The Salamander, page 31
I found I could not write letters; so I made telephone calls from one end of the country to the other. I talked to men who had once been friends and were no longer. I talked to friends who were delighted to gossip but were always too busy to make a train journey to a place so outlandish as Pedognana. There were others who said they would be delighted to come, but found it hard to set a date. There were a few, six only, who expressed a care for an old friend, and a concern about what they heard had been done to him. These would give up their leave and come on various days to have a meal and a chat with me. I wondered, with growing disillusion, why there were so few of them. As we sat in the study, examining papers and photographs and tapes, Manzini gave me his own answer:
‘Cattle smell the wind, my Dante. They turn their tails to it and wait for it to pass. Reeds bend with the wind, and sing whatever music it plays on them. Chaff blows away in the gusts and only the good grain settles. Be grateful, however small the harvest. I talked to Frantisek at the Vatican today. If you want, he will visit your Lili in the Mantellate. If she wants to marry you, we can, perhaps, arrange for you to visit her so that you can become betrothed in the prison. The regulations provide for that, but you must be very sure what you want. You cannot live a lifetime on guilt and pity. Besides, you have to face the fact that we may not get her out. The law in this country is a madness out of the Dark Ages. People can rot in prison for years without a trial. And there is nothing so destructive as a disappointed hope. So, think carefully before you lay new burdens on the girl….’
I knew I must. I knew equally that I could not determine myself to a lifetime of lonely fidelity. I was not proud to admit it – God help me! – but the fact was there, brutal and inescapable. I tried to put it out of my mind and concentrate on the work in hand, which was the collation of all the material at our disposal to see if it added up to a case which would unseat Leporello and the Director.
There were two problems. My notes on the microfilms from Ponza were third-hand material collated from memory. Even the originals had belonged to Pantaleone and represented his plans for a military coup, not those of Leporello. From an intelligence point of view, my material was valuable. From a judicial one, it was quite invalid. All we had left, therefore, were the photographs and tapes of Leporello’s sexual activities in Roditi’s apartment in Milan. With these, we could make a scandal; but, in Italy at least, the scandal could be suppressed, because the law forbids the publication of obscene material. We could publish the material outside the country, but then we would be open to suspicion of forgery and the accusation of political chicanery. However, we might yet be forced to take that risk.
Whether we could make a case out of the obscene material was even more problematic. Photographs can be forged very easily. Roditi could testify to their authenticity, but Roditi had succumbed to the brain-washing and was no longer a competent witness. The tapes were even more dubious evidence. Leporello could be identified by a voice print, but the defence could claim that the tapes themselves had been edited and thus constituted a forgery.
There was another problem, too. Sexual misdemeanour is the commonest human aberration; and while everyone loves scandal, public sympathy is generally on the side of the offender – unless children are involved, which in this case they were not. If we could identify Leporello’s partners as junior members of his own service, then we would have a case, and a strong one, to have him cashiered… But, as Manzini pointed out, this was a long way from murder and political conspiracy and the high men, including the Director, would still go untouched. Roditi could have proved murder. Balbo had committed it. But Balbo was dead and Roditi lost to us.
At the end of an hour’s discussion, we decided to concentrate our case on the photographs. I borrowed a magnifying glass from Manzini and settled down to study them minutely. There were more than thirty in all, some of them clear, some of them out of focus, some so contorted in their poses that it was impossible to identify the participants. We had Leporello. There was no doubt of that. I was concerned to see if I could identify any of his partners. The problem was that we had only contact prints of thirty-five-millimetre size and each one had to be examined minutely. It would have been easier in a studio, with full equipment available, but the material was so explosive we dared not yet commit it to other hands.
Finally, I was lucky. In one frame there was a man whom I could almost certainly identify – Giuseppe Balbo. In another there was a face which, though less clear, was very familiar to me. I groped vainly for the name, but my memory, jolted and jarred by my experience, failed me every time. I called Manzini and showed him what I had found. He was jubilant.
‘If that’s Balbo, then we have all we need. A known criminal, probably a murderer, whom we can identify from a thumbprint and your testimony, and who was killed by Leporello’s men in Leporello’s zone of command. Yes, that would do it! The other one… Well, he’ll come back to you… Now, listen! We can’t afford to let this stuff out of our hands. We’ll have to bring all the equipment we need into the villa. Can you do the job?’
‘No, only the basics. This needs an expert. One we can trust.’
‘Then let’s bring one in from outside. I’ll call my people in Zurich and they can find a man and fly him down. We’re coming closer, my Dante … two steps closer. Maybe your party will be a victory celebration after all. I’ll call Zurich now. You lock that stuff away. We mustn’t scandalize the servants.’
It was still an hour to lunch-time, so I walked out on to the terrace and paced up and down, trying to reason, calmly, about Lili’s situation. Wherever I looked, there was no way out for her. Escape was impossible. Acquittal was unthinkable. There was enough material in my dossiers alone to convict her twenty times over. The Director could recommend deportation or exchange if he saw a political advantage in either. All his advantage lay in keeping her in Italy.
