Rome, Sunday, December 24, 1944 "Eight months, three weeks, and five days, and I'm still alive!" Luigi Mari briskly pushed the wheelchair to the living room door, spread his arms and smiled at his friend Roger Stratton, although the latter was increasingly bewildered both by the liveliness of the welcome and by his host's condition. In the early 1940s, Stratton had been a captain in the U.S. Navy at the Atlantic Fleet command, then at the end of '43 he was transferred to Italy as an O.S.S. agent, in Major Bill Patterson's special operations unit, coordinating sabotage and interdiction activities against the German occupation forces. He had been Mari's direct contact, who in turn commanded the Clandestine Military Front, a resistance group made up of officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers of the Royal Army. "Hey Luigi, you look..." Stratton looked up at the ceiling, snapped his fingers to dispel the uncertainty, "how do you say... you look 'na bellezza." "That's how they say it in Naples, my friend, they say it in Campania," Mari laughed and leaned forward, "the usual contaminations of the Italian language never leave you." "You're right, but that's where I was assigned when I arrived in Italy, that's where I began to love your country, il bel paese ch'Appennin parte e 'l mar circonda et l'Alpe," the American sighed, his attitude distracted by pleasant thoughts, "now, my friend, tell me about yourself instead: I haven't seen you since June and I imagine that time count refers to something else, beyond your convalescence..." Mari gestured for his friend to sit on the sofa next to him. The other settled onto the cushions, tall as he was, unbuttoned his double-breasted blue jacket and crossed his legs, smoothed his red hair, a thick frame for the expression curious in anticipation of an answer. "Every morning I count the time of my new condition," Mari began, his tone light, "it's as if I've moved away from the world, from the war, from the hatred for the enemy, from the tragedies of my men..."
His voice broke into a labored breath, a gasp of emotion, a silent and painful pause. He knew very well how that count of months, weeks, days had begun: March twenty-eighth, the evening of March twenty-eighth when he had been intercepted at Porta Pinciana by the Schutzstaffel soldiers under Priebke's command. Chased amid gunfire on Via Lombardia, he had been struck twice in the right leg by bullets. He was bleeding and running toward the building where he lived under a false identity, bleeding and his strength failing him: he had just managed to enter the doorway, cross the entrance hall, and throw himself into the studio facing the courtyard. He had collapsed after crossing the glass entrance door. At the sound of the spring bell, some workers had rushed around him, unconscious on the carpet, as bloodied as he was. Although they did not know him, they had not hesitated for a moment to carry out the frantic orders of the owner: to quickly hide that lifeless wounded man, put away the bloodstained carpet, and clean the floor. From the Nazi soldiers they had hidden and protected him, thus risking their lives to give him an improbable hope of survival. The owner of the atelier, Iolanda Pandolfi, had cared for him in her home on the third floor of the same building and had saved him. "I know what you're thinking," Stratton placed his hand on his shoulder, then with an affectionate squeeze broke the flow of his friend's thoughts, "then two weeks passed without any news from you... then a friend of Iolanda who had a pass from the Spanish embassy managed to get in touch with me." "You were the one who brought me the medicines, the penicillins, the painkillers," Mari added, "not even at the Vatican Pharmacy was it possible to get them. I remember your first visit here, in this house: I had the bed in the guest room, day and night in semi-darkness, an unconscious state between sudden fevers and endless stabbing pains..." "You fought your battle to survive day by day, Luigi." "Thanks to you too, thanks to what you did for us," Mari coughed, from the pocket of his Harris Tweed jacket he brought the scented handkerchief to his lips, "with the liberation of Rome you accomplished a memorable feat, you made a dream come true, or rather the end of a nightmare, the worst of nightmares... after Via Rasella then..."
