The Vengeance of Rome (85 page)

Milan, I said. I would change at Innsbruck. I saw no reason to offer him any further details.

Was I an enthusiastic train traveller? He lifted an eyebrow in mild enquiry.

I told him that I had a great love of trains, but it had been some while since I had had the opportunity to take one.

He nodded. Had I ever used the Orient Express?

I said I had never made its whole journey but hoped to do so one day.

‘I have always had a strong desire to take the Orient all the way from Paris to Constantinople,' he confided. ‘I mean to Istanbul, of course!' He added how much he had always been fascinated by luxury trains. He regretted the Bolshevist Revolution, which denied him the famous Trans-Siberian express to China. Did I have any desire to see the East?

I had seen too much of it, especially Cairo and Istanbul. I had no immediate desire to return. He was impressed. What did I think of Istanbul and Kemal Atatürk? Had I ever met the man they called the architect of modern Turkey?

I admitted that I had been in his company more than once. His attempts to bring his nation into line with contemporary Europe were commendable, but he could never hope to achieve his ends while he allowed the Moslem Brotherhood to control politics there. Islamists would be the ruin of the region.

‘And why is that, my dear sir?'

‘Because your Musselman is endemically tied to a system of beliefs rooting him thoroughly in the past,' I said. ‘In this he has much in common with your religious Jew.'

He was intrigued and wanted me to expand on my theme. It had been so long since I enjoyed the company of intelligent and sophisticated adults
I felt almost grateful to him. I explained how Jesus had been a progressive, educated as a Greek and familiar with Greek thought. Mohammed, however, had been a conservative, creating his creed in direct opposition to Christ's teachings. Indeed, his creed had been in reaction to Greek thinking. Christ had preached love and peace while Mohammed had preached war and aggression. Mohammed believed religious faith should be spread by the sword, whereas Christ believed in passive example. Mohammed had taken religion back to the Old Testament, to those same prejudices and dark practices of the Jews. I had no time for Zionism, but if the Jews required a homeland they should be allowed to make one on condition that they give up religion and practise only secular politics.

He found this a novel and amusing idea. ‘You are yourself, I take it, of a non-religious disposition.'

I had not yet re-embraced the Greek Church. I said I had a Catholic background with several churchmen in my family. In those years I breathed a different air. Many considered religion to be backward and old-fashioned, and in my love of science I was still inclined to a form of agnosticism.

He, too, had been raised a Catholic, he told me, but had been attracted to Lutheranism before turning to an uneasy form of scientific materialism. ‘These days we place all the faith we used to place in God into science and the arts.'

I agreed. I was not sure they were complete replacements, but who could doubt that the Old Testament was responsible for many of the world's troubles.

Yet, he asked, I did not feel that about the New Testament?

‘It is the first modern manifesto! It set the tone for the next two millennia. Our present philosophical and political debates all revolve around it. Europeans and Americans are products of it, even if we have no religious faith at all.'

‘You believe our purer Christian notions are corrupted when they are brought in contact with Jewish and Moslem ideas?'

‘Many of our great philosophers have thought the same.'

‘Nietzsche would go further. As would young Heidegger. Religion is not, then, a mere crutch, a means of escaping the stark realities of life and death?'

‘I understand how we must have some reassurances, some sentimentality.'

‘Some hope? You think Messrs Hitler and Mussolini give us that?'

‘Indeed I do.' I answered with perhaps exaggerated enthusiasm. I was no longer sure that Hitler's vision had very much to offer me, but Mussolini
remained my ideal. He had led the Italians for over a decade and showed every sign of leading them for another two or three at least. I kept the rest of my opinions to myself, not having the measure of my companion. Privately I came to believe Hitler's vitality was neurotic. Mussolini's was masculine, wholesome, natural. At that time I remained convinced he could still rebuild a new Roman Empire whose power would extend across Europe and the Middle East. One day he might even lay claim to the British Isles again, to the kingdoms of the Franks and the Goths. After June 1934 Nazism renounced its place in history. Mussolini had never turned on his own, never poisoned the roots of his cause. No doubt if Mussolini had not allied himself with Hitler, Italy would be again the greatest nation in Europe, perhaps the world. I had not yet completely formalised my ideas at that point. My gut feelings told me what my mind tells me now. Those last glimpses of Röhm as he went to his death, the knowledge of what had been done to Strasser and the others, had all educated my heart, teaching me to trust no one in Germany. Even this personable Prussian with his aristocratic manners could be a Nazi sympathiser. Until I was safely out of the country, I would keep my ideas to myself. Another lesson I had learned in prison.

