An Evening at Home
“He’ll be gone when you get back,” Mandy promised.
I willed strength into my legs, staggered to the door and reached for the handle. As I did so a key turned in the lock and it began to open. My legs threatened to fold at the knees again and I fell back, expecting to see my Duce himself.
But it was Margherita Sarfatti, an affectionate Fury in yellow and black silk. “Darling, I couldn’t wait to see you! I’ve been longing for you. You must tell me everything that happened tonight.”
I tried to speak, but no words came. I attempted to shove my way past her, but she pushed me back into the room, pausing with a look of almost comic outrage when she saw that there were others standing there.
Slowly she absorbed the scene. She looked from me to Mandy to Fiorello. Her breathing seemed to grow more rapid, almost an animal snorting, as if a dragon fired up its venom. And then she screamed.
“There’s nothing between us, honestly,” said Mandy. “I think maybe we all need a drink and a sit down.”
I was close to screaming myself. Had the Duce seen Margherita come in? If so, would he draw any particular conclusions? It was, after all, her house. Mussolini would comee to investigate and find me harbouring a traitor while keeping a liason with his mistress.
“I really do have to leave,” I said.
“How long has all this been going on?” Margherita wished to know. “Now I realise the depths of treachery you’ve plumbed! I helped you all! I gave you everything! My own blood I would have given you! And this is my repayment? I am nothing, eh? I don’t even get an invitation to the little boys’ parties any more. This will not be forgotten. Both of you I nurtured as a mother—as a lioness her cubs. I taught you everything. I even made you characters in my book. I protected you. Both of you would be in prison if it were not for me. Yet, behind my back, you plot and scheme. Well, the Duce shall know of this!”
It was what, I will admit, I most feared at that moment.
As I tried to frame a reply which would buy me the time I needed, I heard a tap on the door. This was certain to be the Duce.
Not one of the million explanations which entered my head had the slightest ring of truth. I sighed and prepared myself for the inevitable.
But it was not Mussolini. A jolly gust of laughter announced the arrival of Hermann Goering, Mrs Cornelius and an extremely drunken Seryozha who was scarcely able to stand but stood between the other two with a look of depraved sentimentality on his face worthy of Kominski or one of the other great clowns of the old Kiev circus. “Why!” exclaimed the smiling German. “You’re already ahead of us! The taxi driver was right, after all. I hope you haven’t sniffed up all the ‘snow’, ha, ha, ha!”
I stood there open-mouthed. The vast captain waved my own card under my nose. A taxi-driver had read the wrong side.
“Ain’t yer goin’ ter let us in, Ive?” suggested Mrs Cornelius a little peevishly. “It’s bleedin’ freezin’ art ‘ere.”.
I stepped back.
Mrs Cornelius led the way into the little house. “’Ow sweet!”
Fiorella’s ruined face expressed the comic distress of a Commedia horse. Mandy folded her arms in disapproval.
Goering flung himself in one of our comfortable armchairs. “Is all the fun over? Who has the happy-powder?” His thickly-accented English was indecipherable to everyone but me. They ignored him. Mrs Cornelius handed her coat to Fiorello. “Gawd! What ‘appened ter you? Somebody beat yer up?” Gracefully De Bazzanno took her coat and handed it to Mandy Butter who had by now recovered at least a patina of conventional hospitality. “Can I get you all a drink?” she wanted to know. “Camparis? Manhattans?”
“Fuck your Campari Manhattans,” said Margherita Sarfatti, hurling herself onto the sofa. “Hello, Hermann, mein liebschen. How was the party?”
