Cloak and Bladder
Was Cicero. By Elycsa Bazna in collaboration with Hans Nogly. Translated by Eric Mos- bacher. (Deutsch, 15s.)
CICERO, as all the world knows, was valet to the British Ambassador in Ankara during the war and took his perquisites in the form of secret documents, photographs of which he sold to the German Embassy for a fortune in forged fivers. There have been a number of books and films on the subject, but I Was Cicero is the story told by Elyesa Bazna or Cicero himself.
Mr. Bazna's credentials have apparently been carefully established by his publisher; his narra- tive powers, while slender, suffice for his simple tale. For it is very simple. What Mr. Bazna did was to take impressions of keys which his master left lying about, thus achieving access to documents which he photographed and re- placed while His Excellency was comporting himself at diplomatic jollities. The money Mr. Bazna received, which was skilfully manufac- tured and for a long time passed as currency, he used to enable a series of unamiable mistresses to hoover up whisky in a villa. BY the time someone realised something was wrong and crude security measures were taken, it was too late. Cicero, who had made his pile (or so he thought), gave his notice and left by the servants' door. And that, quite simply, was that. In one way, then, this story is almost trivial;
in another it is profoundly satisfying. For it makes everyone look so thoroughly silly and contemptible. The ambassador, poor dupe, with his pretty uniforms and enormous cars; his lady, inquisitive, bored and icy; the secretaries, with their patriotic talk and snobby wives—there they all are, preening themselves on their pompous functions and wordy dispatches, when along comes the priapic little clown with his do-it- yourself spying kit, snaps up their most cherished secrets and sells them to pay for his boozy whores. The clown didn't give twopence for their great big fatuous war (beyond praying that Tur- key would keep out of it); he just used it and them to promote a measure of private happiness in his brutish and commonplace life.
The Germans look equally silly—a lot of hysterical bullies, many of whom were too stupid to realise the importance of the excellent infor- mation they were getting. The Americans, in so far as they come in, are interfering, priggish and treacherous. Small wonder the story is so unpopular among the great of all nations. The great like to see the events in which they figured as heroic or (in case of failure) tragic; either -way, they do not want to hear how a nasty and pathetic little drudge took advantage of their own incompetence and conceit to exercise, for a time, as much influence over events as any mouthing satrap of them all.
SIMON RAVEN
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