spoonful, which she sprinkled with icing sugar. She fanned herself lightly with an embroidered napkin and sighed as loudly as Claretta. Her daughter’s distracted air irritated her and spoiled the nice evening, but Claretta always over-dramatised. They all knew Ben could be difficult – not that she called him Ben to his face – but God knows Claretta did provoke him at times. Going to see the King was hardly the end of the world. Giuseppina was certain he would turn up tomorrow and resolve the problem. She did hope so, because it was too trying to have Claretta in this mood. She mopped the corners of her mouth, patted gently at the light perspiration on her throat and pushed back her chair, the iron legs grating across the tiles.
‘Shall we go in for the bulletin?’ she asked.
They drifted into the salon through the open French doors. Giuseppina surveyed the room with a pleasure undiminished by familiarity – gracious, it was, despite the modernity. She was not as certain as Francesco about all those stark lines, but it seemed to work pleasingly. She pressed the button for the housekeeper and ordered coffee.
Francesco turned on the wireless to warm it up for the 11 pm news broadcast. He settled into his chair with his pipe, tamping the tobacco with his thumb in pleasurable anticipation of the first puff. Claretta perched distractedly on the rolled wooden arm of an antique sofa, one of the few old pieces in the room.
‘Don’t sit on the arm. You will break it,’ her mother said with the tedium of habit.
With a shake of her head, Claretta slid into a lolling position, gazing out through the doors to the starry night and the last fading light. She chewed the inside of her cheek. Her mother turned the volume knob of the wireless and sat opposite as the clock chimed eleven.
His Majesty the King-Emperor has accepted the resignation from the Office of Head of the Government and Chief Secretary of State, of His Excellency Cavaliere Benito Mussolini …
Claretta’s scream was more of panic than surprise. She struck her forehead repeatedly with the heel of her hand. ‘What have they done to him? They will kill him. Oh, amore mio, I should never have left.’ She slid from the sofa to the floor, keening and rocking.
Her parents were astounded – as much by their daughter’s histrionics as the shocking announcement.
‘Too much American cinema,’ Giuseppina muttered. She glared at Francesco as if to say, this is your fault, the girl is uncontrollable. Neither went to her aid but watched her as if she were dangerous.
The bulletin droned to the end and still no-one moved. Francesco held his unlit pipe halfway to his mouth. After a moment, he rose and turned off the radio.
‘I … I must telephone someone. I …’ He waved his pipe. Giuseppina sprang at him. ‘It’s the King. He has always been useless. We have a coward and a fool as our King. As for Badoglio, that cretin has always hated the Duce. I’ll bet he put the King up to this. He just wants … he wants …’ She sputtered to a halt.
Her hands flew to the pearls at her throat, fingers telling the smooth pale orbs like a rosary. ‘Oddio! What will happen to us? We are not safe. Francesco, call the police at once. At once!’ Her eyebrows disappeared into her fringe. ‘At once!’
She tugged at her husband’s arm, sending the pipe spinning from his hand in a spray of tobacco.
Claretta was on her feet now. Like a flock of starlings in the Rome night sky they wheeled in unison, swooping from the room and across the terrace to gaze down at the outer walls to the courtyard, where their police guard was always positioned. There was no-one there. From the high terrace, they heard the raucous sounds of celebration and rejoicing. Fires burned in dancing orange points across the city.
Florence 1943
The fall
The stars glittered, no light anywhere to dilute their intensity. Annabelle was not asleep. She had gone to bed too early. The hated blackout curtains trapped the summer night, suffocating her. Drawing back the heavy fabric, she sat in her window, dreaming, drifting, imagining another life … She was Heloise at university, disguised as a boy, having a passionate love affair with Abelard.
A commotion downstairs fractured her reverie. The very timbre of the house changed. What now? It was more than two weeks since the Allied landing in Sicily. She raced down the stairs, wearing only her voile nightgown. From her father’s study came a clatter of raised voices, with the wireless on in the background. It was nearly eleven. As she rushed through the door, she was shushed from every side. No-one chided her for being half-dressed. The air was fuggy with cigar-smoke. Enrico pushed her to the front with a wave to remain silent and the evening news broadcast began. There was no usual introduction to the events of the day, the twenty-fifth of July in the twentieth year of the Fascist Era.
His Majesty the King-Emperor has accepted the resignation from the Office of Head of the Government and Chief Secretary of State, of His Excellency Cavaliere Benito Mussolini, and has nominated as Head of the Government and Chief Secretary of State, Cavaliere Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio. End of the transmission.
For long moments, the silence beat like a human heart. Annabelle thought it was her own heart. Enrico nodded, but did not speak. His lips were white and compressed. Finally, Achille rose to turn off the wireless.
‘You were right,’ he said, turning to Enrico. ‘What will it mean?’
Enrico had brought this news. She might have guessed. Annabelle was dulled with dread. ‘I am going back to bed,’ she said loudly. No-one answered.
Florentines awoke to a glorious summer morning filled with light and the call of the cuckoo. Outside the windows the air was already heavy with humidity and presentiment. Nothing was real. It was as if a play were suspended, midway through rehearsal, for a lost script. Stunned incomprehension stamped the faces of citizens. After a night of riotous carousing, the streets were quiet – littered with party badges torn from coats and trampled underfoot, smashed glass, frames from portraits of Il Duce ripped from the walls of homes and offices. The air smelt of ash and cinders. In the stillness, the ghostly covered cars on their blocks seemed like so many draped corpses. A quarter of a century of Mussolini was over. Was this good news or bad news? No-one knew. Utter confusion washed through the city. Rumours swirled like the capes of phantoms and facts were invisible. Stories wisped, drifted, disappeared. True and real had lost their currency. Many thought the war was over, having missed Marshall Badoglio’s confirmation that ‘Italy remains true to the word she has given’.
‘You will see, he will be back,’ said others, more cautious. By afternoon, a dangerous state of euphoria wafted about, a deadly miasma replacing caution. The streets were again clotted with citizens – many kissing complete strangers, some throwing pictures of Il Duce onto bonfires, others swapping the latest wild theories, while rampaging youths defaced fascist emblems. A slate statue of Mussolini was pulled from its marble plinth and crashed to the ground – a cascading Colossus. Tricolours appeared in several windows, tentatively. The evening news bulletin carried stories of bacchanalian orgies in Milan, the cradle of fascism, where rejoicing was unrestrained. Homes and offices of prominent fascists were raided, wrecked and looted. Viva Badoglio! echoed from the streets and belltowers and loggias across the city. Groups of young people swaggered arm-in-arm, swigging from wine bottles and dancing around bonfires. A fascist official was forced to eat his badge. The scenes of mindless elation were distasteful and unsettling to those with a more measured outlook.
‘Pandemonium in its literal sense,’ Achille said, shaking his head. ‘And these are the same people who were screaming Duce! Duce! Duce! only last week.’
Then as quickly as the ecstasy appeared, it evaporated with the confirmation from Marshall Badoglio that Italy was still at war.
For the following weeks, the sun came up each day on clocks that seemed broken. Time