“I don’t want the colonel thinking I came home just to have fun,” Manuela whispers. “What’s wrong with that?” Vanessa snorts. “It’s unwise, and it’s inappropriate,” Manuela elaborates. “Enough already, honey, fuck!” Vanessa explodes. “You’ve got to snap out of it!” Manuela glares at her ferociously. “Of course we’ll go, but you have to help us,” Vanessa chirps to Lapo, “because it’s not like we’re Amazons exactly.” The owner of the farm leads them to the stables. There are a dozen or so inoffensive-looking horses in the stalls, their muzzles buried in oats. Lapo sticks a carrot between the yellowed teeth of the friendliest-looking one, a white beast with big, round, sad eyes. “Paris sisters, let me introduce you to good old Adam, my horse. He lives here.” “You have a horse! So you’re rich!” Vanessa exclaims. Manuela’s not surprised by her enthusiasm, because her sister has a way of feeling at ease with everyone. Whereas she feels at ease only with her comrades now. And not only with other NCOs. With her platoon mates as well. Vanessa has dated an Albanian fisherman and the son of a notary—class has never been an issue for her. “People are just people,” she always says. “There are rich bastards and stingy bastards, angels who have college degrees and angels who are illiterate. I look at a person’s soul.” Manuela doesn’t believe in anything she can’t see, whose existence cannot be proven scientifically. She only believes in facts. And she has already condemned this Lapo without appeal: a daddy’s boy, conceited and full of himself, completely soulless.
“I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,” Lapo parries. “I’m only a fledgling journalist with a lousy temporary contract. The regular’s on maternity leave, God bless her.” “There’s a good chance she won’t come back,” Manuela comments bitterly. “Seventy-five percent of Italian women leave their jobs when they have children.” “Well, clearly I’m not Italian,” Vanessa laughs. She started working only after Alessia was born. She’d never even considered it before. And if it were up to her, she still wouldn’t. Work really gets to her. She’s never lasted more than a year in any job. “I don’t feel very Italian either,” Lapo says, misunderstanding. “Actually, I’m ashamed to be Italian now. If I could, I’d emigrate or defect. Italy has become a country of zombies, thieves, and pimps. Being twenty-five here is like having some incurable degenerative disease.” Manuela realizes he hasn’t understood Vanessa’s allusion.
The owner helps the Paris sisters mount lazy horses, and then escorts the improbable group of riders to the head of a trail that cuts through woods and along steep tufa cliffs. “It’ll take you half an hour to get to the Lions’ Tombs,” he explains. “They’re well worth seeing if you haven’t already.”
Stefano the obstetrician spurs his horse and takes the lead. He doesn’t look back at the others, who straggle behind. He acts as if he only came to do his friend a favor. The other three move slowly, cautiously, the Paris sisters clutching the reins, Lapo constantly reining Adam in. He doesn’t want to give Manuela the impression he considers her superfluous. He wants to make conversation, but he doesn’t know what to talk about with someone who has survived a war. He worries that if he doesn’t ask her about it, she’ll think he’s superficial, but if he does, she’ll think he’s invasive. Based on what he’s gleaned from the movies, veterans complain that no one is interested in their exploits, but at the same time, they don’t want to talk about them with civilians. “When I studied sociology in college,” he tosses out, “I read that there are three kinds of female soldiers: the paleomodern, the modern, and the postmodern. The paleomodern’s reasons for enlisting are classic, to serve her country, family tradition, things like that; the modern enlists in order to find a job; the postmodern to test herself. What kind of soldier are you?”
In a bad mood because she let herself be dragged along on a risky adventure that could compromise her rehab, Manuela responds dismissively that she doesn’t believe in such distinctions. There are good soldiers and bad soldiers, just like in any profession. “And I’m a good soldier.”
