A Winter's Night

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  At first Gaetano had been scared to death and he’d often pissed his pants at the moment in which the lieutenant would shout “Forward, Savoia!” to order an attack. But then he learned how to stick the enemy with his bayonet before they stuck him. He, who had always refused to slaughter a pig because he felt badly for the poor animal that was squealing and struggling to get away, now killed people without batting an eye; he’d killed so many of them it really didn’t matter much one way or the other.

  He wanted out. He cared nothing about anything anymore. He wanted out and that was all, and the only way to get out was to win the damned war and to kill as many Germans and Austrians and Croatians and Hungarians as he could, even though they’d never done anything to him. They were trying to do the very same thing anyway, although none of them really knew why.

  When the moment finally came, the artillery upstream of his position started laying down enough firepower to frighten God himself, while the bulk of the army crossed on the pontoon bridge further downstream at Pederobba. Gaetano had installed a great number of the heavy ash boards, freshly cut and still smelling of the sawmill where they had been made, that the infantry were now crossing on. They advanced in silence under the pelting rain, not marching in step, treading lightly so they would not give themselves away. All that could be heard was a confused scuttling, not easily noticed against the rush of the current, as the Piave pooled up for a moment amidst the pontoons of the bridge before breaking and running free and fast towards the sea.

  Gaetano was one of the last to cross so he and his team could ensure that the bridge was still usable. But not because they would be crossing back, there was no going back anymore. Because the bridge would be needed for guaranteeing supplies and ammunition to the advancing army.

  All at once he thought he heard voices, a whispered song. A battalion of Bersaglieri, you could tell from the clusters of feathers perched on their helmets. They were singing in such low voices he had to strain his ears. It wasn’t a war song, or who knows, perhaps it was . . . It sounded like certain songs sung at harvest time in an old dialect that you couldn’t understand entirely. Something about a girl’s heartache because her fiancé had left for the war and she’d heard nothing from him since. Gaetano thought it would be nice to have a fiancée who was waiting at home pining away with love for him, but he didn’t have anyone. Once he got back he’d have to look for a girl and start up a family.

  The advance lasted six days in all, without ever stopping. Sometimes entire units of the Austro-Hungarian army, surrounded on every side, surrendered along with the officers who commanded them. They’d had enough of the war as well; they didn’t believe in what they were doing anymore. Every man for himself and God for all. Everything around them was gone; there was nothing but rubble, razed houses, whole towns where the only thing left standing, barely, was the church belltower. A few emaciated chickens still strutted around abandoned farmhouses, and a rare cow witnessed the soldiers’ passage with her big damp eyes, unmoving under the rain.

  As they proceeded, a sort of excitement was spreading among the troops and the officers. Victory was suddenly seeming altogether possible, and with it, the end of the war. Even Gaetano felt caught up in the mood. After so many months of bloody battles, of slaughter and destruction, he’d come to the conclusion that wars should never be fought because they only bring havoc and ruin and they don’t solve anything, but that if you had to make war, it was better to win than to lose. Not much is gained, but at least you feel like you’d fought for something. A bit like at home in the winter in the stable when he used to play a hand of briscola without stakes. He would rather win, anyway.

  The third of November—he would remember this for the rest of his life—the Austrians surrendered. On the fourth the war was over.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Checco woke up on a hospital cot and for a few minutes couldn’t tell whether he was dead or alive. He soon realized it was the latter, because there wasn’t a single inch of his body that didn’t hurt. He felt like a whole truckful of stones had been dumped on him.

  “Well, it’s about time!” said a voice. “You’re finally awake, you worthless bag of scum! I’ve always said that layabouts have all the luck.”

  Checco recognized the medical officer who was looking at him and chewing on a Tuscan cigar stub. “What happened, sir?”

  “What happened is that you saved your ass. Your regiment was decimated while they were trying to stop the Germans. They fought like lions, while you were comfortably stretched out in a bed, you slacker.”

  “But sir,” Checco tried to explain, “I don’t even know how I got here.” He sat up and brought a hand to his forehead, sighed, coughed, spit and started to touch himself all over. He was full of bruises, his skin looked rubbed raw, and his feet were burnt as though he’d been walking on live coals. “All I remember is that Pipetta was driving his two-mule cart straight into a tank, singing that ‘darling Spaniard’ song. And that he’d just called me milord.”

  “What the fuck . . . what on earth are you saying?” burst out the doctor.

  “No, really,” replied Checco. “And then a bomb went off and I said ‘I’m dead.’ And that’s all.”

  He looked around him: he was in a big, open room full of cots like his own with hundreds of the sorriest looking fellows he’d ever seen. Some were missing legs, some arms, some both. They were swaddled in bloodstained gauze, heads bandaged, many were groaning, some asking for water, others yelling “Nurse! Nurse!” Some were cursing loudly and others were calling for their mothers, Jesus Christ and the Madonna. As he slowly began to regain awareness, Checco took in the hell, or the purgatory, that surrounded him. In the meantime, the doctor had put a bottle of grappa to his mouth and swigged down a good mouthful, and had disappeared down the main corridor, swearing, hawking and spitting.

