by Alex Preston
‘And that’s one thing you should know,’ Goad raises his finger. ‘Mussolini has banned the use of lei as the formal pronoun. Considers it unmanly. You must use voi, d’you see?’
Esmond nods and pours himself coffee.
‘You can be arrested for using lei.’
Gesuina brings toast and jam. Goad reads, occasionally stopping to snip out an article, inspect it, and place it in an envelope. He tuts, stirring his coffee.
‘It’s a bad business in Spain, I’m afraid,’ he says, folding The Times. ‘The Falangists have taken an awful beating. Italians dead on both sides. Mussolini shouldn’t have begun so soon after Abyssinia, not with the sanctions.’
Esmond shakes his head. ‘I’ve been reading up on persistent oscillators and free radiators.’
‘Of course, the wireless. We should have a chat. I could have arranged it myself, of course, but the technology terrifies me rather. Electricity is for the young. Why don’t we meet in my study in – hum – half an hour? I need some time after breakfast to allow my digestion to activate. I’m afraid I’m not terribly well. I imagine your father might have told you.’
Goad stands, bows at Gesuina and leaves. After a few minutes of failing to make sense of the front page of La Nazione, Esmond gets up from the table and places his plate and coffee cup in the sink, where Gesuina tuts away his attempts to wash them. He walks past his room, past the door Goad had identified as his, and to large, grey-stone stairs.
The apartment is three sides of the top floor of the Institute, the fourth a columned loggia where sheets hang and clothes horses perch on stone benches, draped with shirts and assorted underwear. Esmond notices with interest three small, white brassieres. He makes his way down the steps to the library.
Armchairs are scattered between tables of journals and ashtrays. Bookshelves line every wall save a large tarnished mirror over the fireplace. Dust and memory in the air. He crosses to the window and looks downwards. The ground floor of the palazzo is given over to offices, including the Florentine branch of Thomas Cook where, Goad had explained, the expats pick up letters, make telephone calls and arrange for goods to come or go home. Already there is a queue out of the door and into the courtyard. An old fellow with a military moustache glances up, raises his hat with one hand and gives Esmond the thumbs-up with the other. He smiles and returns it. Goad had warned him that new taxes for foreigners, anti-English sentiment in Florence and the weakening pound have meant a steady stream of departures. ‘You have arrived’, he’d said, ‘just as everyone is leaving.’
3
Goad’s desk seems to have been chosen for its vastness. His present task, gluing cuttings into a scrapbook by the light of a brass desk lamp, is taking place in a small province of it. He looks slighter than the bust of Shelley behind him.
‘If I don’t do it first thing, it never gets done,’ he says. ‘With you in a moment.’
Esmond sits in the armchair by the fireplace and examines the bookshelves. Poetry, mostly Italian: d’Annunzio, Foscolo, Ungaretti, Quasimodo. Essays on Shakespeare. An entire shelf of Norman Douglas. He’d read Philip’s copy of South Wind on the grass by the Cam at Newnham. He spots T. E. Hulme’s Speculations and thinks of his own attempt at a novel, the fifty-five pages he’d scratched out in his study at Emmanuel, smouldering with the rest on the lawn at home. Even with the embarrassment of his expulsion, those pages had felt like the future. Philip had called it modern and thrilling. Hulme had been his father’s friend at university, his comrade in the war. Now he, and the book, were lost.
‘Now then – hum.’ Goad is opening drawers and clicking his tongue. ‘Here we are.’ He holds up a single sheet of writing-paper. ‘A letter from Il Duce – his blessing to your project. He was much taken with the idea, suggests we name it Radio Firenze – what d’you think?’
Esmond smiles uncertainly.
‘They’ve been doing everything they can to expunge the English language from the Italian consciousness, renaming the Bristol, the Old England Shop, Eden Park Villas, but Mussolini is shrewd enough to realise it’s still the language of business. A Fascist wireless programme! Showing that even the English are coming round to his way of seeing the world is – hum – two birds, one brick. Jolly good idea of Sir Oswald’s, I must say.’
Esmond stands to take the letter. BenitoMussolini is written without spaces, the final ‘i’s staring above a sulking ‘n’. The text – from what he can make out – is plain as a doctor’s note, but he can imagine the power of that signature. He folds the letter and holds it.
