History (65 page)

Once, without anyone's asking him anything, he suddenly stretched

his black hand out beneath his neighbor's eyes. "You see this masterp

of surgery?" he said with a strange hilarity in his eyes, like somebody about to proff an obscene secret, "performed by a friend, an Alpino, in a half burnt-out barn, with a pair of pruning-shears!" "And this!" he conti (displaying his mutilated foot, bound in some rags, still with an unhealed sore), "there was no need of an operation! Running away, God knows where, from the trap, on the ice, I sat down to take off my shoe, because it was as hard as an iron vise. And as I pulled and pulled, my foot-gangrene

-came away with the shoe : I was left with the heel and some pieces of bone."

Then, another of those present, insulted because he had been called
slacker,
said to him : "Well, and did you remember, at least, to send a postcard of greetings and thanks to your Duce?" And Clemente gave him a grim look, but found no answer. In fact, he couldn't deny that as a young man, he had been in favor of Fascism. He trusted the Duce, and the generals, too, even after his own experience in the Albania-Greece ca paign for which he absolved the Italian leaders, explaining it, for some reason, as a "betrayal by the Greeks." And in the summer of '42, ready for his new departure to the Russian front, he had proclaimed, proposing a toast in that same tavern : "Them, our Leaders, they know their job! If they're shipping us there, poorly equipped, unprotected against the cold, it's because they already know that, for the Soviets, by now, the game's all over! In one or two months, before winter comes, Russia'll be kaputt! And we Italians have to be there, for the victory!"

To the Marroccos' incessant questions, especially about the circum stances of the retreat, he made an eff to give some kind of answer, pri out of him with such diffi that his face seemed to become almost swollen with repugnance: "But were there any houses around there?" "Villages, yes, villages . . ." "With homes, with families, that is
_ .
. ?" ". . . yes . . . peasants . . . country people . . ." "What are they like? Kindhearted? . . ." "Yes, the Russians in general are good people." ". . . . but why give him snow to drink?! Wasn't there any water?! . . ." Black Hand looks away, with a twisted smile. "Eh," he answers in a contracted, grimmer voice, "we were lucky even to have snow to drink. In the prisoners' train to Siberia, we drank piss . . . THIRST! HUNGER!" he turn back, brusquely, listing on the fi of his good hand, with one fi of the maimed one, "cold! epidemics! hunger!

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HUNGER!" and at this point he stops, realizing how cruelly he is assailing the hopes of these poor idiots. However, in his hollow eyes, marked by his illness, more than pity a certain contempt glows : is it possible they can't fi realize that the ones who couldn't make it, and who dropped by the wayside during the retreat, were all lost? Nobody could carry them. They had to be left there, and they were all dead in advance.

Now we'll try to report, at this distance, from memory, the last hours in the life of Giovannino.

While his companion Clemente (better known, there at the front, by his last name, Domizi) continues his escape without him, Giovannino remains on his knees at the edge of the track, waiting for some vehicle to pick him up. His confused mind is tormented by a recollection of the fallen bodies, already half covered by snow, which were sown on the terrain of his march with Clemente; at times, he stumbled over them. And so he resists his desire to lie down and stretch out; but he is no longer able to pull himself to his feet. To attract the attention of the crowd of stragglers, he begins waving his arms, shouting at random :
"Paesano! Paesano!"
His voice is lost in the din : there are cries, battalions being called together, numbers of companies or Christian names, yelling at mules; but all are alien voices. The name of his battalion and the surname Marr are not heard anywhere.

There, a sled goes by, drawn by oxen, with a bundle inside, groaning, and an infantryman walking behind it. Giovannino moves towards it, on his knees, gesticulating and pleading. But the soldier gives him only a hesitant glance, then turns away and goes off with the sled. A little later, at some distance a cart is glimpsed, laden with supplies, with three bundled up forms : maybe they can fi room for him?
"Paesani! paesani!",
but the cart also goes off in the confusion, paying no attention to him. Shifting on his knees, Giovannino moves back, so as not to be run over; and he waves his arms, to explain himself, towards a corporal who has just dismounted from a little horse so thin its vertebrae protrude like teeth. The horse's legs have become entangled in some object; while his master frees them, the animal turn towards Giovannino his big eyes, which apologize like a hu man's. And the man, also glancing at Giovannino, makes a disconsolate gesture of refusal; then looking ashamed, he sets off again on his horse. The snowstorm begins, the sky is dark gray, at two in the afternoon night is already falling. An Alpine soldier, with staring eyes, passes before him, marching barefoot, his feet swollen and black as lead.
"Alpino! alpino!
help me! carry me!" Giovannino thinks to shout at him. But the soldier is already far off toiling through the snow on his huge black feet.

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Giovannino draws back. His fever is worse. Now, amid the explosions and the broken shouts, bells can be heard ringing, and he ca understand where he is any more. Finally, seeing a very high wagon go by, with gilded candles big as columns, he begins to realize he is watching the procession at Ceprano, and the fi up there, carried in procession on the wagon, is the General, giving orders, his arms folded. But why are they throwing petals of snow at him fr all the windows? Giovannino recognizes him, and he even remembers how this same General said to the troops: "Bum the vehicles, throw away the supplies, everything. Every man for himself. Italy is to the west. Keep going on and on, to the west; Italy is there."

"West," Giovannino reasons, "means where the sun sets." Over there, in the distance, through the storm, he sees a fi blazing somewhere, and he understands it is the sun. So, leaving behind him the crowd that begins to fade in his ears, still proceeding on his knees, and also using his hands to push himself forward, he undertakes his journey to the west.