The American stood up and approached the French window of the balcony, which crowned the building all around. He looked from high up to the right, then to the left, watching the city lights come on to counter the dusk of an unusually cold and rainy day. "After that, we saw each other often, almost every day for a few weeks," Stratton grew somber, his voice broken by a sudden turmoil, "then everything collapsed on me: the sudden return to Virginia, to Norfolk for the burial of Joseph, my brother who fell in the Pacific, the discovery of Helen's ongoing betrayal, the rushed divorce because of her advanced pregnancy. War causes so many wounds and so many scars, and the ones on the body are not the worst." The brief and light tapping at the door preceded the appearance of Annina, the housekeeper, and her muttering as she managed a large tray with cups, teapot and milk jug, and a stand with freshly baked cookies, fragrant with ginger and cinnamon. "Here is the afternoon tea, we're down to the last reserves of the bergamot one," she grumbled as she busied herself arranging napkins, cutlery, and porcelain, "will this shortage ever end? I can't sleep at night worrying that nothing is missing in the kitchen..." Years before the war, Annina, like many single women looking for work, had come to Rome from the Castelli Romani and, thanks to a fellow villager who was a shopkeeper, entered the service of Iolanda Pandolfi: she had grown fond of her and the house, but by habit she still retained an irrepressible country frankness, combined with rustic spontaneity and an innate intolerance for any inconvenience in running the household. "Okay, okay Annina, message received," Stratton approached her with a broad, lingering smile, "I promise that after Christmas I’ll get you a box with all the varieties of tea you need," then he leaned over the set coffee table, "oh my God, these cookies are a real temptation!" "Please help yourself, Commander," Annina withdrew, blushing a little, lost between gratification and uncertainty, "I'll go back to the kitchen, I have my work cut out preparing a real Christmas Eve dinner, for what it cost. Just call if you need anything." "Thank you Annina, that won't be necessary," Mari reassured her, "you'll be on time as always and Iolanda has promised not to be late." Thanks to the comfort of the impeccable tea and the exquisite variety of cookies, the two war companions set aside all previous considerations, removed the emotions, and exchanged compliments and gestures of satisfaction. "Now you tell me," Stratton fixed his friend with an interested and equally intrusive look, "you wrote to me that in these months your devotion to Iolanda has turned into a feeling more..." "I've fallen in love, Roger!" Mari almost spilled his cup in the instinctive verbal reaction, his eyes shining with happiness. "I should have guessed it, I'm happy for you. I had sensed something from your letters..." the American nodded his head several times, his gaze complicit in that admission, "and I am sure that Iolanda deeply returns your love: I remember how carefully she took care of you, how she comforted you, the tireless sweetness she dedicated to you..." Mari jerked his wheelchair back, as if in a leap of joy. "We're getting married! We'll get married as soon as this damned war is over," he confessed hastily, "I don't even care if I walk again or not: I want to live with her, forever, whatever my fate." Stratton stood up and hugged his friend, holding him tight: they were shaken by an irrepressible emotion, something they both recognized as a joy long awaited. "The end of the war is our only wish, the sole objective of all our offensives," Stratton's tone became formal, as if studied and repeated like a ritual formula, a firmly held dogma. "Allow me to have some doubts," Mari interrupted him, hands raised and waving to show clear disagreement, "at least recently some decisions by the Allied command seem to contradict you..." Stratton laughed, an ironic grimace on his face, stood up and, as if irritated, paced restlessly and briskly back and forth across the large room. "Damn, Luigi, you can't really believe that!" "But you're wrong, my friend," Mari replied resolutely, "I'm convinced of it by both specific circumstances and unequivocal documents. On at least two occasions in recent weeks, the Allied Command has created conditions that hinder resistance to the Nazi occupation and the survival of the fascist regime." "I imagine what you're referring to, I suppose what doubts and turmoil they may have caused," Stratton looked at him with a frown, then stopped at the French window to observe the alternation of lights and shadows on Via Veneto, "first of all, you are saddened by the possible consequences of General Alexander's proclamation..."
