The Last Double Sunrise

by Peter Yeldham

  “I am not a communist. Another thing I’m not, and never likely to be is your dear girl,” she told him, before turning and heading back to her car.

  “Don’t be stupid. Come back and we’ll talk,” he shouted. When she reached the car his voice turned ferocious at the rejection. “You bitch! You treacherous fucking bitch,” he yelled, slamming the window with such force the glass shattered.

  Beatrice heard it break, and knew that one of her options was at an end. Her days of teaching here were definitely over.

  It was just after one o’clock in Rome and to Carlo’s relief the train had arrived on schedule. After being wedged in the corner and trying to perch on his suitcase in acute discomfort, the terminus was a welcome sight. He had difficulty with the heavy case, giving preference to the drunks pushing their way out of the train. But after that he encountered an even larger and wilder crowd celebrating in the streets. It was like bedlam.

  Squads of para-military Blackshirts were on patrol, using megaphones to warn that motor traffic was forbidden from entering the city. Then there were loudspeakers on street corners and the sound of a voice being broadcast. He realised it had to be Mussolini, relayed from his balcony at the Palazzo Venezia. The waves of applause and roars of elation that followed each precise and calculated pause meant it was the long awaited news; Italy had joined forces with Nazi Germany and declared war.

  Carlo was forced to stop frequently, his bulky suitcase made it almost impossible to move at any pace through the mass of people. He therefore heard most statements on the crackling speakers that kept sending the crowd into a frenzy, but it was a recycle of old news: Holland and Belgium, Paris captured, British forces fleeing in retreat.

  “This gigantic struggle is nothing other than a logical development of our revolution…” came the voice, while Carlo realised he had taken the wrong exit from the terminus, but was now trapped by the size of the crowd blocking his return. He had no choice but to hold onto his luggage and avoid being bumped, while forced to listen to Il Duce’s almost hysterical elation as he reached his triumphant crescendo.

  “The single order of the day is obligatory for all. It already spreads and fires our hearts from the Alps to the Indian Ocean. Victory!” A crescendo of cheers blasted Carlo’s eardrums.“And we will win, in order to bring a long period of peace and justice to Italy, to Europe, and to the World! People of Italy! Rush to arms and show your tenacity, your courage and your valour!”

  This was followed by a brass band’s rendition of the national anthem. As the crowd surged in various directions around him, Carlo tried to study his map of the city. He had to get back to the Via Agostino de Pretis. It would eventually lead him onto the Via Sistina, then across town to the Spanish Steps. ‘My God,’ he thought, ‘what a trek.’ On their visit he and his mother had taken a taxi, but there was no hope of that. And burdened by his heavy suitcase it would take him at least another hour, perhaps longer.

  Beatrice waited patiently until mid-afternoon, monitoring the radio news while wondering when Salvatore would appear. She realised her option to join her parents at their apartment near the University was impossible while the streets of Rome were blocked to vehicles. She rang her daughter, but Gina was reporting on crowds in Milan, so she left a message. Worried about Carlo, she tried again to phone Francois at the Villa Medici but the lines were still busy or out of order. Eventually she wrote a note and left it for Salvatore, saying she’d be driving to Milan. If he wished to discuss the future, whatever he had in mind, he could leave a message with Gina. Then she drove away from the house that had been her home for over twenty years.

  An hour later Salvatore returned from the brothel in Aosta, having tried to mitigate his humiliation in bed with Bianca. Hearing of the declaration he had rung Luca who’d apologised for the previous day’s secrecy, but it had been embargoed until The Leader’s speech. There’d be a job for him with Il Duce, if he could find a way to separate himself from the vineyard.

  In the house he read the note Beatrice had left. He tore it up, found the phone number of the land agent who’d first sold him the property, and said the place was on the market. He wanted a quick sale and no fucking around with silly figures. It would be a fine bargain at three times the price he’d paid for it and since position was power, he would not take a lira less.

