Lunch with Mussolini
Page 17
Cecilia sat staring at the floor while she waited for the Signora to compose herself. How could she leave when she had nowhere to go? Besides, her mother would be devastated if she ever learned what had happened. She thought of her mother and how proud she was when the Count had hired her. How could she leave? She thought of all the good things about the Villa Carosio and weighed them up. She didn’t want to leave. She liked the nice clothes and being surrounded by nice things. She loved her little bed and the big bath tub when it was filled with hot soapy water. She didn’t want to go back to the drudgery and poverty of her earlier life, and end up like her mother. She’d escaped the prison once and couldn’t be sure she’d get a second chance. She thought about the Count and what he’d done to her. Was it all that bad? She felt ashamed and guilty and somehow unclean. But the old man hadn’t hurt her. He’d frightened her, humiliated her, disgusted her and yes, he’d betrayed her because she’d trusted him. But he hadn’t hurt her. If that was the price she had to pay to remain in the Villa Carosio then she’d pay it. She’d put aside her feelings. For her mother’s sake, there was no turning back.
‘Signora, the Count did not harm me. Mostly he just strokes my back and shoulders and my arms. When he touched my private place all I had to do was stop reading and look at him. He always took his hand away. He is an old man, but he is like a small boy.’
‘Is that the truth, Cecilia?’
‘Yes, Signora. The truth is he didn’t harm me.’
The Signora looked uncertainly at Cecilia but her face revealed nothing.
‘That small boy upstairs cannot harm me. That is the truth. It doesn’t matter what I read to him. I concentrate on my reading and the words mean nothing to me. They’re easy to ignore. He can’t harm me, Signora. He can touch me but he can’t make me feel anything I don’t want to feel.’ She hesitated, remembering something one of the boys at school had said about their teacher. She looked at the Signora in the way an actor assesses an audience and decided to be bold. ‘Besides, his thing couldn’t stand up even if Mussolini himself walked into the room.’
The Signora was stunned. Then she burst out laughing and reached for Cecilia once more. She threw her arms around her and held her to her breast. She wondered about this strange child who now reciprocated and returned her embrace. Most girls her age would be in tears. Most would want to run home to their mother whatever the consequences. But this child—if she was telling the truth—was mature way beyond her years. How did she become so wise? Where did she gather her strength? How did it come about that a twelve-year-old girl she’d thought would need comforting was now comforting her?
‘I promise you, Cecilia, one day we will get even with that old goat.’
‘Do you mean that, Signora?’ Cecilia was intrigued. The possibility that someone in their lowly position could somehow exact revenge on somebody as important as the Count had never occurred to her. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know yet, Cecilia, but we will find a way, I promise you.’ The Signora was so fierce in her conviction that Cecilia was convinced. ‘If he dies first, God will punish him anyway. I will plead with the Holy Mother to make sure he is sent straight to hell to burn forever. In the meantime I want you to promise me one thing. Never lie to me. If I am to help you, you must never lie to me. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Signora. I promise I will never lie to you.’ The Signora had given Cecilia strength to endure the humiliations and the hope that one day they would get their revenge, so she made her promise sincerely and without hesitation. Indeed both parties to the promise had only the best intentions. But promises have a way of turning on their makers and the day would come when they would both regret that this promise had ever been made.
Benito Mussolini was executed by partisans on April 28, 1945, by the front gates of the Villa Belmonte while trying to escape to Switzerland. Arguably, it was the final act in a process of suicide begun some nine years earlier with the formation of the Berlin–Rome Axis. On June 10, 1940, Mussolini stepped beyond salvation. He declared war on Britain and France. For most Italians, this was a bewildering turn of events. School children and parents alike recalled an old rhyme: ‘With any country war, but never England.’ Italians were already wearied by the war in Ethiopia and the battering their troops had received in Spain. All but the most ardent fascists were convinced that Mussolini had committed them to war on the wrong side. Even Hitler must have wondered at the wisdom of having Mussolini on his side, as the Italian soldiers’ will to fight was often sorely lacking. But what could be expected of men whose traditional sympathies lay with their enemy?
