Читать книгу The Sweet Hills of Florence - Jan Wallace Dickinson - Страница 9

CHAPTER 2

Florence 1942

The Day of the Dead

November again. All Souls Day again. Again and again. A whole year since Hitler’s state visit. Annabelle opened her eyes reluctantly and wiggled deeper beneath the heavy blanket. The rough wool itched her chin, but at least it was not that awful synthetic stuff people were using since wool became unavailable. Lanital – her father said it was made from milk. How disgusting. To think Florence was once the city of cloth.

She sighed and forced herself out of bed. A great lassitude assailed her; the shadow of a monster loomed at her shoulder. The war was going badly. America had been in the war for nearly a year but still it dragged on. For months, photographs of captured Italian soldiers in Egypt had been circulating. El Alamein. Wasn’t that where their cousin Roberto was fighting? Italian troops were in Russia too – Stalingrad. A new name. The whole world was at war: countries Annabelle had never heard of were fighting with each other in places she could not even find on a globe. Thailand! Where on earth was that? Terrifying stories of what Hitler was doing to the Jews were no longer in doubt. She had never given much thought to whether people were Jews. Now there were Jews in hiding all over the city, many from the north, running from the Germans.

It was not Il Duce’s fault, people said. Everything, they whispered, was the fault of ‘that woman’, Clara Petacci, who governed the country from his bedroom. Le voci corrono, word has it … Annabelle heard these conversations between Anna Maria and her husband in the kitchen, at the vegetable stall in Sant’Ambrogio market, between elderly ladies at the butcher and, in a slightly different register, in her own drawing room. It was open conversation now, as Annabelle’s parents had given up any pretence of keeping her inured to the goings-on in the nation. The city was full of gossip and fear, of plot and counterplot. It must be the fault of the woman beside the leader. To blame him would be, her father said, to lose the last shred of faith holding the whole shambles together. Se lo sapesse Il Duce, they said. ‘If only Il Duce knew about it …’ He would do something. Put a stop to the things done in his name. The saying had been in currency for as long as she could remember, had become a matter of derision, though all mirth was gallows humour now. Mussolini did know and did not care.

Annabelle was both horrified and titillated by the stories of Mussolini and his lover. Claretta, she was called, and the walls of her parents’ Roman villa were, almost daily now, covered in graffiti: puttana, troia, whore. The Carabinieri guarded the house on Mussolini’s orders. Clara’s father was a Vatican doctor, the Pope’s doctor. Wealthy and once well-respected, they had behaved for many years as the inlaws of Il Duce. The newspapers revelled in stories of their doings. Lately, the role had less cachet. People were looking for someone to carry the blame and shame and fear of a failing war, and they did not have to look far. According to Enrico, Mussolini had become a syphilitic megalomaniac who was afraid to go out. He must hear these things at his secret meetings, Annabelle supposed. Meetings Enrico refused to take her to.

Up at Piazzale Michelangelo – last year it would have been – she recalled seeing several stylishly foreign women in elegant suits and high heels, wearing jaunty hats a bit like the shape of the Alpini brigades, some with a feather. They posed for a photograph, self-consciously ranged down the steep slope of the stone parapet, the Duomo behind them, a chattering, cheerful flock of migratory birds. German. She could hear the guttural consonants. Behind her, two elderly gardeners muttered to each other:

‘Hitler’s lover,’ said one, with a nod at the women.

‘Which one?’ asked the other.

‘That one,’ he replied, with a thumb in the direction of a woman with light brown hair and a rather plain face, wearing one of the feathered hats.

‘Hrrumph,’ his companion grunted, ‘la nostra è piu bella!’

They sniggered and sauntered off. Ours is better looking. Annabelle pondered the joke but it made no sense. Then.

A short while ago she furtively cut out a photograph of La Signora Clara Petacci from a newspaper. The dress had a deep, crossover V-neck. Black hair thickly curled in satiny bunches swept back from a high forehead, in a pose reminiscent of images of the women of ancient Rome. The lips were deeply etched, with what would certainly have been scarlet if it were in colour. Clara gazed off to her left with longing. Annabelle was certain she was gazing at her lover. In the V of her neckline, a heavy ball pendant on a long chain rested between full breasts, and in her ears were large pearls.

Annabelle curled her toes as they hit the icy cotto floor. Sliding her feet into her ciabatte, she tied her dressing-gown and made her bed, taking care with the corners. Her mother worried greatly about properly made beds and such matters now. Eleanora spent long periods reorganising the cutlery drawers and linen press and giving minute directions in the kitchen. It soothed her ‘nerves’, gave her a sense of control in a world gone mad, a world where her sons had disappeared. Annabelle understood and tried not to be irritated.