"Damn, it was outrageous!" Mari reacted, pounding his fists on the armrests of the wheelchair. "People don't realize what that decision meant for those who are in hiding, underground, or in the mountains: the discouragement of those men who have sacrificed everything to fight the Nazis and the Fascists will increase their distrust, drag them into doubt, lull the desire to abandon a struggle already unequal. And that's not all..." Mari fell silent, hunched his shoulders, head bowed, ticking off a list of distressing considerations by priority. "Kesselring must have rejoiced from his convalescent bed," he continued in a low voice, "consider what an incredible strategic advantage the German occupiers have gained: months and months of almost unilateral truce, thus time to reorganize, recover, reposition, strengthen, clear the occupied territories with arrests, betrayals, persecutions, torture, roundups, summary executions, and every other cruelty. Congratulations to the entire Allied command!" "I realize it may seem that way," Stratton ventured, "but I don't think so, on the contrary..." Mari silenced him with a look blazing with indignation. "And the fascists and the secret police, the militiamen, the fanatic legionaries and the criminal opportunists?" he continued with a censorious intent. "Will they perhaps have free and unarmed rein for new atrocities until spring? Will they feel free to persecute those who had the courage and strength to rebel against the regime?" Angrily, he felt the full reasonable justice of his considerations. "Or are there other unmentionable intentions of the Allies? What can I imagine? A general amnesty rather than individual acts of clemency? Draconian conditions to be imposed on Italy at a forthcoming peace conference? Even exonerating today's enemies to legitimize them in a new warmongering coalition against an inconvenient ally of today destined for hostility in a more or less near future? What else?" The American sat down on the sofa, again next to his friend, but turning to him with the firm expression of someone used to full control of his emotions. "You know very well that strictly military operations are continuing, with moderate slowness but they are proceeding," he stated decisively as he examined the various types of cookies left. "You'll see that the facts will prove both of us right, certainly not your anxieties." "Roger, if the esteem I feel for you were lacking, I would have to believe that you consider me incapable of understanding the real significance even of documents and of your initiatives of uncertain intent..." "Yes, the documents you mentioned," Stratton interrupted him, "so, tell me which ones generate your doubts and consequently this unhealthy anguish." "If I didn't feel friendship and gratitude toward you," Mari replied resentfully, raising his left hand with his index finger pointed, his eyes inflamed with indignation, "I would end our unpleasant conversation: I hate being considered a soldier now disabled both in body and mind, now incapable of exploring and understanding the directions of history. You know very well the punctum dolens." "All right, let's do this right, my friend" Stratton raised his arms in surrender, his voice heated by the emotional reaction to his friend's irritation. "Forgive any misunderstanding, I apologize for any misunderstanding: as always, I am here for the esteem and trust you deserve as an officer and as a partisan, you are our friend Luigi." "All right, I too let myself get carried away by irritation at the accumulation of bad news..." Mari winked to reinforce the conciliatory tone. Stratton stretched out on the sofa until he clasped both his hands. "If by bad news," he continued, more serene, "you mean the Wehrmacht's counteroffensive in the Ardennes, the disaster at Bastogne, or the temporary retreat of the third and seventh American armies, then you can sleep soundly: a lost battle will not compromise the optimistic forecast for the final outcome of the war..."
"So," Mari interrupted him, "what are they saying at the embassy about General Montgomery's sudden recall to Versailles by Generalissimo Eisenhower? Are the British really pressuring for Montgomery to take overall command of the entire western front?" "It's too early to predict," Stratton smiled, pleased at the renewed recognition of his reliability, "I can confirm that at the general command there are not insignificant disagreements between the British commanders and the American generals: perhaps lately also due to the military events you mentioned." Mari listened attentively, various lines of reasoning crowding his mind in a carousel of possible alternative hypotheses. "Speaking of the British, Luigi," Stratton resumed, "returning to the point of contention in our discussion, I imagine you were referring to an unfavorable judgment on the agreements of last December seventh." "Certainly, the so-called 'Rome Protocols,'" Mari clenched his fists, an ironic grimace crossing his face, "the agreements between General Maitland Wilson and the National Liberation Committee for Northern Italy..."
