‘What!’ Grandpa’s outburst had lit up Major Manca’s eyes and unshaven cheeks. ‘A geographical expression…yes, absorbed into the soft belly of the Kingdom of Sardinia, though. Don’t forget that Victor Emmanuel II’ – and here Renato’s pipe went out – ‘never changed his name when he became the King of Italy. He was the Second when he was King of Sardinia and he’s still the Second as King of Italy. Ah, yes’ – and he lifted the lit match to the pipe – ‘we hardly created ourselves with our hands, we were not our own makers, we Italians…well, the Piedmontese…maybe…’
‘A little royal house from the mountains with a big appetite for revenge…but, Major, you say that the English wanted a monarchy that could settle matters with the Roman Catholic Church, and the Masonic Grand Orient supposedly lent a hand…I could admit you’re right, in fact, I do, but you see… history doesn’t work that way, with such well-oiled mechanisms, neat situations…it would be too convenient.’
Renato wasn’t caught off guard in the middle of that no-man’s-land by that offer of a truce: ‘If you want to argue… you need to simplify matters…and a mortal vice-grip clamped down onto the pope at Teano. The pope’s worst nightmare had come true: there was a single king ruling the entire peninsula, and so things turned ugly…from Teano to Porta Pia took just ten years.’ He emitted a nice big puff of smoke into the air between Grandpa’s face and his. ‘If our Teresa were here, she’d say: Diambarne de l’ostia!’
The idea of bringing the cook into the discussion, and calling her ‘ours’ had been a masterful move: and so, with a more convincing smile than was customary with him, Grandpa acknowledged that the major certainly knew how to talk. At that point, I caught the ball on the first bounce and sealed the armistice: ‘The unification of Italy was a whiplash from the war between Protestants and Catholics.’ It wasn’t original with me, but Renato pretended not to know that.
‘Compliments on the concise summary, laddie,’ said Grandpa, and he raised his mess tin to drink a toast. I imitated him while Renato rummaged under his pallet. Concealed in the straw he had half a bottle of cognac, stolen from who knows where by Teresa. We raised our dented goblets towards the stone roof. ‘It’s been centuries,’ I said with a knowing air, ‘since those bastard priests started scheming to keep the north and the south of the boot from joining together.’
Renato gulped his down all at once and slammed his mess tin down on the table: ‘The power of the British empire’s foreign policy.’ He walked over to the window, scratched a match head across the sill, and relit his pipe. ‘But even England is powerless now…This war is sweeping away all dreams of greatness.’
‘What are you saying? Renato, you’ve always said that the Triple Entente…the English…will win the war.’
Renato didn’t bother to turn around, he just went on smoking quietly and looking at the clouds. It smelt like rain. ‘Once you take the negroes with you into the trenches you’re done for. In India, in Africa, everywhere…The English have always presented themselves as gods, gods that build bridges and trains, gods that drive automobiles, an empire is an empire only as long as it’s able to rule dreams and pretend that it’s part of a divine cosmos: let them once see that the blond Saxons are sinking up to their knees in the shit-filled trenches, with slaves from overseas falling at their sides, white and black, row after row, like picket fences, mowed down by machine-gun fire…if the negroes see this, and now they’ve seen it, then it’s over. Nothing can make men equal more than sharing a fate of mud and shit; down in the filth gods become men. So the bloodbath is going to sweep away race and rank, and the great nations are bound to become smaller, and it’s not necessarily the case that this will make the world a better place.’
‘You’re even more cynical than Grandpa.’
Grandpa squeezed my shoulder with strong fingers and looked me in the eye: ‘The major isn’t wrong and I’m no cynic! The problem…the real problem is that cretinous generals might well be replaced by cretinous sergeants.’
‘Quite likely,’ said Renato, turning around and letting his pipe go out, ‘since Europe, in the past forty months, has discarded a couple of generations of officers, the ones who knew languages, the ones who might have read a book or two in their lives.’ The first fat drops of rain splashed off the stone window sill. ‘Let’s stop talking about it! And let’s have another…’
‘Goto de forte,’ said Grandpa, holding his mess tin out towards the bottle. ‘A drop of the strong.’