  Two hours later the crowds in Rome were just as dense and Carlo’s progress was far behind his hopeful forecast. Along his protracted course the crowds seemed to be increasing. Martial music was playing on the speakers and a selection of highlights from Mussolini’s speech was being endlessly repeated. Carlo knew he never wanted to hear Il Duce’s tedious droning voice again, but today there was no escaping it. He was now tired, thirsty, and badly in need of a rest.

  He sat on his suitcase to study the map more carefully as people streamed past. He wondered where they were all going. Perhaps to what was called the dictator’s balcony, the Pallazzo Venezia, in the same way that crowds thronged to Vatican City or Castel Gandolfe when the Pope was speaking at his summer palace.

  His new exhausted estimate of arrival was, maybe, just one more hour. He needed to be there before dark to register and receive directions about his lodgings. The thought of a room with a bed in it was like a daydream that could soon be a nightmare if this pilgrimage took much longer. Despite his thirst he kept passing the crowded cafés and bars filled with patrons, knowing there’d be long queues for drinks and he was running perilously short of time.

  He felt he could hardly have chosen a worse day for such a journey, and this was more than confirmed when he finally reached the Spanish Steps, then wearily climbing to the Villa Borghese with its oasis of green parkland. He approached the lions of the Medici, heaving a great sigh of relief. But this was only until he drew close enough to realise that all the doors were locked.

  There were armed guards on duty outside the building, placed there to inform everyone that entry was prohibited.

  “There was a phone call from Papà,” Gina said, when her mother arrived at the newspaper late that afternoon, “but I doubt if you want to hear his message.”

  “Just tell me,” a tired and anxious Beatrice asked. “Which way I point the car tomorrow—home or away?”

  “I’d suggest away, Mamma. He’s selling the house. Do you mind?”

  “Not really,” she said. “We used to be happy there but that was long ago.”

  They went out to a restaurant for dinner, after again trying to telephone the Villa Medici. This time, following another unsuccessful attempt, they agreed the line must be out of order.

  “I’m a student needing to enter here to be registered,” Carlo tried once again to explain, but the guards simply shrugged. The corporal in charge was of no assistance, seeming pleased to be telling him nothing could be done. The Villa Medici was locked by order of their commandant and he was acting on the edict of Il Duce, who instructed the gallery be sealed and its paintings, sculptures, and all contents be placed in government custody.

  “But why?” Carlo asked, tired and frustrated to encounter this, after so many hours of struggling amid the crowds.

  “His Excellency Signore Mussolini didn’t bother to tell us why,” was the sarcastic reply, calculated to amuse the guards. Carlo found no reason to even smile, and far less when the self-important corporal told him of an edict that the army had just issued.

  “It’s been gazetted,” he seemed to have pleasure in saying. “All males eighteen and over, not students or in protected industries, are required to enlist. From tomorrow it is mandatory, and those not in uniform could be arrested.”

  “But I’m meant to be studying here,” Carlo did his best to remind him.

  “You can’t study in a place where you’re not allowed to enter,” said the corporal, and as if this was his final bureaucratic word he turned his attention to a girl who had been standing a short distance away, watching their encounter.

  “Bella Signorina,” he hailed her, “let me finish deali
ng with this intruder and then take you out to dinner.”

  “Carlo!” He heard her voice as she began to approach and turned in surprise. Her figure in a cotton summer dress was outlined against the setting sun. “It really is you,” she said.

  “Silvana!” There was no mistaking her.

  “I’ve been watching. Are you in some kind of trouble?” she asked Carlo as she joined him.

  “Just a minute, Signorina, before he attempts to answer that,” said the officious corporal trying to regain control of the situation. “Do you know this person?”

  “Of course I do. Why is he in trouble? Are you trying to arrest him?”

  “At this stage we’re interrogating. He’s under suspicion, claiming he’s a student here, but the place is locked and off limits.”

  “Then he’d better come with me,” she said, “because it’s completely true. He is a student.”

  “But he can’t study here.”

  “Then I’m sure there’ll be arrangements for him to study somewhere else,” Silvana replied. “Is that agreeable to you, Carlo?” she asked with a smile. “Will you come with me and tomorrow we’ll sort this problem out together?”

