History (62 page)

Before the advance of the Soviets, who have now broken through ali along the front as far as the Baltic, the German populace fl on the wrecked roads, in the severe winter, towards the west, from which the victorious Al on the Rhine are alreadyadvancing.

AP

The Fuhrer orders the last-ditch defense of the German cities, insisting on the death penalty for any transgressors.

President Roosevelt of the United States dies. He is succeeded by Vice President Truman.

In Italy, after having broken through the Gothic Line and occupied Bologna, the AIIies advance rapidly northwards towards Milan, where the retreating Germ forces abandon the city to the partisans. German capitulati along the entire front. Attempting to escape into Switzerland, disgu as a German, Benito Mussolini is discovered and captured by the

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partisans. He is hastily taken to a place of execution near Como, with his mistress Ciaretta Petacci. The corpses of the executed couple, with those of other Fascist cl1iefs, are exposed to the crowd, lmng by their feet, in a Milan square.

In Germany, the great Soviet off develops, leading to the encircle ment of Berlin, while the American forces advance from tl1e Brenner. From his Bunker, Hitler (still commander-in-chief of the army) continues issuing feverish orders which, if they could still be carried out, would be translated into the total self-destruction and self-genocide ot the German Reich. Wl1ile the advancing Soviet units are already entering destroyed Berlin, Hitler kills himself in his Bunker along with his mistress Eva Braun and his closest followers. His corpse, burned in haste by the survivors, is identified by the Russians.

In Yugoslavia, Tito's partisans defi liberate the country from the Nazis, who have a/ready evacuated Greece.

MAY

With Germany's unconditional surrender, war activity ceases on ti1e European front. Among the new products of the war industry, the most recent, tested in this sector, are some refi products of rocket propulsion, such as the German Nebelwerfer, witi1 its multiple charges, and its Soviet counterpart, the Stalin Organ, and, fi Hitler's famous secret weapons, the V-2 missiles.

J UNE-JULY

In Italy, the Parri government is formed, made up of ti1e six Resistance parties, along the line of the CLN ( Comitato Liberazione Nazionale ), which had already assumed control of the country. Unresolved-awaiting a referendum-is the question of the monarchy, which the Papacy and the relentless supporters of Fascism, still very much alive and active behind the scenes, would like to see retained, with a view to furti1er restorations.

In Rome, the torturer Koch is executed, shot in the back.

In the United States, the fi t atomic bomb is made. On the project developing since 1943-thousands of scientists and technical experts have been working in secret.

In the Far East, Japan, despite defeats, persists in tl1e continuation of the war. The United States issues an ultimatum: surrender, or total destruction.

AUGUST

Japan makes no reply to the ultimatum of the United States. On the sixth day of the month, the United States drops on Japan (city of Hiro-

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shima ) a fi atomic bomb ( the energy released equals twenty tlwusand tons of TNT). On the eighth of tl1e month, the Soviet Union declares war on Japan, and invades Manchuria and Korea. On the ninth, the United States drops on Japan a second atomic bomb (city of Nagasaki ).

With the unconditional surrender of Japan, the Second World War comes to an end. Fifty million dead (plus thirty-fi million wounded, and three million missing ).

The Big Three, the victorious Powers, meet at a Conference in Pots dam, where they calculate the shares, or spheres of influence, due to each of them in the new division of the world, proportionate to their respective power. Italy, in the new revision of the map of Europe, fi herself in the Anglo-American sphere of infl Elsewl1ere, a source of disagreement is Germany, which is broken up by the litigants into two zones ( East and West), with the capital, Berlin (Eastern tone ), divided into sectors by the Powers involved. Already, in the course of this dispute, between the two opposing European spheres the
Iron Curtain
begins to descend, meant to safeguard the East from Western contagion, and vice versa, like an off

sign betw two adjacent hospital wards.

Asia still remains to be divided, along with the colonial territories, which have become spoils of war. Of the latter, Korea (formerly property of the Japanese Empire ) is cut, at the 38th parallel, into two occupation zones, Russian and American. And Indochina ( formerly under French domination ) is entrusted, in the South, to British occupation; while North of the 16th parallel, it is claimed by the Liberation Movement and its Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, who announces the free Republic of Vietnam .

In Italy, in the process of national pacifi tion, the disarming of the partisans is decreed, with the approval of the Communists.

SEPTEMBER

The American banks inform Italy that the economic aid of the United States ( only resource at present for the exhausted peninsula, destroyed by the war) is compromised by the action of the Parri government, in which the left wing's policies are prevalent.

In Indochina the French colonialists begin to demand restoration, send ing an expeditionary corps which, from the South, protected by the English, aims at the armed reconquest of Vietnam.

OCTOBER-DECEMBER

In China, the defi evacuation of the Japanese troops has ended the truce betw the Communists of Mao Tse-tung and the National Gov ernment of Chiang Kai-shek, who is favored by all the Powers, including the

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Soviet Union. Talks between the two groups aiming at a coalition govern ment are broken off at the eruption of a violent battle between the two opposing armies, which ends with the victory of the Red Army and signifi the inevitable resumption of the civil war.

In Italy, the end of the Parri government. The newly chosen Prime Minister is De Gasperi (a moderate Christian Democrat), wlw includes also the Communists in his cabinet, with Togliatti as Minister of Justice. One of this Ministry's first actions is the defi end of trials purging the Fascists, in accordance with the policy of national pacifi already initiated . . .

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l

"What bad luck! You always miss him!" Filomena deplored, when Santina, on Ninnarieddu's second visit, arrived about an hour after he had left. Nor, in fact, did they ever meet; but for that matter, it's improbable that an encounter between the two would have had

much eff on either of them.

