She goes with her to the cemetery, to see Lorenzo’s tombstone, there among the Alpini heroes of the Great War. His mother asks if she thinks there’s any meaning in her son’s death, if it did any good. Manuela says that everything has a meaning but that’s not to say it did any good, individuals don’t make history, certainly not an Alpino corporal, not even the brigade general, or a minister, or the president of a country. History is something beyond the intentions and aspirations of individuals; it’s more like the tide. You can be part of it, but you can’t stop or guide it. Lorenzo became a minuscule grain of sand in the history of that distant country, a history that for a short time was intertwined with Italy’s. And maybe the meaning lies precisely in that strange tangency of parallel worlds destined to meet only in infinity—that the life of a guitar player from Mel was joined forever to those stones, sand, and mines, to the stars of that sky, because we are all one.
Lorenzo’s mother invites her to visit her again, her son admired her infinitely, respected her as his commander, and considered her a friend—she will always be welcome here at Mel. Manuela promises she’ll be back, and takes off on her Honda. It’s been twelve months, and she feels up to riding her motorcycle again.
* * *
On July 12 she goes back to Turin for her meeting with the medical evaluation board. It’s hot and the city has emptied out for school vacation. Nurse Scilito greets her warmly. He seems truly surprised to see her again. “So you’re still holding on?” he asks her. “I began this journey a long time ago,” Manuela says. “I’m not one to turn back. I told you I’m always moving forward.”
She descends to the dismal radiology department and undergoes all the same tests again. X-rays, orthopedic and neurological controls, CAT scan, MRI. She does not give the psychiatrist her homework. Assessing these past months, she honestly reports three or four intrusion phenomena (every time she sees blood); several flashbacks in moments of weak consciousness—at the movies, for example, or right before she falls asleep, or when she is writing; nightmares almost every night; mild insomnia; and olfactory hallucinations—sometimes she can still smell blood and burnt flesh. But she has kept her anxiety and aggression under control, and the incident on the soccer field has remained an isolated event. The madman demanded money for his three teeth and for not pressing charges, quite a bit of money, which she gave him, while the other guy, the father of the Torvaianica goalie, initially filed charges, but later withdrew them. She didn’t know if he’d been pressured to do so, but she hoped not. In any case, there had been no further repercussions. Her sentimental and emotional life are full and satisfying. In short, she’s gotten used to living with PTSD.
The psychiatrist tells her not to kid herself: six months earlier, the only favorable opinion regarding her return to active service had been his. Manuela is surprised, and thanks him for giving her that chance. “You were the one who had to give yourself a chance, Sergeant Paris,” the psychiatrist says, “you just needed time to realize it.” Then he stands up, shakes her hand, and wishes her good luck.
She sits on her bed, laptop on her knees, waiting for the medical evaluation board to summon her. She’s surprisingly serene. Her room is on the second floor, adjacent to the one she stayed in for so many months. She can see the same magnolia tree through the window, but from a different perspective. It seems bigger and taller, and its leaves resound with chirping. Scilito knocks to let her know that her meeting with the board has been set for ten tomorrow. Manuela goes down to the communal living room to watch TV. An army engineers officer sits in an armchair watching the news. A lieutenant, about thirty years old. His head is bandaged and his arm is in a sling. The ribbon on his uniform tells her it happened in Afghanistan. He must have been repatriated recently. “Bala Bayak?” Manuela asks. “Bala Murghab,” he says.
“Did you see any action in country?” she asks. “A hundred TICs, twelve of them IDF, seven IEDs identified and neutralized, two IEDs activated, four vehicles hit, two casualties, three lightly injured, ten insurgents captured,” the lieutenant says. “We had eighty TICs,” Manuela says. “Not bad,” he concludes. “Do you ever ask yourself if we’re losing the war while telling ourselves we’ve already won it?” Manuela wonders. The officer switches off the TV and turns to look at her. “What are you trying to say?” he asks. “I don’t think I understood, I’m deaf in my right ear. I lost my eardrum in an explosion, and I’m trying to get my hearing back in my left ear.”
