by Louisa Young
Because it’s not perfect. It only looks it.
Can’t I let it carry on looking it? Until someone else breaks it, or it breaks itself?
*
Aldo was looking splendid in a wilting crown of lakeweed, smoking a Florentine cigarillo after lunch beneath the vine-covered pergola.
‘Only three things good about the Florentines,’ he said, reaching for his hat as the sun moved round. ‘Their cigars, their hats, and their Italian. Oh, and their steaks.’
‘And their painters,’ said Nadine.
‘And their architects,’ murmured Susanna.
‘And their TRIPPE!’ Aldo yelled suddenly to Nenna, to alarm her, or amuse her – it wasn’t clear which. It was their old joke: when she was younger the mere mention of Florentine tripe would make her shriek, because nothing in the world was more horrid, chewy and rubbery and clad in tomato sauce that anywhere else would be delicious but on tripe looked like blood on a dead thing …
‘Tripe, tripe, tripe …’ he chanted now, comically, waggling his eyebrows, and Nenna gratified him with a yelp, and went and hung round his neck. Tom recalled her as a small girl, always sitting on her father’s knee, hiding in his coat, climbing into his pocket, burrowing in under his beard. Aldo used to pick her up and carry her under one arm like a parcel. She seemed to wish he still could.
‘Papà,’ Nenna said, helpless. His presence on the holiday was a luxury. She wrapped her arms round his head, and said again, ‘Papà’.
Tom was silent, watching.
Part of him very much wished that he were a young boy still, and could tell himself that if Aldo thought everything was all right then everything was all right.
But that, he thought, is not true.
Looking at Nenna, as in love with her father as her father was with the Duce, he recognised his way ahead. I will not lie.
Chapter Fourteen
Bracciano, Summer 1938
It doesn’t matter Nenna thought. It was a long time ago, and one short moment. Several boys had told her since that they were in love with her – Lord in Rome you only have to walk down the street to be hailed as a miracle. Nenna had thought that from an English boy, a cousin, it might mean something else, and when he turned up, unexpected, older, for a moment yes, a little flicker had … flickered … It had been something of a shock.
It wasn’t that she had forgotten about him. She had put him in a special sentimental part of her heart: my beautiful big cousin, who I don’t see any more, since Papà alarmed him. My delicate blond English cousin, spooked by a bit of big Italian drama which actually passed within a few days. My dear cousin who stopped writing to me, or did I stop writing to him? And well, time passes, and other things happen … and so, he is just the first boy who said he was in love with me. It was sweet. We were babies.
And so suddenly here he is: her cousin who wasn’t coming though the others were; and who then totally unexpectedly did. Her cousin who is taller, older, and behaving very oddly. He didn’t look at all sweet now. She’d stared at him, down at the lake, when he’d pulled his shirt off over his head.
When the English arrived in their car, before dinner, Tom was there like a policeman, watching as Aldo came out, big and cheerful in his shirtsleeves, to meet his cousin’s husband. Il famoso Riley, meanwhile, allowed himself to be grinned at and have his hand wrung, and then embraced, and kissed on both cheeks, impassive to Papà’s friendliness, only raising his eyebrows, and looking rather charmed.
Why is Tom so nervous? she wondered. He looks like he’s expecting them to have a fight.
Papà suggested a swim, and stroll around the place as the afternoon cooled off, and Riley said that was an excellent idea.
Nadine looks nervous too.
Kitty was the only one who was happy and relaxed. She greeted Nenna with the biggest hug, and had bought her a book of postcards from Paris. ‘It was that or scent,’ she said, ‘and I couldn’t afford scent, and I didn’t think you’d like it. It absolutely stank. Now come on, teach me Italian again I’ve forgotten it all except scheletro and mozzarella’ – but then she was entranced by Vittorio and Stefano, and they took her off to show her her room, and the stream, and their bicycles.
