by Alex Preston
‘But Musso, he’s gone?’
Esmond nods.
‘And Fascism?’
He shrugs. ‘Badoglio, he’s a soldier, he’s not a Fascist.’ Ada begins to laugh, her hair bouncing as she laughs, her eyes bright and wide. Esmond runs his hands through her laughing hair as La Vacca begins to ring again. They look out of the window and over the city, where puffs of smoke appear and drift in the still evening. Two louder explosions and Esmond cranes his neck around, gazing down over the dusky Boboli Gardens to the Belvedere Fort, which is firing its cannons. Now a crackle of anti-aircraft fire answers from the opposite side of the valley, up towards Fiesole.
‘I’m going to go down and see what’s going on.’
She takes his hand, fixing her eyes on his. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she says.
There’s an old bicycle in one of the sheds beside the villa. He hunts around for a pump, inflates the tyres and bangs dust from the saddle. Ada perches, nerveless and serene, on the handlebars as they wobble through the darkening lanes. Esmond is aware of the preciousness of his cargo, but is unable to stop himself pedalling when, at one point, they come round a corner and a blast of wind hits them and the searchlights and fireworks and cheering crowds spread out before them.
The bridge is thick with people. They get off the bike and push it across, murmuring scusi every so often. The whole world is smiling, children play, young couples stand arm-in-arm and look over the river. At the dam downstream, a group of boys have gathered to set off fireworks. These rise into the air and burst, shedding bright fragments that scatter their reflection over the Arno and then fall as ashes on the water.
They reach the Piazza della Signoria and chain the bike to the Loggia dei Lanzi. A stage has been set up in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Michelangelo’s David, now free of his wooden carapace, looks pointedly in the opposite direction. Esmond can see the Professor and Bruno and a group of other men he recognises from those early days at Ada’s apartment. They are arguing, gesturing furiously at each other as a harried-looking engineer rigs up a microphone and tests the Tannoy system – uno due, uno due – which once carried Mussolini’s speeches to the perfect centre of the human world. Esmond thinks of Florence’s future: after throwing off the Fascists, the city will lose itself in petty political squabbles of the sort that is currently, publicly, taking place by the side of the stage. Finally, after glaring threateningly at an older man with a shiny head and round glasses, the Professor makes his way to the microphone.
‘In 1922,’ he begins, and a sudden hush falls across the piazza. Some are climbing up the monuments to secure a view of the stage. ‘In 1922,’ he repeats, ‘we made Benito Mussolini a freeman of the city of Florence. Today, we celebrate his captivity! Fascism in Italy is dead, the MVSN is dead. Today, black shirts will be hung at the back of cupboards, buried in sacks in the garden, burnt on a thousand bonfires.’ A huge cheer goes up, hats are thrown in the air; Esmond thinks of his own British Union uniform, moth-eaten and dusty, abandoned with his room in the church. He takes Ada in his arms and kisses her. ‘We have lived a nightmare,’ the Professor continues, ‘and now we are waking up. This is not the end, but it is the beginning of the end. Our sons are not yet home, our land is not yet our own, this war is not yet over. But soon, soon! Viva Firenze!’
At the heart of the crowd, fist raised, one eye closed by a bruise, is Maria Luigia. She smiles towards them, as if letting them in on the secret of her survival. There are more fireworks, some girls have torn up their ration cards and are throwing them in the air like confetti. Esmond and Ada go to stand beside Maria Luigia’s broadness and lift their own fists into the hopeful air. ‘Viva Firenze!’
11
The next day they walk into town together after breakfast. Bad weather came in overnight and a light rain is falling as they wind along the narrow lanes. The city is vague under a canopy of low cloud, the river yellow-grey and fast as they cross the Ponte Santa Trinità. They make their way past David into the Palazzo Vecchio. There is a swell of noise as they find the ornate main corridor; they follow the voices up a flight of stone steps and into a long, frescoed hall. People are standing and making speeches around a table, but most of the words are lost under the applause and clinking glasses and conversation. Esmond takes Ada by the hand and they cross the room to stand next to Tosca and Antonio in the bay of a window.
