The Vengeance of Rome (16 page)

Like Hitler in his first years, Mussolini made women ecstatic. He would have his aides select from the letters he received and deliver a fresh female to his office every weekday afternoon. The Italian people loved him for it. His virility reflected the virility of their race. This much I already knew from common talk and ordinary observation. Certain individuals carry a kind of magnetism which makes them irresistible to the masses and which Virginia Woolf called ‘It'. She, admittedly, was referring to the pornographer and
arabiste
whose films are so fashionable these days.

As far as I am concerned
Lady Chatterton
,
Odysseus
, Hank Janson and
The Well of Loneliness
are all the same. Janson himself agreed with me. He was the only one of that crowd I knew well. I helped him with the details he needed of the Spanish Civil War. He was not present, of course, but had been forced to live in Spain when the courts found him guilty. He had nothing but contempt for the others. They had all done considerably better out of their stuff, he said, than he had from his. He had made the mistake of selling the copyrights of both the books and his identity! Others were now writing new novels using his name!

Janson was a bitter man in his last years, as were Gerhardie and Priestley. Both were deeply jealous of Kingsley Amis and his angry young Turks and hated their crudeness. I met Amis several times. The first time was in the West End when he was posing for a suit commercial (he supplemented his income with endorsements of various products, especially wines and spirits). I knew the photographer. I remember Amis made fun of my accent and would not even listen when I offered him my manuscript and a
chance to collaborate. At the time his words hurt me worse than the Cossack Grishenko's whip. From the booze on his breath, the lighting man said they were amazed that he could still stand up. That filth he wrote already weighed on his conscience. There is Welsh blood there. I was unmoved by his insult. After all, I have rubbed shoulders with some of the finest artists in the world and have been on first-name terms with the most powerful men in history. But I was depressed that a national figure should so lower himself. I have since learned that rudeness and self-involvement is characteristic of all but a few writers. They are jealous, petty, envious creatures. Their sense of their own importance is astonishing! I have known dictators with more humility.

Years earlier I had fallen in love with Rome. Now all the pleasure returned, though tinged with a little sadness as I thought of Esmé, who had betrayed me in the end. I found it hard to blame her. She had been a child. She hardly knew what she was doing. For a little while, at least, I had rescued her from the squalid life she had now, doubtless, returned to.

Signora Sarfatti had, we discovered, been wonderfully generous. She had loaned us a magical little half-timbered house in its own walled garden, off the Via Pencioni, bordering the gardens of the Villa Borghese and near the zoo. Reminiscent of the Normandy Apartments in which I'd stayed while in Hollywood, the three-roomed cottage stood in its own tiny courtyard adorned with old masonry and an erratic fountain. Twice a day the dryads and sylphs who adorned it moved into dramatic action, spouting, pouring, gushing, gurgling from almost every orifice. The cottage was decorated in a mixture of rustic and modern taste, which I found pleasing, save for some of the paintings, which were in the latest neurotic styles. The worst of them I turned to the wall before collapsing on the bed.

I had been so eager to leave that I had not given myself enough time to recover in Venice. For the first few days, I lay in the massive bed, which Maddy turned towards the balcony so that I could see into the lovely garden with its fig trees, its orange and white bougainvillea, its profusion of golds and browns in the tawny sunlight. I stared, hour after hour, into a living tapestry. From the nearby zoo came the shriek of a large bird of prey or the yawning roar of a lion. Occasionally the scene would change and become the long, dark avenue of poplars, the winter river, the woman walking her dog turning to warn me. Then began my vision of the ministry of Satan upon Earth and in Heaven and Hell. Clad in the wealth of the Fall, Satan sat upon the throne of all three Spheres. God was overthrown. The arch-fiend triumphed. The Good and the Just were singled out for special punishment. What was our crime?

What was our crime? Perhaps we indulged ourselves in too many sentimental lies. We should have been better prepared. We should have understood our predicament. Now I stand humiliated before our grinning conqueror while the cruellest, the strongest, the greediest, the most wicked are rewarded, elevated to the highest command. The rest of us, who tried to make some positive use of our lives, are forced to bow before the will of the Great Lord and are used in any way that pleases him.

