Most of the housewives of the Via dei Martiri were sternly virtuous; at least, each strove to maintain in public the appearance of virtue; and Paloma’s exuberances were loudly condemned. However, she lived on excellent terms with her neighbours. She was a popular guest in every house. Her descriptions, minutely detailed, of her adventures were eagerly sought after, and if the other women often abused her to her face, she recognized the vein of good nature in their invective and accepted it with genial indifference. She knew that most of them envied her, not for her way of living but for her independence.
It was exactly a week since the soldiers had come to the street. It was just past midday and the billet was quiet; the soldiers, after their lunch, were resting in their rooms, sheltering from the sun’s white radiance. Craddock could hear the cackle of women from the street and, from the window, he saw Paloma standing outside her house, her back arched against the wall and her face turned blissfully up to the sun, while her neighbours clustered about her. Her eyes were half-closed, but she was evidently talking to them, for they screamed ribaldries and encouragement, and she would raise her voice from time to time to reply with vigour. Perhaps she was telling them about her latest lover; or perhaps – since she had already, with some justification, acquired reputation as an authority on the doings of the military – she was answering their questions on the past, present and future of the battalion and of the British Army in general.
Corporal Honeycombe, stooping in front of a fragment of mirror, finished brushing his smooth fair hair. ‘I’m going out,’ he announced, ‘I feel like a bit of hunting. That one down there,’ – he indicated Paloma – ‘looks a bit of all right.’
The sergeant grinned. The idea of anyone ‘hunting’ Paloma appealed to him, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
‘Well!’ Honeycombe smote his hands together. ‘Just sit by the window and have a dekko, Joe, if you want to see how it’s done.’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for a pension.’
Honeycombe went downstairs. He was a little taller than the sergeant, and more finely built. The sergeant followed him, and stopped in the shade of the porch to watch from a convenient distance.
Honeycombe walked across the street, with a slight roll to his gait. The women looked at him, appreciatively, and at Paloma, expectantly. Their conversation became subdued. He sauntered past them and stopped close to Paloma. ‘Buon giorno, girls.’
There was a chorus of buongiornos, a pause, and an explosive giggle from Nella.
‘Hot today, a’n’ it?’ He spoke in English. The initial greeting had exhausted his Italian, and besides, as he often pointed out in the billet, a bloke could get on with dames in any language.
There was an interrogative twitter from among the women.
He leaned against the wall with one hand, at arm’s length, and looked down at Paloma: the masterful pose. At length he said, ‘Hallo, ducks.’ A simple opening, but one which as a ladies’ man he could certify to be effective. It had worked on a hundred street corners in Blighty.
Paloma raised herself from the wall on one elbow and looked him up and down. She took her time. She said to the women, ‘What do you think of this one?’
The women clamoured advice like a farmyard let loose. ‘Va ben’,’ said Paloma, ‘we shall play.’
Honeycombe was not deterred. He knew all about the coy ones, who liked a tussle, and the sly ones, who made it a battle of wits. ‘What you doing this afternoon, honey?’ To underline his meaning, he gave a doggish twitch of his eyebrows towards the door of the house. She answered in a man’s strong voice – he could not understand what she was saying – and with a man’s hearty chuckle. He seemed to be making progress. He asked, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in, sweetheart?’ The great thing was to get away from this crowd of sniggering, cackling women. Paloma’s only response was to feel his biceps and to prod experimentally about his body. Her lips were compressed and she was frowning studiously. She began to speak, over her shoulder, to the other women, in the tone of a pathologist reporting on a post-mortem. The women were clapping their hands, screaming with mirth, pushing each other ecstatically in the ribs and uttering shrill comments.
For once, Honeycombe began to feel uneasy in the presence of a woman. This was no giggling little imitation film star who would listen admiringly to his blandishments, hang confidingly on his arm and afterwards write him adoring letters. What was the use, when she could not understand him, of uttering those time-proven and magical incantations, ‘Where have you been all my life?’ or ‘I could go for you in a big way, kid,’ or ‘Don’t tell me, I bet your name’s Gloria’; or of those accustomed references to beautiful, big, brown eyes, and going places and doing things. This woman was looking him over and poking at him as if he were a good meal on a plate.
