Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories (7 page)

An unusual excitement reigned in the area. Electricians were fixing the streetlamps with long portable ladders and lifting and lowering the telephone wires. Surveyors from the civil engineers were measuring the streets with ranging rods and spring-wind tape measures. The gasmen were using picks to open up big holes in the pavement. Schoolchildren were walking along in line. Bricklayers were tossing along bricks to each other, shouting: ‘Hey up, hey up!’ Cyclists went by with stepladders on their shoulders, whistling hard. And at every window a maid was standing on the sill washing the panes and wringing out wet cloths into big buckets.

Thus the regiment had to proceed with its parade down those winding streets, pushing their way through a tangle of telephone wires, tape measures, stepladders, holes in the road, and well-endowed schoolgirls, and at the same time catching bricks in flight—‘Hey up! hey up!’—and avoiding the wet cloths and buckets that excited maids dropped crashing down from the fourth floor.

Colonel Clelio Leontuomini had to admit he was lost. He leaned down from his horse toward a passer-by and asked:

‘Excuse me, but do you know the shortest way to the main square?’

The passer-by, a small fellow with glasses, stood for a moment in thought:

‘It’s complicated; but if you let me show you the way I’ll take you through a courtyard into another street and you’ll save at least a quarter of an hour.’

‘Will the whole regiment be able to get through this courtyard?’ the colonel asked.

The man shot them a glance and made a hesitant gesture:

‘We-ell! We can try?’ and he led them through a big door.

Lined up behind the rusty railings of the balconies, all the families in the building leaned out to look at the regiment trying to get into their courtyard with their horses and artillery.

‘Where’s the door we go out through?’ the colonel asked the small fellow.

‘Door?’ the man asked. ‘Perhaps I wasn’t very clear. You have to climb to the top floor, from there you get through to the stairs in the next building and their door goes through to the other street.’

The colonel wanted to stay on his horse even up those narrow stairs, but after two landings he decided to leave the animal tied to the banister and proceed on foot. The cannons too, they decided, would have to be left in the courtyard where a cobbler promised he would keep an eye on them. The soldiers went up in single file and at every landing doors opened and children shouted:

‘Mummy! Come and look. The soldiers are going by! The regiment is on parade!’

On the fifth floor, to get from this staircase to another secondary one that led to the attic, they had to walk outside along the balcony. Every window gave on bare rooms with lots of pallet beds where whole families full of children lived.

‘Come in, come in,’ said the dads and mums to the soldiers. ‘Rest a while, you must be tired! Come through here, it’s shorter! But leave your rifles outside; there are kids here, you understand…’

So the regiment broke up along the passageways and corridors. And in the confusion, the small fellow who knew the way could no longer be found.

Came the evening and still companies and platoons were wandering through stairways and balconies. At the top, perched on the roof coping, was Colonel Leontuomini. He could see the city spread beneath him, spacious and sharp, with its chequer-board of streets and big empty piazza. Beside him, on their hands and knees on the tiles, were a squadron of men, armed with coloured flags, flare pistols and drapes with flashes of colour.

‘Transmit,’ said the colonel. ‘Quick, transmit: Area impracticable… Unable to proceed… Awaiting orders…’

Pietro was walking along that morning, when he became aware that something was bothering him. He’d had the feeling for a while, without really being aware of it: the feeling that someone was behind him, someone was watching him, unseen.

He turned his head suddenly; he was in a street a little off the beaten track, with hedges by the gates and wooden fences covered with torn posters. Hardly anybody was around; Pietro was immediately annoyed that he had given way to that stupid impulse to turn round; and he went on, determined to pick up the broken thread of his thoughts.

It was an autumn morning with a little sunshine; hardly a day to make you jump for joy, but not one to tug the heartstrings either. Yet in spite of himself that uneasiness continued to weigh him down; sometimes it seemed it was concentrated on the back of his neck, on his shoulders, like eyes that never let him out of sight, like the approach of a somehow hostile presence.