«Jumbo Wilson, the tactician beloved by Churchill,» the American coughed, stifling a boisterous laugh, «will go to Washington to replace the late John Dill. But I don't understand why you're worried about those agreements: in the end, here at Allied command, a guarantee was needed for the monthly allocation to the Committee of Relevant Financial Resources. Gosh! That's a good one hundred and sixty million lire a month...» Mari fell silent, waiting for his friend to have nothing more to add. «So you should be pleased,» Stratton continued, «every disagreement is smoothed out when it is agreed that everything has a cost, so that everything is given a fair price. I don't understand: what is it that doesn't convince you? Why this aversion of yours?» Mari cleared his throat, dissolved the lump in his throat that heralded impulsive replies, struggled to restrain them, and forced himself to measure his words one by one in response. «Listen, Roger: in the protocols, without any possibility of misunderstanding, it is established that the Italian side will lose sovereignty, free self-determination, and the exercise of fundamental rights typical of a free state. The much-vaunted military cooperation between Allied troops and partisans is, in fact and in law, a substantial subordination, as well as a formal one: the leaders of the resistance are now entirely subject to the command organs of the British and American armies,» Mari felt the clarity of his argument and expanded on it, «this will materialize in the obligation for the resistance to carry out all—note well, I insist—all the instructions given by the Allied command. Moreover, the military leader of the resistance must be solely an officer, not a politician or a qualified civilian, acceptable to the Allied military command, if not even chosen by them directly, and you know what I mean. It goes without saying that all these agreements, their tenor, and the objective conditions of the parties imply and even constitute a worrying mortgage on the institutional future of Italy...» Stratton leaned forward, his back hunched, his hands fidgeting in a nervous tangle. «Good heavens!» he exclaimed, head down, «I never would have imagined such implications.» «Actually, there's worse,» Mari insisted firmly, «upon the withdrawal of the German occupation forces, it is reiterated that an Allied military government will be established, to which all powers of government and administration will be ceded. The entire command of the National Liberation Committee will be placed under, I emphasize under, the authority of the Allied commander-in-chief and must carry out any order, including the surrender of weapons. However, nothing is established for the republicans, the fascists, the militiamen, and all those who oppose the resistance parties and the victory of the Allied forces. Why, I ask myself and I ask you, why?» The American shrugged, a grimace of resigned incompetence crossed his face, leaving a deep wrinkle on his broad forehead. Mari noted the tacit response and continued. «This is how you build the fate of a subjugated and dominated nation,» he syllabified the last words to reinforce their negative meaning, «Italy as part of the British Empire, its dominion? Why not even a colony? This is Churchill's will, whether you accept it or not.» Stratton started, his eyes wide with disbelief, his lips parted, yet silent. «Don't be surprised, I wouldn't if I were you, my friend,» said Mari with a charitable tone, «otherwise I would think that the actual importance for the British prime minister of the exhausting, absurd conflict between your—actually our—General Clark and the British Montgomery and Alexander has not been understood: at stake was, and still is, military supremacy as a prerequisite for the aspiration to dominate Italy, a central nation in the Mediterranean and strategically indispensable for the control of the Near East...» «And for a good part of the African continent!» exclaimed Stratton, nodding with arms wide open.
