We went there on numerous occasions, and my particular escort used to beguile me with fascinating stories of the strange happenings at the Grand Hotel, one floor of which was taken over for very senior officers, the real high-ups of the RAAC and the Allied Commission; and where on other floors persisted the weird intrigues of beautiful titled ladies and notorious noblemen who had closed an eye to the iniquities of the Fascist régime, or had openly supported it, and others who had secretly fought it. Many of these people, some of them of foreign nobility, were scheming to reassert themselves and present the Allies with a clean sheet. The intrigues sounded like a novel, and made me think of the story of the Athene Palace, Bucharest.
The Grand was where my parents had stayed in 1934, when there was a waiter’s strike and the heir to the Spanish throne had helped to serve the guests. I longed to visit this mysterious place and savour the exciting happenings, which were every day occurring within its luxurious walls. Perhaps my staff captain exaggerated, but if he did then it was pardonable, for the stories would not have been so enjoyable had they not been so fantastic.
As the weather got hotter, Jean and I began to take a short siesta on our beds after lunch, Italian-fashion, and it was necessary to have a shower or a cold sponge and change everything before going out in the evening. Sometimes the evenings were unbearably hot, and when tidying up in the office, or writing home, my clothes stuck to my body, and trickles of perspiration literally poured down my face. It made my hair so damp and clammy that it stuck to my scalp and I had to dry it with a towel. We often sat up late to enjoy the cooler moments towards eleven o’clock or midnight, and if we went out we did not care to hurry back. In our rooms it was stifling and airless, and sometimes we could hardly sleep for the heaviness of the atmosphere. The mosquito nets over our beds did not help, but they were necessary. Even so, I was steadily more and more bitten, and became quite ashamed of my arms and legs.
If I felt energetic enough to get up and go out for a while before breakfast, the best of the day was then to be enjoyed. Everything was fresh and the sun was warm, but not scorching. Sometimes we went for strolls after dark towards the old aqueduct, and past a farm, where we used to hear the chatter of the farmer and his family as they sat at their evening meal – ‘la cena’, as it is known in Italy – probably just the same as when Caesar was a master of Rome and Rome ruled the world. Occasionally a shot would fire out – the Italians seem to be very trigger-happy, and once or twice some of us appeared to be the target, for shots whistled overhead. No-one came to harm, however, so it was probably just for sport. All Italians in the country seemed to carry weapons, and I suspected them of firing them into the air on occasions of excitement or perhaps despair. To let off a firearm seemed to relieve their pent-up feelings. They must often have felt like shooting someone in those difficult days.
Pope Pius XII started his daily audiences for the Allied Troops immediately upon their entry into Rome. I was privileged to attend one of these, one hot day towards the end of July. I went with Cicely, who was a Roman Catholic and could instruct me on the correct behaviour. We waited in an immense crowd at the door of the Vatican in one corner of St Peter’s Square. There were officers and soldiers of many ranks, and from all the different forces and nationalities that made up the Allied Army in Italy. All were in khaki drill of slightly varying shades, or in white naval drill, the only relief being the coloured unit badges and flashes, or an occasional coloured scarf, strictly forbidden, but frequently worn nonetheless.
This motley throng waited outside the great doors until, just before midday, the portals opened and we were ushered down several long corridors. We crowded in, talking softly, for a subdued hush had come upon us, and entered the Audience Chamber, a long room with a stage at one end, the walls hung with unobtrusive, yet beautifully executed tapestries. There were windows along one side, and shafts of sunlight lit up the dark skin of an Indian soldier or the bleached hair of an Englishman. There were only a handful of girls, and Cicely and I were the only ATs; some of the girls were French, American or Polish. We all had our heads covered with veils, handed to us in advance, and were taken up to the front, for the rule was ‘ladies and officers in front’. This was all organised by the Swiss Guards, magnificent in their huge mediaeval helmets, their striped breeches and doublets, and grasping their stout halberds.
