She spoke enthusiastically of Signora Sarfatti as an indefatigable holder of what she called ‘The Women’s Banner’ and never deaf to any American in need. Billy admitted that she was one of the few interesting Italian women in Rome and extremely well educated. Her pleasure in modern art, for instance, was absolutely genuine and extremely sophisticated. She knew every living painter of any importance.
Over drinks the Grishams asked how we had met. We told them. I said how much I had admired da Bazzanno’s aeroplane. ‘Isn’t it a shame about that,’ said Ethel Grisham.
I was mystified. Billy explained how the plane had made a forced landing on Lake Lucerne. It still had fuel, needed only minor repairs, but its pilot, da Bazzanno, had disappeared. So that was why we had not seen our friend recently. I said I was surprised I had read nothing about it in the newspapers or heard anything on the radio. Billy pursed his lips at this. He reminded me that not everything which went on in Italy was reported.
I gathered that da Bazzanno had been involved in some business of state and that was the reason for the silence. Maddy Butter was shocked. She continued to ask questions which poor Billy struggled to answer. The massive American was as baffled as anyone. In a characteristic gesture of embarrassment, he pushed his fair hair from his face and fiddled with his sandy moustache. I had learned to read him. When these gestures became frequent, as now, he had something on his mind he would rather not discuss. I did not entirely believe him when he promised to let us know anything he heard. Now I had two missing aviators to consider. Perhaps all of us who have grown up in the age of flight have had such experiences. They no doubt become increasingly commonplace as aviators are replaced by ‘flight crew’. But in those days such occurrences were rare. To lose two friends to flight in peacetime was something of a tragedy. My hosts had no particular interest in pursuing the subject. In order not to spoil the occasion I did my best to put da Bazzanno’s fate from my mind.
A gourmet cook who had trained in Paris and Boston, Grisham was determined to prepare for us a traditional American meal, and although their cook helped him, he was in complete charge of the kitchen. As our host wielded his spoons and pans, we played games with the boys, admiring their new sets of soldiers, their wooden stallions and glittering tin swords, all of the finest workmanship and impossible to find in Italy. Then at last the Christmas bird was brought out by Grisham wearing a huge red cap and a cotton wool beard, singing some appropriate ditty. The huge, glistening golden turkey, surrounded by chipolatas (as a nod to the Italians) and smelling of heaven, came floating into the room like the fatted calf itself.
I was reminded of a scene from one of those magnificent Italian films set in the Renaissance, a mixture of masque and feast then delighting the public. Behind Billy came the cook and the maid with bowls of squash and casseroles and potatoes and beans. Assembling eagerly at the table, we applauded the traditional placing of the bird on the waiting trivet. The whole room was alive with dancing candlelight, rich, exotic smells of the food, the happy sound of children, glittering decorations and the excited talk of adults.
‘Merry Christmas!’ cries Pa Grisham, his huge hands plucking up the silver carving set with all the delicacy of a matador. ‘Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!’And then the first, magnificent slice is carved and laid with easy ceremony upon the waiting plate. Intense, wide-eyed, wide-mouthed, the boys bend eagerly to study the distribution of the meat. Vegetables are passed with a sense of joyous urgency over which Ma Grisham, content in her sense of the rightness of things, presides, directing a little here, helping a little there, so that eventually all plates are heaped and now we are to bow our heads in a simple grace before pouring the gravy and spooning the cranberries, picking up the hot rolls with wincing fingertips and at last addressing the feast with knife and fork in hand.
It was a scene from one of the happiest Hollywood films, when directors were not ashamed to show human beings enjoying themselves in wholesome, simple ways. I only regretted that Esmé was not here with me, and perhaps my mother. How Esmé would have loved it all. True, my mother might have disapproved a little. Our own Christmas fare had rarely been so plentiful or rich. Easter, of course, was our big feast. I still remembered my mother’s face looking after me as I took the train to Odessa, never to return. She had died, I was told, in the famines which followed the Civil War. At least she was spared the Bolshevik conquest. As for the Auschwitz story, it was obviously nothing but lies meant to drag me into the Red net. My mother was everything to me. My only reality. Why would I turn my back on her?
Afterwards, when we had all pulled crackers and donned fancy hats and paper masks, we were served with our choice of plum puddings or hot coddlings, mince pies or pumpkin tart. The boys went outside into the courtyard, busy with their new bicycles, their airguns and their Elastolin infantry. Billy wound up the gramophone and played us carols, traditional songs and the latest numbers from Broadway and the talkies. He bought his records at enormous expense, he said, in a shop off the Via Napoleon III. All the Americans and English people went there. One of the new numbers was ‘The Singing Buckaroo’, from the film of the same name. ’You have your imitators now, Max,’ said Ethel. ‘You should be flattered.’ In a way I was, but it is depressing to see one’s best work badly imitated and the imitation come to represent the original. One is subjected to ignorant condescension by the young who know only those who stole from you. We live in a world where thieves are rewarded as a matter of course and honest men are degraded and mocked.
At about eight o’clock, as we danced to the rhythms of the latest orchestras, the telephone rang. Ethel Grisham cried, ‘Oh, no! Not the paper!’ and Billy went grimly to the hall where he answered the instrument. We heard only a few words, which offered no clue to the conversation, and then Billy was back, grinning in a rather mysterious way and frowning at the same time. ‘It’s for you, Max,’ he said. ‘A woman. She preferred not to give me her name. She said it was very urgent. Would you mind speaking to her?’ And he led me back to the telephone, leaving directly I had picked it up.
I thought it would be da Bazzanno’s mistress. I had been reminded of her by my friend’s disappearance and for some reason had expected her to contact me. But it was not Laura. The woman was Margherita Sarfatti. I was sure Billy had recognised her distinctive English. Rapidly and apologetically she asked me if I could be ready to see her in about two hours. I hesitated. She was insistent. ‘This is a matter of considerable importance,’ she said, ‘and I suspect you will find it in your interest.’ Enraptured by the glow of this American Christmas, I remained reluctant. ‘Mr Peters,’ she said at last, ‘I have to tell you that I speak on a matter of state. I am permitted to say no more.’
Of course I could only agree to her request. She informed me that a car would call for me at ten o’clock. It might be wise to wear a topcoat and some gloves, since it was cool tonight. She would be obliged if I said as little as I could to my host and hostess. I told her I had no problems with discretion.
In truth I had little to report. My eager friends awaited an announcement. I shrugged as I returned to them. ‘I am supposed to wear an overcoat,’ I told them. ‘It is a cool night. A car’s coming at ten. I can tell you nothing else.’