Bruno, stubble-shadowed, matchstick in mouth, sits between the Professor and a young, bespectacled man in a red cravat. Further up the table, Esmond sees the portly Oreste Ristori, a half-empty bottle of wine in front of him. He is leaning back and bellowing with laughter at something someone has said, his wide face rippling with each guffaw. Esmond sees the cyclist Gino Bartali, sitting next to his wife, grinning broadly and signing the occasional autograph. The Professor stands up and at once there is silence.
‘Welcome, all of you.’ He smiles, his watery eyes resting for a moment on the man beside Bruno. ‘Whatever our divisions – and we are certainly from different worlds, some of us – that which binds us is stronger. A certainty that we are moving into a new and vital age for our nation, for our city; a love of Florence and our fellow Florentines; a hatred of the thugs and monsters who have ruled us for twenty-one years. Today we welcome back some old friends, freed from needless captivity. We welcome Elio Chianesi’ – the man next to Bruno, with his studious round glasses, half-rises and waves – ‘once a student of mine. He has, for too long, been relying on the books we could smuggle into prison to nourish him. We missed you, Elio. We’re delighted to have you back.’
‘Thank you, Professor,’ he says, his pale cheeks flushing. Another round of applause, which stops suddenly as a young black man in an oyster-white linen suit comes barrelling into the room. He has a wild brush of wiry hair on his head, narrow, oriental eyes. Ada lets out a gasp.
‘Alessandro,’ she says. Leaving Esmond, she moves swiftly across the room to where the young man is already being embraced by Bruno, slapped on the back by the Professor, touched and poked by others. One of the ornate chairs is pulled out and he sits down as a glass of wine is poured. He lifts it to Elio and then turns to see Ada standing behind his chair, looking down at him with widening eyes. Esmond doesn’t hear what they say to each other, but he thinks he understands what is passing between them. The man’s skin is the same colour as the polished mahogany table, his eyes as black as the wine in his glass. Esmond finds himself feeling – not jealousy – but a sleepy melancholy, until he sees Ada, now smiling, gesture towards him and say something to the young man. With a gentle pat on the man’s shoulder, Ada makes her way back to his side.
They don’t speak until after the meeting is over, and the various liberalsocialiste – anarchists, Communists, Christian Democrats and Republicans – stand around drinking up the wine liberated – as Bruno puts it – from the now boarded-up Fascist headquarters at the Piazza Mentana. He and Ada are still at the window, looking out over the elevated cloisters of the Uffizi. The rain is heavier now, the only people moving by the river are hidden by the black domes of their umbrellas.
‘An old flame?’ he asks, trying to sound light-hearted.
‘His name is Alessandro Sinigaglia. His father was a friend of my father’s. He’s been in Regina Coeli for a long time. I hardly recognise him.’
‘Is he Abyssinian? He’s extraordinary-looking.’
‘His father’s Jewish, his mother was the black maid of a family from St Louis who came here just before the first war. She was thrown out when they found out she was pregnant and she made Florence her home.’
He turns to look across the table to where Alessandro, Elio and Bruno are talking. They toast each other, drink, recharge their glasses. They seem bold and worldly, in a way he knows he isn’t. He lets out a sigh. Ada takes his hand and gives it a squeeze, speaking softly.
‘I love you. I know I don’t say it very often – it’s not my way. But I always dreamed of this, of you.’ She squeezes his hand again, harder this time. �
�I told him he could stay with us, just until he finds a place. You don’t mind, do you?’
He shrugs and grins, still basking in her words. People begin to leave the hall, moving off into various meeting rooms – as they walk with them, and pass open doors, Esmond hears snatches of welcome to Badoglio’s government, admonitions to reform, refuse, tighten with the Church, distance from the State. Bruno sticks his head out of one of the doors and sees them.
‘You two should come in here. We’re discussing whether to send a delegation to Stalin, declare Florence an independent Soviet republic. Come on.’ He disappears back inside. Ada whistles.
‘You go,’ Esmond says. ‘You should be involved in this – you deserve to be.’ She smiles and, with a kiss, heads off to join her comrades.
