again. He quietly allowed himself to be bustled from place to place and eventually to the Gran Sasso. No-one seemed to know what to do with him and he offered no opinion on it.
On one of the stops, at the island of Ponza, Mussolini became overwrought on disembarking the ship, mortified at facing people. He disliked the sea and was clearly loath to leave the reclusion and safety of the vessel. It took his captors ages to persuade him, wheedling as with a child, to go ashore. Eventually he sulked his way down the gangplank with collar turned up and hat pulled down.
Once ashore, he retreated into reading and complaining about minor daily irritations, boring his captors with monologues on anything that came to mind. He did not enquire about the fate of his family or his friends or Clara. In answer to his idle questions about the constant changes of detention, he was told there was concern about him being captured by the Allies or even the Germans. He was in vehement agreement that he would not want the humiliation of being returned to power ‘at the point of Hitler’s bayonets’. In fact, he did not want to be returned to power at all. He was resigned to being in retirement, playing cards with his sheepish guards and haranguing them with his thoughts on Nietzsche. He lived in another world, said the Carabinieri with a shake of their heads. In the real world – the one where the war continued – bombs fell and people died, and for those who did not, life somehow went on.
The Führer’s face was puce. Rage made him incoherent. Livid and incoherent was a constant state for him lately, his adjutant later said. Because Hitler would not permit spying on his great friend Il Duce, the Germans had no idea at first where Mussolini was held. Hitler knew the Italians would not remain loyal to the Axis agreement without their leader. He feared for his friend. He shouted, screamed, raged, banged his fist on tables, issued orders.
He wanted the King found and killed. The Vatican too had certainly been involved in Mussolini’s demise and he wanted the Pope killed – he had always hated the Vatican. He would send crack troops to invade Rome, have the Pope killed, secure the art treasures of the Eternal City for removal to Munich, and occupy the whole country immediately. Or have the Pope kidnapped and taken to Munich.
The British Legate in Rome, hearing these whispers, burned all documents in preparation for the invasion. Goebbels, however, dissuaded Hitler from the assassination plan for the Pope and advised that they should instead find and rescue Mussolini and have him reinstated. Mussolini was essential to the Axis. It was Mussolini, after all, he reminded the Führer, who coined the term ‘The Rome-Berlin Axis’, proudly defining both countries as ‘anti-Democratic, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic’. The world had turned on its axis and now all allegiances were realigned.
Hitler loved Mussolini. His one true friend. They had so much in common – both were vegetarian, both plagued by ill-health, both abhorred alcohol and eschewed coffee, both obsessed with fitness, with fad diets. Both were given to fits of uncontrollable rage and obsessive behaviour. Both despised religion, yet fostered the Vatican while it suited them. In fact this Pope, Pacelli, had been Mussolini’s man inside the Vatican throughout his whole tenure. One of their few differences was Hitler’s deep devotion to art and Mussolini’s complete indifference to it. The other more important difference was Hitler’s implacable philosophical commitment to his programs. When Mussolini styled himself Il Duce, Hitler thought it a stroke of genius and adopted it himself: Führer. The Leader. From the very beginning of his rise in 1933, Hitler had modelled himself on Mussolini. He wanted his friend back.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 5
Florence 1943
La resa
September 9, 1943
Last night we listened to the radio in disbelief. The wireless is our lifeline now. The rumours were true then. Nearly six weeks since Marshall Badoglio took over. The war goes on, he said. Now we have surrendered. We did not know whether to laugh or cry. Was it good news or bad? Even today, no-one knows. Hiatus. I have learnt a new word.
The household was unnaturally silent, counterpoint to the confusion on the streets. Che vergogna. What shame, people said. Meno male. Grazie al Dio. Thank God, people said. People said this and people said that, more and more and more. For days now, tongues wagged: a whispered whirlpool of rumour and supposition and perhaps and maybe and what if. If a drunkard or a madman stood screaming incoherently on a corner, people stopped and listened, searching for meaning in his rambling. Omens were espied, entrails examined, auguries invoked, portents flickered. They were saying the King had signed an Armistice with the Allies. Now it was true. The war was over. Or was it? Would it still be true tomorrow?
It seemed to Annabelle the entire house had undergone a strange haunting and she was a wraith. Enrico flitted back and forth at all hours, with no time for her. He smoked cigarettes openly and no-one remarked. Her mother spent longer and longer inspecting bed linen and laundry and supervising poor Anna Maria in the kitchen, with excruciating directions for even the simplest of meals. Sesto pushed the lawnmower around the borders of the parched herb garden, chopped the wood, sat on the woodblock rolling cigarettes and smoking in silence. He no longer hung around the kitchen for a chat. Chatting had dried up everywhere.
The cinnamon perfume of her father’s pipe-tobacco filled the house – he smoked incessantly despite her mother’s warnings about its effects, and found any excuse to get out of the house to the farm. Annabelle would love to have gone out to Impruneta with him but he said the roads were too dangerous – and she was reluctant to leave town because of Enrico. Zia Elsa had almost disappeared, perhaps frightened into keeping to her rooms. Her husband kept to his study upstairs except for the evenings when they all gathered in the downstairs study for the Radio London news and Enrico’s report. No news of Claretta.
Outside, the muddy stink of the Arno, low and turgid, vied with the smell of drains and bodies. Annabelle was not allowed out on her bicycle. The heat simmered, turning the walls and roofs, the bell-towers and chimneys, into shimmering mirages. Running footsteps evoked fear. Florence held her breath. Oh for some rain, they all said. Storm clouds gathered but skirted around the city and the only things falling from the skies were bombs. There was an air raid on Florence yesterday but though they all heard it, the damage was not close to the centre. Shots spat out at random and a shout was enough to make Annabelle’s stomach drop out of her body.
She had constipation one day and diarrhoea the next. No-one mentioned homework or even registered her existence. Meals appeared and were cleared away, but she had no memory of eating them. Gatherings at the dining table were rare. She too retreated. At times, she climbed to the loggia from where she could see out over the rooftops to the Belvedere, where red poppies dotted the slopes around the fort. At others, she sat in her window seat with her legs tucked beneath her, chin resting on her hand, and gazed for hours on end into the street, or immersed herself in her books and her diary. Writing in her diary was the only thing that reminded her she was real – that and the itch of prickly heat. She had taken to biting her fingernails and her mother did not even scold her.
For weeks, Enrico had reported that the King and Badoglio were in negotiations with the Allies and now there was an Armistice signed. They had been, said Enrico, ‘screwed over by the Allies’ who had announced the unconditional surrender early to circumvent any wavering. The King and Badoglio fled to the south. Smoke hung over the city in the scramble to burn documents. Who was in charge? Would the Germans withdraw? What would the army do? There were no radio transmissions, no news. Government offices were deserted, phones dead, gunfire rattled about the city from the north –
