The Phoenix Land

by Miklos Banffy

  I was on the first floor. Even though I was flattened against a pillar it was an excellent place for from there I had a direct view of the main door, the marble-floored courtyard and beyond it, facing the entrance, the monumental double stairway leading up to the staterooms. The marble court was empty as everyone was in the galleries.

  By now it was almost midnight, and people were beginning to think the Russians would not come after all.

  Suddenly they appeared, and a murmur of astonishment ran through the crowd. Each and every one of the Russians wore well-cut tails, white waistcoat and a wonderfully starched boiled shirt. They wore top hats and looked like fashion plates.

  And yet they did not in any way give a bourgeois impression. They looked merry and proud and full of self-confidence. They marched in quickly, as if about to lay siege to the capitalist world that was awaiting them so eagerly upstairs. At their head was Chicherin, silk hat tilted slightly over one eye, who from time to time seemed to be exchanging jokes over his shoulder with the others as they moved swiftly without pausing for an instant, feet stamping defiantly, before passing out of sight behind the columns of the staircase. It all lasted only for a few seconds, yet it was unforgettable.

  Two or three days after this, the first general assembly of the conference was held in the great hall of the Genoa Stock Exchange.

  Hanging in a frame on one of the walls was a money-draft of Christopher Columbus. It may be that it is still there, because good old Columbus never repaid it; if so, it was a lucky chance since it gave a most particular spice to this, the world’s oldest money market. The chairman welcomed the Russian delegation, and Chicherin replied.

  He spoke in excellent French and with much wit. He praised Russia and her riches. With a finely ironic smile he started to list what treasures she possessed, what petrol, coal, vast forests, huge quantities of iron ore, copper, platinum, malachite, cotton and the best wheat in Europe. All these, he said, existed in vast quantities in Russia, and all were available to any country who would agree to buy them. He knew well that the capitalist world of business was practically drooling at the mouth to hear what he had to say.

  After this, or maybe at the next session, followed discussion of the conference’s organization, the language to be used for the minutes and the seating of the various delegations. Chicherin spoke on every subject. On the question of languages he insisted that Russian must always be included. As regards the delegations, he objected to the Poles, the Romanians or any delegates from the Baltic States being admitted to the same sessions as the Russians since, in his view, they represented territories stolen from Russia, and it was therefore offensive to him to be obliged to sit down with them. He even objected to Japan.

  And, whatever he said, he said with the same ironic smile, partly to vex the assembly and partly to underline the Russian position. He knew perfectly well that the conference would not defer to him, but in his view this was not important provided he could cause the maximum amount of confusion and irritation to the so-called victorious powers.

  Chicherin was always so surrounded by others at the meetings that I could never get near him. However, some three days later the king of Italy invited all the heads of the various missions to lunch on one of his battleships, and on this occasion I did finally get to meet him. Several small tables had been set up on the deck and by luck I found myself seated at the same one as Chicherin. He was seated one place away from me. I had good reason to want to talk to him as I needed to discuss the matter of the exchange of Russian and Hungarian prisoners of war, which had once again reached a deadlock.

  He gave me a visiting card on, upon which he had scribbled a few words, and told me to present it whenever I could come to the Hotel Ferrari, which the Russians used as a base during the day as Santa Margherita was too far away.

  Of course I went as soon as possible.

  At the entrance there were three or four robust, thickset men, obviously bodyguards, broad-shouldered, strong, and well built. I gave them the card, but they did not let me in straight away. One of them disappeared up the steps of the hotel, while I walked up and down on the pavement outside. After a few minutes the man came back and gestured to me to follow him. When I arrived at the first floor someone again looked at Chicherin’s card. The same person now conducted me to another room where a very old woman was sitting at the window. She too studied what was written on the card and then looked me over carefully. After apparently inspecting me for some seconds she waved me to a door at the back of the room. I went in. Chicherin was sitting alone beside a long table. He gave me a perfunctory handshake and then walked straight to the door by which I had come in and turned the key in the lock. Then he did the same at another door leading out from the back of the room. It was only after having shut us both in that he made me sit down and we began to talk.

  He had very winning, almost hearty, manners. Quickly, and in a very few words, we agreed everything to do with the exchange of our prisoners and how the process should be restarted without further hindrance. When this had been settled he asked: ‘Is it true the Hungarians hate the Russians?’ and when I said it was not, he went on to say it would have been quite natural if we did since it had been the Russian army which had finally brought to an end the Hungarian fight for freedom119. I replied that this had left no resentment in Hungary, for Paskievich, after our surrender at Világos, had treated the defeated Hungarians with great fairness, and that everyone had known that it was not he but Austrian absolutism that had been responsible for the tragedy that ensued. In contrast to this, the Russian army had behaved correctly and even, in some places, left kindly memories behind them. To illustrate this, I told him an anecdote of those days.

  In 1849 a Russian officer had arrived with a detachment of soldiers at a property belonging to my grandmother at Száss Bányica. Strict discipline was maintained all the time the Russians were billeted there, and cash was paid for everything they consumed.

