by Louisa Young
‘Six: There exists by now a pure “Italian race”. This premise is not based on the confusion of the biological concept of race as the historical-linguistic concept of a people and of a nation, but on the purist kinship of blood which unites the Italians of today to the generations which have populated Italy for millennia.’
Millennia, or almost a millennium? Make your minds up.
‘This ancient purity of blood is the greatest title of nobility of the Italian Nation.’
He thought he must be reading it wrong. Perhaps his Italian was not as good as he had thought. It was all upside down, even if you went along with that kind of thing. He read it over, and made no more sense of it.
‘Seven: It is time that the Italians proclaim themselves frankly racist.’
Tom snorted. Well, that’s clear enough.
‘All the work that the regime in Italy has done until now is founded in racism. Reference to racial concepts has always been very frequent in the speeches of the Leader—’
‘That’s not even true!’ he cried, causing Gino to look over at him across the café.
Tom said: ‘Does the Duce ever talk about race? Did he ever?’
Gino gave a little moue, and said, ‘Not much. Not like Herr Hitler.’
‘Have you seen this?’ Tom asked. ‘This manifesto?’
Gino glanced at it. ‘Why are you surprised?’ he said, and turned, and picked up some cups from the next table, and went. The sun was warm through the wide glass window.
Tom continued reading. ‘The question of racism in Italy ought to be treated from a purely biological point of view, without philosophic or religious intentions. The racism in Italy ought to be essentially Italian and its direction Aryan-Nordic.’
‘But what is this?’ Tom exclaimed. ‘Its direction? What does it mean? It’s a nonsense—’
Gino looked across at him, and stepped back over. He leaned down, and said gently, his eyes sorrowful: ‘Signore, it’s a fool looks for sense in the pages of the Giornale d’Italia.’
The look Tom gave was almost grateful, and he carried on, out loud, in Italian: ‘This does not mean, however, to introduce into Italy the theories of German racism as they are or to claim that the Italians and the Scandinavians are the same. But it intends only to point out to the Italians a physical and especially psychological model of the human race which in its purely European characteristics is completely separated from all of the non-European races. This means to elevate the Italian to an ideal of superior self-consciousness and of greater responsibility.
‘Eight: It is necessary to make a clear distinction between the European Western Mediterraneans on one side and the Eastern Mediterraneans and the Africans on the other. For this reason, those theories are to be considered dangerous that support the African origin of some European peoples and that include even the Semitic and Camitic North African populations in a common Mediterranean race, establishing absolutely inadmissible relations and ideological sympathies.’
Make a distinction! Make up a distinction more like. These scientists are really tying themselves in knots.
‘Nine: Jews do not belong to the Italian race. Of the Semites who in the course of centuries have landed on the sacred soil of our country nothing in general has remained.’
And here he stopped in his steady, angry, reading.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh.’
Gino said, ‘Cos’ è adesso?’ Now what is it?
‘Gli ebrei non appartengono alla razza italiana,’ Tom said.
‘So what?’ said Gino, going about his business. ‘Why should they? So long as they work hard and talk the language, who cares?’
Tom smiled.
‘Even the Arab occupation of Sicily …’ he continued, to himself. The details melted and blended. They didn’t matter. ‘… left nothing outside the memory of some names; and for the rest the process of assimilation was always very rapid in Italy. The Jews represent the only population which has never assimilated in Italy … blah blah … Union is admissible only with European races, in which case one should not talk of a true and proper hybridism, given that these races belong to a common stock … The purely European character of the Italians would be altered by breeding with any other non-European race bearing a civilisation different from the millennial civilisation of the Aryans …’
So Jews are not Italian, or indeed European, and union – i.e., what, marriage? Family? – is admissible – what a nasty little word – only with European races. So, Nadine is not admissible? And the Fiores are not Italian? After two thousand years?
All this was detail. Once you’ve divided the human race up like that, into some arbitrary Us and Them, you are half way to announcing that They aren’t actually human anyway.
