Once he had doubtless been a slim, athletic figure, but when I met him he had put on weight so that his movements were slow. He was a heavy drinker. I imagine that started after his final accident. It was not difficult to pick him out among his guests. He looked almost a cripple, his big body moving slowly, almost stiffly among them. He had broken practically every bone in his body at one time or another and I believe he carried quite a weight of platinum around in place of missing bone. But in spite of this, his rather dissipated features were genial under his mop of titian hair, which rose almost straight up from his scalp, giving him height and a curiously youthful air. He was a very wealthy man and the biggest hotelier in Cortina.
Most of this I learned from an American I had met in the bar before dinner. He had been a Colonel in the American Army and had had something to do with Cortina when it was being run as an Allied leave centre.
I found Edoardo Mancini in the bar. He and his wife were having a drink with my American friend and two British officers up from Padua. The American introduced me. I mentioned that I was going up to Col da Varda the next day. ‘Ah, yes,’ Mancini said. ‘There are two of you — no? And you are planning to do a film? You see, I know who my guests are.’ And he beamed delightedly. He spoke English very fast and with just the trace of a Cockney accent mixed up with the Italian intonation. But it was very difficult to follow him, for his speech was obstructed by saliva which crept into the corners of his mouth as he talked. I imagine his jaw had been smashed up in one of his accidents and had not set properly.
‘Col da Varda belongs to the hotel, does it?’ I asked.
‘No, no — good heavens, no!’ He shook his large head vehemently. ‘You must not have that idea. I would not like you to blame all the shortcomings of the place on me. You would obtain a bad impression. My hotel is my home. I do not have anybody here, you understand. You are my guests. That is the way I like to think of all these people.’ And he waved his hand towards the colourful crowd that thronged the bar and lounge. ‘If anything is wrong, we look at it as you would say, my wife and I, we are bad hosts. That is why I will not have you accuse me of Col da Varda. It is not comfortable there. That Aldo is a fool. He does not know how to arrange people. He is lazy and, most terrible of all, he is no good for the bar. Is that not so, Mimosa?’
His wife nodded and smiled from behind her Martini. She was small and attractive and had a nice smile.
‘I will — how you say it? — sack him. Please excuse my English. It is many years since I was in England. I had hotels in Brighton and London. But that was long before the war.’
I assured him that he spoke excellent English. Indeed, if I had spoken Italian as well in my own country I should not have felt impelled to apologise.
He nodded, as though that were the reply he expected. ‘Yes, I will give him the sack.’ He turned to his wife. ‘We will give him the sack, dear, the day after tomorrow and we will put Alfredo there. He has a good wife and they will run it well.’ He put his hand on my arm. ‘In the meantime, you will not blame me — yes? I am only what your doctors would call in loco parentis at the moment. I do the bookings. But on Friday it will become a little piece of the Splendido. Then, if you stay long, you will remark a difference. But it will take time, you understand?’
‘You mean you are taking it over?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘On Friday. There is an auction. I shall buy it. It is all arranged. Then you will see.’
‘I don’t quite get you, Mancini,’ said the American. ‘Don’t you have to bid at an Italian auction? A thing like that, auctioned in America, would attract all sorts of real-estators and business men who’d enjoy running a toy like a slittovia. I know you’re the biggest hotelier in the place. But I guess there are others who might like that little property.’
. ‘You do not understand,’ Mancini said with a quick crinkling of the eyes. ‘We are not fools here. We are business men. And we are not like cats and dogs. We arrange things with orderliness. The others do not want it. It is too far out for them. But I have a very big hotel here and I am always progressive. It will make money because Col da Varda will become the Splendido’s own ski run. I shall run a bus service and it will not be crowded like the Pocol, Tofana and Faloria runs. So, no one will bid but me. An outsider would never buy. He knows there would be a boycott.’
‘I’d like to see an Italian auction,’ I said. ‘Where is it being held?’
‘In the lounge of the Luna. You really wish to come?’
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘It would be very interesting.’