*
A Russian pianist, married to an American heiress, came up from Rome for dinner, with an absurd little dog which wore a bell and blue ribbons in its hair. They laughed and play-acted about the rather pastoral nature of the hospitality, which involved a long-drop latrine in the mimosa thicket, and they had brought a friend of theirs, an English artist called Mann. Nenna was grateful for these strangers. There was such an air of significance about Riley and Papà finally meeting that this dilution, the protective lubricatory presence of others in front of whom one had to be polite, was welcome. All was fuss: the coming to the table, comment on the warmth of the evening, passing of plates and the pouring of wine, the eating, the compliments to the food, a toast to Riley for finally having come so far to meet the in-laws. The jokes about language, the courtesies about journeys, the pleasantries about the dog. The stream gurgled invisible in its rocky hollow at the end of the dried-out lawn: crickets creaked, hands slapped at mosquitoes, Mama fetched the citronella candles and the medicinal smell rose. Nenna played her part, enjoying it, but watchful.
Over the artichokes, the artist said, ‘So what about this war?’
‘What war?’ said the Russian. ‘The Spanish one?’
‘The one which is coming,’ the artist said, glancing around, as if surprised anyone was thinking about anything else.
‘Oh you English,’ the Russian replied. ‘You’re always going on about the war.’
A small silence, while this sank in, and the table blossomed into a tiny tumult of glances: Nadine at Riley, Riley at Papà, Nenna at Tom. She was surprised by how strongly she wanted him to look – indeed to be – happy.
And then Vittorio, looking around first, quite aware that he was about to be contentious, announced: ‘Tom tried to run away to Spain, you know. Kitty said so.’
‘Vittorio!’ squawked Kitty, outraged at the breaking of a confidence, and Nenna too gave him a withering look in time to see him blow Kitty a semi-apologetic kiss from his fingertips.
‘Well,’ said Tom, quickly.
And then the adults tried not to look at Papà, except for Mann, who for an artist was very unobservant. ‘Well done!’ he declared, in the tone of one who is never in the company of people with different views to his. ‘How far did you get? Why did you come back?’
Tom stared at his bit of bread for a while, then lifted his chin, as if he had made a decision, and said: ‘No distance at all. I thought about it, and Riley talked me out of it.’
Mama suddenly got up and took some plates. Nenna could see her mother wanted her to join her, to break up the moment and change the subject, but she didn’t.
‘Really?’ said Papà, and that just hung there.
Tom made a small noise.
‘On which side were you planning to fight?’ Papà said, after a moment. The Russian sat back. Riley sat up. Kitty glanced at Nenna, then pushed her chair back, admired the moon, and mentioned an inclination to take a stroll by its charming light.
‘What a good idea,’ said the heiress, but it was too late, because Tom, with a smile, dived in, and quickly (as if before he could put it away again, Nenna thought), he said: ‘The Brigades, I’m afraid, Uncle.’ And that did it. Everyone knew that Fascist troops were fighting for the Republicans.
The pause was heavy.
‘What?’ said Mann. ‘What is it?’
‘The Brigades are International,’ Nenna said. ‘Aren’t they? Plenty of Italians are fighting for the Brigades …’
‘Comunisti,’ Papà said. His English dropped away. ‘Anarchici. Questi Garibaldini e Matteottini …’ Mama reached out to touch his arm. ‘Comunisti,’ he said again, and looked around the table, accusingly. ‘Anarchici.’
‘They aren’t the enemy any more, Uncle,’ Tom said, so calmly. ‘Thin
gs are changing.’
And then a sort of blanket of shadow settled over the table, over everyone and everything. Nenna found herself thinking of rabbits, running up and down a green tussocky hillside, dashing into burrows at the passing overhead of such a shadow. Tom – or his words – seemed to be that shadow. Nenna picked up his look when he raised his eyes. He looked helpless. So what are you doing? What are you doing?
Papà, big and handsome, his forearms on the table, his hands open as if to heaven, was staring at Tom, who looked skinny and young before him. Nenna closed her eyes for a moment: the anger is coming – then opened them. No, there are guests. It will be safe. Marinella is there, Mama is there – an automatic checking, for their safety – but there are guests.
The cloud gathered in Papà’s eyes.
And passed.
‘So you’re a boy of heart!’ he cried. ‘You believe! And you would fight for what you believe in! Come here!’ he cried, and was standing and enfolding Tom, and Nenna thought, Thank God and she swallowed, and did not look at her mother, as Aldo congratulated Tom, and chided him gently, and clasped him again.
