A Winter's Night (38 page)

But all too soon the draft cards began to arrive: first Pace and then Vasco, a year after war had been declared. Nino invited both of his friends for dinner one evening with the girls, so they could all have one last meal together before they had to head off for the war. They did all they could to stay cheerful and not think about leaving. They tried to come up with amusing stories to tell, but there was a stone guest with them at the table: the black lady with the scythe who would rush off to the battlefield before they arrived and lie there in wait.

When dinner was over and Nino was making the coffee, he tried to convince Pace, who had a beautiful tenor voice, to sing for them, but he didn't succeed.

“I don't feel like it,” replied his friend. “I'm leaving the day after tomorrow for Russia, how can I sing?” And that phrase broke up the party; there was no longer any reason to linger. The three friends embraced one another and Nino told them: “Keep your chin up; thinking about your troubles only makes them worse. I bet you that we'll all find ourselves back here in no time and we'll have one of those parties that'll go down in history.”

“Let's hope,” replied Pace.

“Let's hope,” echoed Vasco. They walked off on foot, clinging to their girlfriends almost as if they were desperate to store that warmth for the long winters ahead, on endless fields of ice and snow. Nino went outside with them; he wanted to walk Eliana home but in truth he just couldn't stand to let them go and wanted to stay in their company for as long as he could.

Three weeks later, Nino's turn came: he was ordered to report to a clearing center in Udine, from where he would be deployed to the Balkans.

Floti's son Corrado would also be sent to the Russian front and become the second Bruni to go off to war. The only two men of fighting age, who could never have imagined that they would share a common fate.

 

The enthusiasm that greeted the declaration of war quickly vanished. Any news about the fighting was contradictory and difficult to decipher; the official war bulletins referred to “rectifications of the front” rather than retreats and minor progress in a single sector was a “sweeping victory.” But the fact that the army corps had been sent off to Russia with scarce provisions and completely inadequate gear soon became of public dominion, because the deaths due to frostbite, and the wounded that crowded hospitals everywhere, could not go unnoticed.

The first to return was Vasco, after two years of hard combat, of nights spent without shelter, of endless marches. But the news of his arrival filled his parents with great foreboding instead of joy. Checco, Vasco's father, had learned that Nino was home for a two-week leave, and he went to show him the letter they'd received from the division commander.

“One of his feet got frozen,” Checco told him, “and it doesn't look good. They're talking about a serious infection. He's near Rimini now, in one of those old holiday camps for children that have been transformed into hospitals.”

Nino loved Vasco's parents as if they were his own, because the two boys had been together their whole lives, like brothers, going back and forth from one house to the other.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Nino asked. “You don't want to make the trip alone; let me come along.”

“That would be a real pleasure,” replied Checco. “We are a bit afraid of going alone. We might get lost . . . ”

Nino hugged them, knowing full well that they were not afraid of getting lost; they were afraid of what they would find when they got there. The three of them left the next morning from the station of Bologna, after having bought a bagful of oranges from a fruit vendor's stand. They took a direct train to Rimini. It was a local, so it didn't cost much but made all the stops, and it took them a good two hours to reach their destination. There they got on a bus that took them down the coastal road. It stopped right in front of the seaside camp where Vasco had been admitted for care. Nino thought it would be best for him to enter first so he could take stock of the situation.

“You wait here, Checco, go take a walk on the beach with Esterina. I'll come and get you when I've found him,” he said, and entered the building.

He found a nurse and said: “I'm looking for Vasco Bruni, I'm a friend of his.” She gave him a floor and room number. As he was walking up, he stopped on the landing and saw Vasco's parents below, walking along the deserted beach, lapped by gray waves rimmed in white. He felt sorry for them.

Vasco smiled when he saw Nino, but he didn't even look like himself. When he had left for the war, he was healthy as an ox, one of the best looking boys in town. He was pale now, emaciated and gaunt, and his forehead was beaded with sweat. Nino hugged him and realized that he was feverish.