I understand such tyranny. I have been its victim more than once. I live in the shadow of eternal fear. Shall I become its victim again? My vision would not leave me, night or day. My vision still comes unexpectedly without warning. I am assured that eternity would be no better. I am doomed to perpetual torment. Such is my reward, for choosing the conquered side. My mistake was to believe in Jesus Christ. The price of idealism is disappointment. The price of idealism is despair.

Unquestionably someone had attempted to poison me in Venice. But I was recovering. The doctors Maddy brought were all baffled. If I had murmured the word ‘Cheka', no doubt they would have understood too well and never returned! My old friend Brodmann was rarely far away in those days, gloating over what he had seen in the Cossack camp. No doubt he took particular pleasure in his recollections. At times like these the pain of the whip always returned.

I had not remembered Rome as so Mediterranean a city. Gradually I grew stronger. I took short drives with the fashionably dressed Maddy in the car she had rented. American girls are always resourceful. Their culture demands they be both men and women. I relaxed as she took charge. I delighted in white terraces spilling foliage and bright blossoms down into gardens filled with trees and shrubs. I was comforted by the orderly parks and squares. Mussolini was transforming the city architecturally, and making her the hub of the new Roman Empire. He had filled her with a fresh, inner light. Even the remaining poorer quarters, with their twisting medieval streets, the churches, shops, decaying villas, apartment blocks and public buildings all crowded together, exuded an atmosphere as lively as my own Moldavanka in Odessa.

Mysteriously, although we left messages for them, our two greatest friends were not in Rome to see us. We understood that both Fiorello and Margherita were involved in important affairs of state. At such times Il Duce commanded every moment of their waking lives. As soon as I was well enough, I took Maddy to some of the wonderful haunts I had first discovered with my darling Esmé. The increasingly delicious young American was learning what she called ‘Continental ways' with eager alacrity.

We visited the Ristorante Mendoza, where I had spent so many happy hours. Had they seen Laura Faschetti or any of the old gang? They were nervously discreet, though friendly enough. These days it was no longer fashionable to have a left-wing clientele. I did bump into a couple of my old acquaintances but was deeply disappointed. Their only interest was in mocking me or describing with some bitterness how this or that person had ‘sold out'. The failure's whine the world over. At least Mendoza's fried artichoke was as wonderful as always. Maddy was amazed at the variety and richness of the food. She had believed until then, she said, that all Jewish food was lox, blintzes and latkes.

What Americans call ‘Jewish' food is actually East European. Most of it is familiar to me. But the Jews had to pretend they had invented it, just as the Greeks cannot bear the idea that their entire cuisine is Turkish. They have a saying in Albania: How do you tell the difference between Turkish cuisine and Greek? Answer: One has pork.

Believe me, this is not a palatable notion, but it is the truth. Aggressive Moslemism (and it is by nature aggressive) is something I shall resist to my dying day. My quarrel with that fool across the street is not with his choice of religion. Anyone should have a right to follow his conscience; I have never said anything else. But I hate that grinning fool's cynical wickedness as he passes off his kebabs and shleftikos as authentic. Not only does the public think he's Greek, they think his hideous muck is typical. Maybe I should not blame him. After all, his customers are scarcely gourmets.

Rome in those days was also full of archaeologists. Il Duce had ordered a huge programme of public works designed to resurrect the best of the past and build new monuments which would be their equal. Everywhere you went you found some pit full of babbling foreigners chipping and dusting and studying for all they were worth. Myself, I had little time for them. Their unhealthy obsession with the past showed no respect for the future.

