Limbo

by Melania G. Mazzucco

  Only a few months have passed since Manuela took the photos that Zandonà’s parents distributed to the newspapers—for she was the one who immortalized her friends in front of the Lince. They both have beards, which they didn’t have when they arrived at Bala Bayak. Lorenzo’s is sparse and reluctant, Diego’s bushy and bristly. They’d all let them grow during their tour of duty until, little by little, they ended up looking like Afghanis—dusty, listless, slow, fatalistic. It was only at the end that their beards were so long and unkempt. And yet Lorenzo and Diego already seem infinitely younger than she is. Kids.

  Manuela wants to read all the articles Traian has downloaded for her. As if the secret of the divergence that saved her might be hidden somewhere in there, along with the message that Vanessa, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ happy God, says was given to her. But at two Alessia comes knocking on the door and tells her that the man from the Bellavista rang the doorbell and is asking for her. “I was expecting you for lunch,” Mattia says, “did you forget about me?” His voice is distorted, as if coming from far away. “I was in Afghanistan,” she says. “Don’t you want to come back to Ladispoli, to me?” His playful tone doesn’t mask his worry that she has changed her mind and doesn’t want to see him anymore. “To you, who?” she asks bitterly. “I don’t even know who you are. You’re Mr. No One. All I know is the emptiness that envelops you.” “So you’re not coming?” “Not now.”

  * * *

  The articles that appeared on June 11 offer a different reconstruction of events. It was neither a radio-controlled car bomb nor an IED. The body of one of the Afghani civilians, a male, or rather the stump of his body that was left, showed trauma consistent with a SBBIED, or suicide body-borne IED, in other words, a suicide bomber with an explosive vest. The device contained no electronic components, which could be rendered ineffective by the soldiers’ jammers, and was probably activated by a switch or a pressure mechanism. It contained circa ten kilos of C4 explosive. The device was rendered more lethal by six Soviet-manufactured hand grenades and up to a thousand pieces of shrapnel. The explosion was devastating. The plastic explosive aside—which, in any case, is readily available—all the materials needed to construct the vest (wires, batteries, switches) are for sale in any market.

  Sergeant Paris, who underwent surgery during the night at the American military hospital in Farah, is in an induced coma. The doctors still will not release a prognosis or make predictions about what her condition will be, if she does survive; nor do they know if she has suffered permanent brain damage.

  Lorenzo’s father, Piero Zandonà, granted a disconsolate interview to a local paper, in which he said he was proud of his son, but didn’t understand why the government wouldn’t bring our boys home. The Twin Towers fell nearly ten years ago, along with the Taliban, but the terrorists are still multiplying like rats, practically every Afghani is a terrorist now, which means that maybe no one is. In fact, the word has fallen out of favor, and now even our allies refer to the enemy in a different way: insurgents, rebels. But, just like the word itself, an insurgent is someone who rises up, who protests, who rebels against his government or an invader. So what are the Italians doing? Fighting against people who, in the name of liberty, are rebelling against a corrupt and slavish government? But didn’t the Italians go to Afghanistan on a peace mission in the name of liberty? And if they can’t make peace there, or if that peace isn’t to the liking of the people on whom they want to impose it, they can’t make war either, because our constitution repudiates war. Other soldiers die with guns in their hands, but Italian soldiers are being blown up like sheep by land mines. They say it’s a good sign, that attacks with IEDs or suicide bombs merely reveal the impotence of the rebels, who have lost all offensive capabilities. But he doesn’t understand how it’s a good sign when his son was butchered in front of a girls’ school. For what? Would Afghani girls ever really have gone to that school? His son is dead, and no one can bring him back, but Piero Zandonà demands to know the truth about what happened. How is it possible that a TNT-wearing kamikaze managed to slip into a high-risk situation, a ceremony at which strict security measures were supposedly in place? Did someone betray them?

  The remains of the dead have arrived in Italy. The state funeral will be held tomorrow, in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome.

