History (37 page)

"Yes, ma'am. Russia. Yes, indeed."

"Well, Russia may be a nice name, I'm not saying it isn't," Sora Mercedes remarked, "but where does it come in? Russia's a place, a whaddayacallit, a locality? Russia!"

"If you ask me," Granny Dinda stated, "I like Rossella better." "Well, everybody to his own taste," Giuseppe Secondo replied.

"Russia's Russia, all right," Granny Dinda sustained, "but for a fe- male, Rossella seems nicer to me."

Giuseppe Secondo shrugged, with a sense of slight mortifi but also of defi tive, misunderstood superiority.

"Rossella . . ." one of the sisters-in-law remarked at this point, "Scar let . . . isn't that the name of the actress in that movie . . . what was it called?"

"Gone With the Wind,"
Carulina cried. "Vivia Leik, in
Gone With the Wind!"

"She was the one that got married and then died?"

"No, her little girl died," the Neapolitan sister-in-law clarifi "and he had marri that other one . . ."

The little group began discussing the film; but this subject bored Giuseppe Secondo. He gave the two comrades a look, meaning: "That's

1 8 6 H I S T O R Y . . . . . . 1 9 43

women for you! . . ." Then he rose from his seat and came to stick his face between Nino and Quattro. He was determined to take any risk, to demonstrate his own faith to the two of them; his comically infantile face glowed with liberating pleasure.

"And do you want to know why," he announced, in a proud voice, "why that little pair" (pointing to the ca ) "are named Peppiniello and Peppiniella?"

"? . . ."

"In honor of comrade Giuseppe Stalin!!"

Quattropunte answered him with nods full of approval and gravity but Nino, on the contrary, gave him no satisfaction. To tell the truth, though he ate and drank a great deal, Ninnarieddu had become listless and paid little attention to the chatter. Giuseppe Secondo went back to his place. For her part, meanwhile, Sora Mercedes, with the idea of pleasing him (and not even counting the other Giuseppes present) said to him, "You have the same name, too, Sor Giuse . . ." but he, shocked, held out his arms, as if to say: "Good heavens! don't speak of me in the same breath !"

Here the menti Peppiniello and Peppiniella, perhaps believing it was daybreak, sang a few notes. Carulina, to heighten the festivities, went and put on the jazz record; and at this, the twins, who had fallen asleep on a corner of the mattress, woke up yelling. Carulina hastened to them and started singing:

"Ninna
o
nanna
o

Rusinella and Celesta go to sleep, go

etc., etc.

But even before the twins, Useppe seemed to be aff by th lullaby, and he soon lowered his eyelids. Ida then took him on her lap, and so she was sitting next to Ninnarieddu.

"How did you manage to fi us?
I
. . ." she repeated to him in a low

voice once more.

"Aw, rn I told you: I went by Remo's. First I went to fi the house, and when I saw there was a hole in its place, I asked himl" Nino explained to her wi some impatience. And he immediately shut his mouth again, with a grouchy expression, perhaps beca his words had once more summoned up his recent grief for Blitz.

"Ninna
o
nanna
o

Rusi and Celestina go to sleep, go

0 0 0 0 0 . . .
"

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Useppe was sleeping. Ida went to put him to bed on her own mattress behind the curtain of sacks. And when she came back, her place beside Nino had been occupied by the usual huddle of Caruli's nephews and they were already closely examining the German boots, studying the laces, the sole, etc. as if admiring a monument.

". . . Were you in the army?" Nino asked.

Vivaldi Carlo raised his eyes, with the wild melancholy of an animal peering from its den, uncertain whether to venture forth and attack. That evening, he was devoting himself more to drinking than to eating, and already the uneasiness that had gripped him at fi was dissolving some what in the wine.

"Yes, he was a soldier! He came on foot all the way from Nort Italy!" two or three women answered for him, including Carulina, pleased to show she was informed. But at this further unasked interference, Nino emitted an impatient whistle; in his gaze, which met Carlo's, there was no longer the terrorism of the gang leader, but only a stubborn demand for dialogue, undisguised, to the point of innocence.

"You ran away from the army?"

Carlo's upper lip began to throb : "No," he declared honestly, and almost meekly,
"
I told
them,
here, that I was a soldier, just to tell them something . . . But it wasn't true. I don't belong to any arm he stated with a bitter tone, whether claiming honor or dishonor, it wasn't clear.

Nino shrugged. "Well, talk, if you feel like talking," he said, indiffer ently. And with prompt arrogance, he added : "I don't give a shit about your business."

Carlo's face hardened, the eyebrows meeting on his forehead. "Then why do you ask?!" he said, with aggressive modesty.

"And you? What've you got to hide?'' Nino rebutted. "You want to know where I ran away from?"

"Yes! I want to know!"

"I ran away from a convoy of deportees, from a sealed train, heading for the Eastern frontier." It was the truth, but Carlo accompanied it with an odd laugh, as if he were telling a joke.

"Aaaah! thank the Lord! The Turk's told us the truth at last!" Granny Dinda spoke up now, with a little sigh of relief. "Aaaah! Granny! shut up!" Caruli scolded her softly. Carlo looked at the two women, without seeing them, his eyes inexpressive.

"They caught you in a round-up?" Ninnarieddu asked further.