The grin on his face became frozen and ghastly. He sweated, and was dizzy in the sunlight. He would have sweated more if he had understood what was being said about him.
Craddock, coming closer, heard Paloma say, throatily, ‘Well armed, this soldier!’
There was more shrieking from the women, more spluttering laughter. Lucrezia Chiulemi wiped her streaming eyes and pointed at Honeycombe, who had backed up against the wall looking nonplussed and defensive. She howled, ‘How fierce he is! How bold! How ardent! How aggressive!’
‘A devil!’ gasped Nella, choking and thumping her chest.
‘An impetuous one!’ screeched Tina di Spirito.
Paloma clasped her hands to her bosom and muttered humbly, ‘And he loves me!’ She looked up at Honeycombe in a transport of ardour and humility. ‘Ah, my love, my pigeon, my dear one!’ She stroked his arm and caressed him; she pouted her rich lips at him; she overwhelmed him, amid shrieks of appreciative laughter, with such outrageous endearments that his nerve suddenly broke and he tried to sidle away, mumbling excuses in English and keeping his crimson face averted from Sergeant Craddock’s interested gaze.
But Paloma flung her arms about his neck, sank upon his breast and bore him back to the wall, moaning, ‘No, no, do not desert me, my darling, my hero!’ Her audience was growing. Windows and doorways were crowded all along the street. Soldiers were swarming out of the billet. Paloma released her victim for a moment and drew back, admiringly. ‘See!’ she cried. ‘See how impatient is my lover!’ – as he tried to bolt and she clasped him again.
She pushed her street door open with her right foot and, with a sudden violent thrust, sent Honeycombe reeling into the house. ‘I cannot keep him waiting,’ she explained, as she blocked the doorway with her strapping body just in time to prevent his escape. She held out her hands towards the women. ‘See,’ she said modestly. ‘See how I am trembling, like a bride!’
Honeycombe’s terrified face appeared behind her shoulder.
‘Don’t break the bed,’ shrieked Lucrezia Chillemi, who was doubled up with her hands clasped across her waist.
‘We shall tell the soldiers,’ called Fat Lina, ‘to wait here with a stretcher!’
Paloma favoured her audience with a conspiratorial wink. ‘Kurroo, kurroo!’ she cooed wickedly, and slammed the door in their faces.
§§§§
It was evening, and Nella was playing with her two boy friends, Ciccio, aged thirteen, and Tiger, aged nineteen. Craddock, watching them, felt that it had been a brilliant idea on his part to introduce the young soldier to the other two. Tiger, who had received his nickname because he was puny and pale, was one of a batch of young conscripts who had joined the battalion in the spring. When the time had come to embark, all those who were less than nineteen-and-a-half years old had been left behind; a few, including Tiger, who were a few weeks over the required age, had come abroad. Tiger was the only one of these who had survived, and the sergeant felt a special responsibility for him. Here, with Nella, he would be kept out of the way of bad women, while Nella would be safe in his company, for he had promised the sergeant – whom he worshipped – not to interfere with her.
When the three
youngsters had first come together, yesterday, it had seemed as if the experiment might fail. They had looked at each other with reserve and suspicion. Soon they had lost their self-consciousness; the boy soldier had shed his assumed swagger, Ciccio his assumed cynicism, Nella her assumed solemnity, and they had played together like children, shouting, shrieking and wrestling, unaware of anything but their sport.
Their play, however, was always on a fine edge. Once, yesterday evening, Craddock had caught Nella squirming on top of Tiger on the pavement by the air-raid shelter. He pulled her away and said to Tiger, ‘Time you come up for air, son.’ Tiger, wiping his face, gasped, ‘Lucky I promised, sergeant.’ Now, in play, she had scratched Tiger’s face deeply. Tiger stood sullenly in front of the sergeant, dabbing at his face with his handkerchief. Nella was unabashed, and lurked behind him, squealing with wicked laughter. Ciccio had fled.