She dragged a comb through her hair – the bone one with the wide teeth that Nonna Lucrezia had given her. Her hair, once so fine and fair, had darkened to a deep golden blonde and was too thick for the fine combs and gilt-backed brushes on her dressing table. She paused before the mirror, one hand raised to her hair, as her dressing-gown fell open. Beneath her nightdress, the swell of her breasts was satisfying; they too had grown. Not as much as she would like, but still … She unbuttoned the childish floral nightdress, running her hands softly over pale nipples and then in gentle circles around each breast, shivering from her scalp down. She closed her eyes, thinking of the soft white skin at the base of Enrico’s throat, the downy hair of his forearms as it caught the sunlight. What if he kissed her? What if he put his full lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth? She knew people really kissed like that. It made her feel a little queasy, set off great surges, convulsions, waves rising and breaking. She pinched her nipples until they hurt and an electric current zigzagged through her centre to somewhere deep, deeper. She threw back her head, arched her spine and let the waves crest and the wetness flow down her thighs. Sinking to the cold tiles, she stifled a moan – sound carried in the vast spaces of the upper floor.

Did Claretta feel this? What did they do together? What would it be like to defy all conventions for love? Would she, Annabelle, do it for Enrico? No reading of Boccaccio or Petrarch or the letters of Heloise could answer these questions. The only naked men she had ever seen were statues: the tortured body of Christ in all its agony, or the images of impaled saints on constant display in every church and museum. Repulsive. There was the gigantic member of Neptune in Piazza Signoria – surely no-one could really look like that? She sighed, shivered, got unsteadily to her feet and picked up her brush again, observed from the mirror by a serious girl in a sensible floral nightgown. A clammy nightgown – damp and sticky.

She dropped the brush with a clatter as her father passed her door, giving it a hearty morning thump on his way downstairs. The rich basso of the Duomo’s bells reverberated through the walls, mimicked by the tinnier ones of the Badia. Annabelle tied her dressing-gown tightly, picked up her chamber pot and headed down the long cold hallway to the bathroom. Unsteadily.

In the breakfast room, Enrico was already seated at the far end of the table, deep in conversation with her father, whose large bowl of caffe latte was almost empty. Enrico had lately taken to drinking only strong black espresso, which made Annabelle shiver. The ground barley they called coffee was only bearable with milk. La Nazione was open before them. That was sure to inflame outrage. They were in accord in their disdain for the editor, a loyal functionary of the Regime. One of the first acts of the fascists was to abolish a free press, so the English newspapers, which were all Annabelle had known, were no longer available. She missed them.

She longed for once-upon-a-time mornings when conversations turned on matters such as whether the inventor of chamber music was Haydn or Sammartini. Goethe described chamber music as ‘four rational people conversing’. Would that ever happen again? Nevertheless, they took La Nazione to know what the day’s line in propaganda would be. This morning their outrage centred upon news that important pieces of Renaissance art had been transferred to Germany for protection. Protection! Theft, plain and simple! Nazi opportunism! They were both taking affront with their coffee.

‘Good morning.’ Annabelle poured some warm milk into her bowl, her voice a little loud, guilty, as if Enrico could somehow know of the performance before the mirror. Most mornings she prayed he would be there at the table. Most mornings, her prayers were answered. Her mother was always prepared, the big blue and white bowls of caffe latte and the brioche ready. Aunt Elsa did not rise early. They all spent most of their time in the palazzo in town now. Annabelle had not been out to Impruneta for months. Her parents went for the vendemmia – the grapes had to be gathered, but she remained in town with the excuse of her hated schoolbooks. The raccolta was due but they could press the oil without her.

She dropped a casual kiss on the top of her father’s head, and then on Enrico’s in the same manner. The effort nearly killed her. He greeted her absently with a pat on her hip as she passed. She twitched away; who does he think he is? Her father? He was ever more taken up with his clandestine activities. He would not tell her anything, supposedly on the grounds of her safety. Her safety! She was so tired of being a treated as a child.

Annabelle had been an introverted child in a darkening world: a non-believer in a Catholic country and a non-fascist in a fascist country. The fascist hierarchy was often manned by members of the aristocracy and many were relatives. She had more cousins than she could count but most were estranged, living on the other side of the political divide. She had no school friends because she had no school. She knew no life but that of a stranger to her caste and her country and her city. Now, she was still anxious … no longer a child, but not yet free to be an adult either, in this world turned upside down. Florence had become a city of shadows and running footsteps and sudden pounding on doors and marching boots and the clash of metal arms and explosions. She thought she might explode too.

Giacomo and Umberto had been interned in Australia. Papà had explained they were better off interned far away in safety and relative comfort than here in this vile morass. He only wished he had sent all the children. As for internment, he said, every country did it. The day war was announced here in Florence, the police turned up at the door of Villa La Pietra to arrest Hortense Acton and all the other foreign residents of the city. The venerable Lady Acton was tossed into jail wearing only her summer dress and without so much as a toothbrush or an apology. The great difference, he said, was that here, many people were able to bribe their way out.

