The Vengeance of Rome (35 page)

At that moment I felt suddenly isolated. A marooned sailor too weary to cry to passing ships. I could not understand why, with a new adventure ahead, I felt so depressed.

Why had I become so obscurely gloomy since discovering that dog? I remained disgusted by the kind of monster capable of such mindless cruelty.

I prayed I was wrong about Brodmann. I concentrated on plans for my new journey. I consoled myself. I was still serving the Fascist cause. I was content to assist my Duce in any way, even by going into exile, as Balbo put it. In no time at all, I thought, I would be back in Italy supervising the building of my Land Leviathan. Once my name was famous as an engineer I could travel wherever I pleased. I need no longer rely on my reputation as an actor.

Maddy Butter was still not home by the time I left for the Termini Station. No matter what time I phoned she was always out. Only when my luggage had been loaded and the
squadristi
had left could I sit back in my large comfortable seat and forget her. I had not planned to leave Rome. Considering the problems I would have to face if I stayed, however, this short ‘fact-finding' vacation would do me good. Thanks to the sterling efforts of the young
fascisti
assigned to me, everything apart from my handbags needed for the trip was stowed securely in the luggage vans. I appeared to have an entire
de luxe
compartment to myself. Though for a couple of months I would be travelling undercover, I would still be travelling in style. Il Duce knew me better than I knew myself. My spirits were already improving. I became filled with that sense of joyful expectation which usually accompanied a new journey. Only when I was moving did I feel truly secure.

I looked forward to enjoying the company of my travelling companions. Mrs Cornelius and her Baron were on the train, though they planned to go on to St Crim. I sincerely hoped that Seryozha was not. I had no particular anxieties, save that Seryozha would get drunk and start babbling about our days in St Petersburg. I was surprised not to see any of the German delegation boarding.

Soon after the train departed there came a tap on the glass door. In the corridor stood an exceptionally tall, oddly coloured individual with a nose like a hammer set in irregular features, deep-set eyes beneath bushy brows, a thin upper lip drawn habitually over the lower which gave him a kind of perpetual smile, a jutting lantern jaw and an expression of polite apology. He wore a grey tweed English overcoat, a dark grey Homburg and carried a gold-chased ebony stick with which he signalled politely for me to open
the door. When I frowned enquiry, he put the head of his stick to his lips and raised his eyebrows, perhaps a question?

When I slid the door back he entered, clicked his heels together, gave a rather idiosyncratic Fascist salute, lifted his hat, called me ‘Herr Doctor Peters' and announced himself as Doctor Ernst Hanfstaengl. In perfect American English he asked if I would prefer to speak my own language. I knew he did not mean Russian. In my rôle as Max Peters, the American actor, I said English would be fine. Unbuttoning his overcoat, he asked if he might sit down for a moment. He was about ten years my senior, with that youthful air, that unlined, inexperienced sheen on the skin you see on so many modern businessmen. His light blue eyes held a kind of amiable amusement, as if his own existence was absurd to him. His pale, close-shaven face flickered with a dozen half-formed expressions. His mouth was sensitive beneath that Teutonic nose. In spite of his obvious eccentricities, he was evidently what we used to call ‘the better type of German'. At my assent, he lowered his assortment of large limbs into the seat and with careful concentration arranged them in a familiar order.

When he was sure everything was where he wanted it to be, he sighed and put his hand towards me. I shook it.

‘Hanfstaengl,' he said again, as if to remind himself.

Sitting back in the seat he looked out of the window and addressed the scenery. ‘Well, it's a shame. But here we are.'

I did not follow him. I made a small enquiring noise.

‘Herr Göring,' he explained, smiling. ‘I do apologise. They didn't get the message to you, I take it?'

‘Apparently.'

With a peculiar jerk of his shoulder, Doctor Hanfstaengl took out a cigarette case. Smiling like a schoolboy, he offered it to me. When I declined he put the case away. ‘I'm the messenger, then. Göring's wife Carin?'

‘He has spoken of her with great affection.'

‘Oh, he couldn't survive without her. But she has had something of a relapse. So he flew out early this morning for Berlin. I agreed to be his deputy and take care of you. My pleasure, of course. We have friends in common. I think, in Tom Morgan and some of the other press guys.'

‘You're a journalist?'