“I’ll quote you on that,” Lapo says, refusing to be discouraged. He’s not the kind of guy who gets offended when he’s told he’s made a mistake, or feels pleased when he’s told he’s right. Besides, he doesn’t accept easy labels himself. He always gives the wrong answers in a survey or opinion poll, trying to sabotage the system from within. He’s starting to relax, savoring the pleasurable realization that Vanessa didn’t agree to go out with him because he works in TV. She didn’t seem disappointed to discover he isn’t famous, that he’d only been on air for thirty seconds thanks to his interview with her and the mayor, that he’s still very junior. The truth is, he doesn’t know why she agreed to go out with him, and he starts to worry it was in hopes of finding a boyfriend for her traumatized sister. But if he’s understood anything about Vanessa, it’s that he can’t get to know her better without making Manuela like him. He flanks Manuela’s phlegmatic horse, and, to encourage her to open up, tells her he always dreamed of being a reporter: when he was little he’d imitate the TV newscaster, talking into a funnel in front of the window. His parents and grandparents were theater actors, and they didn’t understand where he got the idea. They made fun of him all the time. And they still do. “And you?”
“Look, I don’t give interviews,” Manuela smiles. “Not even if I asked you to, to help me out?” Lapo lets slip. “If I pitch a story on female soldiers they’ll go for it, it’s always a big draw. I only have a temporary contract, I have to come up with something to get myself noticed. They’ve stationed me in the northern outskirts of Rome, it’s deathly boring there. No organized crime to speak of, only a bit of Camorra infiltration lately. Very few homicides, all robberies or immigrants, at most a strike at the power plant or the port at Civitavecchia, commuter protests, poachers’ vendettas—they chop up wild boar and hang the pieces on people’s gates—nothing interesting. There’s no news, I’ll never get any national coverage.”
“I’m sorry,” Manuela says sympathetically, “but I can’t help you. I would need authorization from the PIO, which I don’t have.” Lapo doesn’t know what the PIO is, but imagines it’s the office that handles public communication, so he gives up. He could never do a job where you’re not allowed to say what you think to whomever you like. He wouldn’t feel free. Manuela gives in to the repetitive rocking of her horse, careful merely to duck as they snake their way beneath low-hanging branches, noticing only the buzzing of insects, the call of magpies, the shuffle of hooves over rocks and puddles. Italy is surprisingly green, moist, inhabited. Birds—raptors, maybe—perch on the high-tension pylons and wires. The sight of oak, holly, and ash, of dark fields and clouds is so sweet it hurts her eyes.
Vanessa’s bright voice blends with the crackle of crows, her words forming an intimate, familiar music, laced with memories. What a shame to have grown so far apart. And how peaceful the clatter of the horses’ hooves, how soft the earth, how warm the color of the rocks, how gentle the shape of the hills. “I wanted to be a ballerina, I drove everybody nuts, I wanted to be the next Alessandra Ferri. Mamma had to take me to the opera house in Rome, to see Swan Lake, Giselle, you know, those ballets where it’s all a flutter of tutus, and Manuela was bored to death. But I’m not pulling my hair out because I didn’t live my dream. You should never live your dreams, it’s actually a huge mistake.” Lapo suspects he’s too young to understand what she really means.
They’ve come to a clearing. The high cliff is full of holes, like Swiss cheese. The tufa looks solid, but it’s actually soft and crumbly, you can carve it with a spoon. Stefano halts his horse, hops down, and helps Manuela dismount. He gets her crutches from the backpack behind her saddle and hands them to her awkwardly. “It’s worth having a look at the necropolises,” Lapo says, “even though the grave robbers have taken everything. There’s no money to fence in the tombs or protect them somehow. And then there’re so many of them around here, they don’t know what to do with them. But you can still see the frescoes above the doors.” Vanessa ho
ps down boldly, deliberately falling into Lapo’s arms. “That’s not why I didn’t become a ballerina,” she clarifies. “I’m not like my sister, I’ve never liked things that require too much work.” “Well, so what do you do?” Lapo asks as he takes a flashlight out of his backpack. “I’ll wait for you here,” Manuela says, sitting on a rock. “I’ve already seen the tombs. And besides, I can’t walk on such uneven terrain. But don’t worry, I’m happy I came. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is here.”