“You have a temperature.”

“It's the infection, Nino. Nothing hurts, really, but this fever never goes away. If it drops during the day, it just gets higher at night.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“They don't seem to attach much importance to it. There's an awful lot of young guys here, wounded, sick . . . Maybe what I have doesn't seem so serious. I've heard that they may send me to a hospital in Bologna, where they know how to cure these things.”

“When?”

“I'm not sure. Tomorrow, maybe, the day after . . . I've been here for days and no one has done anything. They're not really equipped to do much here; more or less they just look at you and decide where to send you to, which hospital. But . . . where are my parents?”

“They're down walking on the beach. I made them wait; I wanted to see how you were first. Your father asked me to come here with them; they were worried about getting lost or not knowing what to do. They're afraid, Vasco, they're getting older, you know?”

“You did the right thing, Nino, thank you . . . how do I look? I don't look too bad, do I? And . . . Rina?”

“You're looking good,” lied Nino, “and you'll be back to normal before you know it. Rina is still at home, waiting for you. She was always hoping to get your letters, but I don't think many came.”

“They must have gotten lost. Do you know how big Russia is? You can't even imagine how big it is. How could we have thought of attacking such an enormous country? Even if you didn't have to fight, you'd get old just trying to get from one end to the other. How absurd this whole thing is: the Russians . . . first I'd never even seen one of them and now I have to shoot at them. What are you going to do now?”

“I'm going to call your parents.”

“Thanks, Nino. You're a friend.”

Nino walked outside just as Checco and his wife were approaching the entrance.

“He's upstairs,” said Nino. “He's waiting to give you a hug.”

“How's it going, then?” asked Checco.

“Well, it could be better but I'd say there's no reason to worry. Vasco's strong as a horse, he'll kick this one.”

They went back up together, but Nino waited out in the hall so that Vasco's parents could be alone with him at first. He entered a few minutes later and stayed with them for the rest of the visit. Esterina held her tears until they stepped out the door.

They went back to the station together and Nino watched Checco and his wife as they walked, stooped over as he'd never seen them before, weighed down by their worry and their pain. As they waited for the train that would bring them back to Bologna, they sat in a café and had some coffee. Nino tried to offer words of encouragement: ‘You'll see, at the hospital in Bologna, they'll find a way to make him better. They might have to amputate a toe, at worst it'll be his foot, but at least he'll survive, and that's the most important thing. You can get used to anything.'

In reality, he had nothing to go on and no idea of what they'd be able to do in Bologna. Save him, at least. He was young, his constitution was strong, he'd make it for sure. For sure.

They transferred him to the Putti Hospital three days later and as soon as Nino found out, he went to visit with Rina, Vasco's fiancée. The hospital was located on a hill overlooking Bologna. It was a beautiful setting, with forest land all around and a lovely view of the city. Nino let Rina go ahead, and he strolled for half an hour, looking at the giant cedars and the lofty magnolias rising a good thirty meters tall. From this vantage point, he would see the villa where Cardinal Nasalli Rocca lived, a magnificent place where two gigantic nettle trees with their smooth, gray bark stood at either side of a long, stately flight of steps at the entrance.

He loitered for a while to give them some time together, then went up to see Vasco in his new room. “Cheer up!” said Nino, “they'll get you better here. There are these famous professors walking around with long strings of assistants tagging behind them; they'll know how to fix you up.”

“Have you seen my parents?” asked Vasco.

“Sure, I drop by whenever I can, they say that seeing me helps keep their morale up. They've given me a package for you; there's clean underwear, cookies that your mother made, and some oranges. Your mom says be sure to eat them, they're good for you!”

Vasco thanked him again. “Come back to see me, Nino, when you can. Time stands still here, you know? Seeing someone you know is such a relief. Helps me forget about my troubles, at least for a little while. I wanted so bad to come home and look at me now.”