Vivaldi Carlo shook his head. "I . . ." he mumbled, "I was in the underground . . . I was distributing political propaganda! Somebody in formed . . . they reported me to German headquarters." Here he came out with another, almost obscene laugh, which corrupted his features like

1 8 8 H I S T O R Y
. . . . . .
1943

an infection. At his awkward movement, Rossella, from below his leg, made her special cry of whining protest, which went: "Mememie! Mememie!" And almost absurdly embarrassed at having disturbed the cat, he straightened up, looking around with his dreamy gaze, like an orphan's. But at that point, with sudden brutality, and addressing Nino exclusively, he said : "Do you know what they're like? The bunker security cells? They're known as the
antechamber of death?"

"I've got an idea!" Nino had shifted position, stretching his feet on the table, putting his shoulders against the knees of his friend Quattro, who was glad to act as his backrest. "Say, comrade," he said to Carlo, after crumpling between his fi his own empty pack of Popolari, throwing it away, "gimme a cigarette." He made a show of nonchalance, acting like an American gangster, hardened by every sort of experience. Carlo threw him a cigarette across the table. And at the same time, with a forced, almost evasive little smile, he informed him : "Me, I was in one." "I was there . . ." "I was there . . ." he repeated several times, isolating himself in an abstract stare, in a kind of absurd and disgusting vision. And for the moment, assuming a monotonous, scientifi speech (only interjecting a few words of dialect,
lus
for
luce,
light, or
dona
for
donna,
woman, or such things, along with an occasional grimace), he entered into a description of that special kind of cell.

According to his description, these were single storerooms, like air-raid bunkers, made by pouring cement over a domed arm employed at present by the Germans in Northern Italy because they could be built rapidly and were simple and practical. The interior, measuring approxi mately 6 feet by 3 feet 6 inches with a height of 4 feet 2 inches, was just big enough for a plank-bunk, and a man was unable to stand erect. In the ceiling there was set a light bulb of perhaps three hundred watts, which remained burning day and night and pierced even closed eyes like a blow torch ( here Vivaldi Carlo instinctly covered his eyes with his hand ). And the only opening to the outside, about halfway up the barred door, was a little peep-hole or air vent, hardly wider than a rifl barrel. He pressed his lips to it constantly, crouched on the plank on all fours, sucking that breath of air through the little hole. In that courtyard of the SS Head quarters (a kind of garage on the city's outskirts ) they had built about fi of those bunkers, one next to another, with an adjacent crema torium.

As a rule, none of the bunkers remained empty for long. You were shut up in them, usually, after the interrogation, while waiting to be sent elsewhere. At night especially, voices emerged from them; often voices that were no longer reasoning, but rather senseless screams of matter. One man, still conscious, repeated that he had been in there for thirty-fi

1 8 9

days; he did nothing but ask for water, but nobody gave him any. Some times, when he asked for water, in reply he saw the barrel of a gun thrust through the vent. In the next bunker on the left, there was a
dona,
a woman, who during the day seemed dumb, but every night she fell into a screaming lunacy, and she even called to the SS guards, addressing them as
my s
o
ns
.
But the moment the footsteps of the sentry on patrol ap proached, suddenly all voices were silent.

In fact, at every creak of a lock being opened, a sound of shots there in the courtyard followed a little later. The bunkers had got that name,
antechambers
of
death,
because, at night in particular, you left them only to be executed in that same courtyard, with a shot at the back of the neck. There was never any knowing who would be next, nor the reasons for the daily choices and exceptions. At every shot, the SS men's dogs howled.

Here, Vivaldi Carlo, as if waking from his long vision, started laughing again, like a drunk who, to act tough and damned, publicly confesses some shameful personal act:

"I was in there for seventy-two hours," he narrated, not directing his words at anyone. "I counted them, by the churchbells. Seventy-two. I counted them. Three nights. In three nights, ten shots. I counted them." At the table, all remained respectfully silent; however, the only ones listening with real involvement were Nino and Quattro. The 1l1ousand, and with them even Giuseppe Secondo, exchanged dejected glances, dis mayed at the grim subject which was spoiling their feast; while the kids,

and Ida no less than they, were already dropping with sleep.

". . . in there, all you do is count . . . you spend the days counting

. . . any kind of nonsense . . . to keep from thinking . . . You count

. . . the important thing is to concentrate on some stupid exercise . . . lists . . . weights and measures . . . the laundry list . . ."

( At this phrase, Sora Mercedes nudged Carulina; and Carulina, though considerably upset by the subject, barely managed to stifl a com pulsive hilarity.)

". . . subtraction, addition, fractions . . . numbers! If you start thinking of your mother, your father, your sister, your girl . . . then start fi out right away what their age is in years, months, days, hours . . . Like a machine, without thinking . . . Seventy-two hours . . . three nights, ten shots . . . One shot apiece, and that's that . . . One two three four . . . and ten . . . They said they were partisans . . . most of them . . . bandits . . . thatwas the charge . . .
"

"What? You were a partisan, too?" Nino asked, putting his feet on the fl with a sudden interest that made him actually glow.

"Not me! I told you! I was
not
a soldier!" the other boy protested,

1 9 0 H I S T O R Y . . . . . . l 9 43

almost becoming angry.
"I
. . . I worked in the city . . . (but I won't tell you what city ) . . . Posters . . . pamphlets . . . propaganda . . . Political prisoner . . . that's why they sent me to the train! But I didn't know, not the sentence . . . Early in the morning, when they came to take me out of the cell, my only thought was :
This is it! Number eleven!
I already felt the thud in my brain
. . . March . . . march
. . . shit. Keep marching . . . ah,
mama mia
. . . the world's disgusting."