His swollen feet, without shoes, awkwardly wrapped in pieces of blanket, don't ache in the least, though they encumber him. Instead of his feet and his legs, from the knee down, he seems to be carrying two sand bags. The cloth of his uniform has stiff on him like metal plate, creaking at his every movement, and his body, pierced by thousands of needles, is all an ache and a numbness. The gusts jolt him and slap him, whistling, and he grumbles against them : "go fuck yourself," "goddamn cunt," and other such homely protests, familiar to him since childhood

. . . In reality, from his lips, a gurgle of confused syllables barely emerges, as if his tongue had been cut off

He continues for a few more yards, stopping every now and then to pick up a crust of frozen snow, which he sucks greedily; but then the fear of falling persuades him to tolerate his parched throat. Reaching the crum bling edge of a crevasse, he comes upon someone, all wrapped up, sitting and resting on the ground, against a big stone. It's a little soldier, no taller than a child, dead; but Giovannino doesn't notice he's dead, and insis tently asks him for directions. The soldier looks at him with a faint mock ing smile and gives him no answer.

But, in any case, there can't be such a long way still to go : these are already the
ma
the narrow terraces of Sant'Agata in Ciociaria, with the young fl growing, and there in the background, by the little lighted fi the family hut is visible.

And now his grandfather has come from the hut, threatening him with his belt beca Giovannino has left behind the new kid, ca Musilla, a new name. "Musilla! Musilla!" and many bleats answer, but they are from the east, and he doesn't feel like going back there. To elude his grandfather's thrashing, as the old man stares at him with two eyeless

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holes, Giovannino decides to hide here behind the fi And, in fact, he has slipped gently down the slope, almost to the bottom of the crevasse, where at least he is a bit sheltered from that incomprehensible tumult above.

Damn you, Granddad! I'm going to leave home soon anyway, and go to Rome, to be a Carabiniere. Now Giovannino no longer knows whether this torment that burns him is ice or fi He feels his brain boiling, and chills squeeze his heart like a lemon. Constantly, between his legs, a slimy warmth trickles, promptly frozen and encrusted against his fl With his incessant thirst, he would like to lick the frozen sleeve of his coat, but his arm and his head drop down, exhausted. "Meh! Meehl Meehl" Th is the bleating of the lost Musilla; and this tortured, piercing scream is explained because today, on the meadow above, in front of the house, they are slaughtering the hog. The hog, when they catch him to kill him, makes a sound like a human. And in a little while, up in the hut, they'll eat the blood puddings, the heart, the liver . . . But hunger, which during the past days was the worst suffering of this army serv of Giovannino's, is no longer making itself felt; in fact, the very image of food produces in him a surge of nausea.

He raises his eyes, and he becomes aware that a big tree is spread over him, a transparent, luminous green, from which his dog Toma is swaying, hanged from a bough. It is known that Toma a little while ago allowed himself to be tempted by the bladder of the freshly slaughtered pig, and he swallowed it and died; after which Uncle Nazzareno, who didn't go to the war because he's blind in one eye, hung the carcass from the tree as bait for the foxes. "Toma ! Toma!'' Giovannino moans, a little boy in short pants; but Toma, though dead, snarls and bares his teeth. Then, fi with fear, Giovannino calls his mother: and the syllable "rn rn rn said by the voice of the boy Giovannino reechoes through all the fi

Here is his mother coming out of the house above, with her distaff under her arm and her spindle in her hand, and even as she walks, she tends to her spinning, plucking the fl from the distaff and working it through her fi She is angry and with her mouth wide, she rails at Giovannino, for the stink of shit he has about him: "Shame on you! Doing it in your pants at your age! Go away! You'll stink up the whole house!" There, outside the crevasse, where he sees his mother, a beautiful summer sun is shining; and on the hay illuminated by the moonlight his fi Annita goes by. His mother, here at the Sant'Agata house, still wears the long, full skirt of the Ciociaria women, with the little black corselet and blouse; but Annita, on the contrary, has on a short dress, without a belt, hardly more than a shift, her feet bare and clean. On her head she has a big white kerchief, tied in two knots at her nape, so her hair is invisible.

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And she is coming back from the well, carrying the filled bucket, the dipper in it, all ready for drinking; at her little running steps, the cool water spills from the bri bucket onto the hot hay.

"Annita! Annita!" Giovannino calls, with a yearning to drink from the bucket; but Annita also makes a disgusted face and drives him away: "You're all full of lice!" she screams. And at this point, from inside the hovel where Granddad is, a resounding bass voice asserts clearly: "A good sign. Lice run away from dead bodies."

Giovannino doesn't know what's coming over him. Now he doesn't feel like doing anything but sleep. The open sunny light lasts another instant and immediately afterwards, also here at Sant'Agata, it has become dark. There is a cool, restful, little evening breeze, which comes and goes, with a fan's slight movement. And, before sleeping, Giovannino would like to curl up, as he always has enjoyed doing; except that his body, because of all the cold, has become so stiff he can't bend any more. But at the same time Giovannino realizes, as if it were a natural thing, that he also has a second body which, unlike the fi is supple, clean, and naked. And, content, he crouches into his favorite position for lying in bed : with his knees almost touching his brow, huddled until a comfortable hole is hol lowed out in his mattress beneath him; and as he nestles there, the dry leaves inside the mattress make a rustle, as if the wind were blowing them, summer and winter. This is the positi he has always assumed to sleep, as a baby, as a little boy, and as a grown man; however, every night, at the moment he curls up in this way, he feels he has become tiny again. And, indeed, little, big, grown up, young, elderly, old, in the dark we are all the same.

Good night, Giovannino.

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