History (36 page)

He stood up, and moving rhythmically, as if in a dance hall, he began singing a popular song about the moon, very famous at the time.

". . . Hey, what about opening the window a little? It's hot in here. If

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. .
. .
. .
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the blackout patrols go by, we're armed. And besides, in a storm like this, the Blackshirts don't come out. They're even afraid of rain water."

He seemed to enjoy provoking everyone: the submitting Italians, the occupying Germans, the Fascist renegades, the Flying Fortresses of the Allies, the posters with their requisitions and their death penalties. Cur rado, Peppe Terzo, Impero, and the complete raft of kids was already on top of him like so many suitors, while Ida followed him with her eyes, keeping to one side, her palpitating mouth almost laughing. The thorns of anxiety could barely scratch her thoughts, promptly blunted by her mys terious faith in Nino's hoodlum invulnerability. She was sure, beneath the level of her consciousness, that he would pass through the war, the Ger mans' hun ting, the guerrilla fi and the air raids without being hurt at all, like a heedless little horse galloping through a swarm of fl

Quattropunte, who seemed more cautious, stopped him in time, as he was trying to force the window open. Nino gave him a sweet and charming smile and hugged him : "This guy," he said, "is our best comrade and my best friend. They call him Quattropunte because his specialty is those nails with four points, that blow up the Germans' tires. His specialty is nails, and mine is aiming. Hey, comrade, tell them how many we've knocked off For me, the Germans are like ninepins. If I see a bunch standing in a row,

I
knock them fl

"Eh, those Germ they've got meat by the ton," w;; the enthu siasti but ambiguous comment of Tore, CaruB's brother. Nobody bothered to fi out if he was referri to human fl or to those famous quarters of beef. At the same moment, Ida felt such a fi sharp ache that for a moment all she could see before her were some blackish spots. And at fi she couldn't understand what was happening to her, when through her brain there passed a boy's voice, foreign and drunk, saying to her: "Carina, Carina." It was the voice that, in January of 1941, had said those same words to her, not perceived then, in her unconscious state. But, recorded on an instrument hidden in her brain, suddenly they came back to her, along with the kisses that had then accompanied them, and which now, resting on her face, gave her an impression of sweetness, no less piercing than the ache. Into her conscious mind a question rose : in that
row
that Nino had mentioned, could that blond boy also have been standing? . . . She didn't know that, almost three years ago, he had de composed in the Mediterranean sea.

Useppe stayed close to his brother, moving wherever he moved, and slipping between people's legs to run after him. Though he was in Jove with the whole world, now he saw clearly that this was his greatest love. He was able even to forget all the others, Carull included, and the twins, and the canaries, for this supreme love. Every now and then he raised his head

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and called him : "Ino! Ino!" with the obvious intention of telling him :

''I'm
here. Do you remember me or don't you? This is our big night!"

At that point, from the end of the room, where the inner door opened, an old man's voice shouted at the top of its lungs :

"Long Live the Proletarian Revolution!"

It was Giuseppe Secondo, who had not witnessed Nino's arrival at fi since he was momentarily in the latrine. He had come back just when Nino was proclaiming, "We're partisans. Good evening, comrades . . ." and immediately an extraordinary spark had fla,ed up inside him. Still, he had remained watching, discreetly, an ordinary spectator, until he could contain himself no longer. And darting like a spurt of fl he made his way forward, hat on his head, and introduced himself to the pair:

"Welcome, comrades! vVe're completely at your disposal. This eve ning you're doing us a great honor! !" And with a boy's joyous smile, he lowered his voice slightly, to reveal, convinced he was making an important announcement:

''I'm a Comrade, too! . . .
"

"Hi," Nino said to him, with serene condescension, not stunned by the news. Then, with great eagerness, Giuseppe Secondo started rummag ing in his mattress, and with a triumphant wink, he came and displayed to the visitors a clandestine copy of
L'Unita.

Recognizing it at once, although illiterate, Quattro smiled with plea sure.
"L'Unita,"
he stated gravely, "is the true Italian newspaper!" Nino looked at his friend with a kind of respect: "He," Nino explained to all, eager to do him honor, "is an old fighter in the Revolution. I'm new to it myself. I . . ." he declared with sincere honesty, but not giving a damn, "until last summer, was fi on the other side."

