The Human Body (28 page)

What is he thinking of? How did he end up in that house? She's the wife of one of his men, forbidden fruit, the red zone. He was used to managing erotic urges, to utilizing them just as he did his limbs, his weapons, the leather steering wheel of his German car, but now they're muddled up with a sense of guilt and shame that intensifies and confuses them. He feels out of control. Then, too, his failure with Valeria S. has challenged the very foundation of his masculinity. He's afraid that crossing the valley has transformed him into one of those slimy individuals who spy on carnal acts from a distance without having the guts to act—a voyeur, an impotent observer. He despises men like that—he's never understood them. Anyway, it's already been three months since he spoke with Flavia on the porch and since then there have been no developments between them.

Inexplicably, despite all of the precautions, word about his visits leaks out. One day, in the mess hall, Zampieri plunks down in front of him. “Hey, Marshal. They're saying you're having an affair with Campo's wife. Is it true?”

“No.”

“Still, that's what they're saying.”

“I give her a hand with the yard. She's all alone.”

Zampieri taps her lower lip with a fork. “Do you seriously think that's a decent thing to do?”

“You're on the wrong track, Zampa.”

“I once saw a movie where something like that happened. It ended badly.”

He can't be certain, but it seems that since that day the guys have tended to avoid him. He tries not to think about it. He hasn't done anything wrong; he's only offered to help a mother in need. As for the reasons driving him to be so conscientious, no one can possibly guess them, much less understand them; they're his business.

The guys might well be upset for other reasons. Replacements from other companies have arrived and so far René's efforts haven't been enough to create a climate of cooperation. He himself was cool toward them in the beginning; he struggled to memorize their names, continually asking them to repeat them, and this must not have made them feel very welcome. The veteran troops eat on one side, the new ones on the other. The veterans train on one side, the new ones on the other. The veterans think the new guys can't understand a damn thing about what they've been through—and they're probably right—while the new ones don't consider that a good reason to be mistreated, and find creative ways to express the fact that the exasperation is mutual. The overall picture is frustrating. The marshal had big plans for his platoon, certain that its skills and glory would grow, yet here they are in a state of total disarray.

Maybe it's Zampieri's gall that gives him the push he needed, that makes him a little more daring. One afternoon he suggests to Flavia an idea he's been thinking about for weeks, but says it as though it has just occurred to him: “How about getting dinner out sometime, the two of us?”

She emerges from the depths of one of her absent interludes. She looks at René as if he were a stranger who'd snuck in, a hint of disgust tugs at her mouth, then she leaves the room without a word. When it's time to say good-bye, she coldly orders him not to come back again.

 • • • 

E
very year in late July, the barracks in Belluno organizes sports tournaments. The six hundred soldiers who participate don't do it because they're forced to, but they don't do it for fun either: the fact is that extracurricular activities allow them to rack up points useful to career advancement. The competitions attract journalists from the local papers and various sponsors, quick to offer tempting prizes just to have their logo printed in large letters on the bibs. There is also a substantial round of betting prompted by the events; Ballesio is aware of it and does nothing to hinder the illegal activity because he considers gambling, like other male vices, part of every good soldier's pedigree.

Rumor has it that this year the colonel has put twenty euros on Masiero for the summer biathlon. The bookies, including Enrico Di Salvo, give the captain three-to-one odds, making him the odds-on favorite, while René, who had always been a worthy rival, is barely given nine. The assessment of the marshal is symptomatic of the condition he's in: he's visibly heavier, out of shape, nervous. None of his men has bet a dime on him winning, and he knows it.

For this reason, his comeback in the second half of the event astounds him. With no particular effort, René finds himself outdistancing Masiero by a few dozen yards and racks up a higher score than the captain in target shooting, hitting four cardboard silhouettes right in the heart. It's the first time he's won that stupid competition and the first time he couldn't care less.

On the podium, however, he relishes the satisfaction of standing over the captain's bald head. The soldiers applaud from the stands and his group of men is easily recognizable because they seem to have gone bonkers. Even from a distance, the marshal has the impression that it's the first source of shared pride for his newly reconstituted platoon.

