Limbo (11 page)

“About what?” Manuela asks suspiciously. “About the massacres in May at Ganjabad and Gerani,” Stefano says. “Those villages are only a few miles from your base, you must have seen the ruins.” “I didn't get there until over six months later,” she responds, tensing up. “And besides, we Italians had nothing to do with it. The Alpini were inside the base, they were still setting it up, the Americans had only transferred control of the province to us a few weeks before.” “But it was a huge deal!” Stefano exclaims. “In the U.S. they compared it to My Lai in Vietnam. According to the Red Cross, at least eighty-nine civilians died.”

“That figure is exaggerated, there's been a lot of misinformation about the whole episode,” Manuela replies. She would rather spare herself the effort this is costing her. “According to the American report, there was a Taliban gathering, and after the first bombing they scattered throughout the village, hiding in houses.” “What does that mean?” he interrupts her. “You don't kill the dog to crush the flea.” “The world has changed,” Manuela says. “Fire burns friend and foe, it doesn't ask for your ID first. In World War I five percent of all victims were civilians, in World War II fifty percent, in the wars in the second half of the twentieth century, eighty percent. But in today's wars, it's sometimes impossible to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants. The same person, depending on the circumstances or the season, may be one or the other. Insurgents don't wear uniforms. They dress like everyone else. Even as women. Sometimes they send the children ahead. There are children everywhere, they come up to you, surround you, tug at you, ask for candy, they have nothing, they're the poorest people on earth, truly the lowest of the low, and you'd like to pat them on the head, give them a high five, even just look at them. But instead you have to fear them. Like in that sci-fi film,
Screamers
. I saw it at the FOB, on a friend's computer. We watched it to remind ourselves not to get too sentimental, to remain vigilant, circumspect. It's really scary.” “I've never seen it,” Stefano says. Manuela doesn't say anything else. She doesn't want to think about Afghanistan. The word itself is a thorn in her flesh. But it's been tattooed on her forehead; it's as if she's been branded, people can't help but talk to her about it.

“Sixty-four were women and children,” Stefano insists, “twenty-two of them little girls. The youngest, Sayad Musa, was only eight days old. I saw the photos on the Internet. I've been wondering what you thought when you met people from those villages. Every one of them must have lost a relative in the bombing. It must have been hard—for them, but for all of you, too.” Manuela's leg starts to tingle. She has never been a person who believes that whatever she thinks is right and whatever others think is wrong, she has always enjoyed sharing and debating opinions. But right now she's fighting an irresistible urge to punch Stefano. She bites her knuckles, leaving teeth marks on her skin.

“I'm not judging you,” Stefano clarifies. “I can imagine your take on it, otherwise you wouldn't have enlisted. But only the person who believes in something has the right to question it. Disillusionment is the privilege of purists. Did you ever feel you were in the wrong place, Manuela? Like a card in the hands of a card shark? Didn't you ever wonder if you were being used? If the politicians are trying to recoup some international credibility by sacrificing your skin? I know you weren't the ones who bombed those villages, but I'm wondering what the point of rebuilding them is if there's still a war going on. Okay, not officially, but in practice, which is the same thing. It's like poisoning the wells and then handing out bottles of mineral water.” “Twenty-two were Taliban,” Manuela replies.

But one morning their convoy had passed a yellowish expanse of earth at the foot of a hill on which there had once been some buildings. Nothing remained but ruins blackened by fire. The hill was strewn with rocks, and here and there stood reeds, with green rags on top, fluttering in the wind. The ground swelled gently, with what seemed to be natural undulations, like ripples of erosion—or explosion craters. Lance Sergeant Spina explained that they were graves. “The cemeteries here make me sad,” he had said to her. “They only dig as deep as they need to, because the ground's as hard as crystal, then they quickly cover the bodies with a layer of sand and at most a pile of rocks. They don't put any names, no marker other than maybe an oblong stone, they don't bring flowers. The desolation is unbelievable.”

“Maybe it's not because they don't care,” Manuela had observed, staring dumbfounded at the empty expanse. “Maybe they're all dead. Maybe there's no one left to come visit.” Parallel hollows in a land as arid as ashes. Graves too big to contain just one body. Common graves. And more than twenty-two of them.

