In Love and War (12 page)
Authors: Alex Preston
Esmond presses himself against Fiamma’s chest, Gerald reaches over to stroke her blood-matted hair. They stay like this for a long time as the city wakes around them and, even in the warmth of the morning, her body is so cold that Esmond begins to shudder. Gerald is crying and the tears clear furrows in the blood on his cheeks. Someone in the house turns a radio on and there is the sound of a ukulele. The voices of the Trio Lescano seep out into the still air of the courtyard. Finally, hopelessly, Esmond turns to Gerald and asks again, ‘What do we do now?’
Shrewsbury, Salop.
13/10/37
Dearest E –
It’s all just too horrifying for words. You must be undone. The poor girl; her poor mother. I wish I were out there to help you, darling. I had no idea the Blackshirts in Italy were such monsters. This Carità fellow sounds like a fiend – do watch out for him. Did you love her, this Fiamma? I imagine you did. At least Goad sounds like he’s been a brick. I do think you ought to write to daddy about it all. Goad is sure to let him know why you aren’t at the Institute any more.
Sorry this is rushed. I’m back in the cursed hospital. First cold snap of the autumn and I’m gurgling like a drain. Perhaps they should send me out to join you in the sunny South!
Much love to you and chin up,
Anna xx.
Welsh Frankton,
Shropshire.
October 21st ’37
Dear Esmond –
Your letter arrived in the same post as one from Harold Goad outlining the events of the end of September. The stories tally, more or less, for
which you should be bloody thankful. I would have thought you might have written to me sooner – you need to face up to your misdeeds and take any punishment on the chin. I believe I’ve told you this before.
As it turns out, it sounds like you might get away with this one. The girl’s father is persona non grata, which helps. You’re lucky that the Blackshirts seem so keen to sweep the whole mess under the rug. You understand the kind of trouble you might have been in? Beyond our powers of help. I want you to be careful now. Concentrate on getting this station going and stop palling up with blasted sods and degenerates. I thought I made that clear to you before you left. This Douglas fellow sounds like the lowest of the low, one of these parasitical aesthetes happy to see the lives of others crumble to ruin as long as their own base interests are catered for. A bloody swine, and below you.
So you’re to live at the English Church? Goad explained the move in his letter. He can’t have someone under his roof who has betrayed his trust so completely. You see that, I’m sure. In exchange for him continuing to sponsor your undertakings in Florence, I’ve agreed to find his son a place at the Party headquarters. Is he a good chap, this Gerald? A solid Fascist like his father?
I understand that the studio is operational – well done for this. The stations in Heligoland and Sark are bringing in a not insubstantial amount of cash. It’s imperative that Florence begins to make its own contribution. Goad tells me he has plans for two
hours of programming a day. Harder to fill than you might think, or so I’d imagine. Have you thought about contacting Ezra Pound? He’s been writing for
The Blackshirt
and
Action
, a new newspaper Mosley has set up. He’s in Rapallo, near Genoa. I think he’s probably insane, but his ideas about Social Credit are not so far from the Corporate State, and he can certainly string together a sentence. I enclose some recent discs of Mosley’s speeches that you might like to broadcast.
You will also find enclosed a list of Italian businessmen Rothermere has sounded out as potential advertisers for the wireless station. They will expect you to contact them over the next few weeks. Make sure that you do. Seize the hour, Esmond! Things are looking up for you now – all the nonsense is behind you. Get your head down and put your back into it. Good luck and be a bloody man!
Your mother sends her love,
Your Father.
P.S. You asked if you might draw upon the wireless funds to pay for repairs to the automobile you damaged during your hapless trip to Pisa. No.
P.P.S. The priest you’re staying with is Frederick Bailey, isn’t he? I met a God-botherer called Bailey in the First Battle of the Marne. Brave fellow if it’s the same chap (and you know what I think of priests as a species).
MINISTRY FOR POPULAR CULTURE
VIA VITTORIO VENETO, ROMA
2/11/1937
Dear Mr Lowndes,
It is my pleasure to announce that Il Duce himself has asked me to write to you regarding Radio Firenze. We view this radio enterprise as having two heads – to school the Italian shopkeeper, clerk and artisan in the English language, so that the temporary cooling-off in the relationship between our countries does not lead to a loss of that particular feel for the language of business that marks out the Italian from his Mediterranean cousin; and to link up the right-thinking men of each country, so that the Italian realises that not all Englishmen are like Mr Eden, and the Englishman knows of the success of our glorious revolution, the real changes that have been effected in the lives of the ordinary people here, and the powerful muscle with which Il Duce is leading us into the future.