The declaration of war changed everything. Florence became a fortified city, not so much for its residents, but for its art. Florentines lived in a city of ghostly statues whose wrapping and padding made it seem they had grown fat while real people had grown thin. Glass was removed from doorways and barriers built. Walls were bare, with only the faded outlines of pictures taken down and packed for safekeeping. Blackout material gave the city an air of mourning. Most churches and major galleries were emptied, their contents stored in country villas and castles, like Castello Montegufoni, sequestered by the government from Sir George Sitwell. The Germans were shipping art treasures to Germany ‘to protect them’. By now, the hiding of art was not only for protection against possible bombing by the enemy Allies, but, said Achille, more against the depredation of our so-called friends. Annabelle was not interested; she just wanted to know what Enrico was doing and be doing it with him.

Rome 1943

Du-ce! Du-ce! Du-ce!

Clara was tired of being in bed, but she was still not well enough to get up. Ben would be here soon, loving and solicitous again now, after she had nearly died. Ectopic pregnancy. She had never heard of such a thing. It was nearly fatal, her father said.

She sighed, shifting her weight in the bed to ease the pain. Time was passing. Was thirty too old to have children? She said a quick prayer to Saint Rita. She had so wanted to have the baby.

‘Women are born for babies and blows,’ Ben once said, and God knows she had had enough blows. All his other women had borne him endless children. Why could she not give him that joy? She really had thought he was going to leave her the last time. If only she were the mother of his child, she would be guaranteed the place in his life of Rachele, or Alice and Rospilda and Angela Cucciati. Eleven children that she knew of. Ben did love children. He had even passed a law forbidding childless bachelors a place in the civil service.

He was being so nice to her now in the face of this terrible loss. He would never marry her; she knew that. Ben did not believe in marriage. He denied ever having married Ida Dalser, even though everyone knew he did and the courts decided the boy was his. He only married Rachele under protest before the second child was born – Edda was born out of wedlock. Even when he gave in to Rachele’s pressure, he refused to consider a church wedding, but married her in a civil ceremony. He said he was too ill at the time to argue, bedridden with typhus during the war. Ben cared nothing for religion or for convention, but then, neither did she really. There had been talk of bigamy but he assured her it was his political enemies spreading lies. No, Claretta would not want to be his wife. He’d had Ida Dalser locked up in the madhouse and her son too. Rachele, the harridan, might rule in Ben’s home but she had a terrible life, really. His mistresses fared much better. Clara would happily bear his child if only things went better the next time.

Doors, draughts, footsteps, voices: the fuss of arrival downstairs. ‘Richard’ was due at 4 pm, the usual message said, and Ben was always punctual. Clara sank back onto the pillows, studying the effect in the corner mirror, pleased to note that she was still quite pallid. She admired the impressive solitaire diamond glittering on her left hand. Ben would be a while, because her illness had brought him even closer to her family and he would stop to talk to her mother and to her sister Myriam – he was helping to further her acting career. Her father would be back from the Vatican soon and Ben would be pleased to see him. When he was actually here, she was happy – at least he was not out making love to other women. Though he found it boring for her to be the invalid.

She heard him mount the stairs with the energetic gait he used for outsiders, but once in the room, he deflated onto the chair at her side.

She held out a limp hand to him. ‘Amore’. She smiled wanly.

Ben took her hand, held it to his cheek then kissed her palm. ‘How is my angel today?’ He leaned towards her with concern. ‘I need to speak to your father. He has not come in from the hospital yet. My cold is not improving and the doctor has prescribed some new pills for me.’

More pills. Their life was a sea of pills. Sometimes she wondered if all these medicinals were really helping.

Ben was on the balcony and beneath him, the crowd roared. Du-ce! Du-ce! Du-ce! The twenty-first of April, the anniversary of the founding of Rome. From where she stood, it was obvious to Clara that the crowd was much smaller, but he seemed happy and that made her happy. She massaged her left shoulder where she had fallen against the table the other night. It was three days ago but the bruise was still tender. It was her own fault. She should not have provoked him. He would be nice this afternoon. They could have a peaceful time together, like earlier times when she used to stand here in the shadows, Ben performing for her, before the horde of adulators below. Afterwards they would make love like wild creatures – then her bruises were a pleasure. Or when, in the early throes of his infatuation, he would ensure she was seated at an angle to him at public events, so he could fix her with his eyes like a falcon.

‘See. They love me. A ring of the bell and everyone rushes under the balcony to hear me,’ he exulted as he turned back inside ‘These boots are too tight. Get Navarra to bring me the others.’

She sighed and turned to ring for Quinto.

‘Why are you sighing? You don’t agree with me? You don’t think they adore me as always?’