“It’s not your ears that aren’t working, Lieutenant,” Manuela replies, “it’s my head. I want more than anything in the world to go back there, back to that school. To see it with my own eyes. To know that it exists, that we were the ones who built it, and that girls are learning to read and write there. But at the same time I wish that Fatimeh’s son had built it. I don’t know if I can explain.” “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well,” the officer says, mortified. “It’s like liquid cement is dripping into my ears, and I have severe tinnitus. I can pick up the vibrations of your words, but they’re all broken up, I can’t piece them together.”
* * *
She crosses the big meeting hall slowly, intimidated by the strange silence that lends an unfortunate solemnity to the moment. She’s never seen so many generals up close. The lowest-ranking officer is a colonel. Their uniforms are arrayed with ribbons and decorations. All the members of the medical evaluation board are there. That’s a good sign, right? She doesn’t understand. All those men, all of them old enough to be her father or grandfather, are looking at her sympathetically—tenderly, she would say if that weren’t impossible. The lieutenant colonel congratulates her: serving in a theater of combat operations, she faced enormous difficulties and dangers, heightened by powerful social and political tensions, a trying social environment, and a complex and extremely risky operational situation. She carried out the mission entrusted to her with courage and utmost professionalism, offering a constant example of self-sacrifice, skill, and responsibility. The success of Operation Reawakening speaks to the courage, efficiency, and effectiveness of all the men and women of the Tenth Alpini Regiment. For these reasons, and for having contributed to augmenting the prestige of the Italian Army in an international context, he informs her that Sergeant Paris has been awarded the military cross for Afghanistan. Manuela gasps in astonishment.
But she has also been recognized as permanently unfit for military service. In acknowledgment of her merits in the field, she can remain in service on the honor roll. The amount of her indemnity for her disability and her retirement package will be communicated to her later.
Manuela manages to remain stoical while they pin the cross on her uniform. She smiles, shakes hands. She thanks them for this honor, which she does not deserve, for all the attention they have lavished on her, the care, advice, respect, everything. Then she clicks her heels, salutes, turns, and crosses the very lengthy meeting hall again. She still limps, and does nothing to hide it. She goes up to her room and slowly removes her cap, then her uniform: her jacket, her short-sleeved, summer-issue shirt, her pants and socks. Then she removes the dog tag from around her neck. Her good luck charm. She was wearing it that day at Qal’a-i-Shakhrak, and she believes it saved her life: she’d never taken it off. The Americans wear two of them, one around their neck, one on their leg, to identify the pieces in case their body is blown to bits. She’d had hers made before she deployed, in a shop in Ladispoli, and had paid for it herself. The Italian Army doesn’t issue them anymore. “In Italy there’s no money for things that don’t bring in votes,” First Lieutenant Russo had said bitterly. Even if they’re necessary. Nicola. She misses his philosophizing. Then she folds her uniform and puts it in her bag. She places her cap with the feather on top, careful not to squish it when she zips the bag closed. She puts on a pair of jeans and a green T-shirt, grabs her bag, and leaves the hospital. She lets herself go only once she’s in the taxi, on the way to the airport. She cries silently, her face pressed against the window. The tears roll dow
n her cheeks and splash on her hands, hot as coals.
“It’s over,” she says to Vanessa when she picks her up at Fiumicino. “Which means?” her sister asks. “They declared me permanently unfit for service, basically I’m retired, I’m out.” Vanessa hugs her. She cries in the arrivals hall, her army duffel weighing on her shoulder. She cries all the way home. “You did everything you could, honey,” Vanessa says, “some things just don’t work, you have to accept it. You have to make peace with your destiny, and it’s not a defeat, there’s something noble, something sweet in it.” “I know,” Manuela says.
Vanessa pulls up in front of Teodora’s building. It’s almost nine in the evening, but in the west, out at sea, phosphorescent waves of rosy light still streak across the pale blue sky. The horizon is a clear straight line. “You explain to Mamma, tell her I’ll come say hi to all of you after dinner, I can’t eat anything.” “They’ll make you a spokesperson, hon,” Vanessa says, “they’ll put you in communications, you’ll train the girls, they’ll find something you like, and if they don’t, well, then they’ll help you go into politics, or you’ll leave the army, you’ll do something else, besides, everyone’s going to pull out soon, if you want to go back to Afghanistan you’ll be able to go with some kind of organization, the Red Cross, what do I know, things change.” Manuela forces herself to smile and gets out of the car. But as soon as Vanessa’s Yaris disappears on the overpass, she turns around. She doesn’t feel like talking with Teodora or Traian or anybody.
