Hotel Las Arenas,
Valencia
15th July, ’38
Dearest Es,
Of the many things I might have become, I scarcely thought I’d end up a soldier. But that seems to be how it’s all worked out. Simply thrilling out here. We travelled up the coast after getting a boat round the Straits. We could see the shelling of Alicante — whole place lit up like the sun had toppled down. Rather beautiful, actually. We came ashore at a kind of sandy isthmus called El Perellonet and then, under cover of night, made our way into the city. Italian warships like glimmering palaces out to sea. They fire the odd shell every so often but things seem to have quietened down since we arrived.
I’m driving an ambulance. The Nationalists are really quite on our doorstep here, so we’re always getting called to dash out and scrape up some poor chap who’s caught one in the head or arm. Charlie bought me a gun which I fire at pigeons on the roof. Not much of an aim yet, but I’ll need it soon enough, I would imagine, when the final confrontation comes. The Republicans are all thoroughly decent sorts. Lots of Brits, of course, but it’s the locals who up the pulse.
We’re staying in a hotel that’s been shelled. I can see the stars from my bed through a hole in the roof, but it’s mild enough and actually rather romantic. Charlie has insisted on teaching the chaps cricket. Rather a different game when it’s played between orange trees in the Plaça de la Reina after a few bottles of Rioja. I scored my first ever fifty as the light drew in last night, sound of gunfire and distant shells as I held my bat up to generally bemused spectators. Spaniards can’t play for toffee, of course. Charlie, who’s much better than me, hit a six that flew so far it ended up over enemy lines. I’m going to bowl a few grenades at him tomorrow. It’s all just too bloody exciting.
Anyway, I thought you’d want my address, and if you could spare some cash I’d appreciate it. Think of it as contributing to the forging of the heroic new me.
Philip.
One evening, light still trembling outside the windows of the studio. Ada signals the end of the transmission. They’ve recorded a programme on Murray Constantine’s Swastika Night, recently translated into Italian. It seems a very daring subject — the novel had, after all, been a choice of the Left Book Club — but it is, thinks Esmond, important that they engage with material like this. The novel imagines a future where the Nazis and Japanese have defeated the heroic Brits, and now squabble with each other over their Fascist empires. It is futuristic, bold, horrifying in the way it takes the unstable present and ramifies it into a vision of the totalitarian world to come. Esmond had enjoyed the book, Goad hadn’t.
— A most engaging debate, Goad says, standing and stretching, pulling on the blazer which he had hung on the back of his chair. — Perhaps the best yet. He smiles at Esmond. — It wasn’t too—? Goad thinks for a moment, scratching the skin of one hand. — No, it was fine. Our uncertainty tallies with the culture, I suppose, the uncertainty of the present moment in Europe. I think we did well. Now I must be off, good night, you two.
Esmond and Ada coil wires, dust the instrument panel, seal up the discs and store them in the rack on one side of the room. He has deliberately avoided speaking to her about the Manifesto of Racial Scientists, about the new laws in place regarding the Jews. Now she wraps her shawl around her neck and stands in the doorway. — Esmond, she says. He looks up. — I don’t want any special favours, I don’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf, but I want you to know that I enjoy working here. He lights a cigarette and blows the smoke towards the cornices of ceiling. — Of course, he says. — There’s no question. I’ll make sure of it.
When she has left, he sits at the open window, breathes the summer air, smiles peacefully. He thinks of Murray Constantine’s words, which he had quoted in the broadcast and which Goad had repeated two or three times in reply: They will make a world in which it is impossible for a man to love his own daughter.
Ministry of the Interior
Palazzo del Viminale
Rome
21/8/38
Sir or Madam –
As the listed employer of Ada Liuzzi, who is registered as Jewish/other non-Aryan on the Census dated August 1st, 1938, carried out by the Italian Office for the Study of Race (under the guidance of Dr Guido Landra), please advise by return of post if Ada Liuzzi is employed in a position whereupon her duties could be described as falling into one of the following areas:
a) Government, politics, local or regional council work, other general administrative role within the apparatus of the Italian State;
b) Banking, moneylending, other employment in which the worker has control over the exchange, transfer or deployment of sums of money larger than 5,000 lire per calendar month;
c) Teaching, lecturing, professorships, any work which brings the named person into regular contact with children or students;
d) Military (including carabinieri), air force, navy, local police, fire service, or any other position requiring access to weapons of any kind;
e) Other educated profession where the named person’s Jewish/other non-Aryan status could reasonably be assumed to represent a threat or potential threat to the economic, military, moral or educational health of the nation.
It is your responsibility as employer to ensure that the Jewish/non-Aryan person is correctly employed.
Please also confirm whether Ada Liuzzi has been charged with any crime in the past ten years, and if so the nature of this crime. Please also list any previous or outstanding arrest warrants.
Please inform if Ada Liuzzi became an Italian citizen on or after 31st December, 1919.
Viva Il Duce!
[Enclosed with following letter: article from The Times entitled ‘Nuremberg and Aussig’.]
Welsh Frankton
Shropshire
12th September
Dear Esmond,
It seems I spoke too soon. Situation in Sudetenland bloody bad. Mosley has put several calls in to the Führer urging him not to act hastily, letting him know that the eyes of the world are upon him, but I fear they don’t have the close relationship they once did. You’ll see I’ve clipped an article from The Times calling on the Czechs to cede the territory to the Germans. Eminently sensible and we can only hope that it is the view inside Whitehall.
Runciman’s attempts to mediate were shambolic, and Nevile Henderson made a buggery of things in Berlin. I remember a time when the Brits were known for their diplomacy. You can just see that bastard Stalin perched over all of this, rubbing his hands with glee. Chamberlain flies to Berchtesgaden tomorrow; he’s got a good head, and he’ll need it. You could picture this all unspooling rather quickly, with the Poles and the Russians and that madman Konrad Henlein all buttoning their coats. If Germany does decide to wade in, the Czech will be wiped out in a flash. It’s interesting, Esmond — difficult times, of course, but interesting.
I was glad to read in your letter that you have developed such affection for Filippino Lippi. I don’t remember seeing this particular triptych when I was in Florence. I never really told you about that tour back in ’06. I went with Arthur Fitzroy and Chummy Little straight from Cambridge. We arrived in Florence at night, driving into the narrowing throat of the valley, using the great dome to guide us. It’s strange, but I can only recall small details of the city from that time. I remember waking the next morning in our hotel — the Excelsior — and looking out over the rooftops of the town, but almost nothing else. The room of Botticellis and Lippis at the Uffizi, of course, the insides of certain churches, Cellini’s Perseus. But it’s as if it was too much for my mind to hold. Every time your mother and I returned to Florence, it was like drawing back a curtain to reveal bright treasures of memory.