  Then a volunteer nurse stepped in, wearing a snow white apron and a stiff, starched cap sporting a red cross, her chest thrown out like a Bersagliere’s, carrying a tray with a syringe and some phials. She walked straight to his cot, told him to roll over and before he knew what was happening stuck a needle in his rear end.

  “There you are,” she said, “You’re cured. You can go back to your regiment tomorrow.”

  Checco rubbed his butt for a while, then turned on his side and tried to sleep. He thought that, after all, he was luckier than those other poor devils who were suffering the pains of hell in that bare, cold room. He thought of Pipetta who certainly was not singing anymore and it brought a lump to his throat.

  The morning after, a nurse gave him his release papers. He collected what was left of his uniform and his shoes and received instructions on how to reach regiment headquarters. He got dressed, put his feet on the ground and, one step after another, made it to the exit. It was sunny outside.

  His comrades had indeed stopped the Germans but many of them had met their ends doing so. His captain was gone: killed in combat. Another arrived and called them to assembly, to tell them that the French general thanked them and praised their courage because their sacrifice had served to stop the Germans from opening the road to Paris.

  Next to Checco was his emigrant bricklayer friend, his partner on the munitions delivery truck. He turned to Checco and said: “That’s no small thing; the French never thank anyone, least of all the Italians. They feel entitled to everything that comes their way.”

  The officer went on to say that the worst was over and that the Germans would no longer be able to break through, and announced the Italian counterattack on the Piave.

  “What day is it today?” Checco asked his friend.

  “The 25th of July,” the other answered.

  Checco did some figuring in his head and realized he’d been in the hospital for more than three weeks, meaning that he must not have been in very good shape when they had taken him in, and if they hadn’t sent him home on sick leave they must have been bank
ing on more trouble in store, and no small amount of it.

  There were about three more weeks of trouble and then, almost suddenly, they got the news they’d be going home.

  Home.

  Unbelievable. He tried not to think about it, afraid that the next thing they’d hear was that there had been a mistake, that it wasn’t true. But no. One morning he said goodbye to his emigrant bricklayer friend because he was staying in France where he had a family, with a wife and son who spoke French.

  “So long, Beppe!” Checco told him. “If you come back to Italy someday, come visit me. When you get to my town, just ask for Hotel Bruni, that’s what they call our place. Anyone will be able to tell you where it is.”

  “So long, Checco,” replied the other, slapping him on the back. “Good luck!”

  Then each went his own way.

  Checco was taken to a station and put on a train all full of tricolor flags: some with blue and some with green. For hours and hours, and for dozens of stops, the station names were French. It was night and then it was day and the names became Italian: Ventimiglia, Albenga, Genova. There you go, Genova was a place he’d heard of and he even knew someone who’d been there. Was Genova where the ships that sailed across the ocean to America left from?

  As the convoy proceeded, soldiers got out, some in one place and some in another, to change trains and head to other cities, other countrysides, in the mountains or at the seaside, back to the towns they’d abandoned to come to the front. And what would they find once they made it back? What would Checco find at home? It made him shudder to think about it. After the enthusiasm for the end of the war came fear, panic even, at the sole thought of the misfortunes that must have befallen his family since he’d left, roosting like crows on the roof of the house.

  The entire nation was full of flags because that last piece of Italy had been reunited with the rest of the country. It had cost them dearly but what’s done is done and it was time to look ahead. In many stations, there was a band playing the royal march and rendering honors to the returning soldiers. Those who were hobbling on crutches, those who were still walking, those who wept and those who were struck dumb, incredulous at setting foot on the land where they were born. Another day and another night passed and when the train stopped, a voice shouted: “Modena! Modena Station!”

  Checco startled and looked around him: many of his travel companions were getting out and stumbling, still half-asleep, past the band playing the royal march and an ode to the river Piave. He stayed on, waiting for the next stop, where there certainly would be no band to greet him.

  The train started up again and the music faded away behind the last car. Checco began to recognize the places they were passing and he felt his heartbeat quicken: Fossalta, the bridge of Sant’Ambrogio; it would only be a few minutes now. A soldier with a haversack on his back walked past him. For god’s sake: it was Pio Patella! A day laborer who lived on Via Menotti.

  “Hey, Pio!” he called out in their local dialect. “Pio, where you goin’?”

  Pio turned. “That you, Checco?”

  Of course it was him, who else could it be? Not that they had ever been great friends, but running into each other like this, after three years of war and both of them headed to the same town seemed like a miracle. A wonderful miracle. They’d walk the last kilometers together.

  The train came to a halt and they got out, but Pio decided to stop in on his sister, who lived close to the station. So Checco set off on his own with his haversack on his shoulders. It was just after All Saints and All Souls; the scent of maple leaves was in the air and the red hawthorn berries sparkled amidst the rust-colored leaves of the hedges. The robins and wrens hopped from one branch to another and regarded him curiously with eyes black and bright as pinheads. Every now and then a dog would bark at him and run back and forth on his chain strung up on a line extending from the house to the shed. Once he had walked past, the dog would stop his barking and settle down with a whimper, resigned to the same old life. A dog’s life.