‘But—’
Nenna recognised the ghost of relief passing along the table. She knew it well.
*
‘What’s the matter with Tom?’ Nenna said to Kitty, as they carried the plates in and piled them up, sweeping oily detritus from the meal into the bin.
Kitty rolled her eyes, and said: ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I’m really not the person to ask. He seems to think he’s an adult, or something. He’s certainly full of ideas. But really, I’m the last person he’d say anything to.’
Nenna left the others to tidy, and fetched the grappa and glasses for the men. She wanted to get back outside. She crossed the terrace carefully with the tray, breathing the night air, hearing the voice floating. The Roman guests were leaving, the moon careered blindly behind the cypresses, and cicadas sang with glorious abandon. She laid the tray down, and poured, and handed the glasses round.
Riley was sitting next to Tom now. Nenna slipped in at the shadowy end of the table as, with the tiny glass in his hand, Riley said: ‘So, Aldo, you’re a Fascist?’
‘Of course,’ said Papà.
‘Why?’ asked Riley.
Nenna smiled. Why!
For a moment Papà looked puzzled, then he laughed. ‘What else should I be?’ he said. ‘Italy is Fascist. I am Italian. I am Fascist.’
‘Doesn’t it worry you?’ Riley said.
She was interested. This was not something people asked.
‘Why? Oh – no, I see. You think we should have voting, a choice, like you. Of course. We had a choice! We still have! I could choose to run about throwing bombs and striking and causing trouble – or I could choose to work hard for Italy. Easy choice for me. Twenty years ago in the Red Years, we could choose for Italy to fall apart in shame after the war, or we could choose to stand together under a strong leader.’ He looked to Riley, eyebrows up, smile broad, for an understanding nod. But Riley’s face was closed.
‘I am a practical man,’ Papà continued. ‘I prefer to build. You know my dream? Nice houses for people to live in. Well built, red tiles, space for a vegetable garden, communal olive groves, hospital, pretty piazza, safe place to park bicycles, little schools, electricity for everybody, dopolavoro, water from a tap in their kitchens. This is what we are building in Agro Pontino.’ Again he looked for a response, for the glow of natural agreement, and, failing to get it, continued again. ‘Do anarchists let me build this? No. Do communists have the money to build this? No. We need organisation, unity and discipline – and we have it!’
Still Riley was silent, listening. Tom too. But Tom knows all this she mought, He knows Papà.
‘You should visit,’ Papà said. ‘See our reclamations, see Littoria and Sabaudia and Pontinia and Aprilia, our beautiful new towns. Four beautiful cities, since 1930. See what Fascism is. What it does.’ The smile was still wide, and his pride was palpable.
‘And that’s all?’ Riley said, mildly, and Papà smiled mildly back, and said, ‘That’s what Fascism is for.’
‘You don’t feel it’s changed at all?’
What are they getting at?
‘I think one of the things that Riley might be referring to,’ Tom said, suddenly and quickly, ‘is the government’s recent announcement that Jews are not Italian.
Nenna’s head jerked.
What?
She leaned, gently, futher back into the shadows. Papà? What is this?
Papà had turned a mild gaze on Tom. ‘A mistake!’ he said.
‘A mistake!’ Tom exploded.
‘Ah, you, you boy of heart!’ Papà cried. ‘Yes, a mistake! The Duce will put it right. Come here!’ he cried, and for the second time he was standing and enfolding Tom, chiding him gently, and clasping him again.
Tom pulled back, like a man aware that his little darts are having no effect, a man looking for a bigger blade.
‘Mussolini is in alliance with Hitler,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t the Nazi policy on Jews worry you?’ His words were carefully picked and claggy with freight.
Papà?
Aldo took a moment to clarify them – then looked up at him, clearly and frankly, and said in astonishment: ‘No! Never! What. You think—? Oh no, my boy, the situation of the Italian Jew is completely different to the Jew in Germany. We are not Polish, or Lithuanian, or anything – we are Italian! For two thousand years! We are not wandering Jews. We are not Zionists, dreaming of another country to which we have more loyalty! We are the most loyal citizens – more loyal than Gentiles, because we have always had to prove our loyalty, and they never had. Did you know,’ he said, leaning in and twinkling, ‘that half of Italians think there are no Jews in Italy? Because we fit in so well?’