  “I can think of nothing better, Silvana.”

  She reached out a hand, and he clasped it, lifting his heavy case with the other arm. “You look just beautiful,” he said. “Even better than the last time.”

  “You see,” she said to the corporal, “this is Carlo. You could learn from him. He thinks I look better than last time and that was when I was modelling with no clothes on.” She stifled a laugh at the stunned look on his face.

  She and Carlo walked away together, leaving his men to enjoy their corporal’s frustration.

  EIGHT

  It was late that evening before Beatrice and Gina discovered the phones in the Villa Medici were not out of order but had been switched off. In a state of acute anxiety she rang her father at the University, to see if he could use his influence to discover what was happening at the legendary Academy. He rang back an hour later with the simple explanation. It was the worst possible bad luck for Carlo. It was often forgotten, despite its prominence on Pincian Hill and the Borghese Gardens, that the owner of the museum and gallery had always been the French Government. And because of this, at dawn on that day, Italy had declared war on France and Mussolini had confiscated the Villa as enemy terrain. It would remain locked and its contents proscribed until Il Duce declared otherwise.

  “Unfortunately, nobody could offer an opinion on how this affects his status as a student, or the integrity of the scholarship. You’d better come here when the roads clear tomorrow, Bea. By then we might have more details.”

  That night in Milan Beatrice found sleep difficult. Her thoughts were constantly of Carlo. Did he know this? It seemed to her that his scholarship, the wonderful three year prize that meant so much, might be at risk. The first casualty of war. But more importantly, where on earth could he be?

  Carlo opened his eyes and looked around him. In the daylight he saw a small neat room furnished with a divan, on which he was lying covered by a blanket. He tried to remember how he came to be only half-dressed. The previous night came back in gradual moments of memory. Walking with Silvana to a building where she lived, a tangle of streets away from the Villa Medici, after leaving the bureaucratic corporal looking furious with his hopes of an evening with the beautiful model in ruins.

  Carlo had been relieved to get rid of his heavy suitcase, leaving it in an adjoining room. Silvana obviously lived in a small apartment, because his muddled memory recalled having a shower in her tiny bathroom to refresh and change clothes. Then after that? It was coming back to him…after that they went to a café to eat dinner and drink wine, then came here to drink more wine. But then what had happened?

  He shut his eyes trying to remember, then opened them as he heard the sound of a door that linked the rooms, seeing Silvana in a different dress looking down at him and smiling affectionately.

  “Do you feel better?” she asked, kneeling alongside the divan so her face was close to his.

  “What happened?” Carlo asked.

  “You were exhausted. We were drinking vino and talking, then I realised you’d fallen asleep on this divan—in the middle of a sentence.”

  “You were talking and I fell asleep? That’s awful! I apologise.”

  “No, you were talking. Saying some nice things to me, then in the middle of a word you fell asleep. Off with the fairies,” she smiled. “So whatever plans we had for last night,” her smile was now rueful, “were cancelled. I took off your shoes and your jacket, but couldn’t manage the trousers, so I put a blanket over you—and went to bed all by myself.”

  “Oh my God,” Carlo said, remembering how much they’d kissed and fondled, his recollection ending in a blank haze, “I’m so sorry.”

  “You were tired out. No wonder, walking so far with that heavy case.”

  “I packed everything I’d need for the next three years. But they said the Medici is locked, government decree. Is it going to stay locked?”

  “No one seems to know,” Silvana said. “I spent yesterday trying to find out. Everyone’s apparently vanished. I couldn’t even find Signore Fouquet. That corporal promised to get me news, but he had other ideas in mind.”

  “I’ll bet he did. Like dinner and back to your place.”

  “I let him know there’d be no chance of that.” She made herself comfortable on the divan beside him.

  “I couldn’t believe it was you,” Carlo said, “even if it did take a moment to recognise you with clothes on.”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “I loved you saying I looked better than last time. That bossy corporal, he really hated you.”

  “Forget him. What will you do if the Galleria stays shut, Silvana?”

  “I can get other jobs. What will you do? That’s far more important. I was so thrilled when I heard about the scholarship.”