The afterthought was even less comforting. Lili knew her own plight better than I. The thing she feared most was now a present reality: the small room, the lights, the questions that came from nowhere. She could not bargain even for a respite. I had robbed her of the last face cards in the pack. Having once tasted liberty and hope, how would she tolerate despair?
Manzini came out to join me, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. The equipment we needed was already being packed in Milan. His expert would fly in from Zurich tomorrow. When the news failed to cheer me, he frowned and snapped at me:
‘Matucci, stop it! I refuse to spoon-feed you any more. Your Lili is no child. She will survive if she wishes. So long as she survives, there is hope. You do her no service with self-torment or self-denial either! Now, have you put a name to that face in the photograph?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Keep trying. I have set the date of the party for four weeks from now. My secretary is working on the guest list and the invitations. It will be a gala affair. This old place needs some life put into it. So do I, for that matter – and you.’
‘Truly, Bruno, I don’t see….’
‘You don’t see the nose on your own face, Dante Alighieri! That’s your problem. Look! You think you can go back to the Service again? Never – even if they wash you in the blood of the lamb and give you a new baptismal robe. So, you have to start again. Where do you start? As a spazzino, sweeping up rubbish in the streets? Of course not. You want to begin as far up the ladder as you can. For that you need friends and recommendations. Hence the party… And, because it’s my party too, it must be something everyone will want to attend and everyone will remember. “Che vale petere … e poi culo stringere… If you’re going to fart don’t tighten up. It strains the arse.” I’ve left a book in your bedroom, you might find it instructive….’
The book was the Ricordi of Francesco Guicciardini, and I read it after dinner in the study, because Bruno retired early and Pia Faubiani was not returned from Bologna. My father was a great reader, and I had learned the habit from him; though latterly, between chasing information and chasing women, I had fallen out of it. Now, like sick Satan, I was disposed to be contemplative, and I found the experience rather pleasant. I also found that Messer Francesco Guicciardini was very entertaining company.
Like me, he was a Tuscan born, a Florentine, who at twenty-nine was named by the Republic as ambassador to the King of Spain. Pope Leo X, Medici of the Medici, made him Governor of Reggio and Modena and Parma, and Pope Clement VII made him Lieutenant General of the Papal armies. He was utterly without mercy, but he knew how to govern and he loved women of all kinds and ages and conditions. The only man who could handle him was Cosimo de’ Medici, who climbed to power on his shoulders and then kicked him into retirement. But Guicciardini was a natural survivor. He retired gracefully, grew vines, wrote books and died peacefully of a stroke at fifty-eight.
The Ricordi were his secret memorials, a kind of diary of opinion and experience, which he was wise enough never to expose in his lifetime, and which were published centuries after his demise. Manzini had marked several passages and annotated them in his precise script:
‘To be open and frank is a noble and generous thing, but often harmful. On the other hand, it is useful and often indispensable to dissemble and deceive, because men are evil by nature.’ (So smile, my Dante. Show them you are a man who has no care in the world, because you have aces in your sleeve!)
‘I do not blame those who, on fire with love of country, confront dangers to establish liberty … though I think that what they do is very risky. Few revolutions succeed and, even if they do, you find very often they didn’t win what you hoped …’ (Which is why I draw back from public disorder and seek rather to seduce the ungodly in secret.)
‘Nearly all men are more concerned for their own interest than for glory and honour.’ (Remember this when you come to confront the Director, who is a quite unbearable patriot.)
‘I believe that a good citizen … should maintain friendly relations with the tyrant, not only for his own security, but also for everyone else’s good.’ (Which is why I pay money to the Movement and dine the Director, and plot with you to bring them down. You have wondered, and I know it!)
‘Do not take people too seriously when they prate the advantages of freedom… If they could find a good job in a tyrannical state, they would rush to take it.’ (I would go further. If they could be tyrants themselves, they would climb over a mountain of skulls to arrive.)
‘My position under several Pontiffs has forced me to seek their glorification for my own profit.’ (I wonder if the Director had this in mind when he cast his vote in favour of Leporello. Think about this as a motive for murder. Old Guicciardini had a lot of people executed in his time.)
‘The past illuminates the future; the world has always been the same… The same things come back with different names under different colours …’ (You and I, my Dante, are trying to change the course of history. But let’s not expect too much. The river is still the same.)
‘Nobody knows his subjects as little as their ruler.’ (This is what we are betting on, you and I. They think they have bought me. They know they have frightened you. They do not understand we have not yet begun to fight back.)
It was, at that point, that I laid down the book and went upstairs to bed. I still could not turn out the light; but lay a long time, wakeful, staring at the ceiling, until Pia Faubiani came home from Bologna.
Next day, a variety of things began to happen at Pedognana. The artisans of the estate marched in force to the villa, and in the space of a few hours converted an attic suite into a very passable photographic studio. The expert arrived from Zurich, was briefed, sworn to secrecy, and set to work installing the new equipment which had arrived from Milan. Early in the evening Corrado Buoncompagni, the editor of Manzini’s newspaper, arrived in company with a tubby little Torinese, whom he presented as Milo de Salis, the noted film director.
