in others’ eyes. Only a few of us, self-trained to study our own behaviour with the clinical tolerance of a good anthropologist, have the power to stand back and see the whole picture.

  To avoid Maddy’s intense conversations about love, life, art and politics, I took to spending as much time as possible in the streets. As soon as the sun began to set I would propose another costumed escapade, so we explored every corner of that relatively small city.

  Tiring of the usual splendou
rs of St Mark’s Square, the Grand Canal or the Rialto Bridge, with their brilliantly costumed crowds and good-humoured drunks, we wandered further and further into suburbs. Even here the festival was celebrated. We still found it necessary to wear our rough-and-ready costumes to avoid unwanted attention from strolling comedians. We discovered tiny shops presided over by little wizened craftsmen who handled their wares as if they were precious children, and they were content to talk, displaying none of the subtle salesmanship for which Venetians are said to be famous. Indeed, we had been told the city was expensive and its citizens pirates to the last youth, yet we discovered trattorias and restaurants where the food was good and the prices were low, which was as well since I, of course, had no funds immediately available to me. I was forced to accept Miss Butter’s generosity. She received an allowance from her father in Galveston as well as the fees paid by the Houston Chronicle, but this barely kept us. Da Bazzanno’s hospitality was as open-handed as one might expect. Pleasant as it was, we did not wish to spend our entire time in Venice eating with old Signor da Bazzanno. His kindly cynicism scarcely suited our mood. By walking a little way and putting some distance between ourselves and the main thoroughfares and squares, we could eat very inexpensively.