Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [61]
In 1989 we gave a party at Campden Hill Square for Daniel Ortega on his visit to London, as President of Nicaragua. Harold had visited the country the year before and was active in its defence.
Sunday 7 May
Blessed by golden weather – Viva Nicaragua! Graham Greene was the big thrill for everyone, green-eyed, red eye-balled, a hero since he had cracked his rib in his hotel but insisted on coming despite his age – mid eighties. Melvyn Bragg, Peter Stanford, young editor of the Catholic Herald, Bianca Jagger plus surprise guest of her daughter Jade, aged fourteen, the famous Jagger mouth, very nice manners; Rosanna Arquette, tiny, blonde, exquisite mouse, and at least twelve more Nicaraguans than we had bargained for. Then Harold had pleaded for no more than five Special Branch but they filled the hall, the house, everywhere, quite apart from the Nicaraguans, who had broad shoulders, short, very handsome broad faces. Indeed Nicaraguans in general are a very good-looking race viz. Bianca and Daniel Ortega himself. We stood at the drawing-room window and witnessed the motorcade: flashing lights, men on motorbikes, sirens, then dozens of people hustled out of two huge super-limos, all in dark suits except for Daniel Ortega, in khaki, red flash on shoulder, very neat, the famous big sunglasses. Apparently he gets all of this from the British government as a head of state – even a revolutionary state! Rosario Murillo (his lady) short very curly hair, mini skirt, enormous eyes, even larger earrings.
Daniel makes a very long, very serious speech. All agree: ‘A really straight man.’ I asked a question about the Arts: after all this was supposed to be an Arts for Nicaragua occasion. He looked rather surprised: ‘The revolution is the real cultural contribution of Nicaragua’ was his instinctive reaction before going on to emphasize the general freedom of the arts in Nicaragua. Rosario, who is Minister of Culture, tried to add to this but was shut up by Harold under the impression she was Bianca Jagger. President Ortega was overheard having a discussion with Nathalia (our housekeeper) about the recipe for her Portuguese pancakes. It was only the next day that I listened to two of our neighbours talking on their roof – the weather remained intensely hot and still. One said to the other, indicating our garden: ‘You see, I could have taken out Daniel Ortega.’
Where protest was concerned, both Harold and I were absolutely straightforward in our reaction to the fatwa against our friend, Salman Rushdie.
We were actually in Venice in January 1989 when we got the first inkling that something extraordinary – and horrible – might be happening. We were there for Harold to imbibe local atmosphere as he wrote the screenplay for Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers. In the mornings Harold sat around in his black silk dressing-gown at the Hotel Danieli ‘thinking of ways to kill Colin’ as he put it, referring to the unfortunate doomed young man in Ian’s novel. It was extremely foggy and you could not see across the lagoon, which seemed appropriate enough for this sinister, compelling tale of the backwaters of Venice.
In the afternoon, I became pathfinder and led us through the murk towards the Zattere. We were rewarded by the dazzling, sparkling sun which suddenly found us there and we emerged on the side of the water blinking like the prisoners in Fidelio. Harold was moved to quote Yeats saying that you had to choose between life and art, but he didn’t see the necessity provided he could sit on the Zattere with me in the bright winter sun, look across to the Palladian churches on the Giudecca … and drink Corvo Bianco. This elegiac mood was splintered when we watched Salman’s book The Satanic Verses being publicly burned in Bradford to the accompaniment of raucous shouts. We gazed uncomprehendingly. Was this