Forty-One
THE THIRD PARAMOUR THANKED THE GUARD WHO OPENED the door to him. The butt that was still emitting a plume of smoke from the tip of his cigarette holder entered the room just a hair ahead of the tip of his shoe. A few short steps took him to the table where he placed his panama hat. He raised his eyebrows to focus on us. First he sought to lock eyes with me, then with Grandpa, and finally deigned to exchange a glance even with Renato, who was looking back at him, up from under, from where he lay stretched out on his pallet, his thumb pushing tobacco into his pipe.
For a while he talked about this and that, my grandma and my aunt, the damp weather, the dog days just around the corner, until our silence forced him to come to the point: ‘There was talk of helping you to escape, but that no longer appears possible.’ He dropped his gaze and picked up his panama hat, and from the grimace on his face you’d think the thing weighed twenty pounds: ‘It’s scheduled for tomorrow.’
Grandpa slammed both fists down onto the table: ‘And you’re the one they send?’
‘The baron wanted to spare the ladies…and he wanted it to be a friendly voice, a voice speaking Italian…Donna Nancy and Donna Maria were able to arrange…for you to be spared the noose…it will be a firing squad.’ He was speaking in a low voice, both eyes fixed on the floor, his fingertips nervously glued to the brim of his hat.
Renato went over to the window; there was a patch of vivid blue amidst the treetops. Not even a trailing shred of cloud in the sky. ‘Nothing remains to be done but one simple thing… Tell the ladies that they will not be disappointed.’ Renato was looking at that small patch of sky: ‘We’ll show these animals who the Italians are.’
Grandpa adjusted the rickety stool under his butt: ‘Yes,’ he said, with a glance at me. ‘I’ll be standing firm on both legs when they shoot me.’
Pagnini’s eyes remained glued to the floor: ‘Well…I’ve said what I came to say. I can only add that I’m truly sorry…That’s it.’
Grandpa stood up and went over to him, they looked each other in the eye.
‘Your wife is a courageous woman…She’s not afraid of anything.’
‘I know,’ said Grandpa.
The Third Paramour’s hands threatened to crumple the panama hat: ‘A miracle…can always happen.’
‘Dear Sir,’ said Grandpa, staring at him, ‘I’ve been here on this planet a few years longer than you, these two eyes of mine have seen plenty of things, good things and bad, so many things, but no miracles, I’ve never seen miracles, and I’ve never given any credence to the jabberings of priests.’
I thrust my hands into my pockets, and without a word I joined Renato at the window. My head was empty, and there was a brick where my stomach ought to have been.
The bolt squealed open. Don Lorenzo’s silhouette filled the door. Thunderbolts surrounded his bald head.
‘It’s time for me to go, let me leave you to the parish priest,’ said the Third Paramour, scuttling off with his panama hat jammed down over his forehead, practically crushed to a pulp. His feet really were too big, it was hard to think of him as smart.
Don Lorenzo grabbed a stool and sat down with his back to the wall. Then I noticed that he had a wine bottle in one hand. He pulled four small wine glasses out of his tunic pocket. ‘I have this fine bottle, all that’s left to me.’
We all sat down. It was a dark red wine and in the dusty light filtering in through the window it turned ruby. As he poured, the parish priest glanced sidelong at our faces. ‘Terrible things all happ
en together,’ he said in a grave voice, pushing one glass after another to the centre of the table.
‘What else has happened?’ asked Grandpa, and this time his voice quavered slightly.
‘That girl, that foolish girl, God forgive her…has gone and hanged herself. And her mother, Teresa, the poor woman, hasn’t stopped screaming since this morning. Like a wounded wolf. In the stables…with a soldier’s belt…she hanged herself from a rafter.’ He looked up and stared us in the eye, one by one. ‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ and he ran both hands over his cranium. ‘She’d been with him, he confessed that, but he said that he had nothing to do with her death…The belt was his, that’s true, it was the young soldier’s belt, but he had nothing to do with it…She didn’t kill herself over the young soldier, and I believe him, as does the baron…Loretta had come to see me, she’d said confession, and that’s why I believe her…I wouldn’t tell you if you didn’t know it already…but she was the one, it was Loretta who told the Austrians to come…’
‘Poor Teresa, poor thing,’ said Grandpa, downing his wine in a single gulp. He slammed the empty glass down on the table. ‘Poor…poor Teresa.’
