A Soldier of the Great War

by Mark Helprin

  Alessandro released his grip and held up one finger. "Of course," he said, "you must always rest." A cloud swept across the boy's face as he was knocked from his reverie. "There are times for sleep, for inactivity, dreaming, indiscipline, even lethargy. You'll know when you deserve these times. They come after you've been broken. I'm speaking of a helpless, tranquil state before the great excitement of dawn."

  "Dawn..." Nicolò repeated, confused.

  "Yes," said Alessandro, "dawn. Tell me, what kind of feet do you have."

  "My feet?"

  "Yes, your feet, the ones that are attached to your legs."

  "I have human feet, Signore."

  "Of course, but two kinds of feet exist. Every army knows this but won't admit it for fear of losing recruits.

  "You may be tall, handsome, intelligent, graceful, and gifted, but if you have feet of despair you might just as well be a dwarf who shines shoes on the Via del Corso. Feet of despair are too tender, and can't fight back. Under prolonged assault they come apart. They bleed to death. They become infected and swollen in half an hour. I have seen men remove from their boots, after less than a day's march, feet that are nothing more than bloody sponges, soft shapeless things that look like skinned animals.

  "On the other hand, if I may, are the feet of invincibility. In extreme cases such as those of South American mountain peasants it may appear that a man is wearing an old torn-up muddy pair of boots, when actually he is barefooted. Feet of invincibility are ugly, but they don't suffer, and they last forever—building defenses where they are attacked, turning color, reproportioning and repositioning themselves until they look like bulldogs. They do everything but bleed and feel pain.

  "During your first days in the army you realize that despite all other differences mankind is divided into two classes. Well, what kind of feet do you have?"

  "I don't know, Signore."

  "Take off your shoes."

  Nicolò sat on the ground and unlaced his shoes. When they and his socks were strewn on the stones beside him, he rolled onto his back and put his legs up into the air so that Alessandro could inspect his feet.

  The old man first looked at the soles. Then he felt under the heel. He glanced at the toes. "Your feet are repugnant, objectionable, and invincible. Put your shoes back on."

  "And what about your feet, Signore? Are they invincible?"

  "Need you ask?"

  Nicolò had not needed to ask, for he had observed that Alessandro had scars even on his palms.

  Then Alessandro took inventory of his briefcase. The first objects did not please Nicolò entirely, for they were a set of webbing straps that attached to the case so that it could be carried like a knapsack. "Take it," Alessandro said matter-of-factly, "until Sant' Angelo. You're young." Next to emerge was a pocket knife, very sharp and very old, with a flint in the handle. "The flint pulls out, you see," Alessandro said, "and if you strike it against the top of the blade, you get a spark. When we rest, we may need a fire to keep us warm."

  "In August?"

  "The higher you go, the colder it gets, even in August."

  After the packets of food came a map. Having the appropriate map at hand, Alessandro explained, was an obsession that he had had for a long time. He liked to know where he was in the world and what was around him. A map, he stated, was for him what a Bible was for a priest, a book for an intellectual, and so forth.

  They discovered on their map, among mountains, rivers, empty plains, and settlements too small to have their names shown, four beacon-like towns strung along the road. Alessandro knew that at night these towns would sparkle and shine. Just their few lights in the slate-blue darkness would have, in their simplicity and purity, more of what made up light itself than the accumulated phosphorescence of whole ranks of great cities.

  He indicated on the map that, here, if they were hungry or had not already eaten, they would halt for dinner. Here they would be able to see Rome far behind them, lower, and seething with lights. Here they would see no villages, Rome would be obscured, and they would have only stars—because the moon would rise that night, Alessandro said, late, but when the moon did rise it would be perfectly full. Here they would go off the road and traverse a set of rounded peaks that overlooked Sant' Angelo and, farther beyond, Monte Prato.

  Alessandro said that they would walk through the night, the next day, the whole of another night, and the early part of the next morning. The weather would be good and the full moon would be their lantern.

  Already Sant' Angelo and Monte Prato had become far more than just mountain villages on the line of the motorized trolley. They seemed far away, beautiful, and high. Before reaching them, Alessandro Giuliani and Nicolò would have much walking to do, and would have to pass through the towns of Acereto, Lanciata, and perhaps five or six others with beautiful names, equidistant over civilizing fields and groves of trees waving against the perfectly blue sky. At the start of their long walk, the road was deserted, and, perhaps because the world was silent, they were too.

  ALESSANDRO GIULIANI believed that if all things went smoothly and well on a journey, the momentum and equanimity of walking or riding would overshadow whatever the traveler had left behind and whatever he was traveling to reach. Making good time on the road was in itself reason for elation.

  Once, in a lecture, he had stated this in passing, only to be abruptly challenged by a student who had wanted to know if the respected professor thought that elation could come to a condemned man on his way to the gallows.

  "I don't know," Alessandro had answered. "Usually, the way to the gallows is not long enough to be called a journey, but let us say, for example, that a condemned man must be transported from one extreme of a country to another, where he will be executed, and that his journey will take days or weeks."

  "Is that realistic?" the student asked.

