An Evening at Home
Mandy grasped at the only fact which had at last emerged for her. She looked steadily at me and said in a small voice as she poured the drinks. “Do I understand that you and Margherita have been having an affair?”
“Not at all,” I said.
“Judas,” said La Sarfatti absently. She was smiling at Goering and helping herself to a bar of chocolate which had been lying on the table. “Did you get that Lautrec I recommended?”
“Oh, Margherita! I am still a poor man, you know!” He asked again after the niege. I had begun to realise this creature was something of an addict. I felt sympathy for him, of course, but I have always said that if the drug begins to use you, that is when you should stop the drug. I was to learn later that his favourite drugs were narcotics, like morphine, which have a debilitating effect on the character as well as creating addiction. I have always warned young people off such drugs. The narcotics are a danger to society, robbing men and women of all will. Stimulants, however, like cocaine, have a completely different effect, creating dynamism and positive progress in society—unless a narcotics user decides to use them. Then a very strange result occurs. Herman Goering, whom I last saw at Nurenberg, was a living example of that result. Fifteen years earlier, however, he was still not the slave to his addiction that he became. Ultimately, of course, Hitler had to renounce him.
I was still trying to reach the door. I had decided to say nothing further but to make my escape now, while attempting to redeem myself later. From outside, I heard an impatient toot.
Fiorello came up to me. “Max, I don’t plan to involve you. But you can’t realise what’s going on. They beat me up—squadristi thugs. I escaped. They were planning to kill me. They said so. De Vecchi’s their boss. He really hates me. I don’t think Mussolini understands. You know how much I admire him. If you could put in a word, perhaps, we could clear all this up. He doesn’t mind as long as the communists are out of the country. I was simply getting rid of another one.” His attempt to smile at me was unfortunate. I murmured that there was little I could do. I had no power and little real influence. I was a scientist, after all. Not one of the political people. I was sure if he threw himself on the Duce’s mercy everything could be sorted out.
The horn sounded for the second time. The Duce would be furious by now. He had been impatient to begin with.
I thought of suggesting to Fiorello that he go personally and ask the Duce for clemency, since it seemed a convenient moment. By now Mandy had stopped pouring drinks and was placing tall red glasses into uncomprehending hands. “Do you mean to say,” she continued firmly, settling herself on the couch between Goering and La Scarfatti, “that you and Max have been doing something behind my back?”
“And who is Max?” asked Goering agreeably.
Seryozha had found the gramophone and was winding it up. “What marvellous records,” he said. “You can’t find these in Berlin.” He put on Home on the Range. I think it was Gene Autry’s earliest recording. As the first bars began to play, Seryozha threw up discretely behind a chair. Goering smiled apologetically to his hostess. “He is not German,” he explained. He leaned forward and whispered something to her. Mandy got up and went in to the bedroom.
The horn sounded for the third time. The beating of my heart suggested to me I could probably not live much longer.
Mandy came back in to the room with our cocaine and the apparatus for taking it.
It occurred to me to ask Fiorello if he knew the best way of getting into Switzerland.
Mandy, stone-faced, began to chop out a line of coke for everyone. As Seryozha fell to the floor, his face striking the carpet with a peculiar soft crunch, she incorporated his line into her own.
Fiorello was still beside me. I had begun to tell him that our leader was outside in the car and might be growing impatient when I felt pressure on the door handle. My first thought was to hang on to it, hold it tight and resist any further intrusions. My second was to begin weeping.
My third, as the door opened to admit a glowering Benito Mussolini, was to fall against the wall with a groan.
“That’s awfully good of you,” said Captain Goering, in his best English, “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been in need,” and bending forward over the marble table he put the little silver tube to his nose he inhaled his lines in a single bovine snort. He seemed to expand to twice his size, threatening to burst the walls of the room. He sat back in the couch. “I love my wife,” he said. “I love her with all my soul.”
Mussolini regarded the scene in disgusted silence.
“Caro!” cried Margherita Sarfatti, rising like a blustering pheasant from cover. “Caro mio! Thank God you are here!”
