by Alison Love
In the parcel there was a silk shawl, patterned in lilac, with a long cream fringe. Valentino whistled. “That must have cost you a fortune, Bruno.”
“It’s not bad, is it?” Complacently Bruno lit a cigarette. “I haggled for it of course, as you do in Cairo. But nothing is too good for my fidanzata. Do you like it, Mena?”
Filomena said nothing. The shawl was draped across her hands, and her eyes were devouring it, as if its loveliness pained her. Danila let out a shivering sigh of envy. “Put it on, Filomena,” she said.
Lifting one hand Filomena stroked the hair from her forehead. Then she unfolded the shawl and threw it over her head. The colors lightened the sallow tinge of her cheeks, made her eyes deeper and darker than ever.
“You look lovely, Filomena,” Antonio said, in a grave voice. His sister lifted her face toward him. Her mouth was trembling. The next moment she let out a wail, and flung the shawl to the ground.
“I cannot do it. I cannot marry you, Bruno. It is no use.”
“What?” said Bruno. His cigarette was poised in midair.
“I have tried—believe me, I have done my best. But I cannot do it. You are a kind man, an honorable man, but I do not love you…”
Enrico leaped to his feet. “What do you mean, you will not marry him?” he bellowed. “You will do as you are told, Filomena. It is my wish, it was your mother’s wish. Who are you to defy the living and the dead?”
“I do not care.” There was a flash of red upon Filomena’s cheeks. “I cannot do it, you cannot make me do it. It would be death to me to marry Bruno—” She crammed her hand against her lips, as if it were the only way to stop the words flooding out. Then she ran from the room, pushing gawping Renata out of the way.
“Come back,” Enrico shouted, “come back at once.” The veins at his temple were distended with rage. Filomena had gone, though, her heels clacking like castanets upon the linoleum stair.
Bruno looked from one end of the table to the other, bewildered. “What does she mean, she cannot marry me?”
Enrico turned toward Antonio. “Do you know anything about this, Antonio, my son?” Antonio shook his head, so that he did not have to speak.
“What has happened, in the name of God?” There was a note of accusation in Bruno’s voice now. “You are her family, you have been living side by side with her. Something must have happened.”
Danila started to cry, lifting her checked apron to her face. “It is not my fault. Truly, Bruno, it is not my fault.”
At once Valentino put his arm about her. “Do not blame Danila. She is a mother, she has had other duties, she is not responsible for our sister. I told Papa he should send Filomena home to Lazio after our mother died, I knew she would get foolish ideas, but he would not hear of it—”
“Don’t tell me how to manage my own family, Valentino,” snapped Enrico. “I am the head of this household, and don’t you forget it. If I had wanted to send Mena home to Lazio I would have done it without advice from you.”
Valentino grasped Bruno by the elbow. “Come, Bruno. Do not stay here to be insulted. We will go back to the fascio. In the fascio they have respect for the dignity of men.”
Bruno’s face was stunned, but he allowed Valentino to pull him upright and sweep him along the corridor. The two Blackshirts looked at each other; then, pushing back their chairs, they followed. One of them sketched a fascist salute as he went.
Enrico put his head in his hands. Through his fingers he said, helplessly: “What are we going to do, Antonino? She has to marry Bruno, it has been agreed since she was fourteen. Our honor is at stake.”
“It is nerves, I daresay,” said Antonio. “She has not seen Bruno for so long. And she has grown used to her independence.”
“You mean, you think she will see sense and change her mind?”
Antonio thought of Stan Harker’s pale blue eyes, his unruffled face. “I do not know, Papa,” he said.
His father groaned. “Valentino is right. I should have sent her home to Lazio to live with her sister, Paolina. Perhaps we should send her now, right away, before word of this gets out.”
Renata, forgotten in the corner, gave a squeak of excitement. Her uncle Mauro scowled, annoyed at her for drawing attention to their presence. He did not often sit down to so good a dinner, and he had been hoping surreptitiously to polish off at least one helping of fried liver before anyone noticed.
