History (35 page)

Actually, he was too full of this liberating emotion, precarious though it was, to keep it all to himself. He delayed pulling the curtain, which he left folded back behind him, against the wall, as if the arrival of that correspondence had restored him, at least temporarily, to the human race. "And so they're all well back home?'' one of the sisters-in-law went on, merely to encourage him to chat. "Yes, they're all well." "And what's their news, eh? What do they say?" Granny Dinda inquired. With a certain palpitation in his voice, though making a show of contemptuous noncha lance, as if the matter didn't concern him, he answered : "They send me their best wishes. Today's my birthday."

"Aaah! Many happy return Happy birthday!" they all shouted around the room, in chorus. And at this, he made a discontented face, and closed himself inside his curtain of rags.

That same evening, Carulina's brothers brought the news that Naples had been abandoned by the Germ troops. The Allies were at the gates of

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the city, but meanwhile the Neapolitans, tired of waiting, in the space of a few days had taken care of cleaning out the city on their own; starving as they were, homeless gypsies, dressed in tatters, armed with drums of gaso line and old sabres and anything they could fi they had merrily over powered the German armored troops. "Naples's won the war!" Tole and Memeco proclaimed to all present. "Does that mean it's all over now?" Carulina asked. Nobody l1ad any doubt: Naples-to-Rome for the Anglo Americans was merely a hop, skip, and a jump. For the moment, the road to Naples was cut off America was on the other side, the Reich on this. But it was a matter of being patient a few more days, a week at most, and the way would be dear. "And then we'll all go home!" said granddad Giuseppe Primo ( forgetting that their
home
no longer existed ).

The only one who wasn't so sure was Giuseppe Secondo : the way he saw it, the Anglo-Americans, being capitalists, were spoiled boys, who took things easy : "They've got the victory in their pockets by now . . . A month more, or a month less . . . Why should they break their neck getting to Rome? Maybe they like the weather in Naples, the blue sea . . . A big holiday! They might decide to spend the winter on the cape of Posillipo . . ." But these remarks of Giuseppe Secondo's couldn't mar the enthusiasm of The Thousand.

In that period, The Thousand managed to acquire, God knows from where (apparently there were some Germans who fi requisitioned it, then sold it), a great quantity of contraband meat: at times even whole quarters of beef, which they stored in the latrine, where it was cooler, hanging them on the wall from a butcher's hook. Since this was a perish able item, they sold it at such a fair price that even Ida could allow herself the expenditure, enjoying that unhoped-for luxury almost every day of the week.

But for some time, Useppe had shown an occasional reluctance to eat meat, and he had to be forced. The fault, as could dearly be seen, lay in his nerv rather than in his stomach; but this bitter caprice of his, which he himself couldn't explain, in some cases seized him to the point of horror, making him vomit and cry. Luckily, however, when cleverly distracted by some little game or improvised story, he soon forgot all his repugnance, with his natural carefree nature. And he trustingly followed the others' example, eating the dish he had detested yesterday, now without even a hint of revulsion. So those providential meals helped prepare him better for the approaching winter.

The one who profited most by the unusual abundance was Vivaldi Carlo, who, coming from the North, was naturally carnivorous. For his birthday, along with the letters, he had obviously also received some money, for that same evening he grandiosely extracted a thousand-lire note

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.
.
. . . .
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from his frayed pocket, purchasing a quantity of cigarettes and an enor mous steak, which he devoured with his usual childlike voracity. He off everybody something to drink; but, clumsy and bewildered, as soon as he had paid for the wine, he withdrew behind his curtain, not sharing in the general festivity.

And in the days that followed, having become a customer of The Thousand's new butchershop, he quickly bloomed again. His limbs, natu rally sturdy, regained their elasticity and energy, and the unhealthy gray patina completely disappeared from his skin . Now more than ever, with his dark coloring and strong features, he resembled a nomad Arab-Ethiopian rather than a boy from Bologna. His rather protruding upper lip revealed, even too much, with its mobility, the feelings kept hidden by his silent mouth. And in his eyes, elongated like a stag's, there returned now and then that dreamy shadow, helpless and subterranean, which could be seen in his picture. But his face retained, like an indelible brand, that strange mark of brutal corruption.