On the stroke of noon there was a sudden silence, and the Holy Father, dressed in cream brocade, a tiny white skullcap on his head, was borne in by his attendant priests on a chair. Immediately a sort of tremor went through the mixed audience, and all, man and woman, officer and soldier, sank to their knees. The Pope then gave his blessing to us, afterwards addressing the gathering. He spoke for a while, first in English, and then in French. He then descended from the chair and circulated among the troops, chatting to first one and then another, blessing the objects, rosaries, prayer books, etc., which many held out to him. He spoke to us, mostly in French, and asked us kindly where we came from, and how we liked Italy and our work. Then he passed, a dignified, gracious, kindly presence, perfectly natural, and yet infinitely spiritual. After some twenty minutes, he ascended his chair again, gave us his blessing once more, and was then carried away, doubtless exhausted by his interview and the effort it must cost to give audiences day after day to several hundred men and women of different nationalities, sects and races. We were very impressed by the Holy Father himself and by the very real reverence of his audience, and also by the genuine comfort and inspiration that seemed to radiate from him. He did indeed behave like the Father of his People, and these audiences will be treasured memories for all who took part in them.
St Peter’s itself has a wonderful exterior and a too magnificent interior. I loved its outside, but its inside is too vast and princely for me. Four or five of us escaped from the office and went down one hot morning in August. We left at about 8.30 a.m. and reached Vatican City at about nine o’clock, when the sun was just beginning to heat up the flagstones of the streets and the asphalt of St Peter’s Square, as if it were warming the stones of a gigantic oven. This time we ventured through the gates of Vatican City, and had to hand over our identity cards at the passport office on the right of the gates. We passed into a square, enclosed by high, cream-coloured stone buildings, and in whose centre grew fresh green grass and tall palms.
It is quite impossible to describe all that we saw of the Vatican galleries, but we passed through numerous halls of magnificent tapestries, many of them created by the renowned Gobelin. Then there were further halls of paintings, and yet more of sculpture, including a copy of the famous Laocoön, the snake entwining in their death throes a father and his two sons. Then we visited the library currently in use, as well as the old library, a floor higher. Both old and new libraries have Gothic vaulted ceilings, decorated with brilliant painted frescoes of many designs. The upper library is particularly vivid, and its vaulted roof was ‘piped’, as it were, with aquamarine, bordered with multicoloured patterns. The whole roof was coloured, and on tables here and there were priceless works of art, such as an antique Chinese pot-pourri jar, 2ft high and of elaborate style. We saw priceless manuscripts and volumes illuminated by the monks in the Middle Ages, some of them with highly decorated covers. In a long gallery, which apart from a narrow path down one side was full of alcoves of bookshelves, we were shown the modern extension of the library proper. I asked how many books there were, but the librarian could not tell me – countless, he said, and almost all the books ever printed anywhere could be found in these galleries.
We regretfully dragged ourselves away from so much of immeasurable interest, for I was almost fainting with hunger and exhaustion from the heat. Tony, Nicky and I separated from the rest of our party and went up to the Pincio for lunch. The Pincio is at the far end of the Borghese Gardens, overlooking Rome from a height of 200 or 300ft above the Piazza del Popolo, the large round piazza with the twin churches from which one passes under the walls to pursue the Via Flaminia. From t
he great balustraded terrace overlooking the piazza, if you walk back a little towards the south, you come to the Casina Valadier. The Valadier was simply a very attractive restaurant with a terrace overlooking the same magnificent view, including St Peter’s and Monte Mario, but from a slightly different angle. There were striped shades and parasols up at lunch-time, for it was far too hot to linger long in the sun, and one had wear dark glasses as it was. This delightful spot was, needless to say, requisitioned by the Allied authorities as an officers’ club, and it was a top favourite place for anyone visiting Rome. Here one could gaze at the breathtaking panorama, which was especially wonderful at night, as the sun sank and the changing light was reflected on the dome of St Peter’s, the centuries-old stone of the Castel Sant’Angelo and the faded brick tiles of the roofs that lay below. Nearly all Roman houses seemed to have roof gardens, small verandas, terraces or just balconies, all filled with plants, cactuses, aspidistras and creepers, zealously tended and watered. From the Pincio, hundreds of tiny patches of green could be seen, sometimes brightened with a parasol or coloured deck chairs. As evening fell, the green became darker and darker, until it finally fused into the darkness of the night sky. Sometimes one would see a woman sitting at her window, embroidering or sewing, or just with her hands folded, resting awhile in the cool of the evening, and as all good Romans do, contemplating the changing colours of the sky, the deepening shadows, and last but not least, the passers-by and the bustle of evening activity.