“Congratulations, Marshal,” Masiero snarls.

René realizes that his hand is sweaty. “Congratulations to you, Captain.”

Ballesio awards the third-place winner a clock radio that projects the time on the wall. Masiero, in addition to the medal, receives a steel Suunto wristwatch, an underwater model with a large dial and a wide array of functions. It must cost three hundred euros at least. His prize, René figures, must be worth even more.

He bows his head and lets the commander place the gold-plated medal around his neck. Then he unwraps the package. He feels Masiero's cold eyes on him and from his top spot pities the man for still being obsessed by their futile match.

The marshal, the first-place winner, also gets a watch: a measly plastic Swatch with a green-and-black camouflage band. Incredulous, René's eyes question Ballesio, who pretends he doesn't understand. Then the marshal turns to Masiero and the captain smiles at him: there's always something new to learn about command.

He doesn't have to wait long for his consolation prize, however. It's a stifling night, already past one, and René is stationed in the street because the light is still on in Flavia's room. He's almost dozing off—it wouldn't be the first time he fell asleep in the car and then woke up at dawn, aching and stiff—when the interior lights up with an electric blue gleam. An instant later his cell phone wiggles on the empty passenger seat, next to the leftovers of his take-out supper. Flavia's name appears on the display.

The marshal listens intently for the sound of approaching police sirens, but doesn't hear anything. “Hello?”

“Are you still out there?”

René the strategist, René the sharp-witted man who less than a year ago set off on a mission destined to turn into a bloodbath, would have said no, then would have moved cautiously from the incriminating spot to a more secure hiding place. Instead, this new screwed-up version of himself can't help telling the truth: “Yeah, but I'll go if you want me to.”

“No. Stay a little longer.”

“Can't you sleep?”

“I can hardly ever. Last fall I lived as if I were in Afghanistan too; now I think I'm just a little unhinged. Do you know what time zone the dead are in?”

“No.”

“I'm sorry. That was a bad joke.”

“You don't have to apologize.”

“You were good in Sunday's competition.”

“Who told you that?”

“I was there. Gabriele pointed at you while you were being awarded the medal. I think he recognized the lawn mower man.”

“It must be time to mow again.”

Flavia ignores him. “A neighbor complained about the pile of cigarette butts he finds each morning at the curb. You should use the ashtray.”

“Okay. I'll remember that.”

“Salvo used to say that some days your clothes smelled of smoke so bad that it was impossible to be around you.”

“I guess he was right.”

“Do you still go with cougars?”

The question is fired at him point-blank. René struggles to contain his shock. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Look, Salvo told me about your second job. So, do you still see them?”

“No. Anyway, they weren't cougars. Just friends.”

“How much do you charge?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Come on, I'm curious—tell me how much.”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On how well-off they are.”

Flavia laughs loudly. René holds the phone a few inches away from his ear.

“How altruistic! And if I were to hire you?”

“Don't kid around.”

“A young mother with her dead husband's survivor benefits. You should be generous.”

“Stop it!”

“Fifty? A hundred? I can manage up to a hundred.”

“I wouldn't go to bed with you.”

“Why not?” Her tone has suddenly changed. “So it's true then, that I'm used goods, ready for the scrap heap.”

“It's not that.”

“Oh, no?”

“You're . . .” He begins, but can't find a way to finish.

“Salvo's wife? A widow? A bizarre sense of moral ethics. Anyhow, forget it.” Suddenly she's aggressive. She takes a breath, as if to compose herself. “I'm going to sleep.”

Can her intentions be serious? Does she really want to invite him in? Not long ago she kicked him out for daring to talk about having dinner together and now she's longing to have sex with him? Maybe she's just teasing him, but René doesn't hesitate to explore the possibility: “However, if you . . .” he throws out.

“A hundred euros is a lot for me right now,” Flavia responds quickly.

“We don't have to discuss money.”

“Yes, we do.”

His head is spinning. He's negotiating a fee to service the wife of the man he let die. “Thirty is fine,” he says without thinking.

“I'm not asking for charity.”

“Fifty, then.”