"Because you were only a kid," Quattro rebutted in his defense. "All kids make mistakes. The ri ideas come when you're older, and can use your head. When you're a kid, you're not ripe yet for the struggle."

"Yeah, well, I'm grown up now!" Nino remarked with happy arro gance. And, joking, he attacked Quattro with a playful jab. The other parried, and the two engaged in a mock fight, punching and fending off blows, like real boxers. Giuseppe Secondo stood beside them, to act as referee, with great expertise and with such enthusiasm that his hat slipped to the back of his head, while around them, Peppe Terzo and Impero and Caru and all the horde jumped and cheered like genuine fans at the ringside.

The game brought Nino's excitement to a climax. And, abruptly, he quit the match and jumped to the top of the pile of desks with the impetus of a barricadiero:

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"Long live the Revolution!"

All applauded. Useppe ran after him. 1l1e other kids, too, scrambled up the pile.

"Long live the Red Flag!" Giuseppe Secondo, beside himself, shouted in his tum. "We're almost there, comrade partisans! The victory is ours! The farce is over!!"

"Soon we'll revolutionize the whole damn world!" Ninnarieddu pro claimed. "We'll revolutionize the Colosseum and St. Peter's and Manhat tan and the Verano cemetery and the Swiss guards and the Jews and the Lateran . . ."

"Everything, everything!" Carulina yelled, from below, jumping up and down.

"And we'll have a regu
l
ar airline Hollywood-Paris-Moscow! And we'll

get drunk on whisky and vodka and truffi and caviar and foreign ciga rettes. And we'll ri around in an Alfa Romeo racer and a personal biplane . . ."

"Hurray! Hurray!" the kids applauded, at random, all breathless in the task of climbing up on the dais of the political rally. Only Useppe had already arrived there, and from above, sitting astride a bench, he also shouted : "Hurray!" and slapped his little hands on the wood, to contribute to the noise. Even the twins, forgotten on the ground on some rags, gave out some soprano trills.

". . . and turkey, and ice cream, and foreign cigarettes . . . and we'll have orgies with American girls and we'll screw the Danish blondes, and the enemy will have to jerk off . . .

"Hey! Wh do we eat around here?!"

Ninnuzzu had jumped to the ground. Useppe fl after him.

"It's ready, all ready," Giuseppe Secondo hastened to reassure him. And the women returned to their supper preparations, with a great com motion of dishes and pots. At that point, in the fourth comer, from behind the curtain of rags, a meowing was heard.

Vivaldi Carlo hadn't shown his face, remaining in his lair the whole time. "Wh in there?" Nino inquired. And unceremoniously he pulled the curtain aside. Rossella hissed and Carlo half sat up on his pallet.

"And who's this?" Nino said, displaying, for the fi time since he had come in, a hint of suspicion. "Who're you?" he asked the man in the lair. "Who're you?" Quattropunte repeated, promptly intervening to support his Chief.

"I'm just somebody." "Somebody who?" Carlo made a gri

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"Talk," Nino said to him, proudly assuming a guerrilla fi proper attitude during an interrogation. And Quattro, in tum, insisted : "Why won't you talk?" driving his little eyes into Carlo's face like two nails.

"What are you afraid of, anyway?! Don't you trust me?"

"We're not afraid of anybody, including God Almighty! And if you want us to trust you, then unbutton your lip!"

"What the fuck do you want to know?" "What's your name?"

"His name's Carlo! Carlo!" the Y.ids intervened, in chorus. "Carlo what?"

"Vivaldi! Vivaldi! Vivaldi!" shouted the women, from the opposite comer.

"Are you one of us?" Nino asked, maintaining his austere and threat ening demeanor.

"Are you one of us?" Quattropunte repeated, almost in unison.

Carlo looked at them with a gaze so transparent it seemed amused. "Yes," he answered, with a baby's blush.

"You're a Communist?" ''I'm an anarchist."

"Well, if we want to be fussy," Giuseppe Secondo spoke up, concili atory, having immediately joined the conversation, "our great Master Carlo Marx was more against the anarchists than for. The red fl is red, and the black fl is black. That's for sure. Still, in certain historic hours, all those on the Left march united, in the struggle against the common enemy."