To return to our story, we had a very pleasant lunch, which consisted of Army rations prepared by an expert Italian chef (it was amazing what the Italians could do with bully-beef, Spam or even that pet aversio, meat and veg). After that we strolled off into the Borghese Gardens, and came across several small donkeys, some saddled and one harnessed to a little cart. These were apparently for the children, but at that hour, about three o’clock, all Italian children were ‘siestering’, and so we took their place. I rode in the tiny cart, and Tony and Nicky took a donkey each and rode on either side of me. My beast was very well-behaved, but Tony’s soon got tired of the unwonted weight, and made a supreme effort, spurted forward, and finally forced his unwelcome rider to dismount. At that my steed also broke into a canter and soon brought me back to where we started from, where his master was watching us all in complete astonishment. He did not have to say, ‘The English are mad’; he just looked it. We had not finished our adventures yet, and walked on until we found a row of small cars, also for the absent children. These proved easier to manage than the donkeys, and we had quite a lot of fun with them. We eventually returned them to their parking place and their protesting owner, and went on through the gardens, over a bridge and passed a field for horse-jumping, with a sort of sandy ‘Rotten Row’ going round it. At this hour of the day, there were naturally no equestrians, but later on, in the morning and the evening they were often to be seen – men, women, and children, and during the Occupation various assorted Allies.
We soon crossed the main road, which is a short-cut down to the Via Flaminia, avoiding the heavy traffic of the Corso Umberto. It is a much more enjoyable drive than through the streets, as the gardens are full of trees, and the descent down to the gates just outside the Flaminian Gate is lined and roofed with an immense avenue of umbrella pines. But walking straight up from the Casina Valadier, you pass over the upper reaches of this route and come to a walled garden on the left – ‘Giardino del Lago’, it is called. Here there are many plants – geraniums, begonias, heliotropes, amongst others, carefully tended – as well as rare trees and shrubs. At the far end is a small lake with water lilies floating on its surface, and a few little dinghies for hire; here and there are secluded seats, and there is a tiny loggia of sorts abutting on the lake. Perhaps on account of the water, or perhaps of the extra care given them, the trees and plants and the grass of this botanical garden are the greenest and freshest in Rome. The grass was a real sward, and did not show the burnt-up dryness prevalent everywhere else. Out of the garden once more, we wandered on among the pines, and came to the stadium, where nearly three years later the International Horse Show was held. For the present it was an immense MT park, and Indian troops were quartered in tents in a section of the Borghese Gardens. The ground everywhere was gently undulating, with small hollows and transversal paths, shaded by evergreen bushes or by the ubiquitous pines, which grew all around and to a great height. There was a smell of pine needles and resin, and it was quiet except for the intermittent chirping of an occasional cricket.
