Limbo (36 page)

He places Alessia on the bed and helps Manuela untie her shoes. They slip off her dress. Candy pink, with sequins, as if she were going to a party. Mattia lifts the covers and Manuela tucks her in. Alessia's so tired she doesn't even react, but lets them handle her as if she were a doll. “Where's her father?” Mattia asks. “She doesn't have one,” Manuela says. “Vanessa never wanted to say who it is. And she's never wanted to live with another man because she doesn't want to impose one on her.” “And how is she?” Mattia whispers. “I mean, how has it been, growing up without a father?” “Fine, she did without,” Manuela replies, gently closing the door. “Maybe because she never had one,” Mattia says. “She doesn't know she's missing something.” Manuela doesn't want to ask herself why he wanted to know.

While Vanessa improvises in the kitchen, rustling up some spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, and pepperoncino, Manuela and Mattia go out on the balcony and look at the closed windows of the Bellavista. They seem small and insignificant from this side of the street. “Why did you tell Alessia that story about the Marquis of Carabas, that you're in disguise and have to deliver a message?” she asks him. “Because you should never lie to children,” Mattia says, “it's hard for them to tell the difference between truth and lies, and we need to help them figure it out.” “And what about adults?” Manuela asks. “I've never told you a lie, Manuela,” Mattia says, “I just can't tell you the whole truth. It's different.”

They eat in the living room, speaking softly because Alessia and Grandma are sleeping. Mattia tells them that he has invited Alessia to the Marquis of Carabas's castle—he means the Palo Castle. Obviously she accepted enthusiastically. They have to come, too. “It's private, you know,” Manuela says. “The owners still live there, they only open it for receptions, weddings, fashion shows.” “I guess I'll have to rent it, then,” Mattia says, disappointed. “I already promised.” “Why are you doing this for her?” Vanessa asks. “You don't owe us anything.” “I'm doing it for myself, not for her,” Mattia says. An unpleasant pulsing in the nape of her neck reminds Manuela that it's time for her drops. As soon as they're alone, Mattia asks Vanessa what day of her cycle it was last night. She doesn't remember and has to get her planner and count the days on her fingers. “The eleventh,” she concludes. And her previous cycle, how many days was it? Thirty-one. And the one before? Thirty-two. “You're not pregnant,” Mattia says calmly, but with conviction. “Don't worry about it anymore.”

“What are you, a fortune-teller? Or a doctor?” Vanessa whispers. “The latter,” he says. “Trust me.” “Did you tell Manuela?” she asks. Her cat eyes scrutinize him so intently that he has to tell the truth. “No. She's had plenty of doctors, they've tormented her more than enough. And besides, I can't help her. I don't know how to heal her wounds.”

“I'm almost out of my drops,” Manuela interrupts them, worried. She shakes the little bottle, which is nearly empty. “I don't know how much longer they'll last. I need a prescription. Your father's a surgeon,” she says to Mattia, “can't you ask him to write me one?” “No.” Mattia reacts as if what she proposed were unthinkable. “Absolutely not.” “Come on, would it really be such a big deal?” Manuela insists. “My father is dead,” Mattia says without looking at her.

They smoke the last cigarette of the day out on the balcony, the lights of the Bellavista sign bouncing in the darkness. The B is burning out and blinks intermittently, dazzling them with blue, then enveloping them in darkness. Mattia has met nearly all the Paris women now, whereas Manuela knows nothing about his family, and she doesn't believe that his father is dead. When Mattia talked about him before, it didn't sound like he was dead. He would have been more compassionate. But not knowing where a person comes from, what he has lived through, what he has left behind, takes away substance, depth, importance. It's like being with a photograph. “Come to bed with me,” Mattia says, staring at the dark square of his room across the way.

*   *   *

At four, Manuela flails about in her sleep, screaming. She lashes out, arches her back, protects her face with her arms. Mattia shakes her by the shoulder and gets a fist in the face. “Hey, hey, you're home, you're with me.” Manuela wakes up and opens her eyes. She can't remember what she was dreaming about. She's drenched in sweat. She can't feel her leg anymore. There's a nail boring into the nape of her neck. She smells fire and blood. There's no basin under the bed at the Bellavista. She vomits everything she has inside her onto the rug, until a bitter wave of bile rises from her esophagus. It's like before, like always. She doesn't have the strength to get out of bed and clean it. She falls back on the pillow. She can't decide what's worse: the pain or the humiliation. Mattia rests his ear on her racing heart. It's like listening to a herd of bison galloping, it makes her lungs shake, her bones creak. That wild roar frightens him a little, but it also makes him sad; the pain is almost physical. “It's never going to end,” Manuela murmurs. A tear of frustration and anger gathers on her eyelashes and trickles along her temples. She can't fall back to sleep.

