Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [52]
‘The International Brigade could certainly make a tasty dish,’ said Moreland, ‘not to mention the German and Italian “volunteers”. As a matter of fact the fleas probably prefer the Germans. More blonds.’
‘I hope to God Franco doesn’t win,’ said Mrs Maclintick, as if that possibility had at this moment just struck her.
‘Who do you want to win?’ said Maclintick gruffly. ‘The Communists?’
Up till then Maclintick had been on the whole in a better temper than usual. The arrival at the table of Carolo had unsettled him. He now showed signs of wanting to pick a quarrel with someone. His wife was clearly the easiest person present with whom to come into conflict. Biting and sucking noisily at his pipe he glared at her. It looked as if the Spanish war might be a matter of controversy of some standing between them; a source of contention as a married couple, rather than a political difference. Maclintick’s views on politics could never be foretold. Violent, changeable, unorthodox, he tended to dislike the Left as much as the Right. He had spoken very bitterly.
‘I would rather have the Communists than the Fascists,’ said Mrs Maclintick, compressing her lips.
‘Only because you think it is the done thing to be on the Left,’ said Maclintick, with an enraging smile. ‘There isn’t a middle-brow in the country who isn’t expressing the same sentiment. They should try a little practical Communism and see how they like it. You are no exception, I assure you.’
He removed his pipe from his mouth and swallowed hard. Moreland was obviously becoming uneasy at the turn things were taking. He began kicking his foot against the side of his chair.
‘I am Pinkish myself,’ he said laughing.
‘And you want the Communists?’ asked Maclintick.
‘Not necessarily.’
‘And Marxist music?’
‘I long to hear some.’
‘Shostakovich, Russia’s only reputable post-Revolution composer, not allowed to have his opera performed because the dictatorship of the proletariat finds that work musically decadent, bourgeois, formalist?’
‘I’m not defending the Soviet regime,’ said Moreland, still laughing. ‘I’m all for Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – my favourite title. Wasn’t there a period in the Middle Ages when the Pope forbade certain chords under pain of excommunication? All I said – apropos of the war in Spain – I am Pinkish. No more, no less.’
This attempt to lighten the tension was not very successful. Maclintick leaned down and tapped his pipe against his heel. Mrs Maclintick, though silent, was white with anger.
‘What about Toscanini?’ she demanded suddenly.
‘What about him?’ said Maclintick.
‘The Fascists slapped his face.’
‘Well?’
‘I suppose you approve of that.’
‘I don’t like the Fascists any more than you do,’ said Maclintick. ‘You know that perfecdy well. It was me that Blackshirt insisted on taking to the police station in Florence, not you. You tried to truckle to him.’
’Anyway,’ said Mrs Maclintick, ‘I want the Government in Spain to win – not the Communists.’
‘How are you going to arrange that, if they do defeat Franco? As it is, the extremists have taken over on the side of “the Government”, as you call it. How are you going to arrange that the nice, liberal ones come out on top?’
‘What do you know about it?’ said his wife, speaking now with real hatred. ‘What do you know about politics?’
‘More than you.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Doubt it, then.’
There was a moment during the pause that followed this exchange of opinion when I thought she might pick up one of the battered table knives and stick it into him. All this time, Carolo had remained absolutely silent, as if unaware that anything unusual was going on round him, unaware of Spain, unaware of civil war there, unaware of Communists, unaware of Fascists, his expression registering no more than its accustomed air of endurance of the triviality of those who inhabited the world in which he unhappily found himself. Now he finished the beer, wiped his mouth again with the pocket handkerchief, and rose from the table.
‘Got