Herr Stross, as he introduced himself, was himself somewhat circumspect about both the Chancellor and Il Duce. I suspected he was of a liberal, perhaps faintly socialist, persuasion. The present atmosphere in Munich could not be very appealing to him. At length he opened a day-old copy of
Le Figaro
and began to read. After a while, when the steward came to offer refreshments, I asked if I might borrow the paper. He passed it over with an apology for its age. He had received it from a friend in from Strassburg. He had discovered one could no longer buy most foreign papers in Munich. All part, he supposed, of the government's attempt to stimulate German internal trade. ‘German goods for German patriots, as they say.' He smiled and ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of caramel cake. As the steward sliced the cake for him, he asked if I thought the new economic policies would save the country.

I had only read the
VB
, which, of course, was wholly behind the German Chancellor. Still cautious, I echoed the editorials I had read, evidently to my companion's boredom. He found it hard to concentrate on my remarks.

Later we took dinner together in the restaurant car. Outside it grew dark. We passed through summer mountains. Some of the trees were already turning gold. Settled among them, little picturesque towns and villages raced past. The steady progress of the train, the wine with the meal and the brandy afterwards, relaxed us both. We became more free in our
conversation and had begun to exchange jokes by the time we got back to the compartment where Herr Stross offered me an excellent cigar. As southern Germany went by, a blur of velvet and diamonds, he told me of his family, his married sister who now lived in Wisconsin, his parents who themselves had so longed to emigrate, but were now too old. I spoke of my own childhood, transferring my past to Chicago and Wilmington, describing how I had been schooled privately, by friends of my mother, and had then been fortunate enough to get a scholarship to Johns Hopkins, where I received my masters in science at an early age. Then I volunteered to fight in the War as a flyer, but not through any dislike of Germany. I had known an enthusiasm for airships and planes from youth. I had chiefly joined because I had lost my childhood sweetheart, my greatest support, encouraging me in everything. My inventions had been originally for her, Esmé. I had flown my first makeshift plane only a few years after the Wrights had flown theirs! The machine had been ahead of its time. One used one's body as the airframe. I had another similar design I was currently working on. I told him a little about my one-man airship, describing some of my other inventions to him until, looking at his watch, he remarked we would soon be at the border.

When Herr Stross excused himself and went down the corridor to the WC, I took advantage of his absence to pull down the blinds and sniff a little ‘coca'. It had been some time since I had felt so happy in the company of a fellow spirit.

In a while Herr Stross returned and removed his passport from his bag. He had seen the customs and immigration people a few compartments away, he said. I readied my own passport.

A few minutes later the door opened. Two smartly uniformed officials, wearing swastika armbands, appeared at our door and saluted.

I told myself that I was imagining that they were looking suspiciously at me. With a display of confidence, I smiled up at them, presenting my papers.

The German officials were not particularly friendly as they gave my papers close inspection, but they were polite enough before passing on up the train, leaving the customs men to check Herr Stross's bag as carefully as they checked mine. As the train moved slowly across the border into Austria, I saw little but a few street lamps, the occasional pulse of a distant headlight; then we had stopped again. The Austrian immigration and customs people were as efficient as the German, and when they saw I was going on to Rome asked fewer questions of me than they asked of Herr Stross.