‘This is super,’ he says.
‘He’s an interesting man. A brute, yes, but a poet, too. Everyone knows about his railways – although, in fact, those achievements have been overstated in the British newspapers. It’s more that – hum – he has recast the Italian narrative. He has taken the history of the nation, which, remember, is barely seventy-five years old, and made it a myth, the myth of the Patria. Ancient Rome, the Renaissance, the Risorgimento––’
Esmond notices that Goad’s hands, when they meet the light, are lurid red with a white scurf of skin flaking at the knuckles, which he pauses to scratch.
‘Nervous eczema, I’m afraid. Too much work. I keep trying to resign, but they simply won’t let me. I feel as if I’m single-handedly putting right the – hum – psychological atmosphere between the British and the Italians. Lord Lloyd has granted a very generous sum to expand the Institute’s operations across Italy, but I’m afraid it’s unlikely my health will be up to it.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir.’
‘Can’t be helped. I only hope I last long enough to see an end to this silly bitterness.’ Goad’s eyes smile behind his spectacles. ‘Of course, you’ll want to get out and explore these many-memoried streets and galleries and churches, as my friend described Florence.’
‘You knew Henry James?’
‘Oh yes. And Lawrence, of course. Huxley stayed in your room, you know.’
Esmond looks around for the right words. ‘And I see you’re an admirer of Norman Douglas.’
Goad’s face clouds a little.
‘Hum. Douglas. I’m sure you’ll come across him while you’re here. Gerald – my son – enjoys his work. I am not convinced. His novels feel to me like essays padded with sub-Wildean quips and louche philosophy. I buy his books in hope that – hum – bankruptcy doesn’t join the many other scandals his lifestyle calls down upon him. He sells them himself, quite shamelessly, you know. Every musical recital or lecture at the Institute, he’ll be here, cadging his latest like a tinker. Frightfully expensive and badly printed, but what can one do?’
‘I’d love to meet him.’
‘That could be arranged.’ Goad taps his fingers on the desk. ‘Now, what else? You’re to see the Podestà, the mayor, at his office at nine-fifteen tomorrow morning. He’ll introduce you to the wireless expert, Mario Carità. He’s a rogue, but he knows his transmission coil from his–– well. Runs an electrical shop just behind Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. Strictly between us, I think the Podestà is hoping that this project will limit some of Carità’s – hum – enthusiasms. He’s in charge of the MVSN, the voluntary police force, and has been rather too rigorous in addressing anti-Fascist feeling.’
‘I see.’
‘Your father has established an account for you at the Monte dei Paschi bank. Ten thousand lire to get Radio Firenze started and an allowance of fifty a week. Should be more than enough.’ He takes an envelope from a drawer and passes it across the desk. ‘Here’s a couple of weeks in advance and a chequebook to draw against the bank. Now––’ Goad rubs his hands again, making a small haze of skin in the light of the lamp. ‘There’s the matter of the broadcasts themselves. Sir Oswald has kindly sent out a selection of his speeches recorded onto disc. I think initially it would suffice for me to give a brief introduction to each in Italian, and perhaps a short commentary at the end. And once the station is up and running, when there’s an audience, we can see about a
dvertisers, sponsorship, making the thing pay for itself.’
‘Fine. Thank you.’
‘Not at all. I’m thoroughly excited. Haven’t felt this bucked since my fourth edition. And of course when your own Italian is abbastanza fluido – it’s a very easy language, you know – you’ll be able to take over the broadcasts yourself. You should start thinking about which subjects you’d like to discuss.’
‘Shall I be having lessons?’
‘Let’s see how you get on with Carità. There’s nothing like learning a language from a native, so to speak. I’ve never had a lesson in my life, French, German or Italian. If Carità is worth his salt, he’ll teach you as you go.’
Esmond half-stands but Goad speaks again, staring down at his hands.
‘Since my wife died, I haven’t ventured out all that much. When Gerald’s here he has his own friends, his own – hum – bustle.’
‘Does he get out here often?’