To overcome his nervousness, he felt he needed people around him: he went towards a busier street, but again, at the corner, he turned and looked back. A cyclist went by, a woman crossed the road, but he couldn’t find any connection between the people and things round about and the anxiety eating into him. Turning round, his eyes had met those of a man who was likewise turning his head at the same time. Both men immediately and simultaneously looked away from each other, as if each were seeking something else. Pietro thought: ‘Maybe that man felt I was looking at him. Perhaps I’m not the only one suffering from an irksome sharpening of sensibility this morning; maybe it’s the weather, the day, that’s making us nervous.’

He was in a busy street, and with this thought in mind he started looking at people, and noticing the jerky movements they were making, hands lifting almost to the face in annoyance, brows furrowing as if overtaken by a sudden worry or an irksome memory. ‘What a miserable day!’ Pietro said, over and over to himself, ‘what a miserable day!’ and at the tram-stop, tapping his foot, he realized that the others waiting were likewise tapping their feet and reading the tramlines noticeboard as if looking for something that wasn’t written there.

On the tram the conductor made a mistake giving change and lost his temper; the driver rang his bell at pedestrians and bicycles with painful insistence; and the passengers tightened their fingers round the handrails like shipwrecked sailors.

Pietro recognized the physical bulk of his friend Corrado. Sitting down, he hadn’t seen Pietro yet, but was looking distractedly out of the window, digging a nail into his cheek.

‘Corrado!’ he called from right over his head.

His friend started. ‘Oh, it’s you! I hadn’t seen you. I was thinking.’

‘You look tense,’ said Pietro, and realizing that he wanted nothing better than to recognize his own state in others, he said: ‘I’m pretty tense myself today.’

‘Who isn’t?’ Corrado said, and his face had that patient, ironic smile that made everybody listen to him and trust him.

‘You know how I feel?’ said Pietro. ‘I feel as if there were eyes staring at me.’

‘What do you mean, eyes?’

‘The eyes of someone I’ve met before, but can’t remember. Cold eyes, hostile…’

‘Eyes that hardly think you worth looking at, but that you must at all costs take seriously.’

‘Yes… Eyes like…’

‘Like Germans?’ said Corrado.

‘That’s it, like a German’s eyes.’

‘Well, it’s understandable,’ said Corrado and he opened his paper, ‘with news like this…’ He pointed to the headlines:
Kesselring Pardoned… SS Rallies… Americans Finance Neo-Nazis
… ‘No wonder we feel they’re on our backs again…’

‘Oh, that… You think it’s that… But why would we only feel it now? Kesselring and the SS have been around for ages, a year, even two years. Maybe they were still in gaol then, but we knew perfectly well they were there, we never forgot them…’

‘The eyes,’ said Corrado. ‘You said you felt as if there were eyes staring. Up to now they haven’t been doing any staring: they kept their eyes down, and we weren’t used to them any more… They were the enemies of the past, we hated what they had been, not them now. But now they’ve found their old stare… the way they looked at us eight years ago… We remember, and start feeling their eyes on us again…’

They had many memories in common, Pietro and Corrado, from the old days. And they were not, as a rule, happy ones.

Pietro’s brother had died in a concentration camp. Pietro lived with his mother, in the old family home. He got back towards evening. The gate squeaked as it always had, the gravel crunched under his shoes the way it did in the days when you listened hard every time there was a sound of steps.

Where was he walking now, the German who had come that evening? Perhaps he was crossing a bridge, pacing along a canal, or a row of low houses, their lights on, in a Germany full of coal and rubble; wearing ordinary clothes now, a black coat buttoned to the chin, a green hat, glasses, and he was staring, staring at him, at Pietro.

He opened the door. ‘It’s you!’ came his mother’s voice. ‘At last!’

‘You knew I wouldn’t be back till now,’ said Pietro.

‘Yes, but I couldn’t wait,’ she said. ‘I’ve had my heart in my mouth all day… I don’t know why… This news… These generals taking over still… saying they were right all along…’

‘You too!’ Pietro said. ‘You know what Corrado says? That we all feel those Germans have got their eyes on us… That’s why we’re all tense…’ and he laughed as if it were only Corrado who had thought of it.