  The air was fresh and the sun shone cold in a clear sky.

  He passed in front of Pra’ dei Monti and glanced over at the four hills dug up here and there by the occasional treasure hunter. He wasn’t worried; the golden goat wouldn’t be putting in any more appearances, because no disaster could be greater than the war that had just ended. And if it ever did reappear, it would be on a night of tempest with thunder shaking the earth and lightning rending the black clouds, or in a snowstorm, with flakes falling fast through the night sky. Certainly not on a clear morning in November.

  He got to the sluice on the creek and then to the spot the women favored for washing, and there they were, beating the laundry against the stones and singing to take their minds off the cold that was numbing their fingers. He reached the footbridge and then the path lined with lindens that led to Signor Goffredo’s villa. As he got closer to town, just past the San Colombano mill, he began to run into people, but no one made a fuss over him; just a little nod, or a half smile, if that. This made him very uneasy, and he took it as a sign that the end of the war had brought little joy to his town. A sign that a lot of men were still missing and perhaps would never come back, a sign that those that had made it back were not the same as when they’d left: wounded, disabled, maimed.

  He finally reached the square: Poldo’s brick wall was still there, on the left, with vine shoots curling over the tiles at its top, and there was the fountain with its piston pump at the center. The church was there on the right, with its image of the Sacred Heart on the lunette over the door, as was the bell tower that marked time for the whole town: births, weddings, deaths. And right at that moment, the big bell began slowly ringing a death knell. At that same instant, four gravediggers left the oratory carrying a litter made of wood. Walking behind them was the priest, wearing a purple stole and white lace surplice over his black cassock. An altar boy carried the holy-water bucket and sprinkler.

  They passed alongside the tower and then went past the People’s House and Checco had the impression they were about to turn right along the ditch, but they headed straight on instead, nearly as if they were opening the path for him. They passed the pharmacy and the Osteria della Bassa, and Checco was sure they’d continue towards Madonna della Provvidenza. He realized instantly that, more than conjecture, his thought expressed hope. Instead they turned right, walking through the fields and continuing towards the fork and Checco tried to convince himself that it would be there that they would part ways. At this point, he was less than half a kilometer from home. He would soon be hugging his mother and his father; maybe some of his brothers had already returned, Gaetano, or Floti . . .

  The little funeral procession turned left precisely where he would soon be turning left himself, and he realized with great relief that just before the Via Celeste crossroads lived old Signora Preti, who had already been in sad shape when he’d left. Surely they were going to fetch her body.

  Instead they turned into the Bruni courtyard.

  The first one to see Checco was Maria, who was in the farmyard feeding the chickens. She ran towards him and threw her arms around him, weeping. She couldn’t manage to say a word. Clerice arrived almost immediately. She hugged him and kissed him and then lowered her head to dry her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Your father, Checco. He didn’t make it. Such a long time without hearing anything about you boys, so many terrible stories from the front. He was convinced that at least half of you wouldn’t come back because those were the numbers we were hearing from the front. Or worse. I tried time and time again to tell him we mustn’t lose heart, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Mamma, where are the others?”

  “They’re not here, Checco. You’re the first to return, and you’ve found this awful welcome. Come now, come and say goodbye to your father before they take him to the cemetery.”

  They went inside. Checco looked at his
father and tears filled his eyes. They had arranged the body in a coffin, four elmwood boards nailed together, dressed in the only good suit he had, with a white hemp shirt buttoned all the way up and a rosary intertwined in his ashen hands. He had a two-day beard because no one had shaved him for fear of cutting his skin.

  “He tormented himself. Every night I’d hear him sighing, ‘Where can our boys be, Clerice? Who knows where on earth they are.’ And he would twist and turn in his bed. He could find no peace. He hardly slept at all. How often I heard him weeping! When he saw soldiers passing by, with their haversacks and guns, looking dead tired and worn out, he’d call out to them: ‘Come inside, boys, eat and drink!’ and when they’d left, he’d say, ‘Maybe someone’s doing the same with our sons.’ Your father was a good man, Checco, I couldn’t have found a better one. He loved you boys as if he’d given birth to you himself. He died of a broken heart because you were gone.”

  The gravediggers were waiting to nail on the lid and take him away. Checco put a hand on his icy forehead and said: “Why didn’t you wait for me, papà . . . at least one day, so I could say goodbye.” Clerice gave him a kiss and covered her face with her hands. The priest sprinkled holy water on the elm box and murmured some prayers, then the gravediggers put the coffin on the litter and walked out the door as the priest began loudly reciting the rosary.

  Meanwhile, the courtyard had filled with people from town, friends, relatives. Clerice took off her apron, patted down her hair and began following her husband’s coffin, arm-in-arm with Checco and Maria. Behind them walked the women, kerchiefs on their heads, then the stable hand, and last of all the men wrapped in their long cloaks and carrying their hats. In church, the platform was ready, covered by a black cloth edged in yellow. The pastor said the mass and added a brief eulogy, saying that Callisto was a good Christian and that the Lord would certainly welcome him into heaven.