The train under steam again, I settled back into my seat to sleep. For the first time in many months, my anxiety was melting. As dawn became a golden pink, we reached Innsbruck. Shaking hands, Herr Stross departed to find a taxi while I hurried between platforms to catch the Milan express. We were away shortly after sunrise, and this time I sat in an Italian train. A cheerful, upper-class Italian family made me welcome, offering me newspapers, food and general hospitality, as if I were visiting them in their home. I took a plate of sausage, settled into a seat and read the
Popolo d'Italia
. It was a pleasure to enjoy uncensored news.

For the second time in my life I passed through Austria. This part of the country reminded me of Switzerland, when Esmé and I had hurtled through the mountains, driven by Annibale Santucci in his wonderful Lancia. Lying cheerfully in the busy bosom of the Bertolli family, rarely able to see out of the window, I read every newspaper and magazine they possessed. Oblivious of excited children, complaining well-dressed gentlemen, and elegant, apologetic women, I read about a dynamic, optimistic Italy and her vital, masculine leader and rediscovered my future.

At the Austrian border customs routines went very casually. We were soon on our way into Italy. The sunlight shone on rivers and streams,
and the whole landscape was somehow richer and warmer. Cheerfully, I welcomed the Italian officials when they boarded the train. I returned their salutes with a smile and a raised arm. The Italians were far more easygoing than the Germans or Austrians. One officer even returned my salute as he glanced through my Spanish identity papers and was almost apologetic when he asked if I had obtained my entry visa. He could not find it in the passport. I told him I was returning to Italy. I was not aware I needed a visa. I had not needed any special documents for Germany, when I had come in. I had not realised that since Hitler's coming to power the Italians had grown wary. They were taking large numbers of refugees. Dissident Nazis, socialists and communists had flooded into Italy since 1933. Anyone entering the country from Germany was under special scrutiny.

The immigration men were regretful. I would have to disembark while they found out if there was any reason why a Spanish citizen could not at least pass through Italy. They warned me I might not be allowed to stay, but rather be asked to go home via France on the Florence train. In Florence I could catch the Barcelona express along the French coast. Even here, however, they were not entirely sure if the French authorities would allow me passage. These were troubled times. Someone really should have warned me about the visa situation. Had I checked with the Spanish consulate in Munich? Possibly I could apply for a temporary visa while a more permanent one was arranged. I had better come with them to their office. They would help me with my luggage. Someone would make a phone call. Sadly they could not delay the train on behalf of one passenger.

I heard all this with considerable dismay. I had no wish to go through France, where I had unresolved problems with the law. Barcelona was one of the key communist cities of Spain. If Brodmann caught up with me there the Red Spaniards would certainly turn me over to the Russian authorities. I begged the officials to let me go on to Rome, where I had many Italian friends and contacts in the government and where I could easily sort out my papers. They had their rules. They would help me in any way they could, but they had few choices. It was obviously inconvenient for me to go all the way back to Munich. Perhaps someone there could be telephoned.

In another desperate nightmare I was escorted into a police car and driven through shabby streets to the unprepossessing police offices. At least I was not placed in a cell. They were, indeed, very kind to me, bringing cups of coffee, sending out a call for their chief in Brennero asking him to come to the office as soon as possible, looking up the telephone number of the Spanish consulate in Milan. They did everything they could to put
a call through to someone from whom we could take advice and perhaps get the number of the Spanish consulate in Munich. Keen supporters of Il Duce, they were flattered by my reiterated enthusiasm for their country but were not very great admirers of the new German government, describing the Nazis as thugs and homosexuals. They knew Hitler had been directly responsible for murdering Röhm and his men. They were the first people I heard calling that savage butchery ‘the night of the long knives'. Hitler was a neurotic heading a court of grotesques. An evident feminine homosexual and hysteric, he had turned on his own kind and made an enemy of the Catholic Church, persecuting priests of every persuasion. Hitler had perverted Fascism, produced a travesty of Mussolini's philosophy and politics. One of the Italians, the genial, red-faced, middle-aged Captain Cavori, also mourned what was happening in Spain. Primo de Rivera lacked the character of Mussolini. Now my poor country was likely to become little more than a satellite of the Soviet Union. At least Hitler had averted Bolshevism and civil war. He was not sure that was possible in Spain. Only Italy was truly stable.