Mattia wads up the rug and throws it in the bathtub. “I'm sorry,” she says. She's ashamed. She feels naked. It's even worse than showing him her scar. He lends her a dry T-shirt and strokes her hair silently. They lie there, next to each other under the comforter, fingers interlaced, eyes wide open in the dark. He forces himself to stay awake. If he could, he'd tell her everything. It wouldn't do any good, but knowing that he understands might help. Instead, every now and then, when she moves an arm or shakes, which tells him she's still awake, he just says a word or two to let her know he's awake, too, and won't leave her. Ordinary words, but in the absolute silence of the night, broken only by the dripping of the air-conditioning pipes, they seem to glide solemnly down from above.

At dawn they go down to the beach for a walk, her horrific cries still ringing in his ears. They're sitting on the cement wall at the Tahiti when the sun appears behind the apartment buildings and projects a ray of white light on the sand. “The psychologist says I have to talk about it,” she whispers, “but I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I never remember my dreams. And I can't talk about what I feel. They taught us that a soldier keeps his feelings inside, and I learned well, because I know it's important.” “But we don't talk just with words,” Mattia says. “We talk with our eyes, our hands, our bodies. I'm listening to you, Manuela.”

15

LIVE

The first article stored on Traian's pen drive is from June 9, the day after the attack. The reconstruction of facts is perfunctory and imprecise; even the place-names are wrong. But the reporter describes the region well, he's clearly been there. Manuela may have met him, maybe even escorted him on a reconnaissance mission. But his name means nothing to her. She's sorry it's not Daria Cormon. The blond reporter was unlucky. Had it happened while she was visiting Bala Bayak, she could have sold her piece to the national papers, it could have been her big break. She deserved it, she'd been touring battlefields for years; but she really did bring the soldiers good luck: nothing ever happened when she was around, and her good fortune, which made her famous among the troops, condemned her to anonymity.

The Italian soldiers—the article states—were at Qal'a-i-Shakhrak for the opening of a school for girls. This was to be the fifth school either rebuilt or reopened during the Tenth Alpini Regiment's mission in Afghanistan. A total of fifty-five schools had been reopened since 2005, when Italy assumed command of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Herat, but the PRT in Farah had encountered greater difficulties. The village, a cluster of dilapidated mud houses, topped by an equally dilapidated minaret, is located in western Afghanistan, on the edge of the area under Italian control: even though severe fighting continued elsewhere, a sort of truce had prevailed in Farah; unfortunately the situation deteriorated just as the Italians arrived to replace the U.S. Marines. Groups of insurgents, fleeing the fighting or flushed out over the course of the previous winter, had taken refuge in the barren hills that form the outer limit of the province, which runs parallel to the Iran border, or in the mountains and valleys that separate Farah from Helmand. With the help of U.S. aviation and intelligence, group after group had been arrested, at times one by one, in house-to-house searches. The Italians had established good relations with the village chiefs, and the district no longer seemed any more dangerous than the rest of the country. There had been no particular reports or warnings.

It was a joyous occasion, and marked an important success in the reconstruction of a province devastated by thirty years of war. The girls' school had already burned down three times. The Italian mission commanders and the highest Afghani civil authorities in Farah were expected to attend. But at the time of the explosion, only the Alpini EOD team had arrived, to search the area in front of the building for explosives and to signal any anomalies, along with a close protection team. The Alpini may have realized it was a trap and tried to intervene. The fact is that the attackers didn't await the arrival of the Afghani authorities; the explosion occurred at 8:35 local time. It was one of the bloodiest sacrifices since the start of the mission. There were three casualties, all from Ninth Company. Lieutenant Nicola Russo of Barletta, thirty-three years old, married with one daughter, and Corporal-Major Diego Jodice of Marcianise, twenty-six years old, unmarried, were within the immediate blast radius of the explosion and were killed instantly. Corporal Lorenzo Zandonà of Mel, twenty-one years old, who suffered spinal injuries and grave internal hemorrhaging, died while being airlifted to the hospital in Farah. All three were due to return to Italy within days. Sergeant Manuela Paris of Ladispoli, twenty-seven years old, who was hit by shrapnel and suffered serious head injuries, is in critical condition. Three Afghani civilians were also killed.