“We had better go upstairs, Renata,” he said. “It is not polite to stay. Do you know if Bruno will be sleeping with us after all? We went to a great deal of trouble…”
Nobody answered. Enrico had buried his face in his hands once more. Antonio looked across at Danila. She had stopped crying, and her pretty mouth was pursed in satisfaction: the peculiar intense satisfaction of one whose worst expectations have been fulfilled. Clicking her tongue she bent to gather the lilac shawl from the floor.
“If Filomena does not want Bruno’s present, I will take it. He brought it all the way from Egypt. It would be a shame if it got spoiled.”
“You’ve never heard the divine Antonio sing, have you, my angel?” Dickie asked, as they stepped into the plushly carpeted lobby of the Golden Slipper Club. Olivia unfastened the clasp of her evening cloak.
“Only through the drawing room door,” she said.
Dickie handed the cloak to a hovering attendant. “Well, you have a great treat before you. Doesn’t she, Herr Fischer?”
Herr Fischer nodded. He was a balding man of fifty, with mournful eyes. On the tip of his long nose was a tuft of hair which gave him the look of a woodland creature from a children’s story: a bear, perhaps, or a wise badger. He had the kind of elegant, fussy manners that Olivia thought of as continental, bowing to her, calling her gnädige Frau.
“Indeed,” he said, “Signor Trombetta is a gifted young man. You will enjoy his singing, I think, Mrs. Rodway.”
“Well, come along.” Bernard shooed them forward. “Let’s find our table. We’re late already. I couldn’t get Olivia out of the bath.”
Olivia dipped her head, embarrassed. She still could not resist the bliss of wallowing in unlimited hot water. It seemed to her the pinnacle of luxury after the penny-in-the-slot geyser in her shared Pimlico bathroom: a decent bath for two pennies, a sumptuous one for three.
“Perhaps she’s really a mermaid,” Dickie said, sliding his hand about Olivia’s elbow. “I must say, she’s looking very alluring tonight. Aren’t you proud of her, Bernard?”
Bernard glanced at his wife. She was wearing a damson satin dress, bias-cut and snug around the hips, with a dozen bracelets on each slender arm. “I’m always proud of her,” he said. “Now, come along. I want to order drinks before Antonio appears.”
Silently Olivia followed her husband into the nightclub. That afternoon they had had another argument. He had returned from his lunch engagement with a bottle of scent, wrapped in gilt paper. The moment Olivia took out the stopper she recognized it. It was the powdery floral perfume that Penelope Rodway wore—gallons of it in Olivia’s opinion, so that it preceded her when she entered a room, and lingered there long after she had gone.
“But I like that scent,” Bernard said, baffled as a schoolboy, when she objected. “It reminds me of home.” Then his face closed up, as it always did when arguments did not go his way. He removed the bottle from Olivia’s dressing table and placed three five-pound notes there instead. “In that case, you’d better choose something for yourself. Don’t mind about what I’d like, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
Olivia stared at the five-pound notes, large and white, with their portentous black lettering. Bernard paid a monthly allowance into her bank account, but he had never given her cash before. She felt like the elf bride from the folktale, who marries a mortal on condition that he never touches her skin with iron. Well, Bernard had touched her with iron now. She sat frozen before her looking glass. In the story the elf bride throws her husband one last reproachful look and vanishes forever beneath th
e Welsh hills. Olivia grimaced. Vanishing is all very fine, she thought, but where do you vanish to? There is always going to be another part of the story, unless—until—you die. Folding up the banknotes she tucked them at the back of her drawer, as if they were love letters from another man.
—
The interior of the Golden Slipper Club was expensively decorated in bronze and gilt. There were chairs with ornate metal backs—beautiful, though not very comfortable—and the lamps on the round tables had pleated shades of yellow Fortuny silk. With a flick of his fingers Bernard summoned the waiter to bring them champagne.
Olivia turned to Herr Fischer, who was sitting beside her, stiffly upright in wing-collared evening dress.
“Have you had any news yet of your sister, Herr Fischer?” she asked. She was afraid that this might be a tactless question, but she could not think of anything else to say, and Bernard liked her to make conversation with their guests. It is a courtesy, my sweet, he said, a note of impatience in his voice. He did not say, It is your job, but she could tell that was what he meant.
