History (61 page)

According to Davide, Comrade Remo didn't understand Ninnarieddu at all, if he could imagine him a partisan in the North. The partisans in the North were organized like an army, and from the beginning ( since the

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summer of '43) this aspect had infuriated Nino, who couldn't stand offi and chevrons, respecting no hierarchies or institutions or laws; and if he had turned to contraband dealings now, it wasn't because of the earn but because of the illegality! In fact, the older Nino grew, the less he could adapt to Power; and even if, on occasion ( through some inner, fatal need of his ), he worked up a certain excitement for Power, he soon reversed it, in to the most extreme defamation : with double enjoyment, in fact. Nino was too intelligent to allow himself to be blinded by certain false stars . . .

And at this point, Davide, carried away by the subject, began to argue in a loud voice, with impassioned rhetoric . . . Power, he explained to Santina, is degrading for those who submit to it, for those who administer it, and for those who control it! Power is the leprosy of the world! And the human face, which looks up and should mirror the splendor of the heavens, all human faces, instead, fi to last, are deformed by such lep rous aspect! A stone, a pound of shit will be worthier of respect than a man, as long as the human race is infected by Power . . . Davide unbur dened himself in this vein in Santina's little room, gesticulating with his arms and legs, shaking and fl the bed-cover. And Santina listened to him, her big eyes wide, lusterless, as if, in a dream, she were listening to a Kalmuck or Bedouin shepherd reciting verses to her in his own language. Since Davide, with his unruly movements, took up almost all the bed, her broad behind was half hanging out of it; and her feet, covered with chil blains, were cold beneath her stockings : but she avoided drawing the cover too much to her side, out of consideration for her lover. Really, in the little room, pleasantly cool in summer, the damp in winter oozed from the walls, like the fl of a wine cellar.

But the cold and the icy water that give her chilblains, the heat that enervates and makes her sweat, the hospital and the prison, the war and the curfews, the Allies who pay well and the young pimp who beats her and takes all her earnings, and this handsome youth who likes to get drunk and talk and wave his arms and kick and slaughter her in bed, but is
nice,
since he then always gives her the last cent he has in his pockets : all good and all evil, the hunger that makes her teeth fall out, the ugliness, the exploita tion, wealth and poverty, ignorance and stupidity . . . for Santina are neither justice nor injustice. They are simple, unfailing necessities, for which no explanation is given. She accepts them because they happen, and she undergoes them without any suspicion, as a natural consequence of being born.

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JANUARY

In Italy, as in the other occupied countries, the Nazi-Fascists multiply their acts of repression and genocide, with murders and incalculable destruc tion, slaughtering entire populations, and deporting people to the concen tration camps or the industries of tl1e Reich (where the number of forced laborers, from ail over Europe, now exceeds nine miilion ).

On the Eastern front, the Soviets resume the off along tl1e Vistula, forcing the Germans to abandon Warsaw and the rest of Poland. The Soviets reach the Prussian border. In Berlin the Fiihrer moves into his private air-raid shelter (Bunker ) at a depth of about sixty feet beneatl1 the Chanceilery buildings.

FEBRUARY

In Germany, tribunals are set up wJJiclJ mete out capital punishment to anyone unwiiling to join in the death-struggle.

Near Yalta ( the summer residence of the Czars ) a new Conference of the Big Three, the Ailied Powers (Russia, Great Britain, United States ), who foresee imminent victory The future disposition of the world is out lined, agreed on by the tluee, according to the familiar pattern of blocs or spheres of infl ence of the Great Powers, which already draw their respec tive portions on the map.

MARCH

From his underground Bunker, beneath the rubble of the bombed Chanceilery, the Fiihrer orders the destruction of ail military and civilian instailations, ail systems of transportation and communication, ail industrial plants and provision supplies of the Reich.