A Fool's Alphabet
Authors: Sebastian Faulks
CONTENTS
LYNDONVILLE, VERMONT, USA, 1971
QUEZALTENANGO, GUATEMALA, 1974
WATSONVILLE, CALIFORNIA, USA, 1974
The events of Pietro Russell's life are told in 26 chapters. From AâZ each chapter is set in a different place and reveals a fragment of his story. As his memories flicker back and forth through time in his search for a resolution to the conflicts of his life, his story gradually unfolds.
Sebastian Faulks has written eight novels, including
Birdsong
(1993). He is also the author of a biographical study,
The Fatal Englishman
(1996).
He lives in London, is married and has two sons and a daughter.
The Girl at the Lion d'Or
Birdsong
The Fatal Englishman
Charlotte Gray
On Green Dolphin Street
Human Traces
Engleby
FOR VERONICA
SEBASTIAN FAULKS
There is only one alphabet, which has spread over almost all of the world.
A. C. Moorhouse,
Writing and the Alphabet
When you're a married man, Samivel, you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but vether it's worth while goin' through so much to learn so little, as the charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter of taste.
Mr Weller,
Pickwick Papers
, Chapter 27
All letters form absence.
Edmond Jabès,
Livre des Questions
ITALY 1944
VESUVIUS WAS ERUPTING.
The trembling of the ground which was common in the Campania district was intensified so that cars would not remain still, even on level ground, but began to shudder and bolt like frightened horses. The sea in the Bay of Naples was being sucked back from the beach and swallowed by the ocean, leaving driftwood and stranded creatures on the suddenly revealed sand. Inland from the volcano a huge black cloud hung steadily until it was ripped by thick and wavering lengths of flame, which were like forks of magnified lightning. After a time the cloud began to sink down and cover the sea, obscuring the promontory and removing the island of Capri from sight.
In the streets of Sorrento, on the other side of the bay, the people ran to their houses. There was the sound of car engines being revved and rubber tyres squeezed against the roads by sudden acceleration. Shutters were brought together with a wooden thud before the iron arms descended to bolt them. The dense black cloud that hung across the bay seemed also to have loomed behind them, covering and flooding the hills. The flames remained distant, but ashes began to fall in the streets in dense showers.
Safe behind the glass doors of the balcony on the first floor of the convalescent hotel, Corporal Raymond Russell tapped a cigarette against the side of the packet, revolved it slowly between his fingers and poked it into the corner of his mouth.
âOn your way tomorrow, then,' the medical officer had told him that morning. âGot your orders?'
âYes. Back to A Company,' said Russell.
The doctor briefly examined the healed shell wound in his left shoulder. âShouldn't give you any more trouble,' he said. He looked out of the window. âIt would be nice to spend the summer in Rome.'
âI'll do my best,' said Russell.
He had passed the day listening to the rumbling from across the bay, smoking cigarettes and thinking what still awaited him at Anzio. Vesuvius had taken his mind off it for a time, though the noise and violence of the eruption also reminded him of the forward positions in the beachhead.
He slept well, despite the volcano. In the morning he rose at seven, packed his kitbag and made his way downstairs in the old hotel that the Red Cross had taken over. There was a smell of coffee and the sound of Italian women talking and laughing in the kitchens. He felt caught in a trap of time, neither soldier nor civilian. He liked the sound of the women's voices and the everyday life they represented. He wanted this quite ordinary world of airy rooms, new bread, curtains, children. He forced the thought from his mind as he pushed open the swing doors of the hotel. His loyalty was with Sugden, Bell, Padgett, the Major and the other men in the icy slit trenches. He reconciled himself to the thought of further weeks of their undrinkable distilled alcohol, their sexual frustration and the slow hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of extreme terror.
The sun was out on the streets of Sorrento. As he began to walk downhill he passed a magnificent sign in which the iron was wrought like arthritic fingers to read âPasticceria' and hammered into a pink wall on the corner of a street. Under his feet the pavements were ankle-deep in grey dust from the volcano.
Four weeks earlier he had been jammed in between Bell and Padgett in the small landing craft that cast off from the mother ship in the Bay of Anzio. Bell's face was close to his, and he was breathing fast.
âGallipoli,' he said, his eyes showing white through his blackened face. âThat's what our general thinks. Another bloody rat-trap. What do we want a Yank general for anyway?'