"Roger, I am gratified that you are beginning to go along with my musings. However, there is a further concern raised by that document. The mercenary agreement prescribes a change in the primacy of the values to be defended: it imposes that the utmost care, I repeat utmost, must be devoted by the resistance to safeguarding Italian economic resources against fires, destruction, and sabotage carried out by the Germans. Do you understand the horror of such an approach?" Mari fixed his friend with a long, inquisitive look. "There is no mention of culture, art, the immensity of the monumental heritage. In case of serious threat, of imminent danger, one should defend the factory rather than the Milan Cathedral, the railways rather than the Verona Arena, and so everywhere in Italy: what ignoble barbarism!" Mari fell silent. He felt an unusual exhaustion, a sudden dizziness that he associated with his own statements: taken together, he judged them a painful lament, and in the end, they seemed to him an intrusive and inappropriate tirade towards his friend. He felt honest embarrassment at having repaid the courtesy visit, the friendly affection, the festive Christmas formality with that diatribe. He turned his gaze to Stratton, and was astonished: the extraordinary, courageous war companion had bowed his head, rearranged his legs in a geometric posture, arms folded across his chest, so that he seemed focused on sharing the same emotion, indeed a sincere state of mind suspended between dismay and contemplation. The two remained in silence, each immersed in painful reflections, each imagining loopholes, exceptions, stratagems, opposition, interventions against that disguised incivility, against the colonizing institutional submission, against the commodification of values, ideals, virtues. From the smoking table Mari grabbed the service bell, the same one Iolanda had wanted to spare him still tiring movements, and rang it with a prolonged and nervous ring. "Iolanda wants me to be able to call the housekeeper effortlessly," he justified himself as he put the bell back, "without having to move by myself: patience is needed, dear Roger." From the corridor, a murmur and then a patter caught his attention as well as Stratton's. "I didn't want to disturb your conversation, which was rather lively I would say," Iolanda entered ahead of Annina, "I just got back and stayed in the kitchen for the last preparations for our Christmas Eve lean dinner," she smiled and hugged Stratton, who, standing, had leaned forward in an attempt at a hand kiss. "It's already evening and you're still amusing yourselves with tea and biscuits," she remarked jokingly, as she pirouetted here and there in the room to turn on several other table lamps. "Roger, if you stay for dinner with us you won't regret it: Annina has prepared spaghetti with tuna and caper sauce, then a Sicilian-style stewed cod, at Luigi's request fried cauliflower, broccoli and sage in batter, and also fennel au gratin with Sabine cheese. And I bought the millefeuille with custard that he loves." Mari sensed the thoughtful grace of that invitation. Iolanda appeared to him radiant and charming, even though she had spent an intense day working in the studio, even though she had prepared for each of the thirteen workers a little holiday speech, as well as a gift package with those delicacies and treats limited by the ongoing shortages and rationing. He loved her, loved her also for the candor of her face, her dark and deep eyes, her long raven hair gathered in a chignon: despite the few months spent together, he felt such a powerful and hitherto unknown feeling that he had convinced himself he had only ever waited for it and finally found it with her.
"Luigi, help me please," Iolanda took his hand and bent down to kiss his forehead, "keep insisting with me to convince Roger to stay for dinner: as far as I know him, I'm sure he won't have any other plans tonight except for some boring celebration with his fellow countrymen..." "Damn, Iolanda is right!" Mari chimed in, categorical as an inflexible judge. "We have dinner early and, if you want, you'll have plenty of time for your more or less official appointments," he added, winking at his friend. Stratton shielded himself with a prolonged smile, a slight blush coloring his face. "I'm honored by the invitation and would be happy to accept," he mumbled in a low voice, "but I would like Annina not to have any trouble in the kitchen..." The housekeeper looked at him in surprise, her hands trembling with the tray loaded with clinking porcelain and silverware. "Oh, not at all," she objected with the peasant cadence of the Colli Albani, "where two eat, three, four, as many as you want can eat too: I just have to throw more spaghetti in the pot and you are welcome, Commander." Everyone laughed, appreciating Annina's rustic wisdom. "Well then, it's settled," concluded Iolanda, emphasizing her Tuscan accent, "let us go, we still have things to do..." Stratton blocked her way to the door, raising his hand: "I accept all your generosity, I'm happy for the surprise