But it was time to return, and so we wended our way back to the Porta Pinciana, where a few Italians were selling nuts and fruit or trading in black market cigarettes, while the Allied transport was rapidly passing in and out – a ceaseless flow of men, stores and ammunition. Through the weather-beaten gateway as we looked back, we saw the stately pines, now black against the orange sky of late afternoon. I looked down, for someone was talking to me in very poor English; it was a small grubby boy, with dirty bare feet, and he was saying, ‘Mees, geev caramelle, me fame’ (I’m hungry). Fortunately I had managed to obtain a few sweets from the Casina, so I could give him one or two. But we hurried on, for the children were like sparrows, and if one of them got something, they would multiply to a small crowd in a few moments and it was impossible to satisfy them, much as we hated to disappoint them. There were little boys also doing shoe-cleaning at stands in the streets, and it was sometimes very handy, after trudging through the heat and dust, to have one’s shoes refurbished, and very efficiently they did it too. ‘Shoe-shine’, pronounced ‘shoosha’, they used to call as the soldiers passed, ‘Maggiore, shoosha, sergente, shoosha, mees av shoosha…’. These little shoe-blacks were the origin of the Italian film, Sciuscià (Shoeshine), pronounced in the same way.
Not far from the Casina Valadier, but along the escarpment overlooking the streets, instead of back into the gardens, is the Villa Medici. This is a magnificent Renaissance mansion, with tiled roof, a tower after the Tuscan style and wide overhanging eaves. It belongs to, or is leased by, the French government, and I believe housed their Red Cross detachment in those days. Only a few steps further along is the church, Trinità dei Monti, and in front of it a small piazza and another balustrade, where is yet another good viewpoint, and down on each side go the famous Spanish Steps, down to Piazza di Spagna, with its cool fountain and its quaint old houses, among them the house where Keats lived and died, and where you may still see his furniture, and many of his books and letters, and those of Shelley.
One can walk along Via Sistina, on to the piazza in front of the church, and then to a fountain (painted by Corot) and another arbour where one can lean on a stone wall and gaze at the roofs, the verandas, St Peter’s and the sunset (or sunrise, if one is up early enough). Walking further on, past the Casina Valadier, through the shady gardens to the grand terrazza, one comes to the best view of all. That is a favourite promenade for the Romans on summer evenings and on Sundays before lunch. You can see them, families together, and in the mornings and late afternoons, you often see nursemaids and mothers with the babies. But in the early days the civilian population was not so much in evidence, except for the girls who used to linger past the Casina, hoping to find an officer to take them in for a meal. So many girls were taken in at first that it was necessary to close the restaurant to civilians for at least a year.
Afterwards, as the Allied troops became fewer, this rule was relaxed and civilian girls were admitted with escorts. I well remember seeing some of them waiting outside before the ban was imposed, all beautifully dressed, well made-up, most attractive, but very thin. They wore a lot of white and pastel shades, and no doubt they made the ATs look like sacks with strings round them. But if one occasionally felt a twinge of jealousy for their attractiveness and feminine attire, one could not but pity them. We knew they would probably get the square meal a day they were hoping for, even if they had to pay for it in ways we would find hard to accept. Perhaps in their place we would have do
ne the same, and slipped any titbits into our handbags for our small brothers and sisters at home.
It was around this time that I had the good fortune to meet a very charming Italian family, who lived in a lovely part of Rome near the Villa Torlonia, formerly Mussolini’s summer residence, but taken over by the Allies for the RAF. I went several times to call on this family and sipped vermouth and discussed the war. As well as the father, an engineer (the ‘ingeniere’), who had given valuable technical information to the Allies since the Armistice, there was his wife, from the Trento in the north, with the blonde hair and fair skin that surprises the English, who expect all Italians to be dark and swarthy, and three lovely daughters, all in their teens. La Signora wanted me to do an exchange of conversation with her girls, but through lack of time and transport I could hardly ever get to see them and so to my great regret the scheme unfortunately failed. But it was a joy to sit in a normal household again, and relax on a comfortable sofa, looking at nicely polished furniture, a rug on the floor and a bookcase against the wall. I never realised until then how used I was getting to bare, sparsely furnished rooms, rough and ready serving of meals, and in fact a sort of semi-camp life, bereft of the trappings, finesses, luxuries and comforts of civilisation, or whatever one likes to call them.
My Italian Adventures Page 12