  "Yes," Alessandro replied. "Yes, it is realistic. In such a case," he continued, "the man may know the greatest elation and the most savage despair—as if, in anticipation of eternity in heaven or in hell, he were previewing both."

  "I don't understand. Elation in a man condemned to die?"

  "Elation, mad elation, visions, euphoria." A long silence had followed, during which the lecture audience had been as motionless as if it had been under the gun, and the professor had been unable to resume the lecture, on account of memories that made him forget momentarily where he was and what he was doing.

  Even a trip across the city provided minor joys and desperations that, although of a lesser order than those experienced on a journey of days or weeks, stood in relation to one another nonetheless in much the same way as those of a voyage around the world. The scale might change, but the patterns were the same. Alessandro guessed that Nicolò would expect the walk to be of one complexion. Why should it not be? Despite enough variation in the experience of a child by the age of fourteen to show him twenty times over that life is stupefying and complex, a single great force drove him forward and gave him both the momentum he would need for the rest of his life and the immediate resilience for surviving the blows he attracted with his adolescent stupidities and excesses. Nicolò would have chased the streetcar not only to Acereto, but, if he hadn't caught it there, to Lanciata and perhaps all the way to Sant' Angelo. He expected the world to be complected uniformly.

  Nicolò would be bitterly disappointed by the slow and difficult, but Alessandro had learned to love these as much as or perhaps more than he loved the fast and easy. To him, they seemed not so far apart. It was almost as if, facing off invariably at odds, they conducted a secret liaison, with their hands enwrapped under the table.

  Nicolò could not yet know this, and he would be troubled when the road grew dark and steep. For that reason, Alessandro was disappointed that they had set out with such glory all around them, everywhere—in the trees that swayed lightly, like ocean waves; in the rich colors of late afternoon as the retreating sun made the east a shadowless perfection of evenly throbbing light; in the s
lightly dusty haze that came with the approach of evening, dry and cool; in the wheat as the wind traveled through it as slowly as a boat in the thick of polar seas; and in all the memories summoned by these beauties to resonate and sing, until, in their ecstatic multiplication, they closed themselves off to mortal view by virtue of the light that is too bright to see.

  Nicolò had no notion that everything was not well. He thought that the fine weather, the flat road, and the sun at their backs were all to be expected. He was surprised by Alessandro's silence, for he had assumed from the very beginning, because the old man had left the streetcar for Nicolò's sake, that the walk would be paved with his words. Did he not, in his first sentences, launch the explosive shell about his escape over the ice fields? Even if the old were inconsistent and cranky, they did sometimes tell good stories, and this fellow, with his shock of straight white hair, his finely tailored suit, the slim bamboo cane, and a noble bearing that Nicolò had seen only ... well, had never seen ... would undoubtedly have a lot to say.

  He wanted Alessandro to talk endlessly in stories and regale him with things from an age before he was born. He would listen eagerly not because he had any hint of what the old man would elucidate, but, to the contrary, because he hadn't the vaguest idea of what had made the man who limped steadily alongside him on the road to Sant' Angelo and Monte Prato.

  Nicolò also didn't understand that Alessandro knew exactly what a young man would expect, and (before Nicolò had given any indication whatsoever of such expectations) was offended by what were, in fact, the boy's assumptions.

  After all, Alessandro Giuliani was paid more than decently to speak and to write. Why should this boy expect that, in walking, he would overflow with speech? And why should the boy assume that the old man, having seen what he had seen, having contended throughout his life with great and ineffable forces, having survived into old age, and having known, intimately and deeply, both natural and feminine beauty, would want to say anything at all? For kilometers and kilometers, they walked the straight road in absolute silence.

  NICOLÒ FOUND it difficult to believe that Alessandro was not moving faster, for, perhaps because of the blurred-spokes effect caused by the movement of his legs and his active cane, and the unusual up-and-down motion of his limping gait, he looked as if he were going very fast. It seemed as if, had he been able to channel all the energy with which he moved and checked himself, he would have been swifter than a gazelle. But he was slow.

  Nicolò, who moved smoothly and effortlessly, ached to run or climb. "What's that?" he asked, though not as a question, pointing to a mound of earth sitting in the middle of a field. Soon he was racing toward it, the briefcase bouncing against his back as he jumped irrigation ditches and ran among the furrows. Then he re turned by way of a little dam over which water was pouring in a curve that looked like a leaping fish.

  "What are these side trips?" Alessandro inquired.

  Nicolò shrugged.

  "You know, I once had a dog," the old man continued, "a big black English dog named Francesco. Every time I took him for a walk, he covered three times the distance I did."

  "Why do you tell me this?" Nicolò asked.

  "I don't know," Alessandro said, waving his arms in the air as if to indicate confusion. "It just came to me."

  "Do you still have him?"

  "No, that was a long time ago. He died when I was in Milan, but I think of him on occasion, and in teaching I often use him as an example."

  "You're a teacher?" Nicolò asked, with noticeable discomfort, for he had never been to school, and he thought of teachers as a dangerous species of male nun.

