Then what?”
“Yes, then what?” I said.
He looked at me sharply, then back at my mother. “Anyway, they couldn’t have been nicer. Came to the house, had a drink, and that was it. Never even had to go to the station. Now that it’s over, I rather miss it, the little visits.”
“Oh, Bertie, you don’t mean it. He’s creepy.”
“You don’t find him charming?” Bertie said.
“The police?”
Gianni smiled. “Police are men too. In America maybe it’s different.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, they’re not drinking at Harry’s. How can he afford it, aside from anything else?”
“Grace, dear,” Bertie said, “that is exactly the sort of question one should never ask. Not here.”
“You mean he’s-” My mother started, eyes wide, imagining, I suppose, black-market storerooms and goods hidden under raincoats.
“Bertie makes a joke, I think,” Gianni said, calming her. “It’s not so expensive, one drink. Even at Harry’s.”
“But imagine a policeman at ‘21’,” my mother said, still toying with it.
“There she is,” Bertie said, spotting the principessa. “What did I tell you? Less time than it takes to-fresh lipstick too. She’s a wonder. Enjoy your dinner.” He hurried away, intercepting her at their table and helping her with her coat.
“We must go too,” Gianni said. “Have you finished your drink?” He turned, surprised to find me looking at him.
“How is it that you know him?” I said.
“Inspector Cavallini? Sometimes they come to the hospital for help. Medical evidence.”
“Really?” my mother said. “Did you ever solve anything?”
Gianni smiled. “Not yet. Shall we go?” He leaned over to wrap my mother’s fur around her shoulder.
I got up. Dizzy for a second, I pressed against the table for support.
“Are you all right?” he asked, a doctor’s voice.
I nodded. “Just a drink on an empty stomach. I forgot I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Too busy looking at art,” my mother said, amusing herself.
The dining room at the Monaco was formal and starchy-waiters in black tie, silver serving trolleys, soft, flattering lights. Gianni made a pleasant fuss ordering us schie and polenta to start, a winter specialty, then took his time with the wine list. I had a cigarette and looked around the room-a light crowd, off-season, but dressed for an evening out, elegant, as if they, like the quails on the serving cart, had somehow been preserved in aspic. The room was almost as warm as Harry’s, immune to fuel shortages. There were arrangements of winter branches, like abstracts of flowers, ice buckets, the smell of perfume. At one point I noticed Gianni smiling at my mother, and I followed his eyes, wanting just for a minute to see what he did and realized that for them the room was somehow erotic. Not cheap hotels and tepid baths, worn sheets and bare skin, nothing that had made my afternoon exciting. For them the furs and perfume and rich food were part of what sex had become. He was looking at money.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” I said, drawing their attention back to the table. “Is he an inspector now?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And he has been-I mean, he consulted you on cases. So that means he was working for the Germans.”
“Technically. At the end. We were an occupied country.”
“But he’s police. Not a doctor or a waiter or something. Police. Why hasn’t he been thrown out?”
“For doing what?”
“Enforcing German laws. And before that-”
“Fascist laws? Yes, you can say it. Well, who knows if he enforced them?” He tasted the wine, the waiter hovering. “Yes, very nice.” We said nothing as the waiter poured.
“But if he didn’t, what makes you think he’ll enforce new ones now?”
Gianni smiled. “Well, it’s a question, yes? But you see, you make the problem for yourself. I don’t expect him to enforce them-not too many anyway. Just the ones we need to live. The others, we bow, we tip our hat, we ignore. Shall we make a toast? To happier times?”
“Yes,” my mother said, raising her glass.
We clinked glasses-celebrating what?
“You’re still troubled by this?” Gianni said, looking at me.
“But if he was a police officer, he must have been a Fascist. I mean, in the party.”
Gianni nodded. “It was required. But what was in his heart, I don’t know. People do things to survive. So we must give them the benefit of the doubt.”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” my mother said lightly.
Gianni smiled. “Well, innocent, maybe that goes too far.” He looked at me. “I understand what you mean. But how can I explain it to you? To live under-you know the word tyranny is from the Latin tyrannus. So we have known how to live with this for a long time. You bend. Maybe you think we bend too much, but we look at history and it tells us, the important thing is to survive.” He opened his hand, gesturing. “And we did. Now with this good wine. In this beautiful city. All still here, still beautiful. It’s the Germans who have gone. We survived them too. For us it’s a kind of strength, to bend.” He paused. “When it’s inevitable.”
“Like The House of Levi,” I said, thinking to myself.
“What?” my mother said.
“It was The Last Supper. He changed the title because the pope didn’t like it.”
“The Inquisition didn’t like it,” Gianni said. “More Nazis. Torture. Burnings. Worse, sometimes. Castrating people. You learn how to bend with a history like ours.”
“But that was a question of belief.”
“You think Goebbels didn’t believe? Any of them? Right up to the end they believed in something. I don’t know what-their own hate, maybe. And when the Inquisition lit the fires under people, what did they believe? To save them. By killing them. Compared to the Church, the Nazis were amateurs. At least the Nazis didn’t ask you to think they were right to do it. They didn’t care what you thought.” He studied his wine. “Forgive me, no more speeches. But your painting-does it matter what it’s called? So long as it’s beautiful?”
“No.”
“You see, an Italian answer. And Veronese, you know he was also being a tiny bit naughty. Putting all that in, the dwarfs, the drinking. A sacred scene. He knew what they would think. But that’s Italian too, maybe, to tweak the nose-that’s right? tweak? — of the Church. You can do that if you bend. The Germans never understood that- they never bend and they destroy themselves. Why?” He shook his head. “Northern people. Sometimes they are all a mystery.”
“All of us?” my mother said, flirting.
“Oh, you, certainly. A great mystery. But that’s because you’re a woman. All women are mysteries.” A stage courtliness, the two of them practically winking at each other.
The polenta arrived, covered in tiny brown shrimp from the lagoon.
“Funny about Bertie knowing him,” my mother said. “He was careful with him, did you notice? I’ll bet it wasn’t half as easy as he makes out. During the war.”
“No, not for anyone,” Gianni said. “Of course, Bertie has many friends. I don’t think it was dangerous for him.”
“Irish, my foot,” my mother said, laughing to herself. She glanced over at Gianni, her face soft. Not just a dinner companion, someone to take charge of the wine list.
“In Germany, you were a soldier?” Gianni said, keeping the conversation going.
“G-2. Intelligence. We investigated Germans suspected of Nazi activity.”
“Ah, that explains your interest in Cavallini. One investigator to another, eh? You want to compare methods?” He was smiling.
“Ours was mostly pushing paper around.”
He laughed. “So was his, I think. But it must have been difficult, yes? Surely the real Nazis would lie. So how