  “Were you really?”

  She nodded. “You might be surprised how pleased I felt about that. And not just because I was hoping to pose for you a few more times,” she said, and kissed him again.

  “I did a lousy life-drawing,” he confessed. “Too busy looking at you and feeling excited.”

  “I could tell that,” she said. “Will you still be excited the next time?”

  “I’ll always be excited if it’s you, but next time I’ll tell my hand to stop trembling and behave itself.” She laughed and snuggled close. “You’re beautiful and deserve to be drawn properly,” he said.

  “You’re exciting me, Carlo. Will you still be here tonight?”

  “If I’m invited.”

  “You are definitely invited. Now let me go and get you some news. I know where Signor Fouquet and some of the French staff live. You won a scholarship, so they certainly can’t lock you out. But stay here until we know more about what’s happening.”

  Carlo put his hands out to stroke each side of her face, turning her towards him. He kissed her long and lovingly on the lips; her tongue began to seek his as they felt the force of their craving for each other.

  “Must you go just now?” he whispered.

  “The sooner gone, sooner back. If we got into bed now, we might stay there all day.”

  “Why not?”

  “First, let me find out the news for you. Then we can spend all day.”

  “Shouldn’t I come with you?”

  “Stay and rest, amore mio” she whispered. “I won’t be long.”

  She ruffled his hair with a fond gesture, then went out quietly closing the front door. He could hear her footsteps hurrying across the paved surface of a car-parking area outside the window, already wishing that he’d gone with her. The tidy little apartment felt desolate without her.

  He sat marvelling at his good fortune to have met a girl like this, and hated the thought of the overbearing corporal who’d acted so possessively. He tried not to think of falling asleep like that, and what he had miss
ed by being so exhausted. He wondered what news she’d bring back. If the Villa was to be locked up on Mussolini’s orders, then there must be somewhere else he’d go for his scholarship. If his mother knew of the situation she’d be worried. His grandparents, too. They only lived a short drive away and Sofia might come to the villa, expecting them to give her details of his lodgings. Being Sofia, she was bound to visit and ask if he needed anything in the way of furniture or bed clothes. He felt he should contact them before they all became disturbed, not knowing where he was or what had happened.

  It was essential to get in touch. In private he’d tell his mother he was being given sanctuary by the lovely life-model. He should call her, but Silvana didn’t have a phone in her apartment. A public one would be the answer; if there was a street phone close by he could soon let his mother know. Tell her it was in hand—in fact tell her he was in Silvana’s hands—and very glad to be in such tender custody. His mother was enlightened about things like that.

  ‘I could be in love on just our second meeting,’ he thought. But before that it was sensible to find a public phone. That was when he heard a soft tap on the door, and guessed Silvana had changed her mind. As he opened it he realised his mistake, but it was too late.

  “That’s him,” the corporal from last night sounded triumphant, “that’s the bugger.” Before Carlo could move, two para-military Blackshirts had him pinned against the wall, his wrists in handcuffs. The goons were massive, they carried pistols and truncheons and looked happy to use them if given a chance.

  The corporal stayed long enough to enjoy his success, then went back to the Villa. The Blackshirts escorted Carlo through the streets to where a prison van was parked. He tried to explain, but they paid no attention. Handcuffed and forced to march between them, it was a degrading experience. People stared or drew away as if he was a criminal; a well-dressed middle aged couple abused him with comments about the streets being cleaner without scum like him.

  When the van was unlocked there was a chorus of shouted complaints, angry voices bellowing their innocence which the para-military pair ignored as they shoved Carlo roughly inside. His lack of balance sent him cannoning into several of the inmates who protested by violently jolting him in return. Before the door was slammed shut he was able to see there were about a dozen young men of similar age, some wearing handcuffs like him, others with their ankles fettered, all in raucous remonstration. Then the van started to move with a jolt that sent most of them sprawling into each other, creating more fierce chaos, shouted obscenities and outrage. In the reckless ride to their destination, he had time to reflect that if they were as innocent as him the outrage was justified.