  The third and final article to appear in the national press, three days after the attack, all text, no photo, just added a bit of color, riling up the readers with a few sentences stolen from the Marcianise parish priest who was supposed to marry Diego and Imma, Russo’s young widow, and the mayor of Mel, who proclaimed mourning citywide in honor of Lorenzo’s sacrifice. The article also stated that Sergeant Paris was still in an induced coma at the Farah hospital. The mangled body of the Qal’a-i-Shakhrak suicide bomber had not been identified. The subsequent articles, scattered in local papers or odd online publications, didn’t add anything new, they simply repeated ad infinitum the little information that was already known. By July 25 the June attempt in front of the girls’ school was already a statistic. The bloodiest summer since the beginning of the mission in Afghanistan.

  * * *

  Manuela calls Captain Paggiarin. She’s never called him before, but over the past few months, he has let her know he’s there for her. In the way a man who is emotionally stunted can: some awkward phone calls, three or four visits to the military hospital, one with Colonel Minotto, get-well cards, even a bouquet of roses when they transferred her from the Celio military hospital to Turin so she could begin her rehab. Even though he’s only thirty-eight, just a few years older than she is, he takes pleasure in adopting a paternal attitude with his subordinates. Manuela pins her hopes on the Skinny Buddha’s political farsightedness and his relations with intelligence.

  The captain is on vacation with his wife in the Dolomites, but he skillfully conceals his astonishment at hearing from her. “I need to speak with you.” Manuela is agitated. “May I come see you? It’s important. If I take the train early tomorrow morning I can be there by three, I won’t waste your time, I’ll only take ten minutes. Please.”

  “Manuela, dear,” says Paggiarin, disconcerted—it’s the first time he’s ever called her by her first name—“has something happened?” “I have to ask you something, but I’d like to do it in person.” “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Paggiarin replies. “You need to rest instead of tiring yourself traveling the length of Italy by train, and I’m here with my family—as you probably know, I deploy in two weeks, we both have important things to do, don’t you think? May I ask what it’s about?”

  “I didn’t find anything in the newspapers,” Manuela resigns herself to saying. “The story vanished right away. The attorney’s office hasn’t been in touch again. But the investigation must have continued, in Qal’a-i-Shakhrak. The shahid—what did the Italian and Afghani military police tell you, did they find out who he was?” Paggiarin hesitates. Manuela can hear his breath quicken. Maybe he’s thinking. This isn’t by the book. Paggiarin is so strict, so careful to follow procedures.

  “No one came forward to identify the body, or what was left of it,” he finally explains. “They didn’t even ask for it to be returned. He might have been a foreigner, or from another province. And as you well know, they’re not in the habit of distributing pictures of martyrs there. They don’t have the sophisticated investigational tools we do for identifying the subject. They did an autopsy, took photographs, and drafted a very detailed report. There wasn’t much more they could do. But our analysts are still working on it.” “So you don’t know his name?” Manuela murmurs.

  “Only that he was quite young,” Paggiarin says, “thirteen at most, maybe even younger. Then again, he’s not the first kid chosen to become a shahid. Even eleven- and twelve-year-olds have been recruited: a kid arouses less suspicion. He was probably an orphan.”

  “Why wasn’t I told this before?” Manuela scolds him. “Why didn’t you say anything when you came to s
ee me in the hospital?” “We were all so devastated to learn how young the suicide bomber was,” Paggiarin sighs. “I took it personally, it was an added burden for all of us. The Ninth Company officers who were on duty at Bala Bayak in June know, which is why I considered it appropriate to inform you now. But this news is not public. Do you understand?” “I had the right to know,” Manuela protests. The Skinny Buddha does not reply. He lets her vent, and then accepts her silence. He really is a wise man. So Manuela thanks him, apologizes for having bothered him, hopes she hasn’t said anything dumb, wishes him a happy new year. “I know I’ve been a bother.”

  “Take care, Paris,” Paggiarin says encouragingly, forcing himself to sound warm. “Think about getting back on your feet. I hope to see you in Marcianise. Life moves on. It will be a day of resurrection for all of us.”

