AT THE GENTLEMEN’S Circle in Bari on the evening of Sunday 25 July 1943, the atmosphere was very festive. The glasses were filled to the brim, the cigars were good, the card games went on long into the night and there was more than the usual traffic in the garden. That night, the brothel couldn’t keep up with all the demand. July was almost over, as were the days of freedom for the club’s members: in August the men headed off to towns on the coast or farmhouses inland to spend the holiday with their families.
In the large salon there was a contagious euphoria that seemed ready to spill over into a real ruckus because everyone was shouting, alternating political conversations with nervous giggles that followed salacious comments. The hilarity affected all the armchairs when a short, chubby man came running in and tripped on the rug; he was the most important forestry owner in the region. When he’d managed to regain his composure, he started waving his arms to get everyone’s attention.
‘Turn on the radio! They’ve just said that the king is going to make an important announcement to the nation.’
The conversations stopped and were replaced by general murmuring. The exclamations of surprise and nervous questions spread from table to table.
‘The king? What’s going on? This doesn’t sound good!’
The bolder ones moved closer to the radio, which the bartender kept in the drinks cabinet, and waited in expectant silence. A tall man with white skin and red hair, a lock manufacturer, started to turn the dial. He stopped when he heard the last few notes of ‘The Royal March’. The others drew near and formed a circle around the radio.
A deep, serious voice read the king’s announcement very slowly: ‘His Majesty the King and Emperor has accepted the resignation of His Excellency Cavaliere Benito Mussolini from his duties as the head of the government, prime minister and secretary of state, and has appointed Cavaliere and Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio to be head of the government, prime minister and secretary of state.’
The broadcast ended before they had had time to process the statement. ‘The Royal March’ played again. The gentlemen looked at each other, confused. None of them had predicted Il Duce’s end and none of them were expecting it. Angelo Convertini tiptoed over to his wingchair and dropped into it, dejected.
After a long silence, he was one of the first to speak. ‘What did the king mean? He hasn’t removed Mussolini from office, has he?’
‘Shit, Angelo! Sometimes you just don’t get it. The announcement couldn’t have been clearer. The king has removed Mussolini and put Badoglio in his place,’ explained the forestry owner.
‘Removed? It can’t be right. It was Il Duce who made us great,’ stammered Angelo, disheartened.
‘Great? Nonsense! What have we got out of this war?’ said the lock manufacturer, who had been months without a sizeable order. ‘Our economy is full of holes, just like our army. The Allies will end up winning the war and when that day comes, we’ll be on the losing side. I don’t know where you see greatness.’
‘How can the Allies win the war?’
‘They’re advancing on every front. Now they’re preparing to land somewhere on continental Europe and it won’t be long before they conquer all of Italy if they put their minds to it; the Americans have an exceptional army, much better than twenty years ago. Don’t you read the newspapers?’ the lock man again challenged him.
‘Maybe with Mussolini out of the picture Italy will leave the war before Germany drags us into an even bigger disaster,’ pointed out the forestry owner, who had a nose for politics, seeing as he didn’t have to work for a living and could devote all his time to reading the international press.
‘You are completely right, fascism was a mistake,’ Scarafile nervously interjected. He was a vintner who had used the wheat-campaign incentives to sow seed in hundreds of barren, worthless acres. He had made more money in three or four years that way than in an entire life making the finest Primitivo wine in the region.
Angelo gave him an incredulous look because he clearly remembered standing beside him on the Lungomare in Bari the day that Mussolini had come to review one of the Alpine divisions. They had been among the special guests, right in front of the Albergo delle Nazioni, and he recalled Fiorenzo Scarafile applauding with exaggerated enthusiasm and elbowing everyone out of the way to get to shake the dictator’s hand.
‘Poor Il Duce. I think we should be more appreciative of the man who brought us prosperity,’ insisted Angelo, thinking of what could happen to his son Franco if the fascists crumbled.
‘You said it: “brought prosperity”. Past tense. When was the last time you sold a fir plank? In fact, you couldn’t sell one even if you found a buyer, because there have been no shipments of timber from Russia for the last three years. And our best workers are at the front. How do they expect us to do anything without labour?’ concluded the lock manufacturer. And that was the end of the discussion, because the club had emptied around them.
Feeling nervous, the members were suddenly in a rush to get home. Or perhaps they were still planning to go to the coast for the summer. The gentlemen of Bari could go up to the towns of Gargano; nothing bad could happen up on that craggy outcrop. Angelo could still gather with his family in Savelletri and wait out Rome’s power struggle; its proximity to Bellorotondo would allow him to return to the factory when needed and from there he could also control the farms.
When they left the Gentlemen’s Circle, they saw that the girls from the bordello had also turned off the lights and closed the doors and windows. With her customers so frightened, La Bella Antonella had little to celebrate.
The disquiet at the Bari’s Gentlemen’s Circle was inversely proportional to the euphoria the cave dwellers were feeling in Matera. Without access to a radio, they weren’t able to listen to King Victor Emmanuel III’s announcement, but at midnight Roosevelt had brought them news of Mussolini’s fall from grace. That was all they needed to know: it had been three long years since they’d had such good news.