Seven Italian Postcards
Card 3: Plaza of Death
After dinner,
at my request, my girlfriend led me to Piazzale Loreto,
the same square in central Milan in which the body of Benito
Mussolini hung on display following his death at the hands
of Italian partisans in the final days of World War Two.
Aside from
one old building, nothing remains at the square dating from
the mayhem and exhaustion of that climactic April of 1945-indeed,
we could not even accurately locate the former site of the
petrol station from whose stanchions Mussolini and his mistress
Claretta Petacci had dangled upside down like butchered
swine. The modern piazzale is a whirl of traffic encircled
by abstract highrises labeled Upim, Daewoo, Banco Ambrosiano,
and, to my weary surprise, even McDonald's, but there, somewhere,
under contemporary peace and cheeseburgers Auden's "unmentionable
odour of death" still lashed offense against a cool
October evening. War and retribution seemed suddenly nearer.
They ran him
to ground north near the Alpine frontier, with his lady
beside him, she as innocent as he was guilty, but both were
soon equally dead, just as cold, just as lost to their purpose
as millions of other corpses decorating Europe that bloody
season. Once shot and killed, their bodies were hauled back
to Milano and hoisted to show the world the best reward
for tyranny.
I can't reach back through time, but while strolling around
the piazzalle and holding the warm soft hand of an Italian
woman I wondered whether Claretta and Benito had loved as
we love, or ever knew happiness and calm prior to the maelstrom
he helped create and they died by. If they did it didn't
last, unlike nearby Stazione Centrale, the massive Fascist-era
rockpile from which shabby trains still depart precisely
on time, perhaps the only useful legacy from the days of
il Duce. What else can he give us?
Card 4: Whistles
in the Night
