could go to the seaside but it was hell when you were confined to the city. She opened the doors to the courtyard a little wider and closed the external shutters to keep out the sun. The bars of light through the shutters set sunbeams dancing off the colours of the marble flooring. They had not made love for days. How she wished they could, just once, lie together in a bed, naked, and fall into sleep afterwards. It would be so good for Ben. It was the only position they had not tried – that of husband and wife. Ben was often in a hurry and at times he liked to leave his boots on. He liked fast, violent sex and she was adroit at exciting him to exhaustion, but sometimes she wished for a calmer, quieter moment.
She longed to be free. Memories of the summers, of last summer, had faded to sepia. They swam openly at Castelporzione, surrounded by a swarm of security men like a school of jellyfish. Her favourite two-piece swimming costume with the tie between her breasts had not been out of her bureau drawer once this summer. A shiver ran right through her. Perhaps she was unwell too? They would not be going to the seaside this month. Ben’s constipation was getting worse and he was not good at bearing pain. Women were much better with pain. Look at the pain she herself had borne – menstrual pain, miscarriages, and yes, the pain Ben inflicted at times. He was always sorry afterwards.
He was gloomier each day and was losing confidence in himself. In recent times, requests for his photographs had dropped off sharply. Where once, every classroom and home had a photograph of Il Duce on the wall, people seemed less interested in their leader now. That hurt Ben. What, he said, are things coming to? The more fearful and apprehensive he felt, the louder he shouted and the angrier he got. Or the quieter and more withdrawn he became. Depression, her father said. The more pain he suffered, the more often his doctor gave him the injections and the more injections he had, the more timid and distressed he became. Claretta said a whole rosary for him last week – not that he knew. He had no patience with such things. She was worried silly about him, and about herself.
She crossed to the gramophone but did not lift the needle – unfriendly silence echoed about the room. Mounting the steps to the windows, she gazed into the internal courtyard as if hoping to see open fields. From a box with gold paper, she popped a chocolate into her mouth and then regretted it. She poured a lemonade from the tall crystal jug on the sideboard, watching the beads of condensation turn to prisms of light. She opened and closed one of the pile of unread books and threw it down. She made three paces through the room. The clock in the corner tick-tocked the minutes by, then the hours.
There was to be a meeting of the Grand Council this evening. The full Council. Clara’s sources had reported rumours the army was conspiring against Ben – perhaps it was about that. How dare they. Even the members of the Grand Council of Fascism treated him in a manner they would once not have dared. Clara’s network, developed with great application over much time, was usually reliable. There was even a whisper the King had lost faith in his Prime Minister. The King! Without Ben, that Frenchman would not even be in power. Ben said he had called the meeting himself, but would not discuss it any further, despite her inveigling. He must be about to put a stop to all this nonsense. The war was lost, but they could not blame Ben for that. The whole city heaved with unrest.
Clara had urged Ben to act, to quench the rumours and plots and counterplots, but he seemed at one moment decisive and the next, completely indifferent. A fortnight ago, when the Allies landed in Sicily, his only comment was, ‘The situation is delicate but not worrying.’ She was doing the worrying. She was on alert all day and all night. She did not know from day to day, whether her Lion would roar or plead. One day he was utterly dependent upon her and the next there would be more talk of the closed cycle and rejection. She knew much of this was owed to pain and anxiety and, perhaps, to the treatment for syphilis when he was young, though he denied that. At times he hardly knew what he was saying and Clara knew she had to be strong for him – the worse he got the more she loved him.
What about her own health? Her pulse raced at the slightest word, the slightest frown from Ben. She lay awake at night, unable to get enough air into her lungs. She was very tired. Only this morning she found three grey hairs at her temple and she was certain there were deeper lines around her eyes, lines that had not been there before. If only this dreadful war would end and they could have babies and be happy. Perhaps somewhere quiet, somewhere in the countryside. Well, perhaps not, Ben hated the country. He loved to talk about his country origins and his peasant ancestors but he could not wait to get back to the city whenever he was forced to visit the country.
There were no visits to the country now. For long periods they did not leave the room, and the world outside was becoming a fading memory. Clara left Ben snoring gently and went home to her family.
At precisely fifteen minutes after five in the afternoon, Mussolini arrived at the Quirinale, atop the highest of Rome’s seven hills. The graceful building was backlit by the sapphire sky of early evening, the lamps glowing against the warm sandstone of its walls. He arrived deliberately late for the meeting he had called for 5 pm. His chin jutted and he took the stairs with a violent stamp. The Grand Council of Fascism was his own creation and only he could call a meeting. Yet, here he was, summoned to attend as if he were no longer the one who governed. It was an outrage and they would pay dearly, those traitors who thought they could undermine his authority. Clara was right. He should have listened, but he would attend to them now. There would be no more of this insubordination. It was not to be tolerated.
At least he had had the presence of mind to take control once a meeting was inevitable. He was wearing his formal militia uniform and had ordered them all to wear full black ceremonial dress. He puffed his chest out, thrusting his jaw forward like his old self, but he knew he was too thin now. Rage was not good for his ulcer, which was clawing his guts, but he could not control it.
At the door to the chamber, he turned to his aide. ‘Are we walking into a trap?’
Inside the chamber, he strode to the front, carrying his heavy file. Frowning sternly, he thumped down the file, placed his fists on the table on either side of the document and began his oration. This would bring them to heel.
Mussolini’s voice rose and he made good use of all the quotations he had prepared. Many of the men in the room tensed forward in their seats, holding their breath. As he expounded his version of the war and the quandary of the present, they glanced from one to the other, eyebrows raised, at first surprised, then incredulous. Then, one by one, they exhaled loudly and relaxed into their seats, realising that the Duce of old was no more and that Mussolini had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, no grasp of the war. They had never heard, one said later, such woolly, rambling and inconsequential nonsense. They knew then they had made the right decision. Even those like Ciano, who had been difficult to persuade into this dethroning, were now convinced.
Mussolini droned endlessly in the late afternoon heat, at last concluding lamely, ‘The dilemma now is, war or peace? Surrender now or resistance to the last?’
He dribbled to a halt. A blowfly buzzed itself against the window until it fell dead. The air congealed and settled upon the listeners, who awoke from their torpor and, avoiding each other’s eyes, shuffled papers in embarrassment, shook heads. Whispered conversations sputtered back and forth, then Dino Grandi, Count of Mordano and President of the Chamber, rose to deliver the resolution he had drafted. In a long and ardent speech, lasting an hour and replete with every accusation, every sin committed or omitted, he put the motion that Mussolini resign forthwith and hand authority to the King, the Government and the Parliament.
The others waited, not even shame-faced: Farinacci, Bottai, Federzoni, and yes, even his son-in-law, the ingrate – though Count Ciano did look mortified, his face the colour of suet. For more than twenty years these men had done his bidding, shared his victories, been the beneficiaries of his largesse. There had been grumbling and complaining and muttering behind the scenes from time to time, but they had always obeyed him implicitly and not once had one of them ever dared to openly