History (14 page)

It was clear, from his eager promptness, full of commitment, that this operation had a double value to him. First: it gave him an opportunity, slight as it was, to exert himself for the victim of his crime, which now, as his drunkenness was weari off began to alarm him and assail him with remorse. And second: it was an excuse for him to linger a while longer in the tiny room that today ( though unwillingly) had received him again in a human space. When he left here, only a final Africa awaited him; now it

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was absolutely no longer identified with the interesting and colorful Africa of fi or books, but with a kind of deformed crater, in the midst of a wasteland of wretched boredom.

Meanwhile, huddled in the shadow of the wall, Ida observ his little job with mute admiration, because in her (as in certain primitive peoples ) there remained a timid, unconfessed distrust of electricity and its phe nomena.

When he had fi fi the light, he still remained seated, where he had put himself, on the edge of the cot; and, to broach a dialogue, pointing his forefi at his person, he was about to boast,

". . . nach Afrika . . ." but he remembered this was a military se cret, and kept his mouth closed.

For perhaps a minute more he lingered, sitting there, his torso bent forward, his arms lying across his knees, like an emigrant or a life-prisoner, already herded onto the departing vessel. With no further object to look at, his lonely eyes seemed drawn to the bulb, which now shone steadily at the head of the daybed (it was the same one that Ninnuzzu kept burning at night to read his picture magazines in bed). His eyes expressed a kind of dazed curiosity, but in reality they were empty. In the electric light, their dark blue center seemed almost black, while the surrounding white was no longer bloodshot or clouded by wine, but milky, tinged with pale blue.

Spontaneously, the boy raised his eyes towards Ida. And she met his torm ted gaze, of an infi ignorance and of a total awareness : both lost, the one and the other, in begging a single, impossible charity, vague also for him who asked it.

As he was about to go, it occurred to him to leave her a souvenir, according to a custom observ in his farewells to other girls. However, not knowi what to give her, he rummaged in his pockets, then found his famous knife; and though it meant a great sacrifi for him, he placed it in her palm, without further explanation.

In exchange, he also wanted a souvenir to take away. And he turn his puzzled gaze around the room, without discovering anything there; when his eyes fell on a little bunch of fl trampled-looking and almost greasy (an off of her poor pupils ), which nobody had bothered to put in water since morning and which lay on a shelf, half-withered. Th he detached a little reddish fl and gravely placing it among some papers in his wallet, he said :

"Mein ganzes Leben lang!" (For
all
my
life!)

For him, naturally, it was only a phrase. And he said it with the usual bragging and traitorous tone of all boys when they say it to their girls. It's a phrase that makes an effect, to be used for that purpose; but naturally it isn't valid, since nobody can really believe he will preserv a souvenir for

62 H I S T O R Y
. . .
. .
.
19--

that whole indescribable etern y which is life! He didn't know, on the other hand, that for him the eternity would be reduced to a few hours. His stay in Rome ended that same evening. Less than three days later, the air convoy in which he had just been embarked (from Sicily towards some southern or southeastern direction ) was attacked over the Mediterranean. An he was among the dead.

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. . . . . .

1941

JANUARY

Continuation of the disastrous winter campaign of the Italian troops sent to invade Greece.

In North Africa, the Italians are attacked by the British and abandon their colonies of Cyrenaica and Marmarica .

FEBRUARY-MAY

Following the landing of German armored troops in North Africa, the Halo-German forces reoccupy Cyrenaica and Marmarica .

The Germans interv in Greece, to prevent the complete rout of the Italian expedition. For this enterprise the collaboration of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia is asked. Yugosbvia refuses, and Germany reacts by occupying and devastating its territory, with punitive bombardments of Belgrade. Greece, after its long resistance, is quickly forced to surrender and is sub jugated by the Halo-Germans.