‘Not half as much as I’d like, I’m afraid. He’s studying for the Bar and rather floats around London. His mother’s death touched him very sorely. On the right track now, I think. Imagine he’ll be back at some point over the summer, but his movements are – hum – irregular.’
Goad crosses his study and opens the door.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t arranged an office, a studio. I’ve been so terribly busy with the start of term. Anyway, there’s no rush. Make the most of this time, get to know the place. Use your Baedeker discreetly. What else? Steer clear of the Blackshirt squadristi and for goodness’ sake salute back if they salute you – arm straight up, Roman style, not like the British Union. And enjoy yourself. It’s delightful to have another young person in the building.’
4
Esmond sits on the window-ledge in his room, smoking. He has three cartons of British Union cigarettes in his trunk and feels a sudden surge of fondness for the Party, turning over a black packet and running his thumb over the lightning bolt and golden hoop. Three Blackshirts strut past on the street below, their heels ringing on the cobbles, their yellow fezzes at loose tilts. He watches the crowd outside Caffè Casoni part for them. Grinding out his fag in the ashtray at his bedside, he picks up his panama, forces a pocketbook of wide Italian banknotes into his jacket, steps into the corridor and runs for the stone stairway.
The courtyard is empty now. It is almost eleven when he walks through the entrance-hall of the palazzo, past a large portrait of the late King George and onto the street. The traffic has died down, the rainwater drained from the road. A tramp with a pheasant feather in his cap sits on the steps of San Gaetano, scattering crumbs for the pigeons. Moustachioed men walk arm-in-arm with girls in lace chiffon. Older couples step down from taxis outside Doney’s café, its name in gold on frosted windows. Roberts’ British Pharmacy, apparently not yet drawing Anglophobic ire, advertises quinine pills and Fleischmann’s Yeast. Next door, Pretini the hairdresser waves a white-gloved hand at Esmond through the window. He comes to the intersection where the via Tornabuoni meets the vias Strozzi and Spada.
At a table on the pavement, sipping a spumey cappuccino, is the man Esmond had seen queuing for Cook’s. Esmond raises his hat and the old man lets out a whinny. ‘Good morning,’ he says.
‘Is it so obvious I’m English?’
‘Bloody right. It’s the panama. An Italian fellow your age wouldn’t be seen dead in one. It’s the Fascist fez or a fedora here. And that’s a Wykehamist’s tie, if I’m not mistaken. Esmond, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Goad told us about you. You’re coming to lunch on Sunday after church. I’m Colonel Keppel – George. Pleased to meet you. Off to the galleries?’
‘I think so. I was going to wander—’
‘Don’t wander. Too much to see. The Uffizi closes for lunch at one. You should eat at the Nuova Toscana in the Piazza della Signoria. Say I sent you. Then back to the Uffizi for a couple of hours and then the Bargello. See you Sunday.’
‘Thanks!’ Esmond is chased across the street by a bicycle. He passes in front of stone and stucco palazzos, their faces coloured cream or ochre, saffron, apricot, or white with terracotta crenellation. He strides through a piazza where restaurateurs set out their tables in spots of sun, then down the via Calimala. The Blackshirts he’d seen from his window pass him and he returns their straight-arm salute, conscious of his foreigner’s hat. He resolves to buy a fedora at the first opportunity. He hears the Blackshirts’ laughter echoing down the street behind him.
Esmond turns the corner into the Piazza della Signoria and his breath catches in his throat. Bare brick, parapets, the clock tower, Michelangelo’s David. The palazzo looks like a castle; beside it sculptures cluster on the terrace of the loggia, guarded by stone lions. His eye falls immediately on Perseus holding the Gorgon’s head, tendons and gore streaming from the neck.
A tram clatters past, swaying on its rails, heading down into the narrow streets beside the palace. Electronic speakers mounted on the corners of buildings squawk out military anthems. Esmond makes his way past David, whose comely half-turn and tight pubic hair remind him of Philip, and down towards the river and into the arcade of the Uffizi. And he felt – he remembers D. H. Lawrence – that here he was in one of the world’s living centres, in the Piazza della Signoria. The sense of having arrived – of having reached the perfect centre of the human world. He grins foolishly.