  When they left a few days later, the officer was standing with the overseer beside some rose bushes in front of the house. He asked who owned the property and, being told it was my grandmother, said:

  ‘So it belongs to a woman?’ Then he picked a rose, placed it in the lapel of his tunic and mounted his horse. As he rode away he called back: ‘Tell your mistress that a Russian officer steals nothing from a woman except flowers!’

  Chicherin was much pleased by this story, every word of which was true.

  After that, we turned to more general questions, especially that of Bessarabia, where there were a number of special problems, some of which affected Transylvania. Chicherin spoke with much impartiality and understanding, and we parted in full agreement: so much so that I was left with the feeling that much good would come from it if we could have established full diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia. For many reasons this was then impossible.

  During my first days in Genoa I had naturally paid visits to the delegations of the ‘Little Entente’ countries. Only Ionel Bratianu had come personally to see me at Nervi to return my visit: the others just left visiting cards. I did not have anything to discuss with Bratianu, for the relations between Hungary and Romania were then so strained that it would have been pointless to raise any specific question on the spur of the moment. We exchanged polite generalities only. Bratianu was very different from Benes. I at once felt him to be both calm and sincere, without a hint of deviousness. One felt in him the character of an autocrat whose will was law. This was the only occasion when we had the opportunity to talk until, five years later, in Bucharest when I went to arrange my Romanian citizenship120. Then his behaviour was such as to confirm the good opinion of him I had formed at Genoa.

  I also made some other contacts with some of the Swedes, Austrians and Turks. The Turkish ambassador knew all about the cultural and economic agreement I had made in 1916 in Istambul and so had confidence in me. We agreed to share any useful information that might come our way. The Turk was especially interested in the English
for it was suspected in Ankara that England might encourage Greece to attack Turkey. Several times during the conference I was able to tell him things he wanted to know, and he did the same for me. It was only the small change of diplomacy but useful all the same.

  Although it is not really relevant to my story, I feel I must relate a ludicrous incident concerning Fabro. He came to Genoa not as the official stenographer of our Foreign Ministry but as the correspondent of Pester Lloyd. In this capacity he was also present at the king of Italy’s lunch and afterwards sent off an account of it to his newspaper. The cost of any telegrams he might send had been included in his fixed expense allowance, and so he was anxious to keep the text to the minimum. He wanted to indicate that there had been no speeches at the lunch and so, in an odd mixture of German [sic] and Hungarian, he wrote the laconic message ‘Déjeuner tost’os’: i.e., a lunch with formal toasts. Unfortunately, it was written incorrectly and arrived as ‘trost’os’, which the editor took as German for ‘inconsolable’. They wired back: ‘Why inconsolable?’ ‘Why did he say that?’ ‘What had happened?’ And so once again poor Fabro found himself forced to pay for an expensive telegram of explanation which would not have been necessary if he could have brought himself to send a few more words in his first message.

  I did not meet any Italians who were not present officially at the conference because of the long-established diplomatic etiquette that such meetings do not take place while in foreign countries on this sort of mission. The rule is, of course, made to be broken but only in private.

  An acquaintance of Hungarian origin, Stefánia Türr, offered to invite Mussolini to Genoa if I wanted to meet him. I did not accept, although I have often regretted it, as it would have been a most interesting experience, especially for me as a writer. However, I already held in such detestation the movement for ‘racial purity’ in Hungary – and, indeed, abhorred the thought of any organization that inspired hate – that I did not then feel any inclination to meet a leader who professed principles of that sort.

  Despite diplomatic etiquette, I did make one exception in getting to know an Italian politician unconnected with the conference. This was Nitti, the former prime minister who had written a book entitled Europa senza pace – Europe Without Peace – in which he had been frankly critical of the peace terms that were imposed at Versailles and had shown much sympathy for the Hungarian people. I wanted to thank him for this; and I also thought it would prove useful to my country if I were to be in touch with him since there were many signs that the weak Facta government would soon fall and that, when it did, Nitti would be recalled to office.

  I used the Easter holiday for this. Through our embassy in Rome I received a message from Nitti asking me to visit him at his flat in Naples on – if I am not mistaken – Easter Saturday. I told the secretary of the conference that I would be leaving for Rome that weekend. Luckily, the wedding of our ambassador’s daughter to a Prince Antei-Maffei had been arranged to take place just after the holiday.

  On Good Friday I boarded the evening express, and even though it went straight through to Naples, I left the train at Rome, thinking that if my movements were being watched by the police this is what they would put in their report. After a swift breakfast at the embassy I then left again, without any luggage, and took a taxi back to the station. Early in the afternoon I was in Naples.

  Nitti lived up a very steep street on a hill in the centre of the city.

  His looks took me by surprise. I had expected a typical Neapolitan of the Mediterranean type, black-haired, olive-skinned and the face of an eagle. Instead I found a rather small man, fair-haired, with a red face and a flat nose. His eyes, sunken deep in fat, radiated goodwill and great intelligence. He welcomed me heartily.