Vanessa and Lapo venture down the slope. “A bit of everything. I worked in an appliance store selling refrigerators and stoves, I was a sales rep—pots and pans—I danced with an avant-garde troupe, the Flying Ghosts, maybe you’ve heard of them, they’re pretty well known on the festival circuit. But then I fought with the choreographer, so I quit. I regret it now, it was a mistake, but I’m too proud to go back. After that I spent six months in Ancona, as a secretary in a chimney flue factory. But I missed my daughter too much, so I quit. I have a seven-year-old daughter, I don’t know if I told you.” She hadn’t, and the news isn’t particularly welcome. “Now I teach group dance in a gym in Civitavecchia, there’s still room if you want to sign up. Oh, I also do the bookkeeping for my friend Youssef, he’s a professional electrician, he has his own company and a ton of sites to manage. I schedule the jobs and keep track of the bills. I have a boyfriend, we’ve been together for fourteen months, which for me is a world record, I don’t know if I told you.” She hadn’t, and the news isn’t particularly welcome. “All in all, I net six hundred a month,” she concludes. “I think I’m one of what’s called the new poor.” Lapo laughs, even though there’s not much to laugh about, and pushes her into the dark tunnel. Vanessa Paris smells of strawberries and the sea, a scent that causes a painful sensation in his groin.
Heads bent, they move forward under the vaulted roof of the tomb. The flashlight illuminates walls dripping with humidity, putrid puddles, Kleenex. Vanessa is simply too likable to let him get discouraged by all the negatives she tried to communicate so cheerfully. And besides, if she described the length of her relationship as a world record, maybe she was sending him a message. Message received. He shines the flashlight in her face and as soon as she closes her eyes he kisses her on the mouth. She doesn’t push him away, and Lapo switches off the flashlight.
Manuela gets up. She hazards a few steps on the path, but doesn’t feel safe. She’s afraid that her knee will give way, that her ankle will crumble. That her twenty-one bone fragments will separate. She feels like one of the old plates from her mother’s set of good china. Held together with glue, it still looks nice, but no one would dare eat off it. Noting her hesitation, Stefano feels obliged to ask her how her physical therapy is going. He has stayed behind with her instead of exploring the tombs only out of politeness. Though nature really doesn’t do much for him, and he can’t understand why she gazes at the ferns and nettles in the gorge more enraptured than if she were looking at rarities in a botanical garden, and why she follows so eagerly four finely spun clouds as they streak across the December sky. Manuela replies that the military doctors are excellent, specialists, and that, given how serious her injuries are, things are going as well as could possibly be expected.
Lapo and Vanessa have been in the tomb for a while, and Manuela and Stefano stand there next to the horses, watching puffy clouds race over the hills of Cerveteri, talking about decomposed fractures, cranial sutures, ankle and knee bones, cartilage, surgeries, the difficulty of treating tibial plateau fractures, articular plane reconstruction, titanium plates. Stefano notes that the prognosis is bad, but a body as fit as hers will certainly recover. A normal person would be permanently disabled. Manuela says she is a normal person. Not a champion skier or marathon runner. Stefano calmly asks if she is always so argumentative. “No,” Manuela responds, stabbing an acorn with her crutch. “I never express my opinions and I don’t talk a lot. I’ve learned to keep quiet. But I’m not on duty now. And maybe I am permanently disabled and don’t like you reminding me. It’s taken me a lifetime to become who I am.”