He was not happy, then. He had another cold too. She tried to deflect his ire, indicating the new painting Quinto had delivered, a gift from Ottone Rosai. Years before, Ben commissioned Rosai to paint two huge landscapes for the railway station of Santa Maria Novella. How many railway stations, he boasted, are adorned with original art? In private though, Ben was bored by paintings. He barely flicked the new picture a glance. Even on a state tour of the Uffizi with Hitler, who was obsessed with art, showing intense interest and curiosity about the Botticelli and the other famous paintings, Ben could barely suppress a yawn. Clara would need to come up with something else to distract him.

‘Have you had bad news from Africa, my pet?’ she soothed. The war was going badly – and not just in Africa, but Ben no longer seemed to care.

‘This war is not for the Italian people,’ he replied. For the looming humiliation of defeat in Tunisia, he blamed Rodolfo Graziani. He should have known better than to put Graziani in charge of the African campaign. ‘The Italian people do not have the maturity or the consistency for such a tremendous and decisive test.’

Ben had lost faith in Italians and in the war. His voice had the edge it got when losing his temper. Was he taking more pills she did not know about? Sometimes he took too many and sometimes new pills upset him. He was puffed with rage.

Ben rose on the balls of his feet, his body turned away from her. ‘The Grand Council met today.’

The Grand Council could only be convened by the Prime Minister, that is, by Ben. Clara had known nothing of a meeting today and she prided herself on knowing these things. She knew Ben did not mean the full Council – that had not met formally since the war began. He meant Starace, Pavolini, Farinacci … that lot! Still, his use of the term was sinister.

She was alert. ‘What was it about?’

‘It was about you!’ Ben whirled to her, his face contorted. His collar was too tight, choking him. ‘You! Always you! This cannot go on. It makes me look a fool. I have decided to end it.’

Again! Each time was worse. The last time, it was that swine, Ciano, who wrote to his father-in-law that her family was interfering in politics. She had copied the letter into her diary: The whole family interferes on the left and protects on the right and threatens above and intrigues below. Ben’s sister Edvige was in league with the Count, accusing Clara and her family of profiteering and causing scandal. Marc’s activities certainly did not help, but it was so unfair. People even blamed her for the way the war was going.

It was the fault of the English, who broadcast constant lies about her. They said Ben was bewitched and she was an evil force. If only they knew. Ben could not function without her. Twice recently, she had arrived at the gates of Palazzo Venezia only to be refused admittance. She begged and pleaded and sobbed and wailed and he shouted and stamped and raged and capitulated. That was the way things went these days.

‘How dare they! How dare you!’ she cried. ‘They all want me dead. One day they will have me killed. Is that want you want? You want to be rid of me! You want me killed!’

Her voice climbed to a screech, hurting her throat. She grasped the heavy silver teapot with both hands and pitched it across the room. It landed with a spray of tea-leaves and tile slivers, leaving an ugly crater in the antique majolica of the floor, and bounced against the wall. For a moment after the racket, there was silence.

‘It is no use.’ He was calm now. His eyes were empty, in the way that should have warned her. ‘I have decided. The cycle is closed.’

Clara had no life outside their life. She had formed no friendships; how could she? She was the target of envy and hate. She had no education, no career. She had nothing but Ben and her family. All of this she gladly suffered for him, for love. Was he blind? She knew her Lion would be nothing without her and she knew that without him, she would be eaten alive. She grasped the fruit knife, holding the tip at her throat.

‘It is better if I die now, then.’

The slap echoed in the vast chamber. Ben hit her with his open hand and the force snapped her head to the left. She thought for a moment her head might swivel right around, but then the back of his hand took her from the other side. She saw the blood spray from her nose onto his cuff. Then the palm of his hand swung back. She flailed at him, scratching, clawing, hissing. The teacups crashed across the room and the small glass table shattered against the window step. Shards of her life cut them both. Ben was no longer calm. The punch felled her. So you really do see stars, she thought. The dark descended.

Clara opened her eyes to the ornate blue and gold Zodiac on the ceiling far above her. Her father was talking quietly to Ben, whose eyes were red and puffy. Quinto hovered at the foot of the chaise where she lay. On a table beside her was an array of bottles and ampoules. She felt wonderful, infused with peace. She wanted to raise her hand but it was too difficult. She smiled. Quinto smiled back at her and touched Ben on the arm. He turned, throwing himself to the floor beside her.

‘Amore mio. My love. My love. Thank God you are all right.’ He kissed the palm of her hand over and over and stroked her cheek.

Was that blood on his sleeve?

‘Your father has given you some special medicine. You will be better soon.’

Clara smiled again and closed her eyes. She felt as if she was back at school with the nuns. She might say a prayer, or perhaps later. She was very tired. There was a pain somewhere but it was not hers. The storm had passed.