Bluebeard - Kurt Vonnegut [71]
“He had many enemies,” said Marilee, “and they had been telling Mussolini that he was a homosexual and a British spy. Mussolini certainly knew he loved men and boys, but didn’t even suspect that a man that silly could have the nerve or wit to be a spy.”
When Mussolini ordered his Minister of Culture to prove that he wasn’t a homosexual by wedding Marilee, he also handed him a document for Marilee to sign. It was designed to placate old aristocrats to whom the idea of an American floozy’s inheriting ancient estates would have been intolerable. It set forth that, in the case of the count’s death, Marilee would have his property for life, but without the right to sell it or leave it to anyone else. Upon her death, it was to go to the count’s nearest male relative, who, as I have said, turned out to be an automobile dealer in Milan.
The next day, the Japanese in a surprise attack sank a major fraction of the United States warships at Pearl Harbor, leaving this still pacifistic, antimilitaristic country no choice but to declare war on not only Japan, but on Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, as well.
But even before Pearl Harbor, Marilee told the only man ever to propose marriage to her, and a rich nobleman at that, that no, she would not marry him. She thanked him for happiness such as she had never known before. She said that his proposal and the accompanying document had awakened her from what could only be a dream, and that it was time for her to return to the United States, where she could try to deal with who and what she really was, even though she didn’t have a home there.
But then, all excited the next morning about going home, Marilee found the spiritual climate of Rome, although the real Sun was shining brightly and the real clouds were somewhere else, to be as dark and chilling as, and this is how she described it to me in Florence, “rain and sleet at midnight.”
Marilee listened to the news about Pearl Harbor on the radio that morning. One item was about the approximately seven thousand American citizens living in Italy. The American Embassy, which was still operating, still technically at peace with Italy, announced that it was making plans to provide transportation back to the United States for as many as possible, as soon as possible. The Italian government responded that it would do all within its power to facilitate their departure, but that there was surely no reason for a mass exodus, since Italy and the United States had close bonds of both blood and history which should not be broken in order to satisfy the demands of Jews and Communists and the decaying British Empire.
Marilee’s personal maid came in with the quotidian announcement that some sort of workman wanted to talk to her about the possibility of old, leaking gas pipes in her bedroom, and he wore coveralls and had a toolbox. He tapped the walls and sniffed, and murmured to himself in Italian. And then, when the two of them were surely alone, he began, still facing the wall, to speak softly in middle-western American English.
He said that he was from the War Department of the United States, which is what the Department of Defense used to be called. We had no separate spy organization back then. He said that he had no idea how she felt down deep about democracy or fascism, but that it was his duty to ask her, for the good of their country, to remain in Italy and to continue to curry the favor of Mussolini’s government.
By her own account, Marilee then thought about democracy and fascism for the first time in her life. She decided that democracy sounded better.
“Why should I stay here and do that?” she asked.
“Sooner or later, you might hear something we would be very interested in knowing,” he said. “Sooner or later, or even possibly never, your country might have some use to make of you.”
She said to him that the whole world suddenly seemed to be going crazy.
He commented that there was nothing sudden about it, that