Only once, during those days, was he seen to smile : and it was when, at the abrupt an·d unexpected appearance of three or four kids beneath the curtain, Rossella arched her back, swelling up in that attitude known in zoology as
terrifi ns,
with all the fur of her tail as stiff as quills. And baring her teeth, she emitted an authentic little roar, like a bloodthirsty feline of the tropical forests.

His healthiness exacerbated the torture of those immobile days, for the guest of the fourth corner. He could be heard yawning, with a kind of heartrending death-rattle, stretching to his full length, like a martyr on the wheel. In addition to his reading, now he spent a part of his time writing in a newly acquired notebook, which he carried with him always. And Carulina's sisters-in-law, among themselves, maliciously guessed that per haps this notebook, too, like the one before, was being fi to all its length and breadth wi CARLO CARLO CARLO VIVALDI VIVALDI.

In those days, for young men of military age, and worse still for deserters, it was more dangerous than ever to show yourself in the street. The same day their withdrawal from Naples was announced, the Germans had held a great parade in Rome, a show of strength, fi along the main streets with their armored vehicles. The streets were papered with posters calling up all ablebodied men to the defense of the North, or to forced labor in Germany. From time to time, without any warn streets were blocked off and buses, offi and public places were invaded by German soldiers or by Fascist militia, who arrested all young men present, herding them into trucks. These trucks, fi with young prisoners, could be seen moving through the streets, followed by screaming women. The Italian

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corps of the Carabinieri, which the Germans considered untrustworthy, had been disarmed : those of its men who hadn't succeeded in escaping had been sent off to concentration camps, and the rebels were massacred, the wounded and the corpses abandoned in the middle of the street. Posters ordered all weapons to be turn in, warning that any Italian citizen found possessing arms would be executed immediately on the spot.

Now in the room, either Carulina, or one of the others, provided he wasn't too little to reach the window, was always keeping watch inside the bars. If any uniform of the Reich or the Fascists was sighted in the neigh borhood, they immediately warned, in their secret code, "Light the lamp!" or else "I've got to shit!" and without delay all the men present would run to the corridor towards the inside staircase, which led from the basement to the roof, remaining ready, up there, to leap down and escape through the fi ds : The Thousand took ca also to load themselves hastily with their quarters of beef. Even Giuseppe Secondo followed them, though he was old, asserting he was Wanted because of his subversive ideas. And Vivaldi Carlo got up from behind his curtain to join them, but without running, raising his mobile upper lip in a grimace that bared his incisors, as if he were laughing. It wasn't a grimace of fear, or of ordinary aversion. It was a phobic contraction, which in an instant perverted his features with its almost deformed brutality.

And Rossella would stretch at once and go to him, her tail erect as a banner, with merry little contented steps, which clearly said : "Thank goodness! It was time to move a bit!"

6

A few days after the arrival of Vivaldi Carlo (I can't establish now the exact date, but it was surely before October lOth), a new event distinguished those autumn evenings : and this time it was a sensational surprise.

It was pouring rain : the light was on, door and windows closed, the panes masked with gray-black paper, and the gramophone was playing : "My Country Queen." The mattresses were still rolled up against the walls; it was the hour when supper was being prepared in every corner. And all at once, Useppe, who insisted on operating the gramophone, abandoned this fascinating task and dashed towards the door, shouting, in a transport of wonder:

"Ino! Ino! Ino!"

He seemed out of his mind, as if through that door he ha
d
had a

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. . .
.
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vision of a golden sailing-ship with silver masts, about to land inside the room all its sails unfurled, its decks alight with hundreds of little colored lamps. At tha t moment, in fact, two youthful voices were heard outside, more and more distinct in the downpour. In turn, Ida popped out of her corner, trembling from head to foot.

"Ma, Ina's here! Open, rn open!" Useppe shouted at her, dragging her to the door by her skirt. Meanwhile somebody outside was knocking vigorously at the door. Ida didn't hesitate, though her convulsed fi

wet with sauce, fumbled at the bolt.