For a moment he sat in the glow of sun that fell through Gino’s window, the warmth of it on the side of his face and his shoulder, his coffee cooling in front of him. Into his mind floated the image of Piazza Venezia, a little man, thousands of faces all turned up to him as if he were the sun, shining on them, making everything possible for them. A great field of sunflowers diseased with uncritical devotion to this false sun. And that sun with its own diseased devotion to an even bigger false sun.
We are meant to think for ourselves, aren’t we? We’re not children in some horrible orphanage, to be marched around and hypnotised into dumb obedience. Are we?
Gino let him make a couple of calls, including one to the paper. The girls were travelling by car, and had stopped off for a few days in Paris. If he left tonight, by train, he could easily be in Rome before them. It seemed to him now absolutely necessary that he should be. Only a worm would not be there now. This could, actually, be a wonderful opportunity.
He headed for the Tube station.
*
It was as he passed the corner of Lexington Street that he saw the family: man, woman, girl. They caught his eye because the man’s silhouette was like Peter’s, and made him think he probably should tell Peter he was going away. Then he saw that it was Peter. Then he saw that it couldn’t be, because as they stepped into the sun the two women – the girl was almost a woman – revealed themselves to be negro. Then he saw, definitely, that it was Peter.
They were walking seemingly easily, cheerfully, and a shaft twisted from surprise, disbelief and guilt speared him to the spot. Why? Who? And, you’ve walked in on something. Walk out.
He stared, unable to remove his eyes from this unlikely target. Then he ducked suddenly away, into Silver Place. His eyes did not follow him quite quickly enough: the girl looked up, and fixed on him. It was only for a moment, but it was quite clear. I see you.
He turned to walk on quickly: up, away. Head down. The pavement was warm and the alley stank. Keep going.
It wasn’t that he forgot what he’d seen. He just didn’t believe it. There was a lot going on.
*
Tom did not go to the Fiores’ house on the island when he arrived in Rome. Instead he looked up Carmichael, who was working now at the British Consulate.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ Carmichael said, in what seemed to Tom a rather knowing manner. ‘Good.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tom asked.
‘Well, are you here to save Italy from herself? Or to save your pretty cousin from her Fascist birthright?’
‘Don’t rub it in, old man,’ Tom said. ‘I know why I’m here, I’ve no clue how to go about it, though.’
They met for supper at a little place by Campo dei Fiori. Carmichael brought a friend, a quiet, well-dressed young man who worked in the Vatican. Very quietly and intently, this man, Michele Bertolini, told Tom about his uncle in Florence. The story was brief and bloody. The uncle was a known anti-Fascist. He had been kidnapped and beaten, and blinded. His friends had rescued him, taken him by carts and byways down to the coast and put him on a boat to Sardinia. Nobody had heard from him since.
Tom blinked. Bertolini kept his dark eyes downcast, his slender fingers resting on the edge of the table.
&nb
sp; It’s here, Tom thought. It’s real. Look.
‘Was this an official punishment for something?’ he asked, tentatively.
And Bertolini raised his heavy eyes and said, ‘I’m afraid it’s not really like that at the moment. Not if you have the right friends and the right slogans.’
They had other stories too, and Tom listened carefully. Various addresses were mentioned, neighbourhoods where it was best not to go without the party badge on your lapel, things to say or not to say.
‘I don’t know about your school,’ Carmichael said. ‘But it’s rather like school, with no beaks, just the big nasty boy’s gang in charge. And there’s no comeback.’
‘My uncle,’ Tom said, ‘described it much the same way. Only he said the Duce was the leader of a gang so powerful it stopped all the other gangs from fighting between themselves, and so it was a good thing. People could just get on with their lives. And that’s why everyone loves him.’
‘Do you think that?’ Carmichael asked.
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘But I see why people do. Otherwise they’d have to admit that the person they put all their faith in, who made everything right for them, is some kind of monster.’
