As I tried to frame a reply that would buy me the time I needed, I heard a tap on the door. This was certain to be Mussolini.
Not one of the million explanations which entered my head had the slightest ring of truth. I sighed and prepared myself for the inevitable enquiry. I had perfectly ordinary explanations, though Fiorello’s presence would take a little imagination.
I drew back the door, ready to face my Chief in all his rage.
But it was not Mussolini. A jolly gust of laughter announced the arrival of the not insubstantial Hermann Göring, Mrs Cornelius, Baron Huggy Bear (looking a little dazed) and an extremely drunken Seryozha who was scarcely able to stand but staggered between the other two with a look of depraved sentimentality on his face worthy of Kominski or one of the other great clowns of the old Kiev circus. ‘Why!’ exclaimed the smiling German. ‘You’re already ahead of us! The taxi driver was right after all. I hope you haven’t sniffed up all the “snow”, ha, ha, ha!’
I stood there open-mouthed. The vast captain waved my own card under my nose. A taxi driver had read the wrong side.
‘Ain’t yer goin’ ter let us in, Ive?’ suggested Mrs Cornelius a little peevishly. ‘It’s bleedin’ freezin’ art ‘ere.’
I stepped back.
Mrs Cornelius led the way into the house. “Ow sweet!’
Fiorello’s ruined face expressed the dumb comic distress of a commedia horse. Disapprovingly, Maddy folded her arms.
Göring flung himself into one of our comfortable armchairs. ‘Is all the fun over? Who has the happy-powder?’ His thickly accented English was indecipherable to everyone but me. They ignored him. Mrs Cornelius handed her coat to Fiorello, looking over her shoulder for her dapper little protector. “Ave yer met Pappy?’Assured she had not lost him, she turned. ‘Gawd! What ‘appened ter ya? Somebody beat yer up?’
‘Oh, la vie sportif, you know...’ Gracefully Fiorello took her coat, helped the bewildered Baron off with his and handed the clothes to Maddy Butter who had by now recovered at least a patina of conventional hospitality. ‘Can I get you all a drink?’ she wanted to know. ‘Camparis? Manhattans?’
‘Fuck your Campari Manhattans,’ said Margherita Sarfatti, hurling herself on to the sofa. ‘Hello, Hermann, mein Liebchen. How was the party?’
Maddy grasped at the only fact which had so far been presented to her. She looked steadily at me and said in a small voice as she poured the drinks, ‘Do I understand that you and Margherita have been having an affair?’
‘Not at all,’ I said.
‘Judas,’ said La Sarfatti absently. She was smiling at Göring and helping herself to a bar of chocolate lying on the table. ‘Did you get that Lautrec I recommended?’
‘Oh, Margherita! I am still a poor man, you know!’ He asked again after the neige. I had begun to realise Hitler’s ambassador was something of an addict. I felt sympathy for him, of course. I have always said that if the drug begins to use you, that is when you should stop the drug. I was to learn later that he favoured narcotics, like morphine, which have a debilitating effect on the character as well as creating addiction. I have always warned young people off such drugs. Stimulants have a completely different effect, creating dynamism and positive progress in society — unless a narcotics user decides to use them! Then a very strange result occurs. Hermann Göring, whom I last saw at Nuremberg, was a living example of this. Fifteen years earlier, however, he was not the slave to his addiction that he later became. Ultimately, of course, Hitler had to renounce him.
I was still trying to reach the door. I had decided to say nothing further but to make my escape now, while attempting to redeem myself later. From outside came an impatient toot.
Fiorello came up to me. ‘Max, I don’t plan to involve you. But you must realise what’s going on. They beat me up - squadristi thugs. I escaped. They were planning to kill me, take me up in my own plane and dump me out alive. They said so. But nobody could fly. De Vecchi’s their boss. He really hates me. I don’t think Mussolini understands. Remember Matteotti? That wasn’t his fault. Someone has to tell the Chief. You know how much I admire him. If you could put in a word, perhaps, we could clear all this up. He doesn’t mind as long as the communists are gone from the country. I was simply getting rid of another one.’ His attempt to smile was unfortunate.
I murmured that there was little I could do. I had no power and little real influence. I was a scientist, not one of the political people.
I was sure if he threw himself on Mussolini’s mercy everything could be sorted out.
The horn sounded for the second time. Impatient to begin with,
Il Duce would be furious by now.
I thought of suggesting to Fiorello that he go personally and ask Il Duce for clemency. It seemed a convenient moment. By now Maddy had poured the drinks and was placing tall red glasses into uncomprehending hands. ’Do you mean to say,’ she continued firmly, settling herself on the couch between Göring and La Sarfatti, ‘that you and Max have been doing something behind my back?’
‘And who is Max?’ asked Göring agreeably.
Seryozha had found the gramophone and was winding it up. ‘What marvellous records,’ he said. ‘You can’t find these in Berlin.’ He put on ‘The Last Round-up’. I think it was Gene Autry’s earliest recording. As the first bars began to play, Seryozha threw up discreetly behind a chair. Göring smiled apologetically to his hostess. ‘He is not German,’ he explained. He leaned forward and whispered something to her. Maddy got up and went into the bedroom.
The horn sounded for the third time. The beating of my heart suggested I could probably not live much longer.
Maddy came back in to the room with our cocaine and the apparatus for taking it.
It occurred to me to ask Fiorello if he knew the best way of getting into Switzerland. The Baron was moving admiringly around the room gazing up at the paintings and murmuring his praise. He seemed under the impression that he was at an opening.
Maddy, stone-faced, began to chop out lines of coke for everyone. As Seryozha fell to the floor, his face striking the carpet with a peculiar soft crunch, she incorporated his line into her own.
Fiorello was still beside me. I had begun to tell him that our leader was outside in the car and might be growing impatient when I felt pressure on the door handle. My first thought was to hang on to it, hold it tight and resist any further intrusions. My second was to begin weeping.
My third, as the door opened to admit a glowering Benito Mussolini, was to fall against the wall with a groan.
‘That’s awfully good of you,’ said Captain Göring, in his best English. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve been in need.’ Bending forward over the marble table, he put the little silver tube to his nose and inhaled his lines in a single bovine snort. He seemed to expand to twice his size, threatening to burst the walls of the room. He sat back on the couch. ‘I love my wife,’ he said. ‘I love her with all my soul. But a man is a man.’
Mussolini regarded the scene in disgusted silence. His smouldering eyes glared from face to face.
‘Caro!’ cried Margherita Sarfatti, rising like a blustering pheasant from cover. ‘Caro mio! Thank God you are here!’
I looked for Fiorello. He had disappeared.
Where Fiorello had been standing a moment ago, there was Mussolini. Hands on hips, a look of irritable disapproval on his features, he turned his back pointedly to the others. He spoke quietly. ‘Are you ready?’