The priest’s glass, and mine, and Renato’s all slammed down on the table, too.
‘Perhaps someone wants to confess their sins.’ Don Lorenzo looked at the major, who said nothing, just stared at a spot in the middle of the wall and said nothing. ‘There’s always time for… God’s eyes are large and He can forgive anything.’ He fell silent for a moment, ran two fingers inside his sweat-yellowed collar. ‘Now I have to leave you, I’ll come back this evening, for the sacraments.’ He stood up and went to the door, rapping sharply on the wood – the sound reverberated. I heard the bolt squeal.
‘Poor Teresa, poor thing,’ said Grandpa, bowing his head and shaking it from side to side. He refilled his glass and drank, this time sipping, his eyes lowered, staring at the tabletop, the fingers of his left hand lingering around a knot in the wood. ‘She deserved a better daughter.’
Renato, who was again standing at the window and had resumed staring at the little patch of blue high above the treetops, murmured: ‘You’re right…she really did deserve a better daughter.’
Grandpa’s fingers spread open like a duck’s foot on the table. He cleared his throat and, raising his voice slightly, spat out one of his maxims: ‘Stupidity and bad luck play snap even in the homes of the wealthy.’
Forty-Two
DEAR NANCY, I’M AFRAID THAT THESE WORDS WILL BE ALL that is left of me, and the thought saddens me. It especially saddens me to know that you will grieve, but I know how strong you are, and I know that the subtle strength of your intelligence will keep you company. Our boy has become quite clever; when Renato and I quarrel about the fate of Italy, he snickers to himself, and he considers us – he of all people! – a pair of urchins, as foolish as we are astute.
I stopped. ‘Grandpa, this is embarrassing, I don’t want to read your letter.’
‘Read it and stop talking!’
The baron brought us dinner and told us that even if the two-headed eagle is caught among the crags, its talons shattered, in the name of past glory it’s determined not to give up. He was filled with anger. He talked to us a little about his family, apparently they’re starving worse in Vienna than here, he said that he feels sure that it won’t be long until he catches up with us ‘where you’re heading’: he waved his hand in a gesture you should have seen. I asked him if he’d let me embrace you one last time. He said no. The law of war. But he conceded us the favour of allowing us to be shot, so I asked him for one more: being tied to the pole. You understand, I don’t want my legs to give out at the end, I want to die on my feet, consarn it, we need to show these bastards how you die, we can’t let ourselves be outdone by those Czech youngsters. The baron couldn’t refuse, and it made me happy, because I’m not that confident of my own courage, to you I can admit it.
I’d also like to ask you for something, and it’s important. Burn all my papers. You were right, I never was able to write the book and if Beelzebub managed to produce a few handsome pages, a few good phrases, well…I’m pretty sure that was chance. Burn it all, better for it to vanish, better nothing that something paltry. You know me, I lacked the strength, perhaps I had the talent to achieve something, but not the courage, that’s something I always lacked.
But you, Nancy, you always had plenty of courage. Stay close to Maria: she’s a proud woman, just like you are, but she holds in too many tears. I hope that, once this bloodbath is just a distant memory, our lovely Villa can once again hear the sound of laughter as it once did. Places have a bad habit of outliving us. So take care of it, then, and when you happen to remember me I hope you’ll forget the tantrums and the sarcasm. In turn, I promise that when I look down from up there I won’t be unkind about your enemas, and if I run into some stuck-up almighty mathematician I’ll tell him not to put on airs, because I married a woman who was the best mathematician of them all. One last thing: you were right about Renato, he’s quite a guy, the devil take me, he’s got the gift of the gab, just think he had the impertinence on more than one occasion to argue me to a standstill with the things he says about our country’s history. He must be one of the Widow’s Sons, I even asked him but he just didn’t answer, which looks to me like a confirmation, best I can tell.