5
He had read of Stendhal’s collapse on leaving the church of Santa Croce, a fit of panic brought on by the presence of too much beauty, too much history. It is not exactly panic he feels now, coming out of the gallery, but an anguished and somnolent wonder. He cannot remember having lunch, whether he took Colonel Keppel’s advice or not. He didn’t make it to the Bargello. He walks past a group of Blackshirts who stand on a street corner, eyeing passers-by, the death’s heads on their shirts polished to a shine, but he barely sees them. They call after him when he fails to return their salute but he carries on, oblivious.
He pauses for a moment in the centre of a piazza and closes his eyes. Filippo Lippi’s Madonna with Child and Two Angels, his son Filippino’s Adoration of the Magi. Then the Botticellis – Primavera and the Birth of Venus, of course, but also Pallas and the Centaur, the Madonna of the Pomegranate. He tries to summon every detail to mind. The purity and humanity of the Madonna. Venus’s toes, he remembers, long and prehensile, the way her head cocks to one side, the tress of golden hair she presses to her groin.
He’d spent an hour in front of Filippino’s St Jerome. It had seemed an antidote to the easy pleasure he drew from Botticelli. This was a painting his father could love: the saint’s skin was grey-green, his eyes hollow. This, Esmond thought, was what came after. When one has lived with Venus and Flora for long enough, there is only the hillside, the penitence, the twisted branches and dank grottoes. He walks on as the sun dips behind buildings and a breeze sweeps up from the river and he imagines a lifetime of this, being breathed by Florence.
Back at the Institute, the courtyard is dark. A square of light from the window of Goad’s study falls onto the flagstones, otherwise all is shadow. He climbs the steps to the apartment and opens the door. He looks for a light switch, can’t find one, and edges carefully along until he comes to his door. He pushes and gasps. A young girl, long tanned back to the door, sits naked at a dressing table, combing her hair. There are books on the floor, drowsy jazz on the gramophone, dresses laid out on the bed. In the instant before he shuts the door, he sees the pale undersides of raised arms, the reflection of smiling, startled eyes.
He hurries along the corridor, realising he has confused the three sides of the apartment. He turns a corner to the kitchen, the smell of roast meat, the spitting of a pan and Gesuina’s low humming. He finds his door in the half-light, walks in and fumbles for a cigarette. Gesuina has made up his bed, the windows are closed and the ashtray empty. He slips off his shoes, pulls off his tie, tries to force his mind back to the Uffizi, but sees only tha
t long back and dark-freckled shoulders, a coral bangle fallen halfway down a bare arm.
He opens the windows to the street. The tramp with the pheasant feather cap is still sitting on the steps of the church, in the edges of a pool of light that falls from the streetlamp. A military truck, its bonnet painted with the fasces, roars down the road. Esmond watches the tramp’s eyes following it. There is a knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ he says.
In a plain, yellow cotton dress, no shoes or stockings, she is as astonishing dressed as she was naked. Her black hair is pinned in a high pony-tail. She smiles but her eyes remain cool. ‘I am Fiamma Ricci. The daughter of Gesuina.’ The accent is heavy, her English hesitant but precise. ‘I live here with Mr Goad while I study at Florence University.’
‘Pleased to meet you. Listen, I’m awfully sorry––’ Esmond gets up, lifts a pile of shirts from the chair at his desk and scrapes it towards her. She folds one foot beneath her as she sits.
‘Please, don’t worry. It is easy to be lost here.’
Esmond grinds out his cigarette in the ashtray and offers her the packet. She shakes her head.
‘So how long do you stay with Mr Goad, Esmond?’
‘I’m not sure. As long as it takes. I’m here to set up a radio station. For the British Union.’
She looks up at him with a sly smile. ‘This is Fascist, right? You do not look like a Fascist. A Nazi, maybe, all that blond hair. But not a Fascist.’
He swallows and sits, straight-backed, on the edge of the bed.
‘You are a Fascist like Mr Goad is a Fascist, perhaps?’ she says. ‘He is an intellectual gentleman. Not like the brutes we have here.’
‘Oh, we have our share of brutes,’ he says, thinking of William Joyce, Mosley’s right-hand man, breaking windows in the Jewish East End. ‘And you have noble Fascists, too. What about Ungaretti, d’Annunzio?’