invitation, but..." he sighed, pausing deliberately, "I accept on the condition that I can be useful in the kitchen, I want to help and why not, steal some of your culinary secrets. May I then?" Iolanda looked him up and down doubtfully, then burst into loud, repeated, uncontrollable laughter and, still laughing, flew out of the room, closely followed by Annina. The two comrades-in-arms continued to stare at the open door, listening as that laughter slowly faded away down the corridors. "So, don't keep them waiting, go, they're expecting you," Mari urged the American, gesturing for him to follow the two women. "Okay, my friend. I'm sure I'll have fun in the kitchen and so it will be a magnificent Christmas Eve dinner," joked Stratton, already savoring the double experience, "but first I also have a little, little surprise for you..." Mari furrowed his brow, intrigued. The other pulled from the inside pocket of his jacket a few sheets carefully folded and placed them on the coffee table. "I had a copy made for you of the memo sent to us by the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. It's the official document that will be broadcast on the radio tonight: so, this time there's nothing secret..." "The Christmas message of Pope Pacelli!" Mari burst out, excited by the surprise and interested in the preview, "I want to read it right away." "Good, good," Stratton approved, satisfied, "I won't spoil anything for you, it's better that way. I'm off to the kitchen." Mari opened the sheets—a dozen pages in all, densely typewritten—and smoothed them out with the palm of his hand on the table, moved his wheelchair closer to a lamp, and began to read: "Benignitas et humanitas apparuit Salvatoris nostri Dei, already for the sixth time since the beginning of the horrible war..."
He read step by step, each paragraph with due consideration, weighing the words and the significance of the pastoral claim. He made sure to read accompanied by the clear memory of the voice of His Holiness Eugenio Pacelli: hieratic, at times feeble and hoarse, otherwise shrill and solemnly detached, even deathly. He read with the apprehension provoked by the source of the document: he was confronting the thought and pontifical will dogmatically predestined by ex cathedra authority, empowered by the fideistic infallibility of the exegetical prerogative of the verbum Domini. He read everything and folded the sheets precisely, as they had been given to him. He moved in front of the window and observed the dark and foggy sky. He felt the turmoil rise that accompanied the processing of his reflections on what he had read. He was impressed by the explicitness of the will for the “total reordering of the world” urged as the object of peace talks among allies, and despite the ongoing war. Likewise for the ecclesial aspiration to “a true and healthy democracy” on the assumption of safeguarding “the Catholic doctrine regarding the origin and use of public power.” Similarly, he was disconcerted by the sociological digression regarding “people and amorphous multitude,” used to outline the “democratic State, whether monarchical or republican... a necessary society vested with authority... that absolute order, in the light of sound reason, and especially of Christian faith, can have no other origin than in God our creator”: thus, as a logical consequence of “this intimate and indissoluble connection,” the State, the institutions, and whoever represents them will have “the mission of implementing the order willed by God” and also “the ends assigned by God” in the threefold distinction of Montesquieu. It was undoubted for him that, according to the papal message, from such an assumption arose the duty to entrust powers to “men of solid Christian conviction” who therefore possess “the spiritual antidote of clear views”: so that “positive human law” conforms “to the absolute order, established by the Creator and brought to new light by the revelation of the Gospel.” And again: thus established, the inspiring principle would build “the unity of the human race” as the only guarantee for “the future of peace” and to “banish once and for all the war of aggression.” Mari was distracted by the sudden flash of a military searchlight, which slashed the darkness with beams of light in every direction: he had retained the vigilant attention of one accustomed to being on the alert, to moving cautiously. Even the tenor of the last pages read was inspired by the caution of practice in the realization of a path for a common organ of nations suitable “to lead the Christian and religious mentality to condemn modern war.” The same principle of prudence was to be adopted against new attacks on peace and, in the immediate term, against “the peoples, whose governments are held responsible for the war,” in need of mercy and guarantees that only those responsible will receive punishment for war crimes. If in part Mari approved some implementations of prudence derived from the tradition of law, he was astonished by the claim to identify the church as “guardian of true human dignity and freedom”: a