The sun was setting as we let ourselves back in to our little cottage. Orange rays touched the firs and cedars, turning our terracotta to comforting fire. In spite of all the mementoes of Margherita, I was glad to be there. I was sure she would not bother us. Her natural preference for conspiracy would not allow her, I suspected, to bring things out into the open, not when there was an ounce of drama or advantage to be squeezed from the situation.
Maddy was unsurprised that I went to sleep early. She contented herself with writing in her diary. I read most of it later. It was concerned with banal speculation about my new job and a schoolgirlish enthusiasm for my talents and place in history. Clearly Miss Butter planned to marry me and perhaps even take me back to Texas for a while. I would be the living version of the European trophies with which Hearst filled his overblown palace. I knew she would not be happy if thwarted in her intentions. I therefore decided upon the wisest path: caution. I hoped to divert her from her ambitions. I prayed that Margherita Sarfatti would soon be sent off on one of her cultural missions to some faraway country. My only prayer was that she did not take me with her.
Next morning there was a knock on the door. Maddy and I were eating breakfast, discussing the best way to get to Ponte Palatina, whether to walk or take the tram. She answered the door while I stepped into some clothes. Tom Morgan entered, his face a map of all the pleasures a pressman was ever tempted to taste, the little blue, red and yellow veins describing his various routes to hell via paradise. His bluff manner edged with the morning’s miseries, he handed me an envelope. He looked forward to seeing me at ten o’clock that evening. The address was on the envelope. He tipped his hat to an enquiring, bright-eyed Maddy, complimented her on her hair and morning robe, and returned to his waiting taxi.
Miranda frowned when he had gone. She clearly did not like the man. Perhaps she already sensed a rival and thought it might be Tom. In some small agitation, she went off to change. To reassure her, I tossed the message unopened on to the table. By the time we were walking together, her arm in mine, she seemed to have forgotten all about Tom Morgan. When we got back, as if suddenly remembering Tom’s visit, I picked up the envelope he had given me.
The address was a villa off the Via Aurelia not far from the Vatican City. A salubrious area, where it did not abut the railway lines. The envelope contained two silver buttons, each one the symbol of a bundle of rods surrounding a double-bladed axe — the fascisti upon which Mussolini’s name and power was based. They were extremely elegant. I had seen something similar worn by the highest members of the Fascist Grand Council, that group of men, largely drawn from the professions of journalism and public relations, who now helped their chief run the country. But I was still not entirely sure of their significance. I did not show them to Maddy, who was almost weeping with curiosity. Smiling, I assured her that as soon as I was relieved of my oath of secrecy, I would explain all.
That night I stumbled somewhat wearily up the long drive of a run-down villa whose back garden went directly down to the railway tracks. Clearly the place had been picked for its position rather than its visual aspects. I even smelled urine near the gates, as they were opened for me by two smartly uniformed members of the Fascist Militia, now an official arm of the Italian Armed Services.
More of the blackshirted militia, with their kepis and brightly polished jackboots, were present in the grounds, some controlling eager dogs spoiling for trouble. On the top steps to the entrance portico, Tom Morgan himself was waiting for me. He was in full uniform. I noted that he wore the same studs he had given me that morning. It was clearly the badge of a high-ranking fascisti. I saluted him. He was pleased by my response. ‘Oh, you and I are not the only Americans capable of thinking beyond our domestic boundaries, Max. Our brotherhood embraces the world, wherever the white race is dominant.’ He shook me busily by the hand. ‘I’ve read about your work in America and I don’t blame you for leaving. But you’re among good friends here, Max.’
As always, the alcohol on Tom’s breath remained my predominant impression of the man. His was not a type I naturally took to, though I have no doubt of his sincerity. He led me through corridors and halls smelling strongly of mould. Although the place had not been lived in for years, there were many signs of activity.
In two rooms I was sure I saw splattered blood on the wall. Blood always makes that pattern when someone has been shot at an angle from below. Again I grew a little nervous. I am not one of those, like so many I knew in the old days, who were excited by the smell of blood and gunpowder. Some even lusted for it. Their disease was caught in the trenches after so many months of warfare when violence became a habit. Women were excited by it, too. Men were taught that violence was good for them, that they flourished and were made hard by it.
Almost every country had such ideas after the World War. Many in the Klan believed a new civil war was coming and that they had to be ready for it. These Kennedys and Humphreys and Carters will be the cause of it. They will drive the Klan to take up their guns, no matter how reluctantly. I was in the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane when the news came of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. There was a TV playing in the lobby which was full of American businessmen. They all wear the same kind of three-piece suit and a tie, which is meant to look like something from an English public school. They have soft, self-indulgent, unformed faces. As soon as they heard the news of the assassination, they put down their briefcases and coffee cups and began to applaud. I was there. I heard it. I was waiting to meet a TV producer who was going to make a film about my life. Nothing came of it. My life has been too incredible. I tell the story to illustrate that it was not only ‘crazies’ and ‘extremists’ who were driven to distraction by the Kennedy clan and its descendants. Decent American politicians and capitalists shared frustrations with the assassin.
The same with Matteotti. Of course, I have every sympathy for the man. He was murdered. But he brought it on himself. He was an unrepentant socialist and a constant critic of all that was positive in modern Italy. Mussolini had absolutely nothing to do with the crime. Margherita Sarfatti told me herself. When the news was brought to him and he was handed Matteotti’s bloodstained documents, Il Duce said nothing until everyone was gone. Then he began vomiting blood. His digestion remained poor from that moment on. That was how strongly he felt about murder. Scarcely the reaction of a man who condoned brutal methods!