Limbo (7 page)

I slapped the dust from my cot, unrolled my sleeping bag, folded up my duffel and my pack, took out my bathrobe, and headed for the showers. Guys were in line for the john. There were only twelve of them: chemical toilets, squatters. A few were in line for the showers, too, but I had the key to the one reserved for women. As I walked past I could feel their hostile gazes on the back of my neck. I didn't give them the satisfaction of turning around. I knew what they thought about privileges for women.

As soon as it got dark, I slipped into my sleeping bag. Though I was exhausted from the trip, I couldn't fall asleep. The incessant hiss of the generators and the sound of vehicles maneuvering in the square kept me awake. And adrenaline made my blood tingle. For the first time in my life, I was exactly where I wanted to be. This was what I'd been hoping for ever since that evening in November 1992, when the Manuela Paris I recognize as myself was born: the story that led me to Bala Bayak begins way back then. When I was nine years old.

Even though I preferred sports and playing outside to fairies and toy kitchens, I could never even have imagined becoming a soldier. Strange as it may seem, dreams need an echo in reality; you can't dream of something you can't conceive of, something you don't know. And when I was little, Italy was the only country in Europe whose armed forces still didn't take women. Even Portuguese women could enlist. When it comes to civil rights, Italians are always last. That evening my life lit up. Sprawled on the couch, a greasy cardboard box on my knees, I was dining on pizza, Coca-Cola, and potato chips. Alone, because my mother was racking up overtime at the fish factory, my father was in the hospital recovering from an operation to remove a tumor in his shoulder, and my sister, Vanessa, was rolling around on her bed with a boy in the next room. She had just discovered that her unripe figure made her irresistible to men, whose attention she craved. I kept the television on with the volume cranked up to avoid hearing their grunting. In short, I was at home, alone, wedged between the cushions on the couch, confused, and bored as only a nine-year-old girl who has finished her homework and played with all her toys can be, another day gone without anything happening, the same as yesterday and the day before and tomorrow—when all of a sudden, smiling Amazons appeared on the television screen.

Not the ancient Amazons my grandfather used to tell me about every now and then, woman warriors who would cut off one breast, who had fought at the walls of Troy, and whose captain, Penthesilea, was killed by swift-footed Achilles. No, these were modern Amazons, practically my contemporaries. The news was reporting on an experiment entitled “Italian Women: Soldiers for a Day” or something like that, which thirty young women had participated in. It showed them in uniform, marching in a barracks in Rome. Ordinary women, and yet, to a young girl watching wide-eyed from her tiny living room in Ladispoli, they were already bathed in a mythical glow. In truth it was only a publicity stunt; it would still take several years for the armed forces to accept women for real. But I didn't know that then, and staring at those women marching happily around the parade grounds, I was overwhelmed, first with amazement and then with joy. I knew instantly that that was where I belonged. And for the first time I let myself think I wasn't simply some hopeless mess of a girl.

From that moment, since the only books in my house were
Reader's Digest
s my mother had bought who knows when, and which sat gathering dust on the top shelf in the living room, I started going to the public library in the piazza. I became a compulsive reader. I would devour encyclopedias in search of stories about female warriors and was delighted to discover that there were lots of them, in every era and in every part of the world. I diligently copied out their stories in a small notebook, on the cover of which triumphed the powerful and invincible Sailor Moon, the warrior of love and justice whom I'd by then discovered in TV cartoons, and with whom I identified completely. But Sailor Moon was the invention of an ingenious Japanese writer, also a woman, whereas the female warriors whose deeds I recorded had really existed—or at least that's what those books made me believe. There was May Senta Wolf Hauler, nicknamed Little Wolf, who in 1917 fought as an Austro-Hungarian infantry soldier in a mountain battle and took defeated Italians prisoner. And the Amazons of Matitina, an island in the Caribbean, near Guadeloupe, where, as Christopher Columbus learned from the natives in his retinue, only women—deadly with bow and arrow—lived; they coupled with males only once a year, no doubt making them take care of the fruits of their union, unless of course they were girls. The Matitina Amazons had fought hard against the Spaniards. But my favorite was an Italian like me, Onorata Rodiani, who at twenty became a soldier of fortune after killing the man who tried to rape her. In the fifteenth century, this woman, disguised as a man, fought for thirty years under several captains, until she was mortally wounded in battle. I never showed that secret notebook to anyone, and when I was twenty, in the throes of depression, I threw it away. I still regret it. But I never forgot the bellicose companions of my youth. For it was with them that I spent those years while I waited to grow up so I could enter the barracks in Rome. The world would still have to change, the laws would have to be reformed, and the Italian army reorganized, but I wasn't in a hurry. And knowing I'd been born neither too early nor too late, but just at the right moment, gave me a strange strength—the certainty of having a destiny.