‘You go to the medical room and get that dressed,’ the sergeant said. In this climate, any break in the skin might turn to a purulent heat sore. Tiger obeyed. To calm Nella, who was still flushed and exultant, Craddock took an English newspaper from his pocket and showed her a picture of ATS girls on parade. She asked, ‘They are women of the army?’
‘Yes.’
‘They are for the soldiers?’
‘No.’
For the officers’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘They are soldiers, real soldiers, like the men.’
She paused, then clasped her hands. ‘Oh, beautiful, beautiful.’ She studied the picture. ‘How nice they look, in their uniforms. And those caps!’ She asked, ‘Is it true that women in England can work, like the men?’
‘Yes.’
‘They keep the money?’
‘Yes.’
‘They spend it as they wish?’
‘As they wish.’
‘They walk in the streets, alone, and go where they like?’
‘Of course.’
‘Even when they are married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even dancing?’
‘Yes.’
‘I would like to go to England. Can I go to England?’
Graziella said, roughly, ‘Take the baby inside, little fool, and put him to bed.’ Nella hoisted the child against her shoulder and took him into the house. She was a capable little housewife, who loved minding the baby and who scrubbed and ironed as if it were a game. When Nella was gone Graziella asked, ‘Was that the truth?’
‘What?’
‘Are women in England truly free, like men?’
‘Yes.’
She sighed. ‘Here it is different. It is very different.’ She sat and dreamed, far, far away from him.
Nella went home, and Craddock and Graziella were alone. Craddock brooded, empty of words. Graziella tapped at the pavement with her feet, looking down at her shoes. What pettinesses were there left to talk about? The prospect of more futile conversation awoke an anger in Craddock.
He leaned forward and rested his hand lightly on her arm. The legs of her chair scraped on the pavement as she squirmed quickly back out of reach and hissed, ‘No!’
He knew from the urgency of the movement and of her voice that she was near to breaking. The trust that she had placed in him stood between them. He rose to his feet, feeling cheated and infuriated. He said curtly, ‘Good night.’
He turned to leave, but she seized his wrist, and drew him into the house.
Chapter Seven
ROSARIO presented himself at the guardroom at eight o’clock on Saturday morning, as he had been told to do, and asked the sentry for ‘Il sergente C’rah-dock.’ The sentry answered, ‘Aspett’ and called another man who went off, unhurriedly, in search of the sergeant.
The east side of the inner courtyard was still shady, the rest flooded with sunlight. Strong voices drifted down from the windows, snatches of song, and the clatter of buckets. A party of men were swilling water across the pavement and sweeping it to the drain with big brooms. Others were scrubbing the stone staircase. Some, stripped to the waist, were washing themselves at the ablution benches, their wet bodies gleaming in the sunlight. Fatigue men were sitting outside the cookhouse scouring pans. They were mad for cleanliness, these English. This sunlit spotlessness, these floods of water smelling faintly of dust and disinfectant, made the whole place more like a hospital than a house where men dwelt. Clearly there was no comfort here.
On the shady side of the yard the big captain – Il Rosso, the Red One – was inspecting a squad of soldiers. They were drawn up in three perfect ranks, dressed in shorts and tunics that were newly washed and pressed, and wearing webbing equipment pipe-clayed to a dazzling whiteness. They were strange men, these English. Rosario could not see on their faces the doglike sullenness that Italian conscripts would have felt under inspection. They faced their officer with alertness; they were almost vibrant as they waited for the next word of command. A sergeant spoke sharply and their boots crashed on the pavement as they came to attention and the front and rear ranks, each like a single unit, moved out into open order. There was another command, all the rifles came up together, in a single movement, and each man smacked his left foot forward, at the same time swinging the barrel of his rifle forward so that the muzzle was presented, at eye level, for the officer’s scrutiny. The officer moved down the ranks, inspecting the rifles.