There was a silence across the table as Bertolini and Carmichael looked at him.
‘So,’ said Carmichael. ‘Are you staying at your uncle’s again this time?’
‘No!’ said Tom. ‘No. I …’
Their gaze was exceptionally straight. It was Carmichael who leaned forward and said, quite gently, ‘because you are going to have to decide,’ and in that phrase Tom saw, in a flash of clarity, that it was real, it was beginning, it was more than his fears, more than his family – and bigger than them too – and that it was going to be a long haul. He closed his eyes for a moment. He thought. It’s clear. It’s right and wrong. It’s simple. But it won’t be easy.
He looked up at them and smiled. ‘Here goes then!’ he said. ‘Johnny, Michele – my family from London are arriving tomorrow – my socialist pacifist war-hero pa, my pretty apolitical ma, and my ridiculous kid sister. My family in Rome are Jewish Fascists, now under threat from the very man to whom they have dedicated their lives. I’m sorry to sound portentous. But which decision am I to make?’
Without hesitation, Bertolini said: ‘You cut them off. They are Fascist.’
‘They are family,’ Tom said. ‘You don’t understand.’
Bertolini dropped his sad scholarly eyes for a moment, and then said, quietly: ‘Yes I do understand.’
Tom looked up at his face: hooded, blank.
‘You cut them off,’ Bertolini said.
‘I can’t,’ Tom said.
Bertolini’s mouth tightened the tiniest bit, like glue drying. ‘If I can,’ he said – and he left it there, as if he couldn’t speak.
‘Oh,’ said Tom. Helplessness loomed in him. Really? he thought. But—
‘I’m going to their house,’ Tom said, ‘and I’m going to make them see sense.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Carmichael said. ‘Only twenty years of solid top-class propaganda to unravel.’
After Bertolini left them, Johnny told Tom that two of Bertolini’s brothers had been involved in the uncle’s disappearance. Tom winced, but said: ‘I have to try though, haven’t I?’
‘Doesn’t matter if you have to or not,’ Carmichael said. ‘You’re going to. And you’re still going to have to choose a side.’
‘I’m on the side of the human, Johnny,’ Tom said.
‘Well just get a move on.’
*
He stayed that night at Johnny’s, sleepless, and went early to the island. Sheepishly, he stood across the piazza watching as they came out and started packing up a little green car: Aldo, Susanna, and two long lanky teenagers with soft black moustaches, the little boys, he thought. No sign of Nenna. All right, he thought, and was about to stride across, a bold Buon giorno! on his lips—
A voice behind him. ‘Eh, Masino.’
He couldn’t stop the smile.
He spun round, and there she was, a quizzical smile on her face, little Marinella clutching her hand. He only had time for the thought I didn’t really think this through, did I, before a swift and deathly drama broke out inside him: his heart ricocheted, helpless, alarmed, and his default English manners swept quickly in to make his face smile, his hand stick out to be shaken and his mouth utter the words, ‘How lovely to see you again, Nenna.’
Jesus, the beauty. Not her being beautiful – though she was. The beauty of her being her.
Her mouth fell open. ‘How lovely to see you too, Tom,’ she said. She put a comical little emphasis on the use of his English name. Tom. Very polite.
I am a fool, he thought. Nenna. Nenna.
Later, he would remember this moment, and how he should have kissed her, swept her over the wall into a waiting boat, hauled her down river to the sea, out and home to safety – her and Marinella too.
*
Everybody was delighted to see him. Time dissolved, past insults had never existed, and all was joy and welcome. And everybody was busy: packing, lugging, closing, locking, forgetting, remembering, arranging, changing arrangements. He caught them just as they were leaving for the lake. The boys would go by bus; there was room for Tom in the car, of course! How not! All the way, Nenna’s leg was against his in the back seat, and Aldo talked loudly about wine-making; when they got out into the country the roads were terrible, and then Aldo insisted on stopping to wait and pick up the boys, which meant a great squash in the back, and on giving them turns at driving, which involved much yelping, instructing, and shrieks of horror and delight, so Nenna and Susanna said they would walk, with Marinella, thank you very much, so Tom said, no of course I will walk, and he walked, with Nenna.