And now there I was, in the desert, with my people. At the NCO Academy in Viterbo, when it was time to indicate our preference, I didn't ask to join the paratroopers or Lagunari—the amphibious assault regiment—the posts my classmates coveted most. I asked to join the Alpini, who were trained for mountain combat, because I was convinced that, throughout our history, they had formed the democratic base of the army, the true infantry of the people. In every Italian war, the Alpini were the only ones who showed they knew not so much what duty was, but what the fatherland was: they communed with the land their fathers and grandfathers had tilled, hoed, and farmed for centuries, with the animals they knew how to raise and slaughter, with the trees they knew how to prune, fell, and turn into firewood and charcoal, with the stones that became roof tiles and walls, with the rocks and mountains that marked Italy's borders. In short, they really knew how to be Italian. Since I graduated near the top of my class, I got my wish even though I wasn't born in Alpino territory.

I put my earphones on, the volume low. Death metal is so repetitive it sends me into a trance. I listened to Gory Blister's
Graveyard of Angels
CD, just right for the naked yellow cemetery that stretched for miles and miles around me. I dozed off, only to be roused by Giani's screams. A scorpion under her pillow! First Lieutenant Ghigo grumbled that the sting of an Afghani scorpion is rarely fatal. “But girls, I told you to keep your mosquito nets closed and to inspect your bunks. This place is full of scorpions and camel spiders, it's no fun finding one in your sleeping bag. Just kill it, okay?” she snorted. But Giani was in a panic. “But how?” she kept repeating. “How? It's huge, it grosses me out.” Ghigo didn't move. She was thirty-four, a first lieutenant, an elder, to her we were newbies. In the army, seniority is everything. I unzipped my bag, put on my slippers, and switched on my flashlight—shielding it with my hands, because the base was in blackout. I whistled in astonishment. The scorpion was gold, like a coin, and as big as my hand. It waved its poisonous stinger like a flag. A war machine created by nature. Perfect in its own way, and perhaps necessary in this environment. A sting probably wouldn't be fatal, but I didn't feel like finding out. We two were incompatible. Giani's wide eyes told me it was up to me. I certainly couldn't ask the guys for help. I was their commander, they would have teased me forever. And besides, they were too far away. I sent the scorpion flying to the floor with a towel and then crushed it with my rifle, thrusting the butt into its abdomen with all my might. I heard a crunching sound, like glass shattering. I was sorry that that scorpion was the one to welcome me to Afghanistan—and that that was how I reciprocated.

My first days were a battle of logistics and bureaucracy. The rotation of brigades and regiments was rusty. Phone booths, mess refrigerators, shower pipes, protective barriers, concertina wire—everything needed fixing, cells had to be organized, jobs assigned. TFS and PRT commanders briefed the FOB commanding officer, Paggiarin briefed the officers, and the officers briefed the platoon NCOs. Even though special forces had been at Bala Bayak until just recently, Tenth Alpini Regiment wasn't on a combat mission. Our mission was routine: convoy escorts, guards, roadblocks, arms requisitioning, outreach, identification and neutralization of threats and hostile elements. It could all be summed up in three words:
security
,
reconstruction
,
governability
. The Ninth Company's operation name was a good omen: Reawakening.

Captain Paggiarin briefly recapped the situation. “We have to support the reconstruction of a province that is forty-eight thousand square kilometers—the size of the Veneto, Friuli, and Lombardy combined—population almost half a million, with less than two thousand men. We started pretty much at zero, after thirty years of anarchy: no public services—no water, no light, no sewers—no schools, no courts, no army, no police, no institutions. We've made remarkable progress. But it takes time. There's an Afghan proverb that says, ‘a frog that leaps on a clod of earth thinks he can see Kashmir.' We have to humbly imagine that we're that frog, all the while knowing we'll never see Kashmir. But we still have to leap on that clod.” The concept was crystal clear.

Headquarters wanted us to demonstrate flexibility and movement in order to testify to our presence even in the remotest villages. Interaction with the locals was essential, but we always had to be conscious of the risks. We were advised to be patient, take it one step at a time, keep in mind that it takes only one stone to destroy a glass house. Respect for the local population and private property meant we had to be extremely diplomatic. Ninth Company had approximately ten weeks to get oriented. Winter operations were usually not particularly complex. But spring was coming, and when the snow in the mountains melted and the roads, now impassable, reopened, and especially after the opium poppy was harvested, an increase in hostile activities was expected. Men, drugs, and arms would start moving in April, attacks would intensify, casualties would increase. Insurgents would undoubtedly engage us in armed conflict, which meant we had to train rigorously every day. But I knew all this already, and while the captain spoke, my gaze wandered outside the shed. Sand as fine as powder, kicked up by the wind, whirled among the tents. All that mattered to me was that I had been assigned to S3—operations—and was responsible for thirty men.

Pegasus platoon expressed surprise at having a female commander. Everyone feels insecure when faced with something they're not used to. The men greeted me with curiosity, but I had learned to look inside people, and knew how to decipher the language of their evasive eyes, even the skepticism in their voices when they said, “Yes, ma'am.” Without even knowing me, they'd already judged me. I could guess what they were saying. Little Miss Graduate, fresh out of school, unsuited to such a delicate operative role, unfairly promoted by the army general staