“The Order was involved in the resistance, in a quiet way,” Lou said. “So Maria Ludovica told me. The Germans tried to call up all the young men for work on factories or farms or mines, or on the defense lines they were building to oppose the Allied advance. And the city was full of escaped POWs. Lots of people to hide. We estimated that at one time, of a city of a million and a half or so, about two hundred thousand were being hidden, in homes, churches, even the Vatican.”

“And the Order—”

“They have a big complex there, big and old and deep. Not that I ever saw it.” I wondered, Deep? “Yes, the Order did their share. And it was not without risk. Family, huh—I guess we should be proud.”

Air raids began, even though Rome was supposed to be an open city, aiming at railway lines but hitting civilians in such customary friendly-fire targets as hospitals. “The gas and electricity went altogether,” said Lou. “They cut up the benches and trees in the parks for wood. The Order started selling meals, hundreds a day, at a lira a head.

“But then the citizens started to hear the heavy guns.

“Maria Ludovica came out to the Lungotevere to watch the Germans go. Armed to the teeth but dejected, bedraggled. Everybody was silent. Makes you think,” he said. “A Roman crowd, surrounded by all those ancient monuments, once again seeing the retreat of an occupying army.”

“And then you arrived.”

“Yep. I walked in after the tanks that came up the Porta San Giovanni. In the evening everybody lit a little candle in the window. It was, you know, magical.” And he told me how, on June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day, he had climbed the steps of Michelangelo’s cordonata with General Clark. “Not that the Romans were grateful,” he said with a grin around his Popsicle stick.

He leaned closer. “Maria never told me all of it, about Mussolini. Far too delicate for that. But I figured it out. He was kind of a brisk lover. He’d just nail you, right there on the floor of his office. He wouldn’t even take his shoes or trousers off. And when he was done he’d just send you right out of the room and get back to work.”

“What a charmer.”

“But he was Mussolini. Knew a lot of guys in the army who had similar habits, mind you . . .”