The Vengeance of Rome (17 page)

A high point of that Christmas came when I was at last able to have a long, intelligent conversation with Mr Douglas Fairbanks and his talented wife Mary Poppins, who was grace itself, contrary to rumours. He seemed grateful for my enthusiasm. He knew my own work and was generous about it.

Billy C. Grisham, the gigantic dishevelled correspondent of the
Los Angeles Times
, famous for his vivid ties, a close friend of Sarfatti's, told me the secret of her power. The good-natured American knocked back his Scotch and ice, grinning at some naive remark of mine. He mentioned casually that Sarfatti was Mussolini's mistress, and she had been his mistress since before the March on Rome. A Jewess, she was a dedicated Fascist, the uncrowned Queen of Italy, as well as a close friend of the Italian royal family. Her power in the art world was enormous. Now I understand much more.

The house we were staying in, Grisham added, had been left to Signora
Sarfatti by a certain Count Raineri Valdeschi. ‘He killed himself, old sport, for mysterious reasons. A matter of honour, they said.' He laughed sympathetically at my surprise. He could not resist adding: ‘However, the place is much better known as the house where until recently Margherita and the Duce kept their frequent assignations. Now, of course, Mrs Musso is having something to say about that. You know she's insisted on moving in, complete with kids, nannies, maids and mother, to the Villa Torlonia with her husband? He was happy she wanted to stay in Predappio, their home town. But what can he do? He's just made a deal with the Church. They're not priest lovers in Predappio. They had to baptise the First Lady by brute force. Our Duce himself broke in the door of a lavatory to pull her out and hold her down while the priest did the rest. She's still more of your unrepentant old-fashioned freethinking socialist. No chance of a divorce there, now, and I would imagine La Marge is pretty livid. She's running around like a headless chicken at the moment, trying to keep her influence.'

I discounted most of this. Journalists are the worst gossips in the world. They love fiction far more than they love truth. But it did explain a little better why we had so easily found entrance into Italian high society. We were receiving such wonderful treatment because everyone knew we were the guests of Italy's uncrowned consort. I was so much closer to my hero than I had guessed! When I told her, Maddy was deeply impressed. ‘So she moved out when Rachele Mussolini moved in!'

I had no trouble being accepted, of course. Most journalists recognised me from my work in the cinema and considered me a fellow American. I was plain ‘Max Peters' to them. Everyone knew me by that name again. I felt comfortable with it. Italians were in those days exceptionally pro-American. I benefited from their assumptions. Maddy's whispered intelligence to those she trusted let it be known that I was ‘by birth a Russian prince'.

I could scarcely have been a more attractive proposition in Rome of the early 1930s! Wherever I went women flirted with me, usually behind Maddy's back but sometimes openly. I was always a gentlemen where the feelings of women are concerned, but I was frequently tempted. I do not believe there were any more beautiful women in the world at that time than in Rome. The city herself instils some special beauty into those who choose to live there. In turn her inhabitants feed something back to her. A love affair flourishes between flesh and stone. Mysterious spirits come awake. New ones are born. All great cities have such periods, when work of unrepeatable genius is created. They return to sleep. Each time they wake, they resurrect the accumulated wealth of ages. This wealth informs the
populace and makes its blood sing. Such is the nature of true cities. They are Man's greatest, most complex creation.

To resist the city is to resist life, as Shakespeare's great contemporary put it. We
are
the city. Those who dwelt here before us, those whose spirits still dwell here, we are the city. For time is not a wave or a line, but a field. The sins and achievements of the past are everywhere with us. Even this city, now, this alien London, which so chills my bones, which so armours herself against my embassy, which mocks me, which calls me names, which rejects my ministry, which is so arrogant she believes God alone defended her during the War, even she does not expel me. She knows how it is as natural for me to live here as it is for her to tolerate me. That is the secret of her strength. She judges nobody. She absorbs us all.

That night I went home with much to think about!