At something of a loss that afternoon, Esmond sits in the condensation-misted window of the Giubbe Rosse, sipping tea. His bicycle is leaning against the window. He has been to the bank, where he was delighted to see Maria Luigia and withdrew a thousand lire from the radio account. He strolled along to the Libreria Gonnelli just off the Piazza del Duomo and bought a copy of Turgenev’s Rudin in Italian which he now reads, frowning, rubbing a window in the misted glass and looking out over his bicycle into the empty square. He finds himself increasingly drawn to Russian novels, particularly those peopled by what Leavis had referred to in a lecture as the ‘superfluous man’. He wonders if fate has marked him as one of these, destined for the footnotes of a great moment, a passenger, an Oblomov.
As evening falls, he sits in the café. His book is finished, the teapot cool, several beer glasses emptied. He is gently drunk and the book lies face-down on his lap. He is beginning to nod as the door opens and Antonio strides in.
‘He’s here,’ he shouts out into the square. ‘Esmond!’ He’s beaming, slaps Esmond on the back and sits down at the table opposite him. Soon Tosca enters, followed by Ada and Bruno, Alessandro and Elio. Oreste Ristori comes in singing the ‘Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso,’ from The Marriage of Figaro. He smiles as Ristori, still singing, gives a little jig. A waiter brings them over glasses and a bottle of spumante, and they sit drinking into the night.
They walk out into the square at around one o’clock and, as they are saying their farewells, there is the sound of aeroplane engines above, a distant rattle of gunfire.
‘It’s not over yet,’ Bruno reminds them. ‘We’re still with the Germans as far as the Brits are concerned. It’s right to celebrate but we should be careful.’ Esmond pushes the bike up the hill with Ada walking on one side, Alessandro on the other. When they get to L’Ombrellino, they shake dust from the sheets of the Keppels’ bed, where Alessandro is to sleep, and open the windows to the night.
Ada has gone upstairs. Esmond and Alessandro are back in the drawing room having a final brandy. A nightjar creaks somewhere in the garden below them.
‘I appreciate you putting me up,’ Alessandro says. ‘Just until things are clearer in the city and I can find a job, a place to rent. It was fucking mad down there, don’t you think?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe it’s because I’ve been in gaol. It just seems like they’re walking around in a dream. All this shit about declaring a Soviet republic in Florence, or becoming a Papal dependency. This city was the beating heart of Tuscan Fascism. The guys who tortured me are sitting at home right now, picking their toenails, but eventually they’ll have to come out, get jobs. What do we do with them?’
‘I was wondering––’
‘Some fool was walking down the via Guelfa with a Party badge on earlier. A bunch of workers from the Ginori factory almost killed him. But we can’t do that, we have to bring them in somehow.’
They sip their drinks a while longer and then go up to bed. On the stairs, just before parting, Alessandro lays a hand on Esmond’s arm.
‘Ada told me about the baby,’ he says. ‘Congratulations. She’s an astonishing girl, the girl who’s meant the most to me. I thought about her a lot when I was in prison and I’m pleased to find her so well. So happy with you.’ A throb of sadness in his voice. Esmond can hardly see him in the darkness of the stairwell, but he smiles.
‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘It’s good to have you here.’
12
The days are taken up with meetings in the Palazzo Vecchio, speeches in the Piazza della Signoria where the various leaders make – with varying degrees of eloquence – their plays for power. Ada even gives a speech, standing in at the last moment for Bruno, who is caught at a rally in the Fiat factory. She is very straight, very still on the stage in front of the Palazzo, Michelangelo’s David looking peaceably over her. She speaks – not for long, but with honesty and intelligence – and Esmond feels extraordinarily proud that his child is growing in this fiery, political woman.
Alessandro is rarely at home. When he is, he’s an excellent guest, making delicious meals from a mixture of packets and tins and Ada’s garden. He goes out with Tatters and Esmond’s Webley early in the morning and comes back with woodpigeons, pheasants and partridges which he plucks in the kitchen until the air is thick with feathers and rich fat. The dog loves him. The evenings he’s not at a rally or meeting workers at the factories in Rifredi or Sesto Fiorentino, he stands for hours in the garden throwing a ball for Tatters, rolling with him in the long grass, the dog covering his dark skin with bright pink licks.