  Alessandro didn't answer. The sun was low now. Everything was warm and golden, and they were still ten kilometers from Acereto. Soon it would be dark. The old man did not want to waste energy, because he was beginning to warm up, to feel an oncoming sensation of strength and equanimity. If he didn't upset it, the equanimity would carry him forward in a trance.

  They continued on in silence until Nicolò began to dance through his steps.

  "You have so much energy you can't contain yourself, can you."

  "I don't know."

  "Marvelous. I, if I had your strength, could unite Europe in a week and a half."

  "You were young," Nicolò challenged. "Did you unite Europe?"

  "I was too busy thinking about girls and climbing mountains."

  "What mountains?"

  "The Alps."

  "With ropes and things?"

  "Yes."

  "How do you do that? I saw a movie once where the guy fell. Do you throw the rope to catch on a rock, or what?"

  "No. Its different, but if I have to explain, I won't have any breath."

  "You're a teacher. Teachers should explain."

  "Not when they're on long marches."

  "What do you teach?"

  "Aesthetics."

  "Who are they?" Nicolò asked, thinking that they might be initiates in a hilltop religious order.

  "You mean what are they. You're the second person to ask me that today," Alessandro said. "Are you sure you want me to answer? If I do, your squid may die."

  Nicolò's suspicions about the old man's sanity resurfaced.

  "He came all the way from Civitavecchia." Alessandro turned to the boy and looked into his eyes. "Marco ... the water chicken."

  "Don't tell me Marco the water chicken," Nicolò commanded. "What are aesthetics?"

  "The philosophy and study of beauty."

  "What?"

  "What?" the old man echoed.

  "They teach that?"

  "I teach it."

  "That's stupid."

  "Why is it stupid?"

  "For one, what is there to teach?"

  "Are you asking or telling?"

  "Asking."

  "I'm not telling."

  "Why not?"

  "I've already answered you, in a book. Buy the book and leave me alone. Better yet, read Croce."

  "You wrote a book?"

  "Yes, many books."

  "About what?"

  "About aesthetics," Alessandro said, rolling his eyes upward.

  "What's your name?"

  "Alessandro Giuliani."

  "I've never heard of you."

  "I still exist. Who are you?"

  Nicolò Sambucca."

  "What do you do, Mr. Sambucca?"

  With some pain, in the way of self-deprecating beginners who are facing long apprenticeships, Nicolò said, "I make propellers."

  Alessandro stopped to stare at Nicolò Sambucca. "Propellers," he said. "Naturally! I'm going to walk seventy kilometers with a kid who makes propellers."

  "What's wrong with propellers?" Nicolò asked.

  "Nothing's wrong with propellers," Alessandro answered. "They're necessary to drive airplanes. Where do you do this, if I may ask? Certainly not at home."

  "At F.A.I. I don't really make them, I help. Next year I'll be an apprentice but now I'm a helper. I sweep the chips and the curlings, keep the tools in order, serve lunch, and push around the big frames that they make the propellers on. It takes a long time to make a propeller: it has to be tested. We have wind tunnels. Because of the union, I'm not allowed to touch the propellers yet. I can't even put my finger on one."

  "Did you finish school?"

  "I didn't start," the boy said. "When I was little, we moved here from Girifalco, in Calabria. When I was a kid, I sold cigarettes."

  "What does your father do?"

  "He puts up clotheslines, the kind that have the steel towers, you know, near the house."

  "Those are very useful."

  "I don't really understand you," Nicolò said.

  "Good. We met only this afternoon, and we've said very little. I'm glad that I have retained an aura of mystery."

  "Yeah, but you're a teacher."

  "What's not to be understood?"

  "It doesn't match."

  "What doesn't match?"

  "A lot of things, but teachers don
't do that."

  "Don't do what?"

  "Walk over ice fields, hunted by armed soldiers."

  "In the war a lot of people did things they weren't accustomed to doing."

  "Did you fight the English?"

  "Sometimes, but they were on our side."

  "I thought we fought them and the Americans. Hey, we like the Americans, but they were on the other side," Nicolò said.

  "That was in the Second World War. I was too old for it. All I did was sit on the ground while I was shelled and bombed. I knew how to do that because I had had a lot of practice in the previous war."

  "There was another one?"

  "Yes," Alessandro said, "there was another one."

  "When? I never heard of it. Who did we fight? Are you sure?"

  "Why do you think the Second World War is called the Second?"

  "It makes sense. Maybe I'm stupid, but I didn't know about the first one. Was it big? Did it last long? What did you do? How old were you?"

  "You have asked me many questions at once."

  "Yeah."

  "If I answer you, you'll be listening all the way to Sant' Angelo. I don't have the breath to walk that distance and explain these things. The hills are far too steep for me to give a treatise. There are numerous books about the First World War. I can give you a list, if you want."

  "Is there a book about you in the war?"

  "Of course not. Who would write a book about me in the war? Why would anyone want to, and who could ever know?" Alessandro looked askance at Nicolò. "Let me put it this way," he said. "I don't know myself well enough to write my autobiography, and if anyone else ever tried, I would say: Forget about me, tell the story of Paolo, Guariglia, and Ariane."

  "Who were they?"

  "Never mind."

  "You talk to me, Signore, like this was the propeller shop. This isn't the propeller shop."