The June 10 article didn't add much to the initial reconstruction of facts, but it did provide further information on the victims. It noted that First Lieutenant Russo was a veteran, on his third mission in Afghanistan, and that Corporal-Major Jodice had also been previously deployed overseas. He was to be married in August. The article was accompanied by two photos: Russo, smiling affectionately at the Afghani baby girl he held in his arms, and Lorenzo and Diego in front of their Lince. Tan, relaxed, sunglasses perched on their helmets, they gaze defiantly at Manuela from the computer monitor and seem to be saying: we've slogged through one hundred and sixty-seven days, epigone, we're at minus thirteen—then we're going home.

Only a few months have passed since Manuela took the photos that Zandonà's parents distributed to the newspapers—for she was the one who immortalized her friends in front of the Lince. They both have beards, which they didn't have when they arrived at Bala Bayak. Lorenzo's is sparse and reluctant, Diego's bushy and bristly. They'd all let them grow during their tour of duty until, little by little, they ended up looking like Afghanis—dusty, listless, slow, fatalistic. It was only at the end that their beards were so long and unkempt. And yet Lorenzo and Diego already seem infinitely younger than she is. Kids.

Manuela wants to read all the articles Traian has downloaded for her. As if the secret of the divergence that saved her might be hidden somewhere in there, along with the message that Vanessa, or the Jehovah's Witnesses' happy God, says was given to her. But at two Alessia comes knocking on the door and tells her that the man from the Bellavista rang the doorbell and is asking for her. “I was expecting you for lunch,” Mattia says, “did you forget about me?” His voice is distorted, as if coming from far away. “I was in Afghanistan,” she says. “Don't you want to come back to Ladispoli, to me?” His playful tone doesn't mask his worry that she has changed her mind and doesn't want to see him anymore. “To you, who?” she asks bitterly. “I don't even know who you are. You're Mr. No One. All I know is the emptiness that envelops you.” “So you're not coming?” “Not now.”

*   *   *

The articles that appeared on June 11 offer a different reconstruction of events. It was neither a radio-controlled car bomb nor an IED. The body of one of the Afghani civilians, a male, or rather the stump of his body that was left, showed trauma consistent with a SBBIED, or suicide body-borne IED, in other words, a suicide bomber with an explosive vest. The device contained no electronic components, which could be rendered ineffective by the soldiers' jammers, and was probably activated by a switch or a pressure mechanism. It contained circa ten kilos of C4 explosive. The device was rendered more lethal by six Soviet-manufactured hand grenades and up to a thousand pieces of shrapnel. The explosion was devastating. The plastic explosive aside—which, in any case, is readily available—all the materials needed to construct the vest (wires, batteries, switches) are for sale in any market.

Sergeant Paris, who underwent surgery during the night at the American military hospital in Farah, is in an induced coma. The doctors still will not release a prognosis or make predictions about what her condition will be, if she does survive; nor do they know if she has suffered permanent brain damage.

Lorenzo's father, Piero Zandonà, granted a disconsolate interview to a local paper, in which he said he was proud of his son, but didn't understand why the government wouldn't bring our boys home. The Twin Towers fell nearly ten years ago, along with the Taliban, but the terrorists are still multiplying like rats, practically every Afghani is a terrorist now, which means that maybe no one is. In fact, the word has fallen out of favor, and now even our allies refer to the enemy in a different way: insurgents, rebels. But, just like the word itself, an insurgent is someone who rises up, who protests, who rebels against his government or an invader. So what are the Italians doing? Fighting against people who, in the name of liberty, are rebelling against a corrupt and slavish government? But didn't the Italians go to Afghanistan on a peace mission in the name of liberty? And if they can't make peace there, or if that peace isn't to the liking of the people on whom they want to impose it, they can't make war either, because our constitution repudiates war. Other soldiers die with guns in their hands, but Italian soldiers are being blown up like sheep by land mines. They say it's a good sign, that attacks with IEDs or suicide bombs merely reveal the impotence of the rebels, who have lost all offensive capabilities. But he doesn't understand how it's a good sign when his son was butchered in front of a girls' school. For what? Would Afghani girls ever really have gone to that school? His son is dead, and no one can bring him back, but Piero Zandonà demands to know the truth about what happened. How is it possible that a TNT-wearing kamikaze managed to slip into a high-risk situation, a ceremony at which strict security measures were supposedly in place? Did someone betray them?