‘But you have seen the Manifesto degli scienziati razzisti,’ said Tom.
The what?
‘Oh Tommaso – Mussolini has always been a champion of Jews – Finzi! Ovazza! – because we work hard and we are good people.’
Tom glanced at Riley.
‘We have Jewish naval officers!’ Papà went on. ‘Tell me – where do you ever see that? Jews in boats! That, my friend, is assimilation …’
Riley smiled.
‘But it’s been confirmed.’ Tom said. ‘They published the names of the scientists.’
‘We are as safe as good modern houses,’ Papà said, and Nenna smiled in the dark, at the broad generosity of the man who is right, smiling and loving, hospitable. Susanna came out and wondered if anybody would like more coffee, because she was going to bed.
‘As safe as good modern houses,’ Papà said again. ‘Here – more grappa,’ he said, and he poured, and he laughed, and the rightness he felt about himself overflowed with his bonhomie. Vittorio and Stefano came out to say goodnight. For a moment, before his sons went in, Aldo looked like the finest of patriarchs, flawless. Nenna relaxed.
Then: ‘Has Susanna seen it?’ Tom demanded. ‘Nenna? The boys?’
‘Tommaso,’ Papà said, gently. ‘A man does not bother women and children with every little thing.’
Oh, thought Nenna. Oh.
Nobody wanted more grappa. Nenna slipped away, as the men rose and said goodnight to each other, and went their ways. She fretted, a little, in the course of the night, but when she woke in the morning she found that she wasn’t worried about this manifesto, whatever it was. Papà said it was all right.
*
Vittorio, as it happened, had seen the paper. His friend Orazio, a muscly young squadrista of twenty-four who gave him wine and cigarettes, and showed him off to his friends, had shown it to him in Rome, during one of their long siestas at Orazio’s father’s empty flat. Vittorio, accustomed as he was to taking the words of older men at face value, wasn’t bothered by the manifesto. Life was too enjoyable.
‘It makes no difference,’ Orazio said, tapping Vittorio affectionately – or perhaps dismissively? – on the nose. ‘We need to be a bit
more careful, that’s all. But we can carry on,’ he said, with a smile, and he carried on: kissing Vittorio’s red mouth, and removing Vittorio’s shirt and trousers, delighting in the good young Fascist masculinity that was revealed.
*
Tom couldn’t sleep, that night. Telling the truth, actively, was – enlivening. He decided to walk down to the lake in the dark, alone in the soft air. Across the meadow, all the flowers were closed for the night.
Tom did not need lectures from Aldo in what Fascism was, and what it did. He knew. For every beautiful new town with a town hall built in the shape of an M there remained thousands of shoeless children hungry in slums; and those newsreels of the bloody Duce with his shirt off pretending to sow or harvest the reclaimed land were no more true than the notion of grateful Abyssinians longing for Roman ways – Abyssinians who in reality have been gassed and slaughtered and raped, their villages burned. It doesn’t work, is the problem. It isn’t TRUE. It’s a great big lie and they’re all still staring like sunflowers.
He thought about Bertolini’s uncle, and the quiet, urgent, dispirited way in which Bertolini had told the story. He remembered the club swung by Aldo’s friend, three years before.
The thing is, he had been certain Riley would say something important, something which would change everything here. Something which would mean he, Tom, would not have to be the one to say it. He had not got what he expected. He thought: We wait, and we take things into account, and we hope something will change to let us off the hook, and the next thing you know you’re up to your waist in it and you can’t move …
He took his shoes off on the black sand, and stepped in to the silent mirror-black water. Ripples flowed out: circle after circle moving out across the lake towards invisibility or disappearance, whichever came first. A tiny, silent surf broke on the shore behind him. Too late in the year for fireflies. In the trees an owl was calling, soft and strange: ‘Quilp! Quilp!’
It has been a long time coming, he thought. And of course it was bound to come in the end, but nobody wanted it to, and we have all done so well, for so long, pretending it doesn’t exist – but now the depth charge has been dropped, and it will emerge in due course. Aldo has chosen not to rise, but Aldo is not the only person here.