Nino and another youth came in, both huddled under a single water proof tarpaulin, the kind used to cover the goods in the back of open trucks. Nino was laughing heartily, as if it were all a detective adventure. As soon as he set foot inside the room, with one movement he fl the tarp on the fl all glistening with water; and having taken a red rag from inside his clothes, he tied it around his neck with an air of glori defi Beneath the tarpaulin, he wore a little striped jersey, like a cyclist's, and a windbreaker of common rough corduroy.

"Ina! Ina!! Ina!!!"

"Hey, Use! It's me! You know me? Going to give me a little kiss?" They exchanged at least ten. Then Nino, introducing the other youth,

announced : "This is
Quattropunte.
And I'm
Ace of hearts.
Hey,
Quattro,
this here's my brother, the one I've told you all about." "Oh, you've talked about him plenty, all right!!" the other boy confi his face beaming. He was more or less Nino's own age, with the ordinary look of the Lazio peasants, his eyes small, good-humored, and sly. But you could see easily that his slyness, his good humor, every muscle of his sturdy little body, every breath of his lungs and beat of his heart, he had dedicated, without debate, to Nino.

The latter, meanwhile, was thinking of other things; and when his friend was already beginning his sentence, "Oh, you've talked about him!", without listening further, he was seeking everywhere with impatient and pensive eyes. "How did you fi us?!" his mother kept repeating; she had been covered with blushes since his entrance, like a lover. But instead of answering, he asked her, urgently:

"Blitz? Wh Blitz?"

Useppe was so transported with joy that he hardly caught this ques tion. Just faintly, at the passage of Blitz's poor shadow, his radiant gaze clouded for a moment, perhaps without his knowing. Then Ida, a fraid of summoning back the memory, murmured aside to Nino:

"Blitz is gone."

"Wh . . . Remo didn't tell me that . . ." (Remo was the name

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of the famous proprietor of the San Lorenzo tavern, near their house) "Remo didn't tell me anything about that . . .
"

In an apologetic tone, Ida began to stammer : "TI1e house was de stroyed . . . nothing was left .
.
."

But Nino burst out furiously : "I don't give a shit about the house!" His tone proclaimed that, as far as he was concern all the houses of Rome could have collapsed : he spat on them. What he wanted was his dog, his beloved companion, the starred-belly. This was what mattered to him. A tragic, childish suffering had come over his face, and he seemed almost ready to cry. For a while he was silent. Under his tangled curls, which covered his head like a helmet, his eyes conversed from an aban doned and bottomless darkness with a tiny ghost, sprung up to receive him in this alien place, dancing, crazed with joy, on his four little crooked legs. Then Nino reacted with wrath, as if Blitz's loss were everyone's fault. He sat down angrily on a rolled-up mattress, his legs outstretched, and to the whole assembly that had gathered around him, he announced, with grim

arrogance:

"We're partisans of the Roman Castelli zone. Good evening, com rades. Tomorrow morning we're going back to the base. We want a place to sleep, something to eat, and wine."

He saluted with clenched fi Then, with a kind of carefree wink, he pulled his jacket aside to show a belt, worn high up, almost across his chest, where he concealed a pistol.

You would have said that his meaning, displaying it, was "Either you give us food, etc., or else you'll pay with your lives." But instead, he promptly brightened with an ingenuous, self-satisfi smile, and explained : "It's a Walther," giving it an affectionate glance. "Spoils of war," he continued. "A German had it . . . An ex-German," he clarifi making a gangster face, "because he's not a German now, or Spanish, or Turk, or

Jew . . . or . . . or . . . he's fertilizer."

Suddenly his eyes, always so lively, had a strange, frowning stare, drained of images, like the glass of a lens. Since his birth, Ida couldn't remember ever having seen those eyes on him. But it lasted only an in stant. Then Ninnuzzu was again shining in a fresh, exhilarated mood, spill ing out his boyish boasts :

"These boots, too," he declared, showing his huge foot, size twelve, "are the same brand.
DEUTSCHLAND.
And Quattro's watch. Hey, Quattro, show them that watch of yours. It winds itself up, you don't have to wind it, and you can even tell the time at night, without the moon!"