As such, Il Duce suggests you might broadcast on the Radio Roma network, meaning that Radio Firenze will be audible not only throughout Italy and the Greater Italian Empire, but also across the whole of Europe, including Great Britain. I hope that you understand the faith we are putting in the British Union here. Had Harold Goad not always been such an intelligent and loyal friend of our work, this project could scarcely have been contemplated.
Do pass on my very warmest wishes to Mr Goad, whom I have always held in the greatest admiration.
Perhaps – with your permission – I might come and visit the studio next time I am in Florence. I could even prepare a small speech of an informative nature.
Cordial salutes,
Alessandro Pavolini, Minister for Popular Culture.
He stands on the Ponte Santa Trinità thinking of Fiamma, a sob in his heart. Carità has taken to parading his squads of MVSN up and down the Lungarno degli Acciaiouli and their jackboots echo between the buildings either side of the river. The city grows darker with every passing day as the Blackshirts locate dissenters, arrest Communists, round up pacifists. Fasces are carved into walls that once housed tabernacles to the Virgin. Everywhere is the slogan
Credere, Obbadire, Combattire
. The MVSN swarm like flies over the streets of the town, wringing money from shopkeepers, threatening and swindling, and always the marching, marching. It’s easy to see Carità out front, he’s the only one wearing shorts. He has a horse-whip in one hand which he beats against his bare leg as he shouts –
Sinister, dexter, sinister, dexter
.
Esmond imagines a gun in his hand as he stands there, imagines pointing it at Carità and pulling the trigger. He pictures Carità stumbling forward, over the parapet and into the Arno, the yellow water filling his lungs. He shakes his head. Goad was right – men like Carità, like William Joyce, these are the men of the violent future. He’s a relic, like Douglas, like his father. He strolls back along the bridge towards the Oltrarno, away from the Institute, the via Tornabuoni, Doney’s and the bells of San Gaetano, and south towards St Mark’s, the studio, the small room in the church apartments where he spends his nights, where his days are filled with disc recorder switches,
the knobs and dials of the transmitter, the quiet precision of Goad’s voice outlining the differences between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, the mysteries of the modal verb.
He pays melancholy visits to the triptych downstairs, and then upstairs to the lonely studio. –
Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson,
Ada tells him, and they both smile. He and Goad have broadcast on Shakespeare, Dante, Corporatism, Fascist art, and the programmes have been well received. He pictures his father, listening on his ancient Philco Easytune and hearing his, Esmond’s, voice, beamed across the Alps, across France, into the South Downs and breaking over the Midland towns into Shropshire. He imagines the smile on his father’s face and feels himself blush with pleasure.
Telegram: 26/10/37
Arrived in Ldn STOP 1st day at BUF HQ STOP Utterly mad all of them STOP Hope not 2 ghastly for you STOP Gerald
Rinaldo Piaggio, SpA
Genoa Sestri
1/11/1937
Dear Mr Lowndes,
Since my father is in ill health, I take the opportunity to reply to you in his stead. We would certainly be interested in purchasing three two-minute advertising slots on Radio Firenze. One of our employees will send you disc recordings
directly, where we present the great aeronaut and Governor of Libya, Italo Balbo, praising the skills of Italian aircraft manufacturers and, particularly, the Piaggio P.16 heavy bomber, with which I’m sure you are familiar.
We agree your terms, namely five hundred lire per advertisement. Please find a cheque enclosed and we take this opportunity to wish you luck with your sensible venture.
Evviva Il Duce!
Sincerely,
Enrico Piaggio.
Isotta Fraschini Automobiles,
12845 Milano
7 November
MR LOWNDES
FIND ENCLOSED BANKER’S DRAFT FOR L2500 AND ONE DISC RECORDING OF PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE ISOTTA FRASCHINI TIPO 8B. WE ARE DELIGHTED TO HEAR OF IL DUCE’S INTEREST IN YOUR UNDERTAKING AND PLEDGE OUR CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR RADIO FIRENZE. PLEASE GIVE OUR REGARDS TO LORD ROTHERMERE.
VIVA IL DUCE!
ORESTE FRASCHINI ON BEHALF OF ISOTTA FRASCHINI AUTOMOBILES.
Café Rapallo
Rapallo
27th November 1937
Mr Lowndes –
YES! in a word. In rather more, I might say to you how long I have been waiting for an opportunity of this sort. I first suggested that I broadcast my views regarding the SCOURGE of usury and the sole solution – that of C. H. Douglas’s SOCIAL CREDIT – some five years ago at a dinner I happened to attend with, amongst others, Signor Achille Starace. Unfortunately, the Italian administration has not seen fit to take me up on this offer. I am delighted, therefore, that you have made contact, and that I might continue my association with the laudable efforts of the British Union to repel the threat of Communism.