claim announced with unjustified emphasis when the Pope stated “thanks to God, one can believe the times are past when the appeal to moral and evangelical principles for the life of States and peoples was disdainfully excluded as unreal.” Expressed was the pontifical will to consider that “if the future belongs to democracy, an essential part in its fulfillment must fall to the religion of Christ and to the Church,” the latter charged with its “providential mission” in that it “teaches and defends the truths, communicates the supernatural forces of grace, to implement the order established by God.” He smiled bitterly as he repeated by heart the concluding lines of the document: “The mystery of Holy Christmas proclaims this inviolable human dignity with a vigor and with an unappealable authority that infinitely transcends that which could be reached by all possible declarations of the rights of man.” Mari realized that his initial turmoil had changed several times: from a faint ill-humor caused by the method oscillating between an eschatological approach and catechetical teaching, to a likely distrust, and then aversion regarding the setting of cultural hegemony characterized by a crude sociological analysis and an even less plausible historical revision: everything seemed to disdain any scientific and philosophical progress since the Reformation, everything was oblivious to the grave faults of pontificates attracted solely by temporal and political power. The irritation soon overflowed into anger provoked by the energetic effort of mystifying indoctrination also through the denigration of the fundamental principles of law and justice, not to mention the mockery of liberal thought and the philosophy of politics from Aristotle to Hegel. Mari moved away from the window, took a couple of steps from the mirror of the empire-style console. The reflected image reassured him, distracted him from the tangle of complex reasoning, calmed the turbulence of feelings that had followed one another like waves unleashed by the storm: he judged the suit presentable for dinner, smoothed the lapels of his jacket, adjusted the burgundy tie at the collar of his shirt and the pocket square with embroidered edges in his pocket. He also tried to dismantle the frown that showed the persistence of the worry derived from reading the papal Christmas message. He tried to change it by inducing the mimicry of various expressions, whose reflected images annoyed him even more. It was then that a dilemma appeared at the threshold of his consciousness, a slip of reflection that grew into a corrosive, unbearable, bothersome conjecture. “Could there be,” he thought to himself, “a link, a connection, any correspondence or concordance between the ‘Protocols of Rome’ and that writing of Pope Pacelli?” The answer he gave himself was lightning-fast, sudden but convinced, as if it had already been latent though unconscious: it was possible, it certainly was. The curia, the Pope, and his close collaborators could well have coordinated with the authorities of the allies, especially with those English always careful to consider religious power not at all separate from political power.
He realized that an abyss of new hypotheses, potential perspectives, and possible future arrangements had now opened up. "It's Christmas Eve," he said to himself again in front of the mirror. He didn't have time to respond to the sharp, determined knock at the door. "Dinner is served, my lord," Stratton advanced triumphantly, his face marked by a smile full of good humor, "we've prepared everything and we can go to the table." He moved behind the wheelchair and grabbed the push handles to transfer to the dining room. "Were you making sure in the mirror that you looked good?" he continued, chuckling. "I'll confirm what I told you before: you look ʼna bellezza!" Mari nodded, grateful to the American for his affectionate cordiality. "Before we go, I want to ask you a question, if you can answer me..." "Any question, Luigi," Stratton looked at him in the mirror's reflection, "there will never be secrets between us, you know that." Mari smiled and replied with a murmur of assent. "Why," he asked, "did the Secretariat of State of the Holy See send you the Pope's Christmas message in advance? Is it customary as a diplomatic courtesy? Or else..." Stratton sighed and took a breath, then turned and slowly pushed the wheelchair. "I was expecting this question, Luigi," he whispered in his ear, "those contents were long debated by the top leaders of the Allied command, first of all with Monsignor Giovanbattista Montini and finally also with Monsignor Domenico Tardini, only before submitting the final text to the Pope." Mari clapped his hands, more than satisfied with the answer that proved him right. "Thus, this Christmas also sees the birth of a new popular democracy, or rather a Christian popular democracy for Italy," he commented ironically as he was pushed down the corridor. Iolanda came toward them with a festive step, kissed Mari on the cheeks. "Merry Christmas, Luigi" "Merry Christmas to you, my love."