* * *
The gate to the nature preserve is closed, but she carefully reconnoiters the fence in search of an opening. She finds one and slips underneath, the barbed wire slicing her T-shirt. But it’s not military concertina wire, which stabs you and rips out chunks of flesh: this barely scratches her shoulder, and only draws a drop of blood. The wooden walkway through the marsh sways beneath her feet. It’s getting dark. The migratory birds have flown away, but the dunes are dotted with white spots that seem to glow in the gathering darkness. Sea daffodils, the flowers of the sand. The tower is still there, but it looks even more crooked and fragile now. The only person in the preserve at that hour is a fisherman, and he pretends not to see her. The Tyrrhenian is rough, turbulent, the waves crash relentlessly on the breakwater, spraying her face with a salty mist, like tears. Manuela piles her clothes on the tower’s crumbling marble ledge and dives in.
Underwater, she opens her eyes. The black sand whirls around, zero visibility, and anyway this sea is dead, there’s nothing to see, no fish or other living creatures—only algae, ribbons of sea grass the current pushes toward the shore, and sand. Sand, sand, sand. She swims out until the coast is just a dark line. She lets herself be tossed about by the waves, pounded, slapped, submerged. Six months ago she was convinced she would come here to drown herself if the answer was no. But she hasn’t come here to die. The poet Rumi taught her that a person is like the sea, eternally in motion: he who doesn’t know that sees only the waves on the surface, but their movement merely hides the sea beneath. She lets the water wash her, cradle her, renew her. She floats on her back, her eyes open to the twilight sky that slowly grows dark. Behind the dunes, shadows have swallowed up the city and its buildings: out at sea, a sliver of blue light still lingers on the horizon, and a solitary star already twinkles in the sky, sparkling like a precious gem. The beauty of it all is imprinted on her memory. She looks at it, for herself and for them. Her epigones are there with her, too, and always will be.
* * *
She gets dressed in a hurry, without waiting to dry off. Her jeans stick to her skin, her hair wets her motorcycle helmet. She takes her time in the crazy summer evening traffic, can’t find a parking space in front of her building, so she parks farther on, between the yellow stripes for handicapped drivers. It’s not taking advantage. Soon she’ll have the right to park there. That sad thought makes her smile. The Bellavista is open. They’ve replaced the faulty lightbulb. Now the blue sign is visible from far away. They’ve even replastered the place. Now it’s an intense navy blue. She walks up the stairs with the slowness of someone who has nothing left to prove. She hugs her mother and her grandmother and Alessia, and tells the little girl she brought her gianduiotti from Turin. Alessia, the sweet tooth, thanks her. Her front teeth have come in. Square, white, straight. Manuela stays with them in the living room until late. Her mother offers her an iced lemon vodka, something she learned to make at the roadside diner. Her family doesn’t ask Manuela anything, she doesn’t have to explain anything. They just sit there, all five of them, distractedly watching a variety show on TV, until Alessia falls asleep on Vanessa’s knees. Music throbs from the beach clubs, along with the buzz of vacationers’ voices. Summer has always been her favorite season. Ladispoli comes out of hibernation, is resuscitated, comes alive again. At midnight she goes out onto the balcony to smoke. “When are you going to quit?” her mother begs her. “It’s bad for you, it’ll kill you.” “Tomorrow,” Manuela promises. “This is my last cigarette.”