Nino remained silent for a moment, his brows furrowed, meditating on a philosophical suspicion of his own. After which he smiled, satisfi :

"If you ask me," he decided, "I like anarchy."

Carl apparently pleased, smiled briefl ( the second smile since the day of his arrival). "And what are you doing in here all by yourself?" Nino confronted him. "Are you against other people?"

Carlo shrugged

"Come on, comrade anarchist," Giuseppe Secondo urged him, "come eat with us! Tonight I'm host!" he announced with a grandiose, billion aire's tone, proceeding towards the center of the room.

Carlo advanced, hesitant and gawky, without looking at anyone, and Rossella promptly skipped after him. In view of the exceptional evening, the supper was set out communally in the center of the room, on
a
single table made of packing cases placed side by side. Around them, mattresses, pillows, and sandbags were pulled up on the fl as chairs. Giuseppe Secondo brought to the table some bottles of special wine, which he had been saving to celebrate the victory ( that is, the defeat of the Axi . "We start celebrating the vi he said, "tonight."

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Carlo and Nino had taken their places on two mattresses almost oppo site each other, seated in the pose of Buddhist monks. Next to Nino sat Quattro, and behind them the kids were fi all wanting to sit near them. Useppe had clung tight to his brother, and his eyes, always raised to

that face, were like two little beams cast on him to see him in more light. His attention was distracted only every now and then, as he went
mew . . . mew
. . . to the cat, off her some morSel.

The menu of the supper was : spaghetti all'amatriciana, with canned tomatoes and real country sheep cheese; steak alia pizzaiola; bread made with real fl , bought on the black market in Velletri and various fruit jams. The rain that continued pouring down gave all a feeling of isolation and of safety, like being inside the Ark during the fl

Nino remained fairly silent, he was so taken up with observ Carlo Vivaldi : no longer suspicious but intent, like kids, when an exoti or somehow problematical character comes to join their gang. At every mo ment, his eyes returned to the face of that other youth, who, on the contrary, looked at no one.

"You from Milan?" Nino asked him. "No . . . Bologna . . ."

"Why're you here then?" "And why are you here?''

"Me? Because the Fascists were beginning to stink, as far as I was concerned. That's why. I got fed up with the stink of black shirts."

"Me, too."

"Were you a Fascist?" "No."

"You were an anti-Fascist even before?" "I've always been an anarchist." "Always! Even when you were a kid?" "Yes."

"Ace of Hearts, will you show me your pistol?" a voice begged, at that moment, in Nino's car. It was Peppe Terzo, Caruli's Roman nephew, besieging him from behind, along with his little brother and his cousin Currado; but Nino with a shove sent all three sprawling on the mattress, and warn them fi ly:

"That's enough of that, eh! Clear out! !!"

"Hey, you little bastards . . . leave the gent alone! What makes you so impolite!l" they were warned in turn by Peppe Terzo's mother from her place, with a hen's gentle lament. Meanwhile, the ca Rossella, reappearing from beneath people's feet, was rubbing against Useppe, to ask him for another tidbit; but when Nino sighted her and reached out to give her a passing pat, she ran off in her usual way. Carulina's three nephews, then,

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ri from their sprawl, began to chase Rossella to release their energies; but with one dart she promptly took refuge beneath Carlo's leg; and from there she hissed at the whole table.

Giuseppe Secondo, who was sitting beside Carlo, suddenly gave him a smug, sly look:

"Comrades," he said, addressing Nino, and Quattro, "this cat belongs to me. And you want to know what her real name is?"

"Rossella!" Carulina cried triumphantly.

"Eh, thanks a lot!" Giuseppe Secondo said, shrugging haughtily. "Rossella! that would be her . . . governmental name, you might say . . . less compromising . . . if you follow me. But her real name, the one I gave her when I took her, is different, and I'm the only one who knows it!"

"Doesn't she know it herself?!" Carulina asked, with curiosity. "No. Not even her!"

"What might this name be?" the two sisters-in-law asked together. "Tell us ! Tell us!" Carulina urged.

"Well, tonight, among ourselves, maybe I ca whisper it," Giuseppe Secondo resolved. And with a conspirator's air, he revealed :

"RUSSIA!"

"Russia! You mean Rossella's real name is Russia?" a sister-in-law asked, not convinced.