The Vengeance of Rome

Rising into the gloom, steam streaked the roof’s dirty glass. We pushed through crowds lining up against a pork butcher’s elaborate canvas, decorated with gold medals and shields, proclaiming prizes won as far away as Saxony and the Sudetenland. Electricity and naphtha buzzed. The wealth of smells made you want to stop and begin eating. You felt you could eat the air itself, it was so rich. Massive men and women commanded those stalls, like so many sea captains aboard their ships. Their wiry, darting sons and plump daughters served the customers, shouting responses and exhortations while still others called to us to buy the best of this, the freshest of that. Old men stood arguing at coffee stalls. Old women disdainfully fingered fruit.

And then, from a little cleared space near the far side of the huge, echoing hall, a hurdy-gurdy began to sound. Its cheerful, cheap blasts and whines, amplified by the roof, again reminded me of Odessa and my happiest days. An Italian with a huge Kaiser Wilhelm moustache and a tall felt hat, a tiny, red-jacketed monkey on his shoulder, was operating the handle of his barrel organ while in front of it danced a little ballerina in vivid scarlet and green. Her legs and feet were bare but she moved with extraordinary grace, her dark curls bobbing above her grave, aquiline face as she pirouetted. Her dark eyes met mine, and I was back in Kiev, falling in love with Zoyea, the gypsy girl, all over again . . .

I wanted to pause, to ask her name. To drop a coin in the cup which a boy, by looks her brother, shook at me. But von Schirach was in a hurry, and the youths with my luggage had not stopped. Again I had to trot to catch up. We followed them through another short tunnel before we had left the market and were outside again, marching against the crowd, down a few more streets to a slightly wider thoroughfare with a large carpet store on the corner, selling a rather more conservative selection than in the more fashionable Munich shops.

I was happy to find myself in a lower-class area dominated by a great, Baroque church. St Peter’s was like one of our Kiev churches, though somewhat plainer. The invulnerable old bricks seemed to offer a stable centre. I felt thoroughly comfortable in this district and was again reminded of my childhood. While my father had been connected directly by blood to the most aristocratic family in Russia, therefore making me vulnerable to assassination by Reds, his irresponsible pursuit of socialism had led to all our ruin. So I grew up in a similar area, with children playing noisily in the streets, women gossiping, washing lines hanging across courtyards, with dogs, carts and bicycles everywhere. To me it was like home. Even the stone and brick felt warmer. The smells were more familiar. I began at once to relax. Here I could escape the hustle and bustle of political and sexual life! As I had been burning the candle at both ends, I needed to rest. I began to relish the prospect of peace. With the elections coming in several key areas, I was not likely to have much company among the Nazis, at least for a few weeks. I would spend my time rethinking my situation, considering what I could do to improve my circumstances.

A few more doors down the unremarkable street and we stopped at a shopfront whose windows were protected by an iron grille, securely padlocked. The grilles had received a heavy battering at some time. The red, black and white paint of the outside had flaked and the building hardly seemed used any more. Behind the grilles on the windows were older portraits of Adolf Hitler, ‘the saviour of Germany, the keeper of our national honour’. Swastika symbols and the initials of the NSDAP made it clear we were at a local Nazi HQ. I suspected here we would pick up a key to some nearby apartment, but no sooner had Schirach unlocked the side door than the boys were dragging my bags through the gloom, which smelled strongly of dusty old paper, and up a flight of stairs. Von Schirach closed the door behind us, following me as I climbed in the boys’ wake, my face a little too close to the nearest pair of tight black shorts whose owner was inclined to sweat readily and had that sour, unpleasant smell of most young boys, but I watched with pleasure his healthy little muscles and sinews rippling with the effort of dragging my worldly goods to the top of the building where we stopped at last. Von Schirach was beaming as he unlocked the door, flung it open and ceremoniously handed me the keys. ‘Your flat!’

It was, in fact, a very comfortable little place. I suspected a woman’s touch, a mistress or perhaps simply a mother, for it was almost feminine in its furnishings, with everything one might need neatly placed. Schirach had lived here himself until fairly recently, when his circumstances had improved, he said. His rent had helped the party through some thin times. Now the place was here for me as long as I needed it. The party required no rent these days. He understood I had accomplished important work for the Italian dictator. He was a great fan of Signor Mussolini, who had done wonders for Italy. He had undertaken the Herculean task of bringing masculine fire to that quintessentially feminine Italian soul. If anyone could do it, he could. Meanwhile, his emissaries were always welcome in Germany, especially among the ranks of Nazis. They had much in common with the Fascist cause. He quoted a favourite saying of the great dictators: ‘It is better to spend one day as a lion than to spend a lifetime as a lamb.’