‘Lucio, Lucio … what are you doing to us?’ Milos shook his head, the tone of his voice still patronising. ‘What kind of story is this? So far we’ve had incest, that distasteful episode with Dietrich and the Jewish family, and now we have Cecilia delivered into the hands of a pervert. I’m not sure I want to hear any more.’
‘I’m not sure it would matter whether you did or not because it is becoming clear to me that you’re not listening any more.’
‘Ramon, how can you say that?’ Milos glared at him indignantly.
‘Ahhh … a touch of outrage. At least you’ve stopped being so sickeningly condescending towards Lucio. Think for a minute. We have Colombina who is in every respect an honest, decent, charming woman. Yet she is about to commit the most cold-blooded murder upon an old man. Why? Because she woke up one day out of sorts? Of course not. If we are to understand her at all, isn’t it important to know what happened to her in Italy? What makes her capable of murder? What shaped her? What made her like she is? We are all prisoners of our past. Lucio is defining Cecilia’s prison. We are denied the privilege of choosing our parents or the circumstances of our birth. Sure, Lucio could hold back and vet his story so as not to offend your tender sensibilities, but how would that aid your comprehension? It seems to me that sooner or later we will each have to take sides. We will either have to condone or condemn what she intends doing. I for one would like to be fully informed before I make my decision.’ Ramon paused to give Milos the opportunity to object if he thought he’d been treated unfairly, but his silence held unbroken. He continued.
‘Let me ask you another question. What does a storyteller want more than anything else? I’ll remind you. He wants a careless audience, one that doesn’t listen as carefully as it should. We all of us—perhaps with the exception of Gancio here—work hard to make our listeners careless. We lull them into a false sense of security. We give them false glimpses of where the story is headed so that their egos run ahead of their brains. Then we bring them up short with an unexpected twist or turn of events. It takes a lot of skill to do this. But you make it easy for Lucio. You are sharpening his weapons for him because you still won’t take Lucio seriously. You have underestimated him. Perhaps he has even underestimated his abilities himself. But when he turns on you, as he surely will, you will be defenceless. He will make you ashamed. You too, Neil, I include you in this. Your comments since Lucio began his story have not done you great credit either. Gancio is listening, perhaps more closely than any of us. Maybe he has his own reasons for this and one day he may even share them with us. There is a moral issue in this story and it has the capacity to make each of us examine our souls. We may even learn something about ourselves we don’t particularly like. I have no doubt that Lucio intends to put us all on the spot and we owe it to ourselves to listen carefully. This story has barely begun yet it suggests great complexity. You must listen carefully with an ear for the main issue or you will be too easily sidetracked and regret it later.’
‘Yes, Ramon is right. This story is complex and don’t any of you doubt that there is a moral issue to confront.’ Gancio sighed wearily. ‘I have heard this story before, parts of it anyway, but not from this perspective. If I had my way, Lucio wouldn’t tell this story at all. I don’t know why he feels he has to. Milos and Neil couldn’t care less whether you told it or not.’
‘Steady on!’
‘Don’t cut us out of the story just yet. Perhaps Ramon is right, perhaps we have been a touch arrogant and haven’t listened as carefully as we should have. But we were only trying to make it easier for Lucio.’
‘Very noble, Milos, but unnecessary.’ Ramon turned to Lucio. ‘You have done well, Lucio. You have surprised us all with your ability. But it is time we removed the kid gloves.’