Russell felt the bevelled edge of the craft's iron rail beneath his hand. Next to him Padgett was praying with a rapid mumbling sound. It was a beautiful winter night, star-pocked, calm and mild. There had been cases of seasickness when they headed south towards Africa in some cumbersome diversionary move, but since the ships had swung round towards their true destination, carving a mile-wide circle of foam through the Tyrrhenian sea, the wind had died and the groaning had ceased.
Russell could see the dark outline of Anzio to their right. It looked a charming place: he imagined holidays and fishing. He had never been abroad until the war. Although in four years he had seen Holland, France and more of North Africa than he wanted, he was still excited by the sight of the small Italian coastal town and was disappointed that their craft would take them to the north of it.
âAll right, you men?' The Major came to check morale. âNice little town, isn't it? Used to be a pirates' haven, you know.'
That was all he had time for as the craft surged on towards the beach.
âThey sent out a group of men to test the texture of the sand,' muttered Bell. âNever came back. Taken prisoner by the Jerries. They're waiting for us. Jesus Christ.'
The landing craft hit solid ground and Russell was thrown against Padgett, who dropped a box of ammunition on the deck. They heard the sound of âMove', but they didn't need to be told. The waist-high water and yielding sand made it difficult to get going; with cursing and splashing, they managed to keep their packs and guns above the sea until they could move into a run. In his mind Russell heard the opening salvo of German machine-gun fire, the disdainful ripple of automatic weapons plied by men who had time to
choose their targets; he was almost deafened by the expected thumping of entrenched artillery.
Nothing happened. Only Padgett's swearing and sloshing and the distant cries of encouragement from the landing craft came to his ears. They made the beach and ran for the tree line, weapons prodding the dark air, poised in the readiness of fear.
The landing was on a huge scale. The ships had come in from a measureless sea to disgorge men through the towns of Nettuno and Anzio, on up the coast to the furthest point of Peter beach, six miles to the north west. Their war had moved from Africa to Europe, yet they saw only the quadrant of darkness in front of their eyes.
Russell lay prone, the sand of Anzio in his nostrils where the force of his fall had driven it. Nobody moved or spoke. Their ears were bursting with expectation. Behind them they could hear more men splashing ashore. They willed them on, praying the gunfire would not start till they were covered. Other craft were landing further to their left. They began to lift their heads and look sideways. The beach was crawling with dark figures, hunched and labouring forwards under the weight of huge combat packs and boxes of ammunition. They were starting to pour into the scrub at the back of the beach and the pine trees beyond.
Still there was no sound, no shot.
The Major came to give them their orders. âGet your men up there, Russell. Keep them out of sight.' He found it hard to keep the elation out of his voice.
âI don't bloody believe this,' said Bell. âI just don't believe it.'
âCome on, Bell,' said Padgett, who was almost hysterical with relief. âWe'll get the action soon enough. It won't be like Pantelleria, you know.' He started giggling.
âAt least we got the bloody craft the right way round this time,' said Bell.
After intensive practice, the company had landed the previous summer at the small island of Pantelleria, the first
toehold gained in Europe by the Allied armies. A capricious wind had turned the craft around at the last minute so that the vanguard consisted of the medics, the caterers and the brigadier's car. It had not mattered. No shots had been fired, and the mayor had been pleased to see them. He kept giving Nazi salutes, then remembering himself, apologising and shaking hands.
âI liked Pantelleria,' said Russell, hoisting up his pack. âI wish we could have stayed there longer. Come on then, let's get this kit up there.'
They moved rapidly inland â the heart of Italy at last â in the course of the night. From the town they could hear sporadic gunfire, but nothing that alarmed them. By dawn they had established radio contact with the Americans in Anzio. There had been hardly any fighting. A German car with four drunken officers on board had driven into the open mouth of a beached landing craft, mistaking it for a garage. It was, in Padgett's words, a piece of duff.
Two weeks later they had made no perceptible progress. They were penned into the beachhead by a continuous German bombardment that rattled and shook the fabric of their makeshift shelters and made the further landing of troops and supplies on the beach a job as hazardous as that undertaken by the men at the front. Russell's company had been pushed forward into a salient that stuck out, as many of the men remarked, like a sore thumb from the otherwise regular perimeter of the beachhead. The commanding officer had come to visit them. A tall man with a red, fleshy face, he managed to appear well dressed and relaxed even when stepping over the winter mud of the Italian plain with German shells landing a hundred yards away. He told them they were the best prepared group of fighting men in the British army. Their morale was high, their experience was unmatched and their company commanders were inspirational. He wanted them to show their courage, push forward when instructed and remember the glorious history of their regiment, a history
which he himself appeared to have memorised down to the last details of the disposition of each platoon at Omdurman.