Obviously, for Nino, time was a relative phenomenon. After so many months of absence, he turned up again as if a couple of days had gone by. On this occasion, the
piccinina
remained in her corner, glancing at him timidly, like an animal that had been chased off Useppe was trembling, and he clung to Nino's jacket, to keep him from running away again.

Since the famous day at the partisans' camp, in October of '43, the pair hadn't seen each other. Useppe, just over two at that time, was now more than three and a half; and Nino's appearance also had changed somewhat in the meanwhile. From their immediate and spontaneous recognition, however, it seemed that, to each other's eyes, both had re mained at the same age. Only, after a little while, Nino said to Useppe :

"You're diff from the way you used to be. Your eyes are sadder."

And he tickled him to make him laugh. Useppe poured out a little cascade of laughter.

This time, too, Nino was in a hurry. And as he was taking his leave of Useppe, he slipped into his overall pocket a pocketful of paper money that, at a glance, in Useppe's opinion, amounted surely to a million. "It's all yours," Nino said to him, one foot already on the stairs. "Now you can buy yourself a bike." But Useppe remained actually deaf to the idea of the bicycle; his only thought or feeling at that moment was that Nino was going away. And a short time later, he himself, with his little fi helped Ida dig the "million" out of the pocket of his overall, so she could take possession of it. To Useppe's mind, millions-or even biilions-were mothers' responsibility. In his hands, they had no more value than ordinary paper.

During the last days of that April, from the various points of Europe where the Germans were stiii fi the fortunes of war, all together, took a precipitous tum towards conclusion. The Reich's famous
secret weapons
had failed; on this side, the Gothic Line had given way, like all other lines, fortifi and fronts in other places. In Italy, the German army, after retreating from Milan, capitulated; and in Berlin, encircled from all the cardinal points, the fi Russian soldiers were already entering the ruins. At the distance of a few hours from ea other, Mussolini, attempting to escape disguised as a German, was caught and shot near the Italian border; and Hitler kiiled himself with a pistol ( fired by his own hand or someone

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else's) in the final dwelling where he lived underground, his private air-raid shelter under the Berlin Chancellery . .
.

About a week later, the total surrender of Germany, after six years of slaughter, ended the Blitzkrieg in Europe.

The dreamer Mussolini's vision (of himself crowned, supreme victor, on a white horse ) had gone up in smoke; but that of the dreamer Hitler, on the contrary, had come true over a very great area. Territories, cities, and countries of the New Order were reduced to fi of skeletons, rubble, and slaughter. And more than fifty million unnatural deaths: including his own, the Fuhrer's, and the death of the Italian Duce paired off with him as, in circuses, the clown is paired with the straight man. Their little bodies were eaten by the earth, like those of the
Jews,
the
Communists,
the
outlaws;
and those of Moscow and Quattro and Esterina and Angelino and the midwife Ezekiel.

Beyond Europe, in the Orient, the Second World War still raged; while here it was a time of settling accounts and holding trials, as happens after a fraud or a murder in the family. Even the fi scandalous secrets are stripped naked, which till now have tried to disguise themselves at least partially.

The jails were opened, and graves and ditches were dug up. Scenes of crimes were revisited; justice was done. Hidden documents were recovered. Lists were made and names ticked off

Since the previous summer, on posters and in newspapers, strange photographs had already begun appearing in Rome; and naturally they already circulated with the fi news bulletins, also in our Testaccio quarter and in Via Mastro Giorgio. At that time, however, littl Useppe was still "protected by 'Saint Baby' " as they say in Rome of innocent children : and in this perhaps you could see the fi sign of certain back ward traits of his, which contradicted his other precocities. Almost like infants, or indeed like dogs and cats, he had a hard time recognizing, in the single dimension of print, any concrete forms. And for that matter, in his casual walks around Testaccio, always held by some adult's hand, he was really too busy, too attracted by the world's great variety, to pay attention to those fl images. At home, the books in the little bedroom were forbidden, untouchable, being the personal property of Giovannino; and the few newspapers that turned up in the family failed to arouse his interest, since he was totally illiterate.

The only painted or printed forms he consorted with, besides playing cards ( which were kept under lock and key ) were those in certain comic books about the house, and a syllabary which Ida had placed at his dis posal. But although he amused himself occasionally by communicating to the others, wi the air of a great mind-reader, the signs he had deciphered

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("house!" "fl !" "people!"), such papery entertainments soon bored him.

But duri that spri of '45, one day his mother, having left him wait ing a few moments outside a shop, found him studying some illustrated magazines, attached to the side of a kiosk, some distance above him. On the lowest, opened to a double spread, the page was completely taken up with two news photographs, both of hanged people. In the fi a shady city street could be seen, along the railing of a half-destroyed bridge. From every tree of the avenue bodies were hanging, all in a row, in the same, identical position, with the head bent to one ear, the feet a bit apart, and the hands tied behind the back. They were all young, all shabbily dressed, poor-looking. On each of them a sign was fi with the word : PARTI SAN. And all were males, except for a single girl at the beginning of the line, who had no sign and, unlike the others, was not hanged by a rope, but with a butcher's hook through her throat. In the photograph, she was seen from behind; but her fi still in bloom, suggested she was very young, under twenty. She was shapely, in dark slacks, and over her bloody torso, whitish in the picture, so that it seemed naked, fell her long black hair: it wasn't clear whether loose or in braids. Near the wall of the bridge, a man could be seen, a sentry perhaps, in military trousers, tight at the ankle. And on the other side of the avenue, a group of people had gathered to watch, with the casual appearance of passersby, including two little boys more or less Useppe's age.