‘Perhaps.’ Lucio paused. ‘I can’t argue with anything you’ve said except the last point. Yes, there will be a moral dilemma and yes, you should all listen carefully. But there is another risk you should consider which has to do with my inexperience. You could outstrip your storyteller. Of necessity, I need to lay my foundations block by block. Because you’ve all done this before, you can see what I’m doing and anticipate the next step. Already you’re further into the story than I ever expected you’d be or want you to be. I need your indulgence for a while longer. I’m still feeling my way and I’m struggling a little with the time frames. You can ask questions about what I’ve told you, but not about what I’ve yet to tell you. I feel like an inexperienced coachman with a team of horses all wanting to pull in different directions. It takes all my ability to hold them in check and keep them on the road in front of me. I can’t do that and also respond to speculation.’ Lucio paused and looked once more around the table. ‘Well … will you indulge me for a little while longer?’
‘That seems a reasonable request, no?’ Milos looked across at Neil.
‘Got me.’
‘Ramon?’
The blind man began to chuckle. ‘Lucio, you amaze me. I don’t think your request is reasonable at all. You pull a stunt like that and they still can’t take you seriously! Ha! I agree to your request out of admiration.’
‘Jesus, you’re boring Ramon. You’ve always got to make out that you know something the rest of us don’t. But I have a question and I’m sure it falls within the guidelines.’ Neil turned from Ramon to direct his full attention on Gancio. ‘What the fuck are you going on about? I’m also getting bored with your dire little endorsements of Lucio’s story. I think it’s time you put up or shut up.’
‘I’ll get the coffee.’
‘You bloody stay where you are!’
‘Va fanculo!’
Gancio pushed back his chair, glared at Neil and retreated to the kitchen.
‘He said it again, Lucio. What did you say it meant?’
‘Nothing much, Neil. He just told you to fuck off.’ Lucio began to laugh and the others joined him.
‘Va fanculo, eh?’ Neil tried out the word, savouring it, shifting inflections. ‘Va-fan-cu-lo. Yep. Sounds like fuck off to me. The question is, what the hell is going on here?’
‘Search me,’ said Lucio.
Chapter Fourteen
By Christmas 1939, Hauptmann Friedrich Eigenwill was prepared to believe that Hitler was a magician. The indecision and spinelessness of the French and English astounded him. The fact that they’d conspired with Hitler to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and give it to him was bad enough. Yet Hitler had exposed the whole of the western flank to the French during the blitzkrieg on Poland, and still the French hadn’t reacted. Had they chosen to reoccupy the Rhineland or even push further into the heart of Germany, they would have been virtually unopposed. Where would Hitler have stood then? If he’d diverted his forces west, Stalin would have seized the opportunity to take all of Poland and Germany would have been committed on both flanks. The war would have been over and Hitler deposed. But the Führer had the Allies mesmerised. He remained and Germany was triumphant. Even his critics among the German High Command had to concede that Hitler’s tactics and intuition smacked of genius.
Nevertheless, the Hauptmann still didn’t share in the euphoria that swept through the country and manifested itself in everyone from his fellow officers to the most lowly working man. Undoubtedly the German military machine was the finest in the world and he was proud to be part of it, but he couldn’t forget his father’s advice: ‘Germany can defeat any country in the world. But it cannot defeat every country at once.’ Friedrich knew the Russian–German Pact was no more than an expediency, and the time was fast approaching when the traditional foes would meet on the battlefield. Then the German nightmare, the dread of war on two fronts, would begin. And that was a war Germany could never win.
The war in Poland had been over for two months and still the French sat mute and immobile behind the Maginot Line, their military and their mentality entirely on the defensive. Why didn’t they attack? Hitler had just shown them how to go about it in Poland. Once they brought the fight to German soil the war would end, Friedrich was sure of it. But no, their tactics and will to fight had bogged down in the mud of Verdun and Flanders twenty years earlier and were beyond salvation.