“No, nothing.” Herr Fischer shook his head. “I have written many times, I have asked friends to write to their friends, but there is nothing.”
“Surely it is possible to get out of Austria? Bernard was telling me that Dr. Freud the psychoanalyst and his family have left Vienna. They are living here in London, in Hampstead. It is Hampstead, isn’t it, Bernard?”
Herr Fischer gave a small sad smile. “My sister Brigitta did not want to abandon our apartment. She has all her little things there, her china, her furniture. And she thought—she thinks—that I exaggerate the danger of the Nazis. She says that the laws against Jews are aimed only at the wealthy. Ordinary people can have nothing to fear.”
“Well,” said Olivia, “let us hope that she is right.”
“But she is not right, gnädige Frau.” Herr Fischer fixed his sorrowful eyes intently upon her. “She is terribly wrong. She has become a stateless person in her own homeland, and who knows what will follow? The great powers—Britain, France, the United States of America—have made it clear that they will not intervene.”
“Absolutely. It’s disgusting,” Bernard chimed in, turning from the waiter with his silver ice bucket. “We may hold grand international conferences on the refugee problem, but none of our illustrious politicians dares condemn Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Pure cowardice.”
The master of ceremonies appeared, surrounded by an oval pool of brightness, and the room fell murmuringly quiet. Olivia gazed at her champagne glass with its winding threads of bubbles. She felt suddenly nervous on Antonio’s account, afraid he might make a fool of himself. When he stepped out, though, she hardly knew him as the down-at-heel singer from the Paradise Ballroom. There was a poise about him, the plane of his face perfectly tilted to catch the light. Then he opened his mouth, and at once she remembered that soaring swooning voice. He was singing an Italian love song, “Tornerai,” pitching each line to captivate his audience. It reminded Olivia of how, when she danced, she would focus her whole being upon the angle of her knee, the twist of her head. There was something enthralling about watching a gifted man display his powers; against her will Olivia felt a tremor of admiration.
When Antonio had left the stage Bernard called for more champagne. “A triumph,” he said, “no doubt about it. You must be pleased with your pupil, Herr Fischer.”
“He has done very well.” Cautiously Herr Fischer ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “He has done even better than I hoped.”
“It isn’t just his voice,” said Dickie, “it’s those looks of his. Ravishingly handsome, don’t you think, Olivia?”
“I suppose so,” said Olivia, “in an obvious way.”
“Oh, my angel, you’re so sophisticated. The rest of us have simpler tastes. You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if Antonio got himself a society mistress, like Hutch. Everyone says Hutch is sleeping with Edwina Mountbatten.” Dickie took an appreciative mouthful of champagne. “It’s terribly hush-hush. She has to sneak him in by the tradesmen’s entrance, so to speak.”
A young woman in a polka-dot silk dress was approaching their table. She had pale, rather glaucous eyes and a halo of yellowish hair.
“Hallo, Bernard,” she said in a languid voice. She looked, Olivia thought, like the kind of thin-skinned girl who got excused from school netball in winter because her lips had turned blue.
“Iris. How are you?” There was a deliberate heartiness in Bernard’s greeting, which made Olivia suspect that once upon a time he had slept with Iris. She occasionally had this impression when she met her husband’s female friends, although she never said anything about it, and neither did he.
“Well, and how did you like our friend Antonio? Marvelous, wasn’t he?”
“Oh, you know him, do you? How exciting.”
“I discovered him,” Bernard said, preening. “I heard him singing in a scruffy little restaurant in Soho, earning threepenny bits for his pains. He’s been having lessons at my house with Herr Fischer here.”
Iris studied the Austrian dispassionately for a moment and then turned back to Bernard. “Would you introduce me? I’m throwing an anniversary party for the aged parents next month, and Mummy would adore him.”
“Of course. He’s coming to join us later. Sit down, have some champagne. Unless you have to go back to your own table?”
“No, the people I came with are so dull, I’d rather stay here.” Iris sat in one of the uncomfortable bronze chairs. “This is your wife, is it, Bernard? I heard on the grapevine that you’d got married. None of us thought you’d actually take the plunge.”