We saw a great deal of Billy Grisham and his own family. We ‘hit it off', as he liked to say. And from being invisible, we began in the last two weeks leading to Christmas to see our landlady everywhere. Signora Sarfatti attended all the functions to which we were invited and many others besides. Suddenly she appeared in the newspaper talking to foreign dignitaries, communing with soldiers and priests as enthusiastically as she did with painters and writers. Articles by her, chiefly about modern art, appeared in the
Popolo d'Italia
, and she was mostly seen in the company of Americans from the diplomatic corps or with newspaper people. One of those young diplomats became a particular chum of ours and, like the Grishams, sought out our company whenever fate brought us together. His name was Alex Kirk and he had an elegant grace that reminded me of Fred Astaire, only then beginning to emerge as America's greatest ballet maestro. Maddy was enthusiastic about Kirk. She said he looked ‘spiffing' in evening dress. All those young Americans abroad had taken to using English public school slang. I found it both confusing and irritating. I sometimes longed for the company of my Albanian princess, the beautiful adventuress Rose von Bek. But she was almost certainly dead. Clearly she had not managed to reach Rome in her aeroplane.

I refused to think of my Rose crashed in some sub-Saharan wilderness or arrested by the forces of the Sultan or any of the other dreadful alternatives which presented themselves. Since I could do nothing for her, nor discover from anyone I met what had happened to her, I forced myself, not without considerable pangs, to put her from my thoughts.

My plane was called
The Bee
, swift in pursuit of sweetness. My love was called
The Rose
, deliciously scented deadly confirmer of life. My city is called
Der Heym
. My city is called
Der Heym
.

I see the silver angels gathering. So few of them. They defend all that is holy. They defend the home. A red tide rises beneath a steel moon. There is no pity in the future. There is no hope in the future. There is no dignity in the future. There is no security in the future. There is nothing to eat in the future. Those liberals promised us a Golden Age and instead took away our future. Mussolini restored that future. For a while, if only in a dream, some vast cinema epic engulfed us and convinced us we had hope. We had something to do. And, for a while, it was true. We did things. We felt better. We wore uniforms. We embraced our neighbours and united in defence against the common foe which none doubted in those days to be Bolshevism. We were good people, doing good work for a more secure future in which the state would provide. We laboured towards the Golden Age. We climbed into cattle trucks still believing we were on our way to paradise. But it is not fair to blame Mussolini for the failures of his shared dream. We were too content to enjoy the euphoria while it was happening. We should have worked harder to make the dream reality. In this we were diverted, of course, by the usual enemies. In the end both Hitler and Mussolini surrounded themselves by time-serving lapdogs who did nothing but parrot their masters' most banal utterances. I had too much dignity for that. I was diplomatic, but I was never servile.

My only worry in those days was the rate at which we were using up our supply of
sneg
. I needed to make contact with other connoisseurs of the coca-leaf. Discreet enquiries in my old haunts had yielded nothing so far. Cocaine in Italy was now the preserve of the privileged. But once again providence was to come to my rescue in the person of our
patrona
.

Having seen us at several parties where she reassured us that her cottage was ours for as long as we needed it, Signora Sarfatti telephoned us one Saturday morning. She did not wish to impose, but might she call on us that afternoon at about four? We agreed cheerfully, speculating on her reasons for visiting us. Then we wondered suddenly if La Sarfatti did not after all want to evict us. Our idyll could be reaching an end in that little house we had come to think of as our own. We spent the morning putting the pictures and sculptures back in place and generally cleaning but by five o'clock Signora Sarfatti had not turned up. By six, she telephoned to say she was on her way. By nine, bringing a vast wave of scents with her, combining the perfumes of a dozen salons, the smoke of countless saloons, the blended alcohol of several large cocktails, in a colourfully mismatched miscellany of clothing which did nothing to hide her growing corpulence, she entered the living room and sat down at the marble coffee table. Opening her handbag,
she drew out a pigskin sack. From this she took a small packet. Brandishing an elegant silver razor, she unfolded the packet and on the edge of the blade removed some white powder. This she spread on the table, chopping it expertly while we looked on in some surprise. ‘God, I need this,' she said. ‘That's what delayed me. Sorry. Will you sniff?'