Rina looked at him with tears in her eyes and held his hand tightly between hers.

“You're close here,” replied Nino, “it takes no time at all on the bus. Now that Rina knows the way, she'll come to see you often, right, Rina? And your parents will come too. You just work on keeping your spirits up, you'll get better faster.”

“Yes, I will,” said Vasco, his eyes shining.

Rina kissed him and followed Nino down the stairs, drying her tears with a handkerchief. She went back the following Saturday with Vasco's parents. When they were all on the bus together, Checco said that they had to be ready to accept that the doctors might have to amputate the boy's foot, because that was what was necessary, sometimes, to stop the gangrene. It would be tough, but the important thing was for him to make it home.

“I'm just praying that he lives,” said Rina. “Nothing else matters to me. I'll take him any way, without a foot, without a leg, I couldn't care less.” Hot tears ran down her cheek as she spoke.

When they were finally admitted to Vasco's room, they found him in a cast from his neck to his groin. They didn't know what to think.

“What is this thing?” asked Checco.

“
Papà
, I can't understand,” replied Vasco. “Yesterday two nurses came in and they put me in this cast. The doctor hasn't come by, so I haven't talked to him. I don't know why they did it.”

His parents looked at each other in consternation and then lowered their eyes to the ground. Thus began the atrocious calvary of their son as his entire body was devoured by gangrene.

Nino had had to return to his unit, which was stationed in Albania. But before deploying to his next destination, he wounded himself in the hand as he was cleaning a pistol and he was discharged. A number of people maligned him, insinuating that he had shot himself so he could get out. The military authorities, however, never even opened a disciplinary procedure against him and they dismissed him without finding any fault in his performance. As soon as he returned home, Nino could sense the finger-pointing. He was angry that anyone would suspect him of desertion, and never tolerated a single insult or insinuation, always responding with his fists.

By the time he returned to see Vasco, his friend's situation had greatly worsened. Nino had to fight an impulse to retch at the smell of putrefaction that permeated the room and was shocked at the shrugs he met with when he tried to understand what had happened.

Checco managed, the following week, to stop the chief physician as he was whisked down the hall in a flurry of white smocks. “Professor, just a word, professor, for the love of God . . . ”

“What is it?” asked the doctor, clearly irritated.

“I'm the father of Vasco Bruni, room 32, orthopedics. That poor boy is rotting inside that body cast that you had made for him. The smell in his room is atrocious.”

The professor barely glanced his way and replied haughtily: “Who's the doctor here, you or me? You do your job and I'll do mine,” and he hurried off with his assistants thronging around him.

One day that both Rina and Nino were present, Vasco asked his friend to scratch his back because he couldn't stand the itching. Nino took one of the knitting needles that Rina was using to make a sweater and poked it down between the cast and the boy's skin. When he pulled it back up it was full of worms. Vasco somehow realized and his eyes filled up with tears. “My God, the horror of this,” he said. “Why does it have to be so difficult to die?” After four months of excruciating agony, Vasco Bruni, a handsome, intelligent and sensitive young man, died in the stench of his own tainted flesh, twisted and stiff as a rabid dog.

The entire town came to the boy's funeral.

His fiancée continued to bring flowers to the cemetery for years and years, even after she finally decided to accept the proposal of a good man who had asked her to become his wife.

Vasco's father Checco, who had always been cheerful and good-natured, began to waste away. He stooped so badly that he became as bent over as a hunchback, as if some malicious demon had given him a nasty punch.

One day Nino came to visit, and asked: “How are you, Checco?”

“How could I be,” he replied. “This is the kind of pain that doesn't kill you, but it tortures you every day of every month of every year, until you close your eyes.”

 

No one could stop talking about the agony and death of Vasco Bruni in town; it was hard to believe or even explain. Why would a doctor have condemned a twenty-three-year-old boy to such a horrible death? Why force him to rot alive in a shield of plaster, without an explanation, without a reason?