The Vengeance of Rome by Michael Moorcock

been only a couple of weeks since da Bazzanno had departed. ‘It is a love affair that has been going on since he was born.’ She shrugged and offered me a droll wink. ‘How can I compete?’
    Not by nature a discourteous soul, da Bazzanno remembered himself soon enough to tell us how he had wanted the house to be ready for guests. ‘But we have almost a hundred and fifty years of neglect to cope with. They did nothing. They didn’t spend a penny on the place.’
    â€˜A Jewish family,’ said old da Bazzanno by way of explanation. He shrugged. ‘Very pleasant people. Nothing wrong with them. But you know how they hate to part with cash.’
    â€˜We’re having electricity, gas, water—everything piped in. And new sewers. And walls have to be repointed. Plastering …’ Fiorello returned his attention to his father.
    Old da Bazzanno added: ‘They were not real Jews. They went to the same church as my aunt. Everyone liked them. They were generous to the church, she said. But not to themselves. Or the house.’ His shrug was a distorted echo of his son’s.
    â€˜What happened to them?’ I asked Margherita, as we continued to penetrate the warren of tiny passages and rooms. She shook her head. She had heard something, she said, but she wasn’t sure if it was true. She had an idea they had moved to Austria where they had a son. She sauntered ahead of us to inspect a faded tapestry.
    â€˜They weren’t Jews at all, then,’ interposed Maddy Butter almost aggressively. ‘Were they? I mean, they were Christians.’
    â€˜Once a Jew always a Jew,’ I told her kindly. ‘In America you have not had quite our experience of the Children of Abraham.’
    I would remember those words some years later and only then understand their full significance. At that time I did not pursue the subject as Margherita had rejoined us with a murmured apology and an enthusiastic diversion on the subject of fourteenth-century Norman tapestry.
    Eventually the passages opened out on to a gallery. Here the smell of mould was strongest. We were on the first floor, looking down into a large hall where a table was being laid and a fire made. Clearly the servants had not known when da Bazzanno
fils
would return. We crossed the gallery into another wide corridor. We discovered our bedrooms, our bags already there.
    Again I felt I had wandered into some Hollywood historical extravaganza. The rooms had huge four-poster beds. Their iron-hard oak was carved with dark animals and plants tinted with faded gold leafing. The heavy hangings were filthy with age. The furniture was preserved by candle wax and cooking fats, the grease and grime of centuries. Mysterious pictures, so blackened it was impossible to tell the subject, clung to the walls. A small fire had managed to take hold in my grate, and fat copper lamps guttered in iron sticks mottled with oil and verdigris. My evening clothes had been unpacked and laid out for me. My few other clothes were put away in a massive armoire. The rest of my possessions—my films and my plans—had not been touched, but I leafed through my rather dog-eared blueprints and notes to make sure no enterprising trainee spy had removed anything. I also checked that my cache of cocaine was in order. Here I made a happy discovery. With a rush of gratitude I found my cousin Shura, as a parting gift, hadleft me with ten large packets, sealed neatly in waxed paper like grocer’s sugar, of the very finest
sneg
. A year’s supply, even if used with irresponsible abandon! To celebrate I called Signora Sarfatti and Maddy Butter to my room, and we indulged a small line or two before dinner, chopped out by Margherita Sarfatti under the gaze of an admiring Miss Butter. She had only with our acquaintance become an enthusiast for the life-enhancing powder. Da Bazzanno had, at least for the moment, renounced cocaine. I had every sympathy for