And so, still incredulous, he finds himself usurping the bed of one of his soldiers. They're in complete darkness, in a sweltering room that René has never seen in daylight. Flavia is lying on her stomach, naked, her legs clamped tight, as if awaiting a punishment. René has never found himself trembling before approaching a woman. Is he afraid of failing again? Or is it the unusual circumstances that terrify him? He's fantasized about this moment for so long that now, caught off guard, he's slow to get aroused.

He's having second thoughts. Flavia doesn't move, doesn't encourage him. Lying motionless like that, she might even be asleep, if it weren't for the fact that she's plainly on her guard. When René kisses her neck, she jerks her head violently, resisting. Then he lightly traces her back along the curving line of her spine, playing for time, but Flavia rejects any kind of foreplay. She stops his hand, pulls him to her by the hips. She wants to be just a body, not a person; she wants to be any other anonymous client from his second career. René feels overwhelmingly sad. Get on with it, Marshal, that's all they want from you.

But no, the woman he's now slipping into is Flavia Camporesi. And nothing about their coupling resembles the identical, restrained services performed for Valeria S. and Rosanna Vitale and Cristina M. and Dora and Beatrice T. and the dozens of other women whose names he has forgotten. For the first time in his life, René is making love with all of his muscles, not just his pelvis, and his head isn't able to formulate coherent thoughts.

He closes his eyes to regain control, but he's struck by a burst of blinding red flashes, gunfire and explosions everywhere. Then he's back in the room, without slowing down for a second. This isn't how you do it; this isn't what the clients want; this isn't what they pay him for. His orgasm is ready to explode and he can't stop it. Flavia's face is pressed against the mattress. She's breathing heavily or crying, René can't tell, but he pushes her head farther down, as if he could make her sink into the sheets. In less than a minute he comes, while the red of the explosions pours from his eyelids and floods the room.

Only later, when they're still lying down, with no bodily contact between them, does Flavia begin talking again. She doesn't waste a single word to label what has just happened, to consider its implications or justify herself. Instead, she wants to hear about the desert, what their days were like and how long their guard duty shifts lasted, what they ate, and who led them to commit the ill-considered act of leaving the base, as if she were asking Salvatore those questions on any ordinary night. She wants to know if her husband still kept his closely trimmed beard or if he sometimes shaved it off, if he mentioned her, and how often, and in what context.

René fills her in, patiently. He feels a miraculous absence of embarrassment in talking about the senior corporal major, lying there on his half of the bed after another performance that should be judged awful according to his old criteria but that, on the contrary, has satisfied every nerve in his body. He is equally surprised to find that he doesn't feel guilty about having once again stolen Salvatore Camporesi's place to sleep.

The next night, in the BMW's air-conditioned bubble, he awaits a signal. Everything is repeated in the same order: they have sex like strangers, hypnotized and rank with sweat, and when their bodies are drained of grief they start talking. It goes on like that for the rest of the summer.

On August 6, Flavia grills him about the details of Operation Mama Bear and when she meets with his resistance, she becomes angry and accuses him of being a slave to stupid rules, like all the others. On August 9, she tells him about all the anxiety Salvo kept bottled up inside him, and how he released it only at night after falling asleep, through violent muscle spasms. Had he noticed? No, not really. On August 28, she hammers him about a leather bracelet, which, naturally, René doesn't remember at all. Still, he swears he saw it on Salvatore's wrist every single day spent at the FOB, of course, every day, he never took it off
.
He's forced to lie to her frequently, especially when she keeps asking (August 31, September 7, 9) about the appearance of the body, which they didn't allow her to see. But what can he tell her, that they weren't even sure the remains were Salvatore's and that in any case there was no trace of his hands or his eyes? That her husband had been blended together with the others? On September 13, Flavia gives him a lesson on responsibility and on the consequences that the affection of the people around us have on each of us, whether we care to recognize it or not. René only pretends to understand. On September 26, she screams at him to get out and threatens to call the police—what does he want from her anyway? There's nothing for him here, only misery. He should turn his goddamn car around and go find someone sunny and cheerful, forget these damaged goods. René swallows the outburst with bitter sorrow, but for the first time he considers the possibility that their seeing each other may have to do with something more than loneliness and grief.