Still, he had one thing to be grateful for as he shivered in the cold and thin light of the railway carriage taking him home on leave. Because of the inactivity of the French, the war had entered the phase nick-named the sitzkrieg—the sit down war—without which there would have been no Christmas leave for anyone. He glanced around the carriage crowded with officers. Apart from himself there wasn’t a sober man to be found. Schnapps and captured Polish vodka which had been opened as fortification against the cold, now flowed without excuse or hesitation, relieving tension and lubricating voices. Friedrich smiled for the first time. Whatever his reservations, however dire the portents, he saw no reason to take them home with him and spoil Christmas for everyone. Besides, he had a good voice and liked a sing-along as much as the next man.
‘Leutnant!’ he bellowed. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘Zybrowka, Herr Hauptmann!’
‘Zybrowka?’
‘Zybrowka vodka. Bisen vodka. Very best Polish vodka. See? It has the blade of grass in the bottle.’
The men around him roared with laughter as Friedrich snatched the bottle from the young Leutnant and took a mighty swallow. They were delighted that the moody Hauptmann had decided to join them in their revelry. Celebrations love company, not opposition, so they welcomed him to their ranks. When Friedrich began to sing, the power of his tenor voice silenced them and they listened in awe. When he finished, they cheered and applauded.
‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded. ‘Haven’t you heard a world class tenor before? I will now sing you selections from Der Rosenkavalier. If any man utters a word while I am singing, I will put him on a charge.’ Instead, he launched into a ribald ditty soldiers dare only sing in their barracks or when they’re falling down drunk. That set the tone for the rest of the journey into Dresden, so that when Christiane finally met him at the station she needed her father’s help to carry him to their car.
The following day, as they prepared for the traditional German Christmas festivities, Friedrich had to battle both a hangover and a return of his misgivings. The previous evening, after he’d bathed and marshalled what few wits were left, Christiane had made it perfectly clear to him that she required his assistance while he was on leave to begin a family. He had feigned delight as seemed only proper. She’d couched the request in terms that were impossible to deny. She’d said it was the only Christmas present she wanted, the best Christmas present she could possibly have, and proved her sincerity by hugging and kissing him till he was breathless.
But what sort of a future could he offer a child in a country committed to a war they probably would not win? What sort of a burden would this place on Christiane if he was killed and Germany overrun? On the other hand, what right had he to deny Christiane the child she desperately wanted? He hid these thoughts behind a smile and the bonhomie of the season. In his heart he knew he’d acquiesce. To do otherwise would destroy the family celebra
tions and his precious leave. Besides, he reasoned, a child would help take her mind off worrying about him. And in the days ahead, he felt sure there’d be plenty of cause for worry.
He joined Carl in the study while Christiane and Clara busied themselves preparing for the Christmas Eve sharing of gifts. Carl was buoyant. The ease of the victory in Poland had convinced him of the invincibility of the German military. The U-boats were creating havoc in the North Atlantic and the only blight on the festivities was the scuttling of the pocket battleship Graf Spee in the mouth of the River Plate. However, the newspapers had even contrived to turn this setback into a triumph of German courage and heroism.
‘So, Friedrich, tell me all about Poland. You must have felt ten feet tall.’
The last thing Friedrich wanted to do was discuss the war, but the war was all every civilian wanted to discuss, particularly with people who had been involved in it.
‘Yes, we all felt ten feet tall.’ Friedrich had learned that the only way to curtail these discussions was to confirm everything the other party knew or believed. ‘The Polish army had no idea of modern tactics. Wherever we engaged them we were surprised to discover that, for the most part, they had neither tanks nor anti-tank weapons. They fought us with rifles and raw courage. And don’t doubt that they were courageous. But in no area could they match us. We had total superiority on the ground and in the air.’
‘Is it true that they attacked our Panzers on horses?’ Carl could hardly hide his glee.
‘Yes, I believe it happened. It was a gesture, a magnificent act of defiance from troops who knew they couldn’t win but were determined to go down fighting.’
‘How could you possibly call that a magnificent gesture? It was stupidity, sheer stupidity. If a German officer ordered his men to attack tanks on horseback, he would be shot.’