Of course, as a major of the Intelligence Service he leaves something to be desired: with that bitch Loretta, unless I miss my guess, he must have dallied more than once.
And one more thing, don’t forget to wrap your arms around Teresa for me.
I loved you the way I knew how, Nancy, and now I’m going to have to let you miss me. Stay strong and impose your will, the way you’ve always done. Don’t change. Ever. Yours, Guglielmo.
I handed the letter back to Grandpa and turned my face to the wall, choking back my tears.
Forty-Three
GRANDPA HAD NODDED OFF. THE CRICKETS WERE ALREADY making their noise. And the lamp wick was short, the oil was about to run out. The flickering flame made me think of my pipe. I stuck my hand in my pocket. I walked over to Renato who hadn’t moved from the window all afternoon. He handed me the matches. I stood next to him, smoking and looking out the window.
‘Lieutenant Muller bought the farm in that firefight…didn’t he? You’re not that good a fibber after all…’
‘I thought I’d learnt…’
‘Soldiers die, it’s not your fault. And the one you killed…You did the right thing…you could hardly take him prisoner!’
Then I asked him about Giulia and told him about my moments of jealousy, but he pretended surprise.
‘I enlisted her in the I. S. That’s why certain meetings took place.’
‘Even if I’ve never really learnt to tell a lie properly, Renato, I can spot one when I hear it.’
‘We’re short on oil, this damned lamp.’
The smoke from our pipes crossed. His eyes locked with mine.
‘You’ve carried yourself well in this battle, you should be proud of it.’
‘Are you afraid, Renato?’
‘I’d like to live.’
‘So would I.’
‘Is it the thought of what we won’t experience or the past not lived…that sticks in your throat?’
We heard the guard’s heavy footsteps. The door flew open. Don Lorenzo had a little box with him.
Grandpa sat down on the pallet, rubbing his eyes.
‘If you’re looking for suffering souls, here you see three, Don, but I don’t think there are any confessions in the offing.’ Grandpa’s voice was gummy.
‘What’s that?’ asked Renato, pointing at the box.
‘It’s a field altar, Major, I use it to hold the consecrated wafers.’
‘I’m afraid that these three little lambs will remain lost.’
‘Signor Guglielmo…Signor Spada…you shouldn’t talk that way, your grandson is little more than a child, he should…’
‘
I won’t say confession, Don Lorenzo, and it’s time to quit calling me a child. Tomorrow morning, at dawn, they’re going to kill me. My life is over, I’ve loved and I’ve killed, and my life is over. Yes, I’m eighteen years old, but I’m about to die, and I have a full lifetime behind me!’
Don Lorenzo was caught off guard by the anger in my voice; I hadn’t realized I was practically shouting. He wiped his brow with his filthy handkerchief, and turned to look at Renato.
‘What about you, Major? The time has come to look inside yourself and ask forgiveness. God loves us even when we don’t deserve it…He loves us because His image is inside each of us… We were born human beings and that’s enough for Him. Pride gives bad advice, Major Manca, and now your time has run out.’
‘I’m happy you’re not asking me.’ Grandpa laughed one of his laughs and pulled me close to him.
‘I really don’t know what to do with your God,’ said Renato ‘but I still have something to say to you…Let’s go over in that corner.’
Don Lorenzo pulled his stole out of the box and the major followed him into the dark corner, carrying two stools.
Grandpa and I turned to look out at the dark sky. Every so often he’d take a drag on my pipe, which I was passing to him. The voices of the priest and the major came to us, muffled. There was a star atop the dark trees.
‘Is there any wine left?’
I turned towards the table; the bottle was there. I picked it up and shook it. ‘Not even half a drop, Grandpa.’
‘Cognac?’
I pointed at the bottle lying on its side on the table: it had lost its cork.
‘Leaving condemned men without a drop of alcohol and in the company of a priest is a genuine cruelty.’
‘Sober as you are, Grandpa, you might even be tempted to confess your sins.’
Between Enemies Page 26