Ada’s thin body doesn’t help her hide her expanding belly. Bruno writes a card that he delivers by hand. Dear Esmond, it reads, I surprised myself at the delight with which I greeted Ada’s news. There are friendships that are obvious, easily observed. There are others that creep up and surprise you. Ours is the latter kind, but you should know how much I value the contribution you made during the days of Fascism and how much I value now your support to Ada, who will be one of the stars of Italian politics in years to come. I look forward to welcoming your child into the world, and to your help in building a better Italy for that child to live in. I wish you all the best, Bruno.
They tell Tosca and Antonio together, over dinner at Antonio’s apartment on the Lungarno del Pignone. It is a tiny, one-bedroom flat on the top floor of an ancient building, some of whose rooms have been left to fall into ruin, their floors collapsed, plaster caving inwards. Antonio’s salotto looks out on the river and is deliciously cool even during the muggy August evenings. They sit at the table by the window and eat soup that Antonio has made, dipping into it a precious white ciabatta – far better than the dusty loaves to which they’ve grown accustomed. When Ada tells them her news, Tosca almost leaps across the table to hold her friend. Antonio rushes off to find a bottle of spumante and they sit long into the night, keen and happy.
‘It’s nothing,’ Ada says, shrugging and struggling not to smile. ‘It’s only biology.’
News of the war comes to them over the W/T, through newspapers and the continually well-informed Professor. The Russians enjoy success after success, driving the Hun back towards the Polish border. Pictures of General Zhukov, looking grim and purposeful, splash across the covers of La Stampa and La Repubblica. The tone of these reports is resolutely neutral, not wishing to alienate the Germans, who remain in Italy in their tens of thousands and are still the ostensible ally. Whenever Esmond sees a German soldier, or the Consul in his black Foreign Office uniform, he is taken by his own astonishment. He would rather forget that the city is still host to these crafty beasts. On the wireless, he hears that Goebbels had announced the departure of the final Jew from Berlin earlier that summer, declaring the city Judenfrei. He hears of chambers being built at Auschwitz, the annihilation of ghettoes at Vilna and Minsk, the uprising at the death camp in Bialystok that was brutally crushed, its leaders committing suicide before they could be caught. He looks the Germans in the eye, and thinks of Philip.
Ada speaks briefly to her father in Turin. He is safe, unsure whether to use the moment to escape and join his wife in Switzerland. He thinks he will go to Lake Maggiore with Ettore Ovazza
, from where it will be just a brief boat ride to the border. When she tells him that she and Esmond are expecting a baby, he bursts into tears. He is still crying when the pips sound and the call ends. ‘I love you,’ Ada manages to say, just as the line goes dead. Esmond stands close, his hands folded around her living belly.
Everything changes on the 8th of September. The closeness of August has unravelled into days of low cloud, fierce winds from the hills, sudden and violent showers. Esmond is with Bruno, Elio and Alessandro in the bar of the Excelsior, where they have taken to spending Sunday evenings. Ada is with Tosca and Antonio for dinner, but will join them later. For the first hour, Esmond teaches them English. They are all relatively fluent, but eager to improve their command of the idiom, to perfect their grammar, so that they might – as Alessandro puts it – speak with less shame to the English soldiers when they arrive. Bruno has already met a number of escaped British prisoners-of-war during his trips up into the hills. He reels off military slang – some of which even Esmond doesn’t recognise – with enormous and obvious pleasure: he speaks of ack emmas and emma gees, foot-sloggers in mufti; all soldiers are Tommies. When their beers arrive he grins ‘Here’s how!’ and ‘Down your sherbets!’
After they eat, the three Italians talk to Esmond about Communism. He has, with some reluctance, read The Communist Manifesto. He’s now reading How the Steel Was Tempered, which Elio had painstakingly, and very badly it seems to Esmond, translated into Italian during his time in prison. He finds its men the opposite of superfluous, and, for the first time, is bored by a Russian novel. The hero, Pavel, is all action, a Communist superman, almost entirely lacking an internal life. If this is the literature of the socialist utopia, he’d rather have the dissolute despotism of the nineteenth century.