There were two aspects to these men, Rosario thought. In the street he had seen them lounging about, or sitting humbly in the houses of their civilian friends, and he had said, ‘These men are without force. Look at them! The victors! They do not even know how to behave!’ Now he said to himself – for he had a child’s capacity for levelling inconsistent accusations against people and then hating them doubly – ‘These are conquerors. They are men of war. What chance had we Italian soldiers, men of peace, against them? They deride us as cowards. What right have they to deride us as cowards when we had no chance against them? Why do they swagger among us, and oppress us, these men of war?’
He drew back as they marched past him, and watched them swinging away down the street. They looked straight to their front, without a glance or a shout for their civilian friends. Hypocrites! Conquerors!
Sergeant Craddock came across the courtyard, smiling a greeting. Rosario smiled expansively back, and his heart swelled with pride. The mood of a moment before was forgotten. He was their friend, the friend of the victors. All the people had seen him walk into their billets as if he belonged there. He would be an important man in the street, a source of information, an intermediary even, through whom others – if they were wise enough to please him – might apply for favours. He would be working for the English, for the victors; a public functionary under the new regime. A thought pierced him: perhaps she, perhaps even she might think again. His legs trembled.
Sergeant Craddock said, ‘Hallo!’
Rosario seized Craddock’s hand in a two-handed clasp and shook it vigorously. ‘Buon giorno, signor sergente,’ he cried joyfully, and loudly enough for the people in the street to hear him, ‘you see I have come to help you, as I promised.’
‘Good. Come and see the captain.’
They approached the officer. Rosario said, ‘Buon giorno, signor capitano,’ with even more emphasis than before, and assumed his most ingratiating smile. The captain did not look at him, and began to talk with the sergeant. Rosario could not follow the conversation, but once he caught an English word that sounded like the Italian ‘disertore’, and he guessed what it was. He saw, too, the brief glance of disgust that the captain turned on him, and he was possessed by a great hatred of the man. What a brute this was, what a picture of haughty insolence! They thought themselves above all others, these enormous men with their pink, smooth skins, full of blood and good food. No wonder they won the battles, with their strength and their food and their equipment. They had everything. They behaved as if everything was for them. If a man like this were to cast his eyes on her..!
The capt
ain left them, and the sergeant said, ‘He says you can work for us. A pound a week. Four hundred lire in your money.’
‘Magnificent. My heart is full. I thank you, sergeant.’ He touched the sergeant’s sleeve. ‘I shall not forget you, sergeant. Every week I shall repay you, for your goodness, out of my wages.’
The sergeant looked puzzled for a moment; then he made an angry remark in English.
‘What is that, signor sergente?’
‘The next time you say a thing like that – out! Finished!’
It was Rosario’s turn to look puzzled. He began to gabble apologies. The sergeant cut him short. ‘Come and have a cup of tea. Then I will show you your work.’
Rosario took the big mug which the sergeant offered him and sipped at the thick, sweet beverage. It was not unpleasant, but its strength furred the mouth and its sweetness cloyed. It was a drink to rob a man of his appetite and his thirst. He longed for a glass of rough, dry wine with which to cleanse his mouth. He still felt hurt. He said, ‘And now, Signor sergente, where is the work?’
‘Every morning at eight o’clock, you will come here and take the latrine buckets in a cart, and empty them into the sea. You will wash them, bring them back and scrub the seats. At seven o’clock in the evening you will come again, this time to empty the rubbish from the cookhouse. Then you will scrub the cookhouse floor. That is all.’
Rosario was silent. They must have plotted, these Englishmen, they must have planned among themselves to find the best way to humiliate a man! They had thought of this, and they had laughed. He saw them laughing. They had said, this was a good way to humiliate a man before the women. They would sit and laugh with the women while he went past with the cart and the filth. This sergeant, he sat every day with Graziella. He had planned it, for her. Perhaps she knew! Perhaps she had already laughed!
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