“After all that's happened, now that you're back,” Stefano continues, even more animated now, “don't you think that twenty-first-century Italians should break the spell of history that compels them to act like servants in other people's wars? It's been this way since even before Italy existed as a nation. The Crimean War, World War I, World War II, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq. We go to war so as not to be left out, but without any real reason, which means we end up being there without real conviction, without the consensus of the people. It must be frustrating to be a soldier in a country that makes war that way.” “But I don't make war,” Manuela says. “I'm a soldier of peace.”

Stefano looks at her perplexed, and is about to say something, but she seems so forlorn that the words die in his throat.

*   *   *

In front of her house, he opens the car door, retrieves her crutches, and helps her get out. “I'm sorry if you didn't think I was very nice,” he says. “The fact is, maybe I'm not very nice. And besides, you intimidate me a little, because of what's happened to you, because you're a soldier, or in the military, sorry, I don't know these things, it's all new to me.” “You're not the first person to say that to me,” Manuela says, extracting herself with difficulty from the low seat and grabbing her crutches. “You're the most interesting woman I've met since I've been back,” he goes on, embarrassed. “You must not have met very many women,” Manuela cuts him off without even a glance, digging in her purse for her keys. “I'd like to see you again,” he hazards. “I'm sorry,” Manuela says, “but I'm not looking for anyone. I want to be alone. Vanessa really wanted to go out with your friend, and she never would have gone without me. I'm sure it seems strange, but we're really close. I'm sorry.”

The concierge at the Bellavista Hotel is watching TV in the lobby. All the keys are dangling on the board. All except one. The guest is out on the balcony, on the third floor. It's cold, but there he is, wrapped in his scarf, his cap pulled low on his forehead, and a cigarette between his fingers, as if he were waiting for her. Manuela gives him a smile.

*   *   *

At seven in the evening Manuela goes down to the beach. Vanessa's still not back. “I'm going to do my exercises,” she says to her mother. She feels suffocated inside the house. The sea is stormy. A cold wind blows from the west, fraying the crests of the waves and slapping the sand. It's dark. The lights of the Tahiti, obscured by the mist, quiver faintly, like stars in some far-off galaxy. The streetlamps along the esplanade give off a soft glow and cast long yellow shadows on the black sand. But the darkness thickens as she heads toward the shore. Manuela pulls her jacket tightly around her and tries to light a cigarette. But the tiny flame from her lighter dies in a gust. “Face into the wind,” a male voice suggests, making her jump. Her heart pounds against her chest. Pounds with fear, with the habit of fear, but maybe with something else, too. “I see you haven't been smoking long,” the voice says. “Don't turn or try to shield the flame. You have to stay face to the wind. Like this.” A spark of flame lights a cigarette, which seems cradled by the night. When the embers catch, she sees what she already knows. It's the guest at the Bellavista.

He lights Manuela's cigarette as well. The smoke spirals up and dissolves. In the dark, the guest at the Bellavista stands close to her, one hand in his coat pocket and his mouth buried in his scarf. He smells good. “Are you on vacation?” he asks after a bit. “More or less,” she says. “And you?” “Me, too, more or less.” Manuela turns to look at him. She can just make out the contours of his face, the cloud of rumpled hair, square jaw, a big, strong, slightly crooked nose. He's nearsighted, his glasses gleam in the dark. Flashy red frames, the Tom Ford logo visible on the temple. A black, expensive-looking coat. “I don't need to look at you now,” he says, continuing to stare at the water's edge. “Because I already know you. I can see your house from my window. You're thin and don't eat much. You're the last to go to bed and the first to get up. You sleep with the light on. Sometimes you wake up and pace around your room. You wear a white T-shirt instead of pajamas. And don't ask me that question. The answer is no. I'm not a psycho.”

“I know you, too,” Manuela says, strangely neither offended nor embarrassed at the idea that the guest at the Bellavista has spent three days spying on her from behind his shutters. After all, she was doing the same thing. “You drink seltzer water. You read a book before turning out the light. You spend hours surfing the Internet on your laptop. You run well. You smoke too much. You don't get phone calls. You're afraid of habits. You're waiting for something.”

