“And how?”
“But heavens above, who was it that intervened to stop things going too far? The Archbishop of Milan, who was certainly acting on instructions from the Vatican. And who had helped loads of Nazis and Fascists to escape to Argentina? The Vatican. So try to imagine this: on leaving the Archbishop’s Palace, they put the double into Mussolini’s car, while Mussolini, in another, less conspicuous car, is driven to the Castello Sforzesco.”
“Why the castle?”
“Because from the Archbishop’s Palace to the castle, if a car cuts along past the cathedral, over Piazza Cordusio, and into Via Dante, it’ll reach the castle in five minutes. Easier than going to Como, no? And even today the castle is full of underground passageways. Some are known, and are used for dumping garbage, etc. Others existed for war purposes and became air-raid shelters. Well, many records tell us that in previous centuries there were passageways, actual tunnels, that led from the castle to points in the city. One of these is said to still exist, though the route can no longer be traced due to collapses, and it’s supposed to go from the castle to the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Mussolini is hidden there for several days while everyone searches for him in the North, and then his double is ripped apart in Piazzale Loreto. As soon as things in Milan have calmed down, a vehicle with a Vatican City license plate comes to collect him at night. The roads at the time are in a poor state, but from church to church, monastery to monastery, one eventually reaches Rome. Mussolini vanishes behind the walls of the Vatican, and I’ll let you choose the best outcome: either he remains there, perhaps disguised as an old decrepit monsignor, or they put him on a boat for Argentina, posing as a sickly, cantankerous hooded friar with a fine beard and a Vatican passport. And there he waits.”
“Waits for what?”
“I’ll tell you that later. For the moment, my theory ends here.”
“But to develop a theory you need evidence.”
“I’ll have that in a few days, once I’ve finished work on various archives and newspapers of the period. Tomorrow is April 25, a fateful date. I’m going to meet someone who knows a great deal about those days. I’ll be able to demonstrate that the corpse in Piazzale Loreto was not that of Mussolini.”
“But aren’t you supposed to be writing the article on the old brothels?”
“Brothels I know from memory, I can dash it off in an hour on Sunday evening. Thanks for listening. I needed to talk to someone.”
Once again he let me pay the bill, though this time he’d earned it. We walked out, and he looked around and set off, sticking close to the walls, as though worried about being tailed.
10
Sunday, May 3
Braggadocio was crazy. Perhaps he’d made the whole thing up, though it had a good ring to it. But the best part was still to come and I’d just have to wait.
From one madness to another: I hadn’t forgotten Maia’s alleged autism. I had told myself I wanted to study her mind more closely, but I now knew I wanted something else. That evening I walked her home once again and didn’t stop at the main entrance but crossed the courtyard with her. Under a small shelter was a red Fiat 500 in rather poor condition. “It’s my Jaguar,” said Maia. “It’s nearly twenty years old but still runs, it has to be checked over once a year, and there’s a local mechanic who has spare parts. I’d need a lot of money to do it up properly, but then it becomes a vintage car and sells at collectors’ prices. I use it just to get to Lake Orta. I haven’t told you — I’m an heiress. My grandmother left me a small house up in the hills, little more than a hut, I wouldn’t get much if I sold it. I’ve furnished it a little at a time, there’s a fireplace, an old black-and-white TV, and from the window you can see the lake and the island of San Giulio. It’s my buen retiro, I’m there almost every weekend. In fact, do you want to come on Sunday? We’ll set off early, I’ll prepare a light lunch at midday — I’m not a bad cook — and we’ll be back in Milan by suppertime.”
On Sunday morning, after we’d been in the car for a while, Maia, who was driving, said, “You see? It’s falling to pieces now, but years ago it used to be beautiful red brick.”
“What?”
“The road repairman’s house, the one we just passed on the left.”
“If it was on the left, then only you could have seen it. All I can see from here is what’s on the right. This sarcophagus would hardly fit a newborn baby, and to see anything on your left I’d have to lean over you and stick my head out the window. Don’t you realize? There’s no way I could see that house.”
“If you say so,” she said, as if I had acted oddly.
At that point I had to explain to her what her problem was.
“Really,” she replied with a laugh. “It’s just that, well, I now see you as my lord protector and assume you’re always thinking what I’m thinking.”
I was taken by surprise. I certainly didn’t want her to think that I was thinking what she was thinking. That was too intimate.
At the same time I was overcome by a sort of tenderness. I could feel Maia’s vulnerability, she took refuge in an inner world of her own, not wanting to see what was going on in the world of other people, the world that had perhaps hurt her. And yet I was the one in whom she placed her trust, and, unable or unwilling to enter my world, she imagined I could enter hers.
I felt embarrassed when we walked into the house. Pretty, though spartan. It was early May and still cool. She lit a fire, and as soon as it got going, she stood up and looked at me brightly, her face reddened by the first flames: “I’m... happy,” she said, and that happiness of hers won me over.
“I’m... happy too,” I said. I took her by the shoulders and kissed her, and felt her take hold of me, thin as a mite. But Braggadocio was wrong: she had breasts, and I could feel them, small but firm. The Song of Songs: like two young fawns.
“I’m happy,” she repeated.
I tried to resist: “But I’m old enough to be your father.”
“What beautiful incest,” she said.
She sat on the bed, and with a flick of a heel and toe, she tossed her shoes across the room. Braggadocio was perhaps right, she was mad, but that gesture forced me to submit.
We skipped lunch. We stayed there in her nest until evening; it didn’t occur to us to return to Milan. I was trapped. I felt as if I were twenty or perhaps a mere thirty like her.
“Maia,” I said to her the next morning on the way back, “we have to go on working with Simei until I’ve scraped a little money together, then I’ll take you away from that den of vermin. But hold out a little longer. Then, who knows, maybe we’ll go off to the South Seas.”
“I don’t believe it, but it’s nice to imagine: Tusitala. For now, if you stay close, I’ll even put up with Simei and do the horoscopes.”
11
Friday, May 8
On the morning of May 5, Simei seemed excited. “I have a job for one of you — perhaps Palatino, since he’s free at the moment. You’ve read over the past few months — the news was fresh in February — about an examining magistrate who started investigating the state of old people’s homes. A real scoop after the case of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio. None of these places belongs to our proprietor, but you know that he owns rest homes, also on the Adriatic coast. It remains to be seen whether sooner or later this magistrate is going to stick his nose into the Commendatore’s affairs. Our proprietor would therefore be pleased to see how we might raise a shadow of suspicion over a busybody magistrate. These days, you know, to answer an accusation you don’t have to prove it’s wrong, all you have to do is undermine the authority of the accuser. So, Palatino, here’s the fellow’s name. Take a trip down to Rimini with a tape recorder and a camera, and tail this honest and upright servant of the state. No one is one hundred percent upright — he may not be a pedophile, he may not have killed his grandmother or pocketed bribes, but surely there will be something strange about him. Or else, if you’ll pardon the expression, you can strangify whatever he does each day. And Palatino, use your imagination. Get it?”