and full of ashes my mouth is.’ He was too tired. Hitler however, was not inclined to let the romance lapse. He needed the Duce in better form and he ordered General Wolff to bring Clara to Lake Garda.
The surface of the lake glittered beneath a soft blanket of mist. It was almost October. The leaves were turning, there was a mist every morning. Behind the villa, the vines stretched up the hillside, golden, russet, yellow, ready for the vendemmia. From the terrace of the villa, Claretta watched Ben’s car inching up the gravel drive. Shivering slightly, she crossed her arms and turned back indoors, wishing she had thrown a cardigan over her shoulders. She had spent hours deciding what to wear, then returned to her original choice of high-waisted slacks and an open-necked shirt with the collar turned up. She had put on lipstick then wiped it off. Now she glanced sideways in the mirror – too thin, too drawn, too old. No matter, it was the best she could do for the moment. She undid the top button of the shirt and adjusted her cleavage – at least she still had a little. Taking several deep breaths, she closed her eyes for a moment.
At the crunching of gravel and the slamming of car doors, she took another unsteady breath and stood very straight, a vein pulsing at the side of her throat. The heavy footsteps on the stone stairs could not be Ben, and yet there he was, in the French doors – too thin, too drawn, too old.
‘Oh my darling, what have they done to you?’ She rushed at him, and he allowed himself to be held and the front of his tunic to be soaked with her tears. She felt as if she were the taller.
With her hands on either side of his face, she gazed into his eyes, willing him to respond. His breath was sour. He patted her shoulder, nodding, nodding. She led him to a sofa before the fireplace and he allowed himself to be seated, as if he were blind. He was still nodding. He was here, wasn’t he? That would have to be enough for now. Ben was more than sixty. He was shocked, frail. It would be all right. He still needed her. She poured him some tea and coaxed him into speech. He said nothing about ending it and he assured her he had no interest in other lovers, she was his great love, she had no cause for jealousy.
She had no cause for celebration either. This was a different man.
CHAPTER 7
Florence 1943
October 13
We are officially at war with Germany. So Marshal Badoglio informed us today on the radio. From Brindisi where he and the King are hiding. What has this been then, if not war?
Life had become a series of spies spying on spies spying on spies who in turn spied on others. In every bar and tobacconist, at every bus stop or bakery or fishmonger, gossip changed hands like black market goods. Everyone was under suspicion. The old men who drank their coffee each day at the edge of every piazza and in every bar, were certain they detected in this stranger or that visitor or even that neighbour, a spy for the Germans or a spy for the fascists or a spy for the partisans, depending on where their own sympathies lay. Only two doors away, that week, a body was found in the courtyard, executed it was said, by the rebels for having been a fascist spy. The boy was barely older than Enrico. His family were fascists. Was he a spy? Who could know? Enrico said he had heard nothing about it, but then he might not tell Annabelle even if he had.
Enrico said Claretta and her brother Marcello had been spying for the Allies. He is only saying that because he hates them, Annabelle thought. How would he know? And anyway, she was beginning to sound as if she were playing a game of ‘Simon says’. Enrico says this and Enrico says that. Why won’t you tell me? Why won’t you trust me? Why won’t you let me come with you and help you? She pestered him at every turn.
‘Because it is not safe, it is too dangerous for you. Knowing puts you in danger. And anyway, Ciccia, you have the bad habit of writing everything down.’ He kissed his forefinger and placed it on her forehead.
Sometimes she could hate him! The side of her mouth twitched. Why does everyone in the family simply accept that Enrico is in charge? Why do they all have to do what Enrico says? She knew the ‘Simon says’ game came from Cicero: Cicero says do this. Enrico is beginning to think he is Cicero. He is not Cicero – but if he is not careful, he will meet the same end.
The country was split into two: the Kingdom of the south under Victor Emmanuel III and Badoglio, with the Italian Social Republic, the Republic of Salò, under Mussolini in the north.
‘Puppets at both ends of the Peninsula and the Allies fighting the Germans in between,’ her father said.
Not that he said much these days, but he too warned her about her diaries.
‘Even Anna Maria can no longer be trusted,’ he reminded her.
They all knew Anna Maria had long ago fallen, as she often said, beneath the spell of Il Duce’s deep and beautiful eyes, and could not understand the family’s agnostic attitude to the regime. Or to life, for that matter.
‘He is friends with the Pope,’ she told Annabelle, replacing a pin in her thinning grey hair where the pink of the skull showed through. She retied the strings of her apron beneath her bosom firmly, to deflect argument. ‘One of the best things Il Duce ever did was he put back the crucifixes in the schools and courtrooms when I was a girl.’
Like thousands of couples across the country, she and Sesto had given her wedding ring to Il Duce for the war effort in Ethiopia in the euphoria of ‘The Day of the Wedding Ring’. Bishops and nuns gave their gold rings too, and even cardinals contributed their gold chains. Think of it, said Anna Maria, our Queen gave her ring and made a speech for us on the day.
Now Anna Maria and Sesto and their compatriots were afraid of the Germans and the Allies, and torn between Il Duce and the King. No-one had any confidence in the King, widely hated for deserting them. King Victor Emmanuel had never inspired much confidence. A lonely prosaic ditherer, he was too short, too bored, too French, to wield any authority. He could easily have ordered his army to stop Mussolini twenty years ago and he had been too weak to do so. Now the two men were bookends to a history of failure – parroting Enrico again, but this time Annabelle agreed with him.
Italy was divided by scratches on the map: the Gustav line, the Caesar line, the Albert line, the Heinrich line and lastly, the Gothic line. Enrico drew them on the map for her, but the country was divided by far more than ink marks on an atlas. Italy had almost ceased to exist. The city was littered with leaflets falling like summer snowflakes, urging all men and boys to join up, to enrol to fight for the RSI. They could join the Decima Mas, under Prince Valerio Borghese. Or there was the Muti Battalion of Blackshirts, or the Fascist Republican Militia. The important thing was to join, before it was too late.
Her father was spat upon in the street last week, for not supporting the new Fascist State. He had not supported the old one, but this was different. Men, workers who had tipped their caps to him, stalked past without greeting. Anna Maria gave in her notice and then, unsure how she would eat without the bit of food that came from Impruneta, baulked at the prospect and retracted it.
In households throughout the city, the quandary of whether to flock back to the known world of Il Duce, or run to the dubious protection of the King and the Allies, or throw in their lot with the partisans, divided fathers and brothers and cousins. In the streets, the sodden leaflets rotted underfoot into sludge, making the stones slippery and dangerous. Or more slippery and more dangerous. The war had been going on for nearly three years, but now the real war came calling, came right into their homes, and it wore the faces of foreign soldiers, both Allies and Germans. In every corner of the country people were forced to choose. Nazifascisti they said. Germans and Italians. Allies, Germans, Italians – they all killed you.
Further north, it was easier to choose between the Germans and the Allies, but the fascists made people choose between Italians or Italians. Betrayal was in the drinking water. When Annabelle looked at the lines on the map, drawn in red ink, she saw only blood.