Michelangelo_s Notebook

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Maggiore Tiberio Bertoglio, wearing the uniform of one of the Mussolini Black Brigades-complete with ebony shoulder boards, bloodred-and-silver double-M collar tabs and a silver-and-black skull-and-crossbones insignia on the forepeak of his regulation bustina-sat in the backseat of the dusty Lancia staff car, arms crossed over his chest Il Duce- style, not feeling half as grand as he looked. The uniform was a fraud. He was not in the army at all but in the much reviled OVRA, the Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell’Antifascismo-the Organization for Vigilance Against Anti-Fascism: Mussolini’s secret police, the Italian gestapo.

He’d flown up from Rome in a cranky old Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 that morning, the old bluebird insignia of Ala Littoria still faintly visible just behind the triple black axe fasces of the Italian air force on the tail. After four bumpy hours in the air he’d arrived at the La Spezia naval base, borrowed the staff car and a driver and was now almost at the end of his journey.

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