The guest at the Bellavista smiles. Then, she leaning on her crutches, he jamming his fists in his coat pockets, they head slowly toward the glimmering lights of the Tahiti. Physical proximity makes Manuela dizzy, but she doesn't shrink from him. Raked by the icy wind, silenced by the bellowing sea, they don't say much more, nothing important, anyway. Unessential information, uttered lightly, as if it were all superfluous already. At eight she leaves him in front of the glass door of the Bellavista. She doesn't want her mother, sister, and niece to see her emerge from the dark with a stranger. She wouldn't be able to explain. She says goodbye without ceremony. He's expecting her at the hotel restaurant tomorrow at one. His name is Mattia.

5

HOMEWORK

Lance Sergeant Spina was my deputy. Short and squat as a cork, balding, Ray-Bans even after sunset, a voice like a crow. Several years older than me, he made a show of being both protective and deferential. I was grateful but also wary, because I suspected that he really wanted to undermine my authority. The soldiers really respected him, they'd done other tours of duty together. I was just beginning to sort out the Panthers of the Ninth. Only a quarter considered themselves true Alpini—those actually born in the region of the regiment. They called the others—
terroni
from the south who'd enlisted to make a living—mercenaries, and not always jokingly. And they made fun of me because I was born on the coast and was like a fish out of water among mountain infantrymen. I wore the brown feather in my cap just like they did, but I would have to eat a lot of sand and snow in order to consider myself one of them. During training, in Italy, everything went fine. But I knew I'd have to start all over again once we were in country. My first words, my first orders, would prove decisive. If I made a mistake, I'd never be able to make up for my initial error, even if I did my best later on. Most of the guys in my platoon were veterans, professionals. Some already had wrinkles and a touch of gray hair. These men grew old before becoming career soldiers or being promoted to sergeant, and very few got even that far, so I could understand their frustration at seeing the gold stripes on my shoulders.

I don't remember all of them. I've already forgotten the names and faces of some, and others I get mixed up. The only thing that sticks in my mind about Abbate was his dysentery, which debilitated him to the point that he couldn't leave the base. He was so ashamed. All I remember about Curcio, Montano, and Zanchi is how competent they were, they knew what to do even before receiving orders. About Fontana and Pedone, their incredible aim: they were my best shooters. Giovinazzo, his burbly laughter and kindness. They called him the Good Egg. Morucci, the awful, incredibly vulgar jokes that never got so much as a smile out of me. But the other Pegasus guys, good or bad, friends or enemies, became a part of my life. Puddu was my team's radio operator, but I never knew his real name. Everyone called him Owl because he played chess against the computer at night. The riflemen Rizzo and Venier—known as the Cat and the Fox—I pegged right away as two slackers. Whenever they had a free moment, they'd lie down and start tanning: “We're at over three thousand feet,” Rizzo would say jubilantly, “the sun really cooks here, it's like being in the mountains.” Had it been up to me, I never would have let them deploy. But supposedly we were short of men, so they took whoever signed up. Pieri, a machine gunner with a sculpted physique, reminded me of the Belvedere Torso at the Vatican, but the others called him Michelin Man because he was so pumped. He'd knock himself out in the gym tent, really went crazy with the chin-ups—he could do twenty in a row without breaking a sweat. He was first-rate and I made him my squad leader.

Zandonà was the youngest of our platoon, of the entire company. Small, super thin, rust-colored hair that formed a crest like a hoopoe bird's, freckles, and a smooth face. The northerners called him “Boy,” the southerners “O Bebè,” everybody else “Baby.” I rebaptized him “Nail” and in the end it stuck. He photographed everything, like a Japanese tourist in Rome: he wanted to get into PI—public information—so he documented our every move. He never spoke, not even a mute says less. He was twenty, but looked even younger. The platoon chose him as their mascot, but the company targeted him right away as the preferred butt of their jokes. They picked on him, teased him. In the space of three days they pinched his toilet paper, requisitioned his sunscreen, and shat in his helmet. At the end of our Christmas lunch, they made him stand up and sing “Jingle Bells.” Zandonà could carry a tune, so he pulled it off. The fact that he was a driver made me think he was an ignoramus who'd only finished junior high. They had no imagination at Army General Staff. Those with hotel management degrees were assigned to the mess, those with high school diplomas to headquarters, junior high graduates were all shooters or drivers.