They are all the same, these people. They are suspiciously unwholesome. They grub around in antique filth as if this will give them some insight into the aspirations and inspiration of their ancestors. Is there some profit motive I do not understand? I saw this boy, he could not have been ten. He was selling a stained-glass window in the Blenheim Arms. Only I was outraged. Mrs Cornelius said it would look nice in her front room. Where would you keep it? I asked. What would you tell the vicar? He has no doubt robbed a church. Don't be silly, she said, that's out of one of them big villas up Talbot Road. Drink up and be happy, Ivan. She has a tolerance for thieves. Perhaps she is right. Most of her friends and
relatives are rogues of some description. Until these middle-class novelists and TV producers started moving into the area everyone else in Notting Hill lived by and from crime. Fit company, I suppose. I am a fool to notice. Every shopkeeper in Portobello Road says I should ‘allow' for some pilfering. They expect even their staff to rob them. It's human nature, they say, pretend you don't notice. I suppose it is cheaper than paying higher wages or having someone keep an eye on the stock every minute of the day. Live and let live? Where would we be today if Mussolini and Hitler had taken that attitude?

Once a week for many years I would meet my old friend Major Nye in the Lyons Corner House across from Victoria Station. He had retired from the army after the war. He ran a market garden somewhere near the Kent coast. He supplemented his pension, he said, by working as a bookkeeper for a firm of solicitors in Palace Street. But he kept in touch with his army chums. Sometimes I met them. They were rather pale, scrawny old men with white moustaches and neatly cut white hair. Embarrassed to be wearing civilian suits like ill-fitting uniforms, they were forever fingering their ties and asking after one another's well-being. Colonels and majors and occasionally captains. All in Civvy Street during the 1950s. All spluttering at the speed with which, under Attlee's Red hit squads, the empire was disintegrating. All their lives they had served an ideal. Now they no longer had a cause. Later, Major Nye worked in Lincoln's Inn Fields at the Sir John Soane Museum. I spent much of my time there after I first came to London. Mrs Cornelius was not yet back from the Continent. Spain was finished. That was in 1939. Major Nye joined the museum in 1959 or 1960. He was growing a little frail. He had some tummy trouble. An ulcer, he said. I sometimes think stomach ulcers were the bane of that age. Everyone had them. Americans made entire films about those who suffered them. What was it making entire nations clutch their stomachs? I understand the feeling, all too well. In my case it was not an ulcer that caused my pain. Ulcers determined the history of the entire first half of the twentieth century. Drugs will determine the second half. Capital expands all possible markets.

Lincoln's Inn Fields, between Kingsway and Fleet Street, is one of those zones of tranquillity found everywhere in London. Such places were harder to find in Rome in the thirties. Our cottage near the Villa Borghese was a tiny paradise. That December was cool and sunny. We congratulated ourselves on our good fortune. We became reluctant to leave the confines of the little garden. Our planned expeditions were never conducted. Meanwhile our overworked hostess, Sarfatti, sent us hurried, apologetic notes. Fiorello
telephoned once, sounding very weary, and said he would arrange dinner as soon as he could. We told him we were not offended.

Eventually, the round of Christmas parties began at the various embassies and press clubs. We were surprised by our popularity. When Maddy was invited she took me as her escort. I recall with nostalgic pleasure the sharp smell of the December air. Yellow light flowed from great houses. Their glowing ballrooms were filled with film stars, politicians and international personalities of all kinds. Sometimes a rumour would go round that Il Duce was planning to attend.

I never saw Il Duce at these gatherings. I got on well with the American Press Corps. They were loud and enthusiastic in their support of Mussolini and the mighty things he was doing. Mussolini had his greatest admirers in the United States and Germany. Negative remarks about him in their press were rare during the 1930s. When he despaired, when he was alone, fighting traitors in his own camp and invaders at his gates, then they turned on him. The American newspapers had celebrated his achievements in 1940. Now they gloried in publishing pictures of his dangling corpse, suspended by its ankles from a beam. They treat their movie stars and sports heroes the same. In my day Thomas P. Morgan, Alice O'Hare McCormick, Murray Butler, Billy Grisham and Alex Kirk were all ‘fans' of Il Duce—‘Musso', as they called him behind his back. The Hearst press paid Margherita Sarfatti enormous prices for her articles. Hearst commissioned Mussolini himself to write for them. These newspapers often supported ‘FDR' as the American ‘Mussolini'. They would be sorely disappointed by Roosevelt when he made his deadly pact with Red Jewry. His agents still leech the lifeblood from America.