So when Luca Salviati discouraged me from taking on responsibility, while his sister, more and more desperate for his attention, beckoned under the arbor, I closed the subject. “It was a misunderstanding,” I said. “No one is at fault.”
“Obviously,” he repeated.
I looked past his shoulder. Mimma’s voice ascended half an octave as she repeated her cry. “Luca, vieni, vieni.”
“Your sister is calling you,” I said.
His mouth stretched thin and turned up at the corners in a simulacrum of a smile. “Yes,” he said. “Doubtless she fears you are seducing me.”
This remark was so inappropriate it made me snort. “Please assure her, nothing could be further from my mind,” I said.
“I hope you will enjoy your stay with us,” he said. And with that he turned away and walked back at a leisurely pace to calm the fears of his cantankerous sibling.
* * *
On Monday afternoon, when Beatrice’s gasping Cinquecento made the final leap into the driveway, I was ensconced at my table, leafing through a biography of Mussolini I had found in an English bookstore in Siena. The car jolted to a halt and for a few moments, as was her wont, she appeared to search the seat, the floor, the glove compartment for something she couldn’t find. Perhaps it was something small and she did find it, but I couldn’t see that. Then she threw open the door and swung her long legs out, rapping the ground with the narrow heels and rising up in one smooth motion, her spine straight, her chin lifted, to her full height. It had turned cooler overnight and she had pulled a light lime-green cashmere cardigan over her patterned blouse. She was wearing close-fitting but not tight black pants of some shiny, stretchy fabric. She really knows how to dress, I thought. She saw me there and raised her hand in greeting.
“How was Firenze?” I called out.
She hesitated, uncertain whether to engage or not. She could say it was fine, or hot, and go her way—no more was required. But as I watched her, curiosity got the better of her and she approached my outpost. “It was lovely,” she said. “I am always happy when I am in Firenze. I walk the streets and eat a gelato. I am a child again there.”
“You grew up there.”
She was close now and stood looking down at me. “I did,” she said. “I went to school there. What are you reading?”
I closed my book and showed her the cover.
“Ah,” she said. “Mussolini. That villain.”
“I didn’t know he started as a socialist.”
“He pretended to be whatever was necessary to consolidate his power.”
“Did you ever see him?”
“No,” she said. “I often saw his picture. It was everywhere. And I read the writing on the wall. Literally. ‘Il Duce ha sempre ragione.’ ”
“The leader is always right,” I translated.
“Very good,” she said.
“This was graffiti?” I asked.
She grimaced. “This was propaganda. The printing was of the highest quality. Another one was ‘Noi sogniamo l’Italia Romana.’ ”
I considered this. “We dream of a Roman Italy?”
“Close enough,” she said. “You make a good little fascist.”
I chuckled. “But I don’t get it. Why a Roman Italy?”
“The empire,” she said. “Mussolini thought he was Caesar Augustus. That’s why we had to invade Ethiopia. To have an empire.”
“Yes,” I said, indicating my book. The cover featured a photograph of Il Duce, just his head and shoulders against a background of red and yellow, the colors of the fascist flag. His domed forehead and fierce eyes gazed coldly at the camera. Oddly, he was wearing what looked like a tuxedo jacket and black bow tie. “He writes about that,” I said.
She laid her manicured fingers across the book, covering the image of the Duce. “Why are you interested in this sad business?” she asked. “It’s over now. No one wants to talk about it.”
“It wasn’t so long ago,” I said.
“That’s true,” she agreed. “I grew up knowing nothing else. I thought it was normal. I thought it was the world.”
“You were a good little fascist,” I teased.
She nodded. “We children all were, more or less. There were youth groups, like what Americans call Scouts; we all had to join. The school day started with singing ‘Giovinezza,’ a song about how Italians have been remade by Mussolini. We recited an oath of allegiance. Everyone had to do his bit for the Duce. But as I got older, I saw there were those who found ways to resist. And once the war came to us, the whole cloth came unwoven pretty quickly.”
“And how did they resist, the resisters?”
“In little ways. And sometimes in big ways. It was dangerous; everyone knew that. Even I knew that.” She paused. Her expression grew thoughtful, and I said nothing. I turned my book facedown and pushed it aside so that Mussolini couldn’t hear us. Beatrice appeared to approve this action, for as I raised my eyes to hers, she nodded slightly, her lips pursed. “I’m thinking of a story I could tell you,” she said. “It might be of interest to you.”
At once I rose from my seat, turning toward the apartment. “Let me grab a chair from the kitchen,” I said. “Will you have a glass of wine?”
“Yes,” she said. “And some water, please.” She watched me bustle about in her amused, aloof way. I brought out the chair, then went back for the wine and the glasses, then again for the water bottle. “I have a nice piece of Asiago,” I said, gazing into my refrigerator.
“Please,” she said, “no cheese. I’ve been eating gelato.”
I closed the fridge and joined her at the table.
“Enough with the dairy,” she said.
I laughed, pouring out the glasses. “Is this a story about your family?” I asked.
“In a way,” she said. “It’s a story I remember from the war, when I was a teenager in Firenze. I thought I was very important, but it turned out I was wrong about that.”
A Rooftop in Firenze
AUGUST 1944
At fourteen, Beatrice Salviati Bartolo was a volatile bundle of hormones, surging and shorting out like an electric grid in a hurricane. Overconfident, argumentative, and smart, she confronted the world head-on, without guile or anxiety. Her schoolmates deferred to her; the girls imitated her style, and the boys, torn between her physical attraction and the danger of her explosive temper, teased her from a safe distance.