Sarfatti seemed to have gone utterly mad. I made an effort to change the subject. ‘Have you heard anything more from Fiorello?’
She stared at me. ‘What?’ It was as if she had never known our mutual friend.
‘Did he make it to Switzerland?’
‘Oh, of course,’ she said. ‘They all do. Darling, the reason I needed to see you is for your sake.’ She gave a little, self-deprecating snigger. ‘I fear I need my little house back.’
She was evicting me! From spite? As a strategy? Was this the only price I was being asked to pay for being rid of her?
‘Naturally,’ I said. ’That was always our understanding. If you could give me a day or two to find new digs.’
‘I need it rather urgently,’ she said. ‘Rather soon. Tomorrow, my darling. I hate to do this to you, but it’s all very sordid and concerned with money, about which I understand absolutely nothing. But those who do follow such things are the masters now, darling, aren’t they?’
I was breathless. ‘I suppose I can find rooms at a hotel near the office . . .’
‘Why not here, darling? They have marvellous drinks and wonderful service. I know the manager. I can get you a special rate.’
I would be content with something a little less elaborate. I would ask my friends for suggestions.
She fluttered across the glass table dividing us and settled on me like a carnivorous moth. ‘You are the perfect gentleman,’ she said. ‘I always have the right instincts. I should learn to trust them more.’
A short while later she would be on a boat to America, never to return. To save her from the political situation, Il Duce exiled her. It was entirely for her own good. To her credit she understood that. She was one of many Italian Jews who found happiness in the New World.
As we sat there, she asked after my friends in the press corps. I had seen only Tom Morgan. I had even lost contact with Billy Grisham and his family. I gathered he had been reassigned to Berlin.
‘The press is more fickle than any woman.’ She nodded as if in confirmation of her own wisdom. She became contemplative and returned to her chair. We had reached an impasse. I wondered if I had inadvertently given her some more pieces in her jigsaw.
I filled the silence. ‘Has Captain Göring bought any pictures?’
‘Not really. He’s far too busy with politics these days. His attention is on politics rather than art! And his wife is ailing, too, you know.’ This last appeared to be entirely irrelevant. ‘He carried his message to Il Duce. He carried his message to the Pope.’ She inspected her hands, perhaps for stigmata. ‘He took a message to Berlin. He brought a message to Rome. He did what he had to do. And soon he will leave.’ With a dramatic expression of wounded bitterness she called for another cocktail.
I guessed what had happened. Il Duce did not blame me for my affair with his mistress. He knew her too well for that. He blamed her. He had clearly found another paramour who interested him far more. I was not out of favour. All Sarfatti had left to offer her Chief was her contacts within the new, young Germany. Evidently he had been using them, because neither Göring nor any of his entourage had met Mussolini officially. Her house had been a useful meeting place for the men. In spite of this she was no longer a woman to be seen with. No doubt she had exaggerated her current role to gain a moments prestige.
I looked at my wristwatch. ‘Well, I must make my plans. I shall be busy with my move.’ This would be a good time to begin my reconciliation with Maddy Butter. Once I located her, I could promise her I had made a clean break with Madame Sarfatti.
‘You mustn’t feel rushed,’ she said. ‘I could perhaps arrange to give you some more time.’
As I rose I became increasingly formal. I told her that I would not think to impose on her any longer than necessary. Did she plan to dine at the hotel or could I call her car for her?
She shrugged. Her drink arrived and I left.
I hoped that I had not been seen. Rachele Mussolini had her own spies. It occurred to me that Il Duce’s wife had warmed to me again because I was clearly no longer seeing Sarfatti. I must choose my company carefully for the next few weeks. Meanwhile, I considered taking a refresher course in flying. But how could I do that tactfully? I wondered.
I ran into Major Nye in the lobby. The tall Englishman was talking to Balbo and a couple of other high-ranking fascisti. Balbo was supposed to have killed a priest in the early twenties, a story that dogged his career. As well as being Italy’s most famous aviator, Balbo, a competent and intelligent man, had the unfortunate appearance of Popeyes enemy Bluto in the cartoons everyone loved. He was known privately, even by Mussolini, as ‘Air Minister Bluto’. In his mid-thirties, as were most of the leading fascisti Grand Councillors, he would have done well to shave off his beard or cultivate a more refined one, like my own. I think he believed it made his face look thinner. In my view his beard was his downfall. He was eventually sent into exile as Governor of Libya. In the end, they said, the great aviator was glad to go. I had cultivated him at one stage. He had shown every interest in my descriptions of the planes I had built. He even asked me to send him over a few plans, but Mussolini blocked the idea. He said Balbo would only have bogged things down in red tape.
I joined the group for a moment. It would have been impolitic to do anything else. Besides, Balbo was just the man who might help me. Almost embarrassed by the vigour of my salute, they returned it in kind. The other three were the voluble and volatile Farinacci, who agreed with many of my ideas and was still regarded as a sound man by the party rank and file, the dapper, garrulous Grandi, Italy’s charming Foreign Minister, and the polished Cardinal Gasparri, with whom I also shared important opinions. A slightly disparate group, it did me no harm to be seen in their company when chatting to the Englishman.
I murmured to Gasparri that I was impressed by the way he extended his diplomatic talents to the international scene. He smiled and drew a perfectly manicured finger to his sensitive lips. In contrast to Balbo, the cardinal was almost ostentatiously well shaven. He advertised his own grooming as others might advertise their rank. His flesh had the blush of fine talc. He was golden pink with an aura of assured authority. Even the richly woven scarlet cloth of his robes had that same quality of invulnerable softness. His smoothness, of course, was his great strength. I have met theatrical agents with a similar manner. It made him the best negotiator between the Palazzo Venezia and the Vatican.
Cheerful and fashionable as always, Grandi the Foreign Minister sported, like me, the pointed beard and half-wax of a pre-war boulevardier. He was probably the ablest man in Italy and Il Duce’s best friend. Grandi turned against his Chief in the end, became a declared anti-Fascist and fled to Lisbon where, I gather, he is now a tobacconist.
I mentioned to Grandi that I was about to be homeless. This set the little man to laughing heartily. ‘Dumped you, has she? Or has he?’ It seemed half of Rome was aware of my affair. I shuddered.
‘If you like,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’m glad it’s over.’
Grandi said I would get used to it. ‘We all get used to it after a while.’ I was not to worry. I would have a house in twenty-four hours. ‘It’s just a question of telling some impoverished old fart of a nobleman whose family stole it from some other old fart of a nobleman that he has to vacate his seat. His thousand years are up. Now it’s our turn. We’ll relocate him in the country.’
He was joking, of course. Only later would such jokes be interpreted by the humourless Americans to suggest the Fascists were brutes.