She said it in a frank, cheerful way, as though it was such common knowledge that he could not possibly be offended. Bernard laid his hand upon Olivia’s wrist. “Ah, but I did take the plunge, you see. This is Olivia. My wife, as you correctly surmise.”
Olivia extended her arm. Her bracelets click-clacked noisily. “Delighted to meet you,” she said, in the voice of a duchess.
“You’re English.” Iris sounded disappointed. “I thought you were a continental of some sort. That’s what I’d heard: that Bernard had married a refugee. Someone exotic.”
“Olivia is quite exotic, my dear,” said Dickie, “though she’s also deliciously English. Ah, here comes Antonio. Our bright particular star. Bernie, call the waiter to bring another glass.”
—
Antonio, emerging into the smoke-filled nightclub, felt slack and dazed with relief. Stray glances flickered toward him and lingered as he moved between the tables: a clear sign of success.
Both Bernard and Dickie stood to welcome him, clapping their hands.
“Bravo,” said Dickie, “bravissimo, Antonio. That was quite wonderful.”
Antonio smiled, tugging at his collar. He was wearing a new suit; his ancient one, so carefully pressed by Filomena, was far too shabby for an engagement like this. Beneath it his skin was damp and hot.
“And you, maestro?” He turned with deference to Herr Fischer. “What did you think?”
“Very good.” Herr Fischer cleared his throat. “Not perfect, of course, nobody is ever quite perfect. But we will talk about that at your next lesson.”
“Would you like some champagne, Signor Trombetta?” It was Olivia. Antonio had seen her a couple of times in Bedford Square, but not like this, in damson satin and war paint, and once again he was struck by the beauty of her face. There was a stillness about her, at once deep and watchful. He had the sense that it had taken a great effort of will to achieve it.
“Just a little, thank you,” he said. “I have to sing again in an hour.”
“Oh, goody.” Iris put out her hand to introduce herself. She did it imperiously, as if she expected him to bow like a gigolo and kiss her fingers. “I thought you were splendid. In fact, I wanted to ask if you’ll sing at a party I’m holding next month.”
“You should do it, Antonio,” Bernard said, rubbing his finger and thumb
together in a jocular mime of wealth. He made no attempt to hide the gesture from Iris, who laughed as she rattled off time, date, place. She was staring at Antonio with a wide-eyed, greedy expression.
“I will be delighted to sing for you,” he said, “if I can find the time. I have a family wedding that day. My wife and I are the compari d’anello: the guardians of the ring. Best man and bridesmaid, I suppose you’d call it.”
His mention of a wife did not perturb Iris. “I’m sure you’ll manage it. I must say, I’ve set my heart on having you there.”
“You can’t cross Iris, Antonio,” Bernard said in a teasing voice. “She’s like a cat. One minute all lazy and purring, and then she pounces, and you’re done for.”
“Well, you should know, darling,” Iris said, without rancor. There was a silence, rather awkward. Dickie wiped his forehead with his silk handkerchief.
“It’s stifling in here,” he said, and indeed his round, childlike face was mottled with crimson. “Isn’t it ridiculous that even in midsummer we men have to wear the full regalia, dinner jackets and white waistcoats and lord knows what, while women are allowed to go half-naked?”
“Ah, but in winter it’s the other way round,” Olivia said. “In winter we’re shivering and you can be as cozy as you please.”
Dickie smiled. “You’re quite right, my angel. What a logical young woman you are.” The band struck up a quickstep, brisk and inviting. “You young people should dance. Don’t mind Herr Fischer and me, we’re happy to sit and chatter about music. Antonio, dance with Mrs. Rodway. She’s a perfectly marvelous dancer.”
Antonio hesitated. Olivia’s limbs would be cool and immaculate, she would feel the dampness of his skin, it would be mortifying. All the same he was about to speak when Bernard intervened.
“Forgive me, Antonio. I know it’s your night of triumph, but every so often a man wants the privilege of dancing with his own wife. Especially when she’s the most beautiful woman in the room.”