I will talk about the JEW. For centuries, since the brute Cromwell brought them back into England, the kikes have sucked the English marrow from its bones. And now even those last remnants of the WHITE RACE, the proper, intrepid Brits each of them the right blend of Saxon warrior and Norman noble, find themselves kowtowing to international financiers, the houses of Rothschild and Raphael and Samuel, usurers in London and New York. I will speak, and when I have finished speaking, it will be as when the storm passes, and the sky is crystalline.
I am afraid that I am not able to come to meet you in Florence as I am currently rather diminished of capital. If you should like to visit us in
Rapallo (we could put you up at my good friend Olga Rudge’s place – we are far too cramped here) and bring your recording materials, I will be delighted, for a small fee, to deliver you several hours of DYNAMITE.
Give my best to Sir Oswald and your father.
Sincerely yours,
Ezra Pound.
Wooton Lodge, Staffs.
20/12/37
Dear Esmond –
All the best for a magnifico natale from Diana and me. I’m bloody proud of you, young man. I
think
you still smoke: here’s a couple of cartons from our doomed attempt to take on Philip Morris! Hope they aren’t too stale …
Warmest wishes,
Oswald.
[Card: Blake’s
Newton
]
Happy Christmas Darling E! Miss you masses. I’m in hospital again, worse luck. Any chance of you coming back for a visit? A xxx.
[Card: Winter scene, English landscape.]
Dec ’37
Dear Esmond –
Wishing you a very Happy Christmas. Sorry you’re not with us. Cheque inside as I’m sure you can buy much finer things out there than we’d be able to send you from Shropshire.
Your mother sends her love,
Your Father.
The mince pies have been crushed in transit from England. Alice Keppel looks down at them apologetically as she serves coffee at the end of Christmas lunch. Reggie Temple has drunk too much and is lolling back in his chair, snoring. Bailey and Goad are wearing paper crowns and discussing the Nanking Massacre. Colonel Keppel alone seems cheerful. –
I’m dashed if I’m too old to fight,
he says to anyone that will listen. –
Just let me at the bounders. Russians, Germans, all the same to me
.
Esmond had unwrapped his presents alone, in bed. Two Old Wykehamist ties from his father, the Dugdale abridgement of
Mein Kampf
from his mother. His sister has sent him a bundle of Everyman editions of the great Russian novels: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev. He lays them on his dresser alongside the box of gaudy handkerchiefs from Gerald via Goad.
Missing you,
the card read.
He decides to walk back from L’Ombrellino alone. It’s cold and he’s wrapped in an overcoat. The wind brings tears to his eyes as he makes his way down into the city, lustrous under her lamps. Bells chime here and there, children play with spinning tops, yoyos, push-bikes in the street, their scarves tied in stiff knots at their throats. The church is dark and echoing when he
lets himself inside. He has a recording to prepare, needs to check supplies of reel-to-reel tape and record needles. He’s in the studio until late and then goes to bed, reading three pages of
Mein Kampf
before tossing it aside with a snort.
Telegram: 2/1/38
Left yr mad politicians in the lurch STOP Wld rather sleep on street STOP Dad says he’s better is this true STOP Gerald
Via dei Forbici, 35c
Firenze
1.2.38
Dear Esmond –
It strikes me that we started out on the wrong note. Ada has enjoyed working with you enormously – she seems to have found her calling. Her mother and I listen to the programme with great pride, knowing the extent to which our daughter is involved in its production.
Perhaps you’d like to come for dinner one evening. If there’s one thing that the tribulations of my co-religionists north of the Alps have taught me, it’s that leaping to assumptions based upon such broad measures as race or nationality is almost always to err. I loathed your Mr Eden, I resented the sense of entitlement I found in the English who have colonised Florence, much as you have colonised
the rest of the world. But these past few months have changed my views on many things. Ada’s aunt, my sister, lives in Hamburg. Life for her has become extraordinarily difficult. Her husband has been beaten, many of their friends have fled, some have disappeared.
It is to the credit of the British that you, like the Italians, are not temperamentally suited to racialist behaviour. The strength of your cultural life gives you access to a finer degree of sympathy – or that, at least, is how I’ve come to see it. Let’s discuss over dinner. I’ll leave it to Ada to agree the date with you.
With very best wishes,
Guido Liuzzi.