  We talked for a long time. He assured me that he would help us as soon as he once again found himself at the head of affairs, which he was certain would be in a few weeks’ time. I returned to Rome in the early evening. Unfortunately, those two hours are the only memories I have of him since when the Facta government did fall it was not Nitti who succeeded him in office but the March on Rome … and Mussolini.

  The wedding of Count Nemes’s daughter was held on the Monday or Tuesday after Easter in the church of Santa Maria della Victoria which since the war had become Rome’s most fashionable place of worship. The ceremony was attended by hosts of princes and princesses all bearing names famous in history – such as Doria, Colonna, Aldobrandini and Borghese – and among them I found one or two acquaintances from my previous visit. Since I was neither a relation nor a close friend, and a heretic to boot, I placed myself discreetly near a side altar, where I was in no one’s way and unlikely to cause a scandal by not taking part in all the genuflexion and crossings of oneself going on around me.

  I have no idea whether all the wedding guests were devout churchgoers, for they gave the impression of merely attending a social gathering as secular as a charity concert. It may have been a fashionable church, but I personally did not find it conducive to worship. Above the altar there were no pictures but only reliefs in white marble by Bernini with various saints receiving their stigmata. Bernini may have been a wonderful artist, but his work here approaches the rococo, with its pretty female angels gracefully inflicting the five wounds with needle-sharp marble arrows and sadistic little smiles. All the while the saints swoon in ecstasy. The whole object makes a most perverse impression121.

  Afterwards I returned to Genoa, where the waiting in the wings went on for me as before. Discussions behind the scenes there were, for the most part with the Russians, as the English, French and, I assume, even the Americans hunted for their own economic advantage: all matters which did not concern me. If I had not had to stay for our Declaration I would have left long before the end.

  I used to spend much of my time enjoying the art treasures in which Genoa is so rich. I saw the Holy Grail in the cathedral of San Lorenzo – the thick green glass chalice sanctified by the blood of our Saviour – and the onyx dish upon which Salome received the head of John the Baptist. Both of these dated from the early Renaissance and were set in gold and enamel, and whether or not we believe the legends, the objects themselves are so beautiful that discussion of their origin is beside the point. I also went to many privately owned palaces where I saw countless Van Dyk portraits made during that artist’s protracted stay in the city. The acme of perfection was a Cellini amphora that I saw in the Doria palace, to which I had been taken by Prince Durazzo. Only the podium of the Esztergom Calvary comes anywhere near this unique masterpiece.

  I also saw a living and walking masterpiece. This was the widow of the world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso, who had died only a few months before. She was then living at the Excelsior Hotel in Genoa. Every day, dressed in the deepest mourning – white, like the queens of France – the widow would take a walk along the terrace that stretched the full length of the hotel façade and from which there was an unsurpassed view of the city and the harbour far below. Her wonderful figure, enhanced by the soft folds of her dress, and her brown hair garlanded with a laurel wreath of white velvet, reminded me of a Greek statue, although none of the marble women on the Parthenon were more stunningly beautiful than she. She made a lovely sight as she walked up and down before the backdrop of the blue sea and the blue sky, with all the majesty appropriate to the wife of the king of all artists. Many people would climb up to this mountain terrace just to watch her and admire; and this was made all the easier since it was known that the sorrowing widow of Caruso was a very punctual lady, and that it was always at the same hour and for the same time – between midday and one o’clock – that she would appear in front of the drawing-room window and walk up and down. If it rained she would take her walk inside the great hall of the hotel; and never, in her great sadness, would she look at another person or talk to anyone. But anybody who turned up a little early for lunch at the Excelsior could see and admire her; and so many did this that it made good publicity for the hotel and perhaps was good
too for the lovely widow herself.

  And so the days passed.

  At last, I think it was towards the end of May, Facta asked me to lunch. He lived to the west of the city at San Pier d’Arena in a villa built into the side of a cliff that jutted out onto the sea.

  There were quite a number of guests at the luncheon, mostly Italian politicians as well as a few diplomats. We had been invited for half-past one; but we waited and waited and still did not get to table because il signore Schanzer, the foreign minister, had not turned up. They telephoned. Secretaries bustled in and whispered things in Facta’s ear. Then they bustled out again. Something had gone wrong – and everyone felt it.

  Finally, at half-past two, we sat down to eat – without the minister. His place, next to me, remained empty. It was on the hostess’s left. Just across the table sat Signora Schanzer. She was a plump good-natured woman, the image of old Mrs Adler who had an antique shop in Kolozsvár when I was a law student. The poor lady looked very worried.

  We finished the soup, and also a most delicious fish.

  Then the door opened, and in came Schanzer: he was deathly pale. Uncertainly he stumbled to his chair and sank down as if he had just marched fifty miles on heavy flat feet. Facta and all the other Italians plied him with questions, but the only reply they got was a few broken words: ‘Tutto e perdutto … una catastrofa … la conferenza si rotta…’ – ‘all is lost … it’s a catastrophe … the conference will break up…’

  From all these questions I managed to glean that what I had already heard that morning as rumour was now confirmed as true. The Russians had made a commercial agreement with Germany.