We were five at dinner that night – Manzini, Pia, Milo de Salis, Buoncompagni and myself. The photographer dined alone in his suite and continued working into the night. The meal turned into a council of war, at which Manzini exposed, for the first time, the scope of his design. I had seen him in many moods and acting out many roles, but I had never quite grasped him as the director of giant enterprises, a strategist of great and risky campaigns. Now, at last, I saw him plain, and was amazed at the subtlety and the audacity of his genius. He was calm, dispassionate, unhurried and yet he held us as no orator could have done.
‘… I ask no oaths of you, my friends. From this moment, we are all conspirators. We are all at risk. All of you understand the nature of the risk. We shall have to use other people. That is unavoidable. We give them only the information they need to carry out their tasks. For the rest, we lie, conceal, confuse and obfuscate, so that the true issue is clear only to us, inside this room.
‘I will define that issue. We are attempting to discredit and remove from power men who wish to impose by force, or threat of force, a government by dictation. We believe that this form of government is unacceptable to the vast majority of the people. We know, however, that it can be imposed, as it has been in the past, and that with all the modern mechanisms of control, it could be held in power for a very long time. Therefore, we must abort the colpo di stato, which we know is already planned.
‘The means at our disposal are limited. They are limited by considerations of humanity and common prudence, and by the nature of the democratic process itself. We have in our hands, explosive information, which, if improperly handled, would confuse the public mind and lead to civil disorders, which themselves would provide the best excuse in the world for an imposed order. We cannot appeal directly to the people who are already torn between the factions. We must appeal to those in power on the basis of their own self-interest, whether that interest be blind or enlightened. In other words, we work within the context of the history of this country, and not of any other. Here the people speak, but are not heard. Therefore, we do not attempt to manipulate the many-headed monster. Instead we threaten those who are afraid of the monster: ministers of state, big public functionaries, members of the elected assembly, industrialists like myself, all who have a vested interest in order and public security.
‘The threat will not be overt, but implicit. It will not be protracted, but sudden and surprising. It will call for immediate action. The action must be such as to command the approval of all those who see themselves endangered. We must be prepared to take it.
‘The preparations begin now. Corrado, commencing with Thursday’s edition, you will reverse the editorial and news policy of the paper. We are no longer Centrists, we are swinging very rapidly to the Right. I know you don’t like it. I know the staff won’t. It’s your job to keep them happy, with the best lies you can tell. I don’t think they’ll go as far as a strike; but, even if they do, it may help us. I want editorials that my Fascist friends will read and applaud. I want a big feature on the work of Major-General Leporello. Let’s call it an accolade, modified by stringent and critical recommendations. In other words, let us not be cretinous or fulsome. I don’t want to lose staff or circulation, but I want it known that I am prepared to support the Right under conditions. I want them to call me and invite me to lunch. Then I can invite them here instead.
‘Milo, your job is more difficult, because of the time and the technical problems involved. Upstairs, we have a mass of documents and notes collated by Matucci, of which the most important are the military maps and the campaign plans. In addition, we have a collection of obscene photographs and sound tapes. You have access to certain other material from film files and newsreels. You have three weeks in which to write, film and edit a ten minute film based on all that material. The film will say that Major-General Leporello is a pederast with his own troops, a murderer and a conspirator against the security of the State. Matucci, here, will edit the film with you. He will also appear as commentator and final accuser. As an actor, he needs much direction. I trust you will succeed where I have failed.
‘Matucci, you will work with Milo on the film. You will recruit and have at my disposal within the same three weeks, a pretorian guard of senior officers, who will agree to attend with you at an official function and act with you if a certain expected crisis should arise. Now, this is the riskiest point of the plan, because it involves a nice consideration of how and when the nature of the crisis is to be revealed to them. I do not know your friends. I cannot pretend to decide how you will treat with them. I can tell you only this : if they fail us at the last moment, we may all be brought low, and the ungodly may survive, stronger than ever.
‘Now, let me describe the moment at which our plan comes to fruition or disaster. I have just completed plans for one of the biggest ventures of my career, a chain of tourist hotels and marina developments around the southern coastline of the peninsula. This enterprise will bring a flow of tourists and dependent tourist industries into the depressed South. It is, therefore, of major interest to the Government. I am now able to announce that a consortium of Italian and foreign banks has agreed to finance the whole project. I propose to make that announcement at a gathering in this house a little over three weeks from now. The party will be private. No Press will be invited, but Corrado will attend as my personal guest, and as pipeline to the communications media. If we fail here, we shall, for our own protection, publish all the material we have.
‘The guest list is already prepared. It includes senior ministers and functionaries – all the people of whom I have already spoken. Major-General Leporello and his wife are on that list, as also is the Director of SID. I believe that the tone of our new editorials and features will encourage them both to attend…
‘I am still not decided what will happen on that night. We shall have to wait until acceptances have been received, before we can arrange a protocol and an order of ceremonies. I will consult with all from time to time before decisions are made. However, let me make one thing clear to all of you. If we win, no one will thank us. If we lose… Eh! We’d better take the next plane to Rio!’