  * * *

  Traian plays defense. Taller than the other kids his age, lean and lanky, he heads the ball well and anticipates passes. Manuela, clinging to the fence, encourages him, clapping every time her brother manages to stop the opposing team from scoring. And every time, Traian gives her the victory sign with his right hand, as if to say he’s happy she approves, that it really matters to him. She’s his secret coach, the person he really plays for: he wants to win the trophy for her. Manuela didn’t ask Mattia to go with her to the JV tournament finals. She just explained that someone in the family has to watch over Traian, and she’s the only one who can, obviously. Mattia didn’t need to think about it even for a second. He doesn’t want to waste any opportunity to be with her. They have such little time. “I don’t understand a thing about soccer,” he said, “but I’d even go to a curling match with you, Manuela Paris.”

  Mattia gazes distractedly at the kids scurrying across the dirt, dark and heavy with rain, careful merely to lean away when mud threatens to splash his clothes. After the game he intends to take Manuela to Rome, to the Hilton Pergola, the restaurant with the most stars in the entire city, so he’s all dressed up for a romantic evening. He hadn’t planned on going with her to a soccer field in Ladispoli’s industrial park, shadowed by abandoned warehouses and a junkyard whose crushed cars are stacked behind the fence. For him there’s nothing sadder than the sight of those boys, their bare legs covered with scratches, bruises, and scabs, muddy shorts and cleats, happy and absorbed under a low sky while a gloomy bank of clouds rolls in from the sea. The showy sunglasses he insists on wearing filter the light, accentuating contrasts and tinting everything an alarming lead color. Every now and then he clasps Manuela’s waist and draws her toward him, as if he’d like to kiss her. She quickly brushes him away. She doesn’t want Traian to suspect anything. He’s only twelve, and when you’re twelve, your sister is as asexual and innocent as the Virgin Mary.

  The Real Ladis team, in red-and-blue striped shirts, faces Torvaianica, or TV, in green. The only spectators along the edge of the field are the players’ parents and siblings, but they’re all absorbed in the game as if their honor, instead of just a provincial JV tournament, were at stake. When the referee whistles for a penalty or allows a throw-in, a stream of curses and insults that could flay an ox comes from the sidelines. An African kid who plays forward for TV gets the worst of it, but the full-back for Real Ladis, with his Bolivian face and leather-colored skin, also draws elaborate insults. Monkey, bongo bongo, Congo, Zulu for the first; dried prune, cokehead, and pussy puma are among the more refined for the second. But the referee, bald, potbellied, with a vicious, sarcastic smile, won’t be intimidated. At the third boo he stops the play, holds the ball, and yells to the spectators that the next time he hears an insult with racist undertones he’ll call the game. An overweight madman near Manuela hisses “fucking faggot.”

  The referee whistles and hands out yellow cards; after the home team pulled ahead in the first half thanks to a goal on a questionable offside, the game got nasty. Those skinny kids hammer like blacksmiths. “There’s something I don’t get,” Mattia says, watching as lanky Traian lets TV’s number 10, an agile dwarf, dribble around him. “If he’s your brother why doesn’t he live with you?” “He’s Teodora’s son,” Manuela says without turning around, “my father’s wife. I was hoping he would name him Vittorio, after my grandfather. He was his only male grandchild, my grandfather waited for years for him, he’d lost hope, and so he was terribly offended, it really upset him.” “But Traian’s a nice name, imperial,” Mattia comments. “It’s a shame people are so ignorant,” Manuela says, “they don’t know their history. To them it’s a Romanian name.” A car parks at the end of the street. A woman gets out, a mother, she’s late, and she clatters breathlessly on her heels toward the soccer field. Manuela stretches her neck, but it’s not Teodora.

  Play is interrupted. A buzz rises from the field, the excited chirping of children’s voices: a player is on the ground, howling in pain, the ref is surrounded by green shirts, his bald head sticking out like a melon in a field. A distinguished-looking man with plastic-frame glasses, clinging to the fence a few steps away from Mattia, curses and shouts. “Send him off, send him off!” The player on the ground is TV’s number 10. “Get up,” Traian says, pulling on his wrist, “he didn’t blow the whistle, it’s not a foul.” Manuela has missed something. “He didn’t even touch him,” Mattia whispers to her. “He dived, he’s faking it.”