‘I do a little writing. Luckily my family's fairly well off, so I don't have to struggle. We have a print business in Munich. I'm Hitler's foreign press attaché. I saw you at the embassy a couple of times. You were with that English chap. Nice fellow. Major Pye. I was staying at the Ambasciatori.
My family always does; we get on well with the staff. I find the Excelsior a little vulgar. What part of the United States are you from, Doctor Peters?'

I said that I had been born in the South but that I now called Hollywood my home.

He detected another accent under my English. I explained how my parents were first-generation immigrants. From Spain, I told him. Their original name was Gallibasta-Pujol, and they came from the Andalucia region. Hanfstaengl was on very good terms with the de Riberas. Did I know them? I told him that I had spent very little time in Spain. In recent years I had travelled chiefly in the Middle East and North Africa.

I answered an unasked question for him. ‘That would explain why you haven't made a talker yet. What were you doing out there? Researching a part?'

It had been a journey of personal discovery, and I was not yet ready to talk about it. He seemed to forget his question as soon as he asked it. Taking off his overcoat he drew from an inner pocket a silver flask which he offered to me. I refused. ‘You seem equipped for all occasions, Doctor Hanfstaengl.'

‘Well,' he said, ‘I suppose it's my job.' His bones shifted in an eccentric shrug.

He had studied at Princeton and lived in America for years. Then as he put it, he had answered Hitler's call to come home and fight for the cause. Did I know New England at all? I had only lectured there. Mostly I knew the South and the West. For a time I had been involved in politics and was associated with, among others, the famous aviator Major Simmonds. I knew Washington well. We talked about mutual acquaintances.

‘Putzi' Hanfstaengl was excellent company. When he suggested we lunch together, I readily agreed and followed him down the corridor to the dining car. He moved with the massive, oddly coordinated grace of a young carthorse, head bent, arms flailing, his expression always cheerful as if he expected everyone to share in the comedy of his own disorganisation. Mrs Cornelius and her Baron were already installed at their table, and we asked if we might join them. The Baron smiled up at us vaguely, as if at an entertainment, while Mrs Cornelius agreed with alacrity. ‘Oh, do!' she said.

She leaned towards me as I sat down. ‘Good for you, Ive,' she said. ‘I ‘ad a feelin's you'd make it!' She winked. ‘Those Aye-taye buggers was usin' you. An' ‘oo knows ‘oo that Yank gel wos bonkin'. They ‘ad you set up nicely. You're well out of it. Ya comin' with us to San Cream?'

I ignored her jealous references to Madame Sarfatti. I was on my way to Munich and Berlin. I needed a break and had always wanted to see Germany.
For one reason or another I had never managed to get there. This seemed a good time to be going. It would be a short holiday. A matter of a few weeks at most.

‘You must not judge Germany by what you see now,' Doctor Hanfstaengl insisted, picking up a menu in one hand and a napkin in the other. ‘But wait a couple of years—then there'll be a difference!'

Mrs Cornelius had had enough of all this talk. She was sick and tired of golden futures, she said. All she wanted at the moment was an ordinary present.

Doctor Hanfstaengl found this so amusing he almost spilled his mineral water. ‘I must admit I sometimes tire of the coming apocalypse.'

Would Mrs Cornelius be staying long in Vienna? She shook her head. They were going to some concerts and a couple of operas. She hoped they were jolly ones. They would be in town for a few days. Staying at the Bristol, she said. Where was that funny Russian friend of mine?

Looking about the dining car I was glad Seryozha was not there. I had not looked forward to fending him off all the way to Munich. Casually, I asked after him.

‘Oh, I don't think Hermann wanted to lose sight of him,' said Doctor Hanfstaengl with a grin. ‘You know how they all spy on one another. The Russian boy is a special friend of Röhm's. Hermann hates Röhm.' I wondered if this Röhm, whom I understood to be in command of the National Socialist
squadristi
, the
Sturmabteilung
, was Seryozha's ‘patron'. If so, I gathered he had his hands full. From the radio I knew that a month earlier the whole of the Berlin SA, the so-called ‘Storm Troopers', had been in open revolt against Hitler. They demonstrated none of our Italian discipline.