When Vanessa and Lapo emerge from the tomb and get back on their horses, wanting to continue their trek at least to the top of the hill, Manuela says she would rather head back. Stefano offers to ride with her to the farmhouse, and then take her home in his car. After a quick, silent exchange with her sister, Vanessa accepts. She has put a piece of mistletoe in her hair. She’s excited, her nose red from the cold. She’ll see the reporter again, and she won’t ask Manuela to go along next time. That’s how Vanessa is. She dives headfirst into life. She’s never satisfied, she’s always searching for something. She’s capable of throwing away a stable relationship that has lasted fourteen months for some twenty-five-year-old she barely knows. Manuela has never been able to decide if it’s a sign of freedom or of a perverse form of slavery. But she has never been able to dissuade her. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispers in her ear. “I’m on the pill,” Vanessa responds with a wink. “But don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen today anyway, I’m on my period.”
* * *
In the car, Stefano turns on the stereo, and Manuela is grateful because she doesn’t have the energy to bear the weight of a conversation. She has forgotten how to be with other people. For months she talked only with doctors, nurses, and other patients at the military hospital, and all they talked about were drugs, therapies, operations. The wounded lose the rhythm of life, they fall out of step, nothing really interests them anymore. She didn’t even watch TV. Everything that lay beyond her injuries, her problems, beyond her limited horizon of drug dispensation and doctors’ consultations, was out of reach. But now just talking about her fractures nauseates her. The stereo is playing Arabic or Indian music, something Oriental. A repetitive, hypnotic lullaby. It grates on her nerves because it reminds her of something, even though she couldn’t say what, but she doesn’t ask him to turn it off. “Lapo told me you were at Bala Bayak,” Stefano says out of the blue. “Did you know about it when you left? Were you told? Did you ever think about it?”
“About what?” Manuela asks suspiciously. “About the massacres in May at Ganjabad and Gerani,” Stefano says. “Those villages are only a few miles from your base, you must have seen the ruins.” “I didn’t get there until over six months later,” she responds, tensing up. “And besides, we Italians had nothing to do with it. The Alpini were inside the base, they were still setting it up, the Americans had only transferred control of the province to us a few weeks before.” “But it was a huge deal!” Stefano exclaims. “In the U.S. they compared it to My Lai in Vietnam. According to the Red Cross, at least eighty-nine civilians died.”
“That figure is exaggerated, there’s been a lot of misinformation about the whole episode,” Manuela replies. She would rather spare herself the effort this is costing her. “According to the American report, there was a Taliban gathering, and after the first bombing they scattered throughout the village, hiding in houses.” “What does that mean?” he interrupts her. “You don’t kill the dog to crush the flea.” “The world has changed,” Manuela says. “Fire burns friend and foe, it doesn’t ask for your ID first. In World War I five percent of all victims were civilians, in World War II fifty percent, in the wars in the second half of the twentieth century, eighty percent. But in today’s wars, it’s sometimes impossible to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. The same person, depending on the circumstances or the season, may be one or the other. Insurgents don’t wear uniforms. They dress like everyone else. Even as women. Sometimes they send the children ahead. There are children everywhere, they come up to you, surround you, tug at you, ask for candy, they have nothing, they’re the poorest people on earth, truly the lowest of the low, and you’d like to pat them on the head, give them a high five, even just look at them. But instead you have to fear them. Like in that sci-fi film, Screamers. I saw it at the FOB, on a friend’s computer. We watched it to remind ourselves not to get too sentimental, to remain
vigilant, circumspect. It’s really scary.” “I’ve never seen it,” Stefano says. Manuela doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t want to think about Afghanistan. The word itself is a thorn in her flesh. But it’s been tattooed on her forehead; it’s as if she’s been branded, people can’t help but talk to her about it.
“Sixty-four were women and children,” Stefano insists, “twenty-two of them little girls. The youngest, Sayad Musa, was only eight days old. I saw the photos on the Internet. I’ve been wondering what you thought when you met people from those villages. Every one of them must have lost a relative in the bombing. It must have been hard—for them, but for all of you, too.” Manuela’s leg starts to tingle. She has never been a person who believes that whatever she thinks is right and whatever others think is wrong, she has always enjoyed sharing and debating opinions. But right now she’s fighting an irresistible urge to punch Stefano. She bites her knuckles, leaving teeth marks on her skin.
Limbo Page 8
