Assuring my patroness that I would make every effort to have a Fiat aeroplane ready and in perfect condition by the following week, I left. My peace of mind had only partially been restored. At least I had not fallen from Rachele’s or her husband’s favour. If anything she was better disposed to me than ever.
I was relieved to know Mussolini had been unavailable to everyone, including his wife. And clearly Signora Rachele knew nothing about any other irregularities. Her view of men was old-fashioned. She had only certain expectations of us. Rachele believed all males to be pretty much the same in certain respects. If women didn’t cater to them they were fools. She was thoroughly on my side. Indeed, I wondered if Rachele had heard something to make her so sympathetic to me. Perhaps I would get a fuller picture when I met my ex-mistress for drinks at the Excelsior? I looked at my watch. There was an hour to prepare for my next encounter. I made an excuse. The office needed me.
I met Mrs Cornelius in the hotel lobby. My angel was a cloudy dream of pale blue, gold and pink. Her cloche was a helmet of spring flowers. She complimented me on my silk summer suit, my matching hat, gloves and spats, my silver-topped ebony cane. Catching sight of us both in the huge mirror I admired the beautiful picture we made. She was an exquisite blonde English rose. I was a dark South Russian nobleman, a high-ranking fascista with my beard trimmed in the imperial style. I wore a fresh flower. The only sign of my rank was an inconspicuous lapel badge.
I enjoyed one of those moments of rebirth, of self-discovery, which Proust talks about at such interminable length. I told her how I was a new man. I was celebrating the coming of the season. I had put the past behind me.
‘Always for the best, Ivan.’ She was approving. ‘Don’t wait to let ther blood dry, that’s my motto.’ She would be leaving soon for Vienna, she said. After that they were going on to St Crim ‘for the Chemmy’. She wouldn’t mind a bit if I wanted to come along. I told her that affairs of state kept me too much in Rome. I would like nothing better than to spend some time with her in the South of France. Unfortunately, I reminded her, I had not had time to return there and clear my name. The thought of a single waltz with her on the floor of the Café Sacher could make me throw all responsibility to the winds. If I had not sworn a blood oath to Il Duce himself, I added.
She chose to hear this last as a fanciful irony. ‘Keeps ya busy, does ‘e, Ivan? Well, I’m trying to get a party up. Between you an’ me, ‘Uggy’s all right but he’s not exactly the liveliest wire most of the time, if ya foller me.’
I promised her I would seize the opportunity if Il Duce released me. She waved over my shoulder. ‘Wotcher, ‘Ermann!’ I turned. “Ello, love.’
‘Heads will roll!’ A boom of jovial German, like wind catching a sail. Across the dark blue carpet in his enormous ivory lounge suit which gave him the grace of a great clipper ship, his arm extended like a spar to save the rather dishevelled, slightly agitated Margherita Sarfatti who, oblivious of all but him, bobbed at his side like a bumboat, came the stately bulk of Captain Göring, his smile lighting the smoky lobby like a fog lamp.
Although hardly taller than me, the man had astonishing presence. He was the best bred of the Nazi hierarchy. His original plans for the concentration camps were bastardised as soon as he put petits bourgeois like Himmler and Heydrich in charge. I speak from personal experience. That never came out at Nuremberg. Now we all know how such omissions were typical of those American drumhead post-war courts. The assignment of blame is far more important to the American soul than the discovery of cause. Like most kulak cultures they believe analysis to be forgiveness. From beginning to end, though, I will admit to Göring’s increasing greed after his first wife died. But he remained a gentleman and on the whole a loyal friend. Was it his fault if Himmler and the others conspired to block the messages I sent? Certainly he was never implicated in the scandal which was to destroy more careers than mine and claim many lives. He had every expectation of taking over the reins of government after the War and was astonished by the court’s attitude. They wanted blood, not justice. Look what happened to poor Joyce, Wodehouse and Pound. The Americans wanted to destroy the Nazi dream for ever. But dreams of such yearning magnitude do not die easily. Göring knew that. He said as much in his final testament.
When the unofficial Nazi ambassador saw us he grew hearty with relief. Clearly he had had enough of La Sarfatti. ‘My dear friends! How good to see you.’ He tacked expertly towards us, murmuring an apology as Margherita Sarfatti was whisked smartly to starboard, almost losing her clutch on his pale shantung.
Only then she saw me and hurled herself free of his gravity, a motley whirl of tassels and trim.
‘Caro!’ she said, flinging her arms wide so that her extraordinary scent struck my face like a wall. ’Mio!’ She remembered where she was and cooed back over her shoulder. ‘The main thing is, darling, that the press got their pictures.’ I was kissed and whispered at. We should soon be alone, she promised, as if the episode in the cottage had never occurred. While I remained mystified by her rage, I was relieved to be forgiven. The thought of resuming my sexual duties was not, however, attractive.
Mrs Cornelius made a prim, dismissive greeting of some kind. She turned in search of Hugenberg. ‘Don’t forget me offer, Ivan,’ she said.
Suddenly Göring was also waving farewell, saying something in German to Margherita Sarfatti which I did not catch. She answered a little distractedly and turned to me. ‘Any news?’ she said.
I had absolutely no idea what she meant.
‘Of whom?’ I felt inane.
‘We’ll talk later.’ Her smile changed. ‘Well, my dear, how have you boys all been?’
I was unsure of her tone. ‘Boys?’
‘I’m used to it,’ she said. ‘But you might tell the Chief. I think it’s time this particular game was finished.’
I had no reply. Clearly Margherita had less idea of our Duce’s whereabouts than I. She fluttered until she had made herself comfortable in the great basket of her chair, settling like a partridge on her eggs. Then she fixed her bright, hard eyes upon me. ‘Well, darling!’
‘You’re out of sorts,’ I said as the waiter arrived. ‘A drink?’
‘After all I’ve done for him lately!’ Viciously she ordered some fashionably complex cocktail in a glass the size of a chamber pot. I had a Campari Fizz. I wished to keep my head as clear as possible. As Major Nye used to say of his own lady wife, La Sarfatti was going off like a fire in an ammunition factory.
‘I feel so sorry,’ she began. ‘Everything is my fault. I should never have gone over. I was convinced she was already keeping her assignation at the hotel with him and we’d be safe. I expected to surprise you when you arrived! And then, of course, he turns up! He must have been tailing you!’
I assumed at first that she spoke of Fiorello, then of Mrs Cornelius and Herr Hugenberg, perhaps of Seryozha. Then I wondered if she was referring to Göring. I listened carefully in the hope of refining some sense from her outpourings.
‘It’s that peasant bitch, isn’t it?’ she said to me. ’Rachele’s watching him like an owl.’
I had no notion of her drift.
‘Why did she have to come to Rome? She’s crazy. She’s interfering in matters she can’t possibly understand. Il Duce is loyal to her, of course, but she can’t give him what I give him. And why is she picking on me? I hardly see him. Why doesn’t she pick on that whore of yours? She’s the one who takes up all his attention these days!’