But his mother passed a hand over her face. ‘Pietro, is there going to be a war? Are they coming back?’

‘There,’ thought Pietro, ‘up until yesterday, when you heard someone talking about the danger of another war, you couldn’t imagine anything specific, because the old war had their face, and nobody knew what face the new one would have. But now we know: war has got its face back: and it’s theirs again.’

After dinner Pietro went out; it was raining.

‘Pietro?’ his mother asked.

‘What?’

‘Going out in this weather…’

‘So?’

‘Nothing… Don’t be late…’

‘I’m not a boy any more, Mum…’

‘Right… Bye…’

His mother closed the door behind him and stood listening to his footsteps on the gravel, the clang of the gate. She stood listening to the rain falling. Germany was far away, far beyond the Alps. It was raining there too, perhaps. Kesselring went by in his car, spraying mud; the SS who had taken her son away was going to a rally, in a shiny black raincoat, his old soldier’s raincoat. Of course it was silly to be worried tonight; likewise tomorrow night; even in a year’s time perhaps. But she didn’t know how long she would be free not to worry; even in wartime there were nights when you didn’t have to worry, but you were already worrying about the next night.

She was alone, outside there was the noise of the rain. Across a rain-soaked Europe the eyes of old enemies pierced the night, right through to her.

‘I can see their eyes,’ she thought, ‘but they must see ours too.’ And she stood firm, staring hard into the dark.

One day, in the illustrious nation of Panduria, a suspicion crept into the minds of top officials: that books contained opinions hostile to military prestige. In fact trials and enquiries had revealed that the tendency, now so widespread, of thinking of generals as people actually capable of making mistakes and causing catastrophes, and of wars as things that did not always amount to splendid cavalry charges towards a glorious destiny, was shared by a large number of books, ancient and modern, foreign and Pandurese.

Panduria’s General Staff met together to assess the situation. But they didn’t know where to begin, because none of them was particularly well-versed in matters bibliographical. A commission of enquiry was set up under General Fedina, a severe and scrupulous official. The commission was to examine all the books in the biggest library in Panduria.

The library was in an old building full of columns and staircases, the walls peeling and even crumbling here and there. Its cold rooms were crammed to bursting with books, and in parts inaccessible, with some corners only mice could explore. Weighed down by huge military expenditures, Panduria’s state budget was unable to offer any assistance.

The military took over the library one rainy morning in November. The general climbed off his horse, squat, stiff, his thick neck shaven, his eyebrows frowning over pince-nez; four lanky lieutenants, chins held high and eyelids lowered, got out of a car, each with a briefcase in his hand. Then came a squadron of soldiers who set up camp in the old courtyard, with mules, bales of hay, tents, cooking equipment, camp radio, and signalling flags.

Sentries were placed at the doors, together with a notice forbidding entry, ‘for the duration of large-scale manoeuvres now under way’. This was an expedient which would allow the enquiry to be carried out in great secret. The scholars who used to go to the library every morning wearing heavy coats and scarves and balaclavas so as not to freeze, had to go back home again. Puzzled, they asked each other: ‘What’s this about large-scale manoeuvres in the library? Won’t they make a mess of the place? And the cavalry? And are they going to be shooting too?’

Of the library staff, only one little old man, Signor Crispino, was kept so that he could explain to the officers how the books were arranged. He was a shortish fellow, with a bald, eggish pate and eyes like pinheads behind his spectacles.

First and foremost General Fedina was concerned with the logistics of the operation, since his orders were that the commission was not to leave the library before having completed their enquiry; it was a job that required concentration, and they must not allow themselves to be distracted. Thus a supply of provisions was procured, likewise some barrack stoves and a store of firewood together with some collections of old and it was generally thought uninteresting magazines. Never had the library been so warm in the winter season. Pallet beds for the general and his officers were set up in safe areas surrounded by mousetraps.

Then duties were assigned. Each lieutenant was allotted a particular branch of knowledge, a particular century of history. The general was to oversee the sorting of the volumes and the application of an appropriate rubber stamp depending on whether a book had been judged suitable for officers, NCOs, common soldiers, or should be reported to the Military Court.