The bastard formality which had frozen him in the piazza would not let him go. He threw glances at her: she had grown tall and fine, physically sleeker, though her stripey mane of hair still sought to escape the control into which she had twisted it. Her skin was sallow, her hands rough, her dark yellow eyes were humorous. She was glad to see him. She teased him for staying away so long, accused him of having grown handsome – and yet he could not speak naturally to her. She made him blush.
Am I just to launch in? Challenge this golden morning with news that her government rejects her? The calmer the dark hills and the blue sky around them, the rustling of the bamboo canes by the stream, the jumpier he felt. He even found himself asking her what she was doing now.
‘Teacher!’ she said. ‘Depending how well I do, either little children, or, I was thinking, history.’
‘And?’ he said.
‘I don’t have my exam results yet. But – I asked my old teacher at school, and he said, “Women cannot teach history”. So I said that I thought I could, and that I would work very hard. And he said, “No, you don’t understand, it’s against the law.”’
‘It is against the law for women to teach history?’ Tom asked, just to be sure.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because women are hysterical and inaccurate, and allow emotion to influence them. History must be pure and factual. There is no room for debate and argument.’
‘Oh,’ said Tom.
‘That is what he said. Very calmly! And it made me think of my father’s argumentative, hysterical friends, of all the men who shout and argue in the cafés and in the streets. And of my quiet mother.’
‘But—’
‘I said that too. But. And my teacher said “There is no room for But.”’
She glanced over to him.
‘This did seem wrong,’ she said.
‘It is wrong,’ he said.
‘But, never mind,’ she said. ‘There’s always a way. Perhaps I will teach some history to the little children …’
‘But Nenna, it’s not fair, or right’ – at which she laughed, and said, ‘Oh you are so sweet,’ and the phrase long haul swept into his head, so he laughed too, and he said: ‘I meant it
more in a revolutionary way, fiore, not in a sweet way.’
‘Fiore!’ she said. ‘Are you calling me by my surname like your public schoolboys? Or are you calling me flower?’
‘Both,’ he said. ‘Expressing my respect for your pure factual masculine intellect, and admiration for your beauty.’ And she laughed, so it was a little more like the old days, except, of course, that it wasn’t.
*
On arrival at the lake, everybody was busy again, unpacking, cooking, sweeping, making up the small metal beds. There was no way in, through all this activity. He didn’t know if they’d seen the manifesto. They must have! But if they had, how could they be continuing so oblivious? They must, surely, understand the implications. But they were just – continuing. There was an air around the family, a density, which he didn’t remember and couldn’t break through. It was as if they were all held in orbits and circuits with each other, and space was delineated. The whole universe of it was protected by a membrane, which he was outside. His words and his presence prodded it gently, but no impression was left. Tom could not make the declarations he had been rehearsing. His determination, which had been dissipating since the border, and encouraged by Carmichael and Bertolini, flagged again. Long haul, he murmured again.
Lugging buckets of water from the well for the kitchen, he remembered the acrobat. Little bats, tucked into their cool dark corners; soft-bellied lizards gloating in the hot sun. It was here that he had decided, years before, that he was going to be a naturalist. And perhaps he would yet. He had had an offer to go in September to Palermo, to help a friend of his tutor to list beetles.
Before lunch they walked to the lake, to sweep the dust and sweat of the journey from their bodies, down the dusty track, towels round their shoulders. Marinella skipped about ahead, squelching and squeaking with her feet when they reached the meadow with its grassy irrigation channels. Nostalgia seized him, and he was momentarily helpless. How could he break all this perfection?