The stuff was first rate. When I commented on the quality she beamed as if I had congratulated her on her cooking. ‘I'll put you in touch with my little Arab,' she said. ‘He won't overcharge you.'

Though we had already sampled the drug together in Majorca, Maddy seemed surprised at Signora Sarfatti's openness. I took it for granted. Our hostess knew we were worldly people like herself. Besides, she was in her own home, doubtless invulnerable to arrest or any other interference in her private pursuits. La Sarfatti was still, after all, ‘the Queen of Italy'.

My attitude had changed towards her once I knew her position in Il Duce's court. Now it changed again as I realised she was a regular imbiber. We were all comrades of the beneficent coca-leaf. In those days such ties meant something.

For a while La Sarfatti looked around abstractedly, as if Maddy, myself, even her own sitting room were unfamiliar. Then to recover herself, she settled down comfortably on the sofa with a Campari Orange, suddenly ruler again of her own domain. Soon we were all at ease.

Signora Sarfatti spoke expansively of her work. She had had no time for her usual parties. As soon as her salon began again we should be honoured guests. Did we know the anti-Fascist novelist Moravia? He was a friend of hers, as were so many of Italy's finest painters and novelists. ‘Some people are calling Mussolini the New Charlemagne,' she told us, ‘but his court is rather more sophisticated, I think.'

In excellent English she asked if we had heard of d'Annunzio's friend, the American poet, Pound. She spoke rapidly, leaving little chance for us to reply. She told anecdotes about people of whom we had never heard. Yet Mrs Sarfatti described a world we both longed to experience. She knew that I was already an internationally popular film actor and set designer and greatly respected my work as an artist, she said. Film was the art form of the future. My work would certainly be remembered. Already, she hinted, Il Duce himself was familiar with my acting and was an enthusiast. Hadn't I originally been trained as an engineer? It is as an engineer, I said, that I would wish the world to see me. Signora Sarfatti recalled I had worked for the French, the Americans and the Moroccans on secret military projects. She assumed I had done work for other governments. Might she look at
my designs again? I, of course, was only too happy to oblige her for I knew she had Mussolini's ear and if she were impressed by my plans she might communicate some of this to her lover.

Doing my best to remain casual, curious as to her sudden interest, I was almost trembling as I described what I had built, including my Moroccan aeroplanes now in the service of the Caïd. Listening with polite impatience, she clearly had something specific on her mind. At last, after a few more lines of her first-rate cocaine, she arrived at her point. Fiorello had shown great enthusiasm for one of my designs. Had I seen Fiorello lately? She meant to ask him to ask me for a copy of the plan, it had impressed her so much. A design for a huge war machine capable of crossing large areas of desert? I had spent a long time in North Africa, had I not? Had anyone else considered putting the machine into action? Could she see those plans?

I suppose a lesser soul would have been suspicious of her motives and refused. My copyrights and patents were my only assets since the crash of my California bank. I should protect them. But I sensed she would not betray me. She was genuinely interested in my ideas.

Given my circumstances, I had little real choice. Who could refuse her and in turn risk refusing Il Duce? In any case I found it impossible to resist her charm. Her persuasive powers had helped put Mussolini where he was. I was charmed by her, and only too pleased to get out my plans and explain my massive desert-liner, now redesigned for battle and armed to the teeth with the latest repeating cannon.

She understood I had some idea of the military strength of Morocco and her neighbours. I agreed. For so long in the service of the Caïd and having helped him build his air force, I had become naturally aware of such details. I mentioned that I had worked on several secret projects in America, chiefly in California where my partner had been the well-known entrepreneur ‘Mucker' Hever.

With sharp intelligence she asked me about the practicality of building such huge war machines. Would not it be better to build smaller, faster land cruisers which could be more readily manoeuvred? I had the impression she had spoken to an engineer of her acquaintance and was testing me. I knew she was a good friend of the great Marconi.

Still a little puzzled by her interest, I explained how any army using several of my ‘Land Leviathans' would not need to manoeuvre. The machines would simply go where the generals wanted to go, crushing entire cities beneath their gigantic treads if necessary.