Unable easily to ask for more illumination, I decided to bide my time and let Doctor Hanfstaengl talk. He was far less close-mouthed than most of his compatriots and was genuinely funny in some of his descriptions of the Nazi ‘old fighters', as the core group called itself. Doctor Hanfstaengl had been in, he said, since the beginning, almost as soon as he had returned from the US. He had been looking around for some cause to which he could nail his colours. Something worth sticking with. He had seen the terrible results of miscegenation all over the States. People still didn't seem to realise how important an issue it was. At least there were laws in place to stop it. In the US neither big business nor the federal government had any notion of popular feeling. I, of course, needed no convincing and agreed with him heartily. I told him of the poor degenerate whites and blacks I had encountered outside of Carthage, Mississippi. They were all but indistinguishable.

We had the same enthusiasm for films and passed much of the journey to Vienna talking about our favourites. Doctor Hanfstaengl loved Griffith as much as I did but thought the Jewish elements of De Mille's work let it down.

I invited him to join me in my compartment. We spent the rest of the long journey in happy conversation. I must admit, I was glad to be away from the world of politics and armaments for a while. Doctor Hanfstaengl was a welcome change. Everything interested him. He loved music and the arts and travelled widely. He had seen G.B. Shaw perform on the London stage. Shaw was not to be missed. Hanfstaengl was also a great fan of the British playwright Ben Traven and had enjoyed all the Whitechapel farces.

After one change we spent an uneventful and pleasant journey, arriving in Vienna at about lunchtime. Doctor Hanfstaengl asked if I knew the city. When I said I did not he eagerly elected to show me the sights. We had a couple of days here, he said. He must perform a few minor chores but was otherwise entirely at my disposal. What did I feel like doing? We had rooms already booked at the Ritz on Kärntnerstrasse. Not, he added, that it was the Ritz any more. He hoped he could remember the new name.

Once my rather large assortment of trunks had been loaded, Hanfstaengl got us a taxi and asked for the Ritz. The driver knew it well. ‘It's called the Hotel Krantz now.' He drove with relaxed abandon. Happily, Viennese traffic did not move with the crazed disorder of Rome's. The journey from the station was reasonably sedate. The grand buildings of this old imperial capital had been allowed to mellow gracefully among a wealth of shrubs and flowering trees. The city had an air of dignified, slightly shabby tranquillity. We drove along wide boulevards dreaming in the sunshine of late spring. The cafés were already full, with tables so close together on the pavements it sometimes seemed people sat at one long trestle. Everything was in blossom. I was reminded of my own Kreschchatik in Kiev, when clouds of petals drifted against the pale summer sky. But Vienna's ambience was more like Odessa's. The Viennese possessed a casual, easy quality, which hardly seemed to go with their rather formal and old-fashioned clothes. Doctor Hanfstaengl pointed out various municipal sights, including the Hotel Sacher where I had once dreamed of dancing with Mrs Cornelius. That pleasure would have to be put off for a while. While imposing, the Hotel Krantz, with its red and white decor, was rather comfortable. Doctor Hanfastaengl was enthusiastically welcomed by the manager. We each had a quiet suite overlooking the garden, and if any particular service was required, we had only to ask.

Hanfstaengl apologised to me. He had some urgent business in the Praterstrasse and would be back as soon as he could. Meanwhile, why didn't I take a stroll and enjoy the city. ‘She hasn't lost all her magic.'

After a piece of adequate veal and some strange-tasting coffee I bathed and changed into my new lavender suit. Perhaps a little modern for Vienna, it would give them a chance to see what the beau monde was wearing in Rome. I attracted a certain amount of admiring attention from ladies and jealous sneers from their escorts as I strolled along the Falfnerstrasse admiring window displays and marvelling at some of the confections on display. It felt wonderful to be alone for a while. For all the new Italy's vigours and virtues, I had known little time for contemplation or tranquillity there.

Vienna proved a perfect location for a leisurely and solitary promenade. I might almost have been in Paris. The city had a pre-war ambience so endearing it sometimes brought tears to my eyes as I remembered more innocent days.

I reached an intersection and was searching for a reference point to be sure that I could find my way home, when a tram came jangling around a corner and almost knocked me over. I jumped back and suddenly, standing beside me, was Fiorello da Bazzanno in a wide-brimmed hat and a raincoat with an upturned collar. The worst of his bruising had gone, but he still looked as if he had suffered a serious accident. His pain did not stop his amusement at my surprise. He put his hand out. ‘It's safe enough to shake it here, Max.'