The rooms at the Bellavista are lit up behind the shutters, the beach towels hung on balconies to dry flutter in the wind. It’s high season, the hotel is almost full. Manuela flicks the ashes into the geranium. The plant survived winter and drought. A tuft of green leaves clings to the railing. One red blossom stretches toward the street. In the hotel across the way, only one room on the third floor is dark. Room 302, Mattia’s room. The shutter is lowered almost to the floor. The iron chair is tipped up against the table. If only I knew how to find you. If only I knew where you are, and what your name is, I would call out to you. And you would come. I know it. A knot of people has formed in the street. Kids are getting drunk, laughing, making a racket. Elegant couples are coming out of the Bellavista restaurant. Gianni’s corpulent profile is silhouetted in the doorway, then disappears. To the left the Tahiti is a cube of light. A procession of motor scooters heads up the promenade toward the music. There’s a party on the beach, on the other side of the footbridge. She puts the cigarette out in the cracked soil, and slips it into her pocket—her old habit of hiding her weaknesses. Then she changes her mind and drops it over the balcony, down into the street. When she looks up again, she thinks she can make out a shadow in the darkness on the unlit third-floor balcony. A massive shadow. She tries to breathe, deep breaths to calm herself, but her heart is exploding. It’s him. It can’t be anyone else. He’s come back.
She grips the railing. She walks the length of the balcony, all the way to the corner closest to the hotel. She leans out into the darkness. The shadow doesn’t move. It’s not Mattia, it’s just some tourist, he’s not there. I’m fooling myself. I don’t like reality and don’t want to accept it, so I invent it, change it, dream it. She’s afraid it’s not true. She’s afraid it is true. She swallows. She pinches her arm. She closes her eyes. A faint hint of aromatic tobacco reaches her nostrils. She’s so agitated she can hardly restrain herself, but she resists the temptation to open her eyes again right away. She hesitates. Waits. There’s only a split second between desperation and hope. When you try to avoid something, this effort is exactly what lets you face it. Be brave, Manuela. The first thing she sees is the glow of embers and a whiff of smoke that coils and disappears into the night.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Limbo is a novel. The characters and the action are the fruit of invention. The Tenth Alpini Regiment does not exist. Although Panthers, the Ninth Company name, is taken from an actual airborne company, it has never been deployed in Afghanistan. There are several Pegasus platoons, but none of them inspired this one. The Salsa barracks in Belluno are home to the Seventh Alpini Regiment. Bala Bayak and Qal’a-i-Shakhrak, like the FOB Sollum, the COP Khurd, and the Bellavista Hotel, exist only in these pages. But Ladispoli, Shindand, the province of Farah, and all the other places cited here are real. The Flavia Tower is the final sentinel of the beauty of that coastline brutalized by cement: it deserves to be saved and restored.
The tripartite classification of
female soldiers—which Lapo refers to—is by Professor Fabrizio Battistelli, who pioneered the earliest research and published numerous articles on the topic.
There is a rich bibliography on this most recent war in Afghanistan. Among the works that have been most helpful to me I would like to mention: L. Kleveman, The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia, 2003; R. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, 2005; E. Giunchi, Afghanistan, Storia e società nel cuore dell’Asia, 2007; AA.VV., Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan. United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, 2007; R. Crews and A. Tarzi, The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan, 2008; A. Rashid, Descent into Chaos, 2008; C. Bertolotti, Shahid, Analisi del terrorismo suicida in Afghanistan, 2010; A. Marucci, AfghanistNAM: Analisi di un conflitto troppo in fretta dato per vinto, 2010.
The theory of divergence was formulated by Ardengo Soffici in his book on war memories, Errore di coincidenza, 1920.
I am grateful to all the men and women who helped me imagine this story by sharing their memories and experiences. The soldiers of every branch and rank, from the general to the captain to the corporal—who, by so generously listening to me and donating their time and expertise, trained my language—know how much I owe them and how invaluable they have been to me. I thank them discreetly and respectfully. Furthermore, I thank Lieutenant P.F., doctor and parachutist, for the stories about his tours of duty (and for our conversations); Corporal A. for allowing me to “drive” a Lince past the Coliseum; and R., who has no rank, but would be a veteran if he were a soldier, and knows the front better than anyone. I also thank Ahmad, a refugee awaiting asylum, who, at age thirteen, left the Farah desert and ended up in a manhole in Rome, and now sells television sets.
All opinions, errors, and inventions are mine. I summarized passages, modified procedures, altered the stage of certain rituals. A novel is a construction, an adventure, a hypothesis. I was more interested in verisimilitude than philology, in possibility than news, and so I took many liberties.
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