  The TV parents call for a penalty and for Traian to be sent off. “That son of a bitch flattened him, he was going to score!” The referee tries to shake off the screaming kids and resume play. But it’s too late, the field is in turmoil, a brawl has broken out, soon it’s spreading from one group to the next, infecting coaches, ball boys, bench warmers, managers. Everyone’s shouting, insulting each other, shoving. Manuela can pick out words like gypsy, thief, bastard. Number 10 writhes in the mud, whining that that son of a bitch whacked his legs. His teammates surround Traian, one of them grabs his shirt, another pulls on his shorts. “It was a foul, you fucking Romanian, and you know it,” the African forward yells. Traian shakes him off, shouting “dirty nigger,” and at that point the TV goalie, a small kid with blond curls and a goody-two-shoes look, spits in his face. Traian springs like a leopard, jumps on his throat, and punches him in the stomach before the others can stop him. The goalie crumbles as if he’d been gunned down.

  The distinguished-looking guy with the plastic-frame glasses is the goalie’s father. He darts to the gate, opens it, and hurls himself onto the field. Other parents rush in, some to break up the fight, some to defend their kids, and fists begin to fly. The goalie’s father chases Traian all over the field, grabbing the coach’s umbrella as he runs by the bench, and when he catches up with the boy, in an unexpected feat of athletic prowess, he jabs Traian’s sternum threateningly with the tip as the referee whistles; the TV trainer tries to stop him, the Bolivian kid scuffles with the faker, and the lifeless goalie is trampled by his teammates. Traian fends off the goalie’s father’s umbrella as he looks around for a weapon; in a flash he grabs a bottle of Gatorade from the bench. It’s still full—no one has drunk any yet—and slams it in the father’s nose: he would have broken it if the guy hadn’t stepped aside.

  As soon as she sees the goalie’s father grab the umbrella, Manuela tucks her crutches under her arms and heads through the gate. She enters the field limping, protesting, shouting, “You should be ashamed, shame on you!” But since she can’t run and can’t defend her brother, and the man seems ready to openly beat a boy, when she finally does reach him, she loses her head. It’s like an electric shock that shoots up her spinal cord and disables her brain. She whirls her crutch and whacks the umbrella man, who falls to his knees, stunned, howling in pain, and then she hits him again and again and again.

  “Stop! You’re out of your mind, stop!” Mattia yells. He tries to make his way through the downed, weeping children. But a Manuela completely unknown to him, a fury of uncontrollable force, is savagely beating the kneeling man, who has dropped the umbrella and isn’t even trying to defend himself: bal
led up like a fetus in the muck, moaning and begging her to stop, he bears her blows, the crutch and the boot that pound his head and back. Mattia tries to block that steel rod, but he misses and instead the crutch lands on his shoulder, the pain so sharp that it paralyzes him for a second. Mattia throws himself on top of her, locking his arms around her waist, and Manuela resists, lashes out, wriggles free, and it takes that vulgar, two-hundred-plus-pound madman to help Mattia free himself of the crazy woman with a crutch, as Mattia politely protests that this is all highly uncivilized and unbelievable. The crutch wheels, the boot kicks, the goalie’s father moans, and Mattia tries again to stop Manuela, who now throws away her crutches, punches the madman in the face, hurls herself at Mattia, and locks him in a judo hold, which sends his sunglasses flying, clenches his neck with both hands. “Manuela,” Mattia stammers, “please.” She stares ferociously at him with wild eyes, not recognizing him.

  Blood gushes from above the goalie’s father’s eye. Traian takes the umbrella from his hands, which have gone slack, and goes over to Mattia, wondering who the heck the guy in the suit is, the one kneeling in the mud and hugging Manuela’s knees, and whispering in a strangled voice, “Calm down, my love.” The madman spits three teeth into the palm of his hand.

  Mattia gropes around with his left hand, trying to retrieve his sunglasses, but the Bolivian boy, who hasn’t realized that Mattia is on the Real Ladis side and is only trying to calm everyone down and resolve the situation, crushes them with his cleats, jumping on top of them until they disintegrate. “What have you done!” Mattia shouts. He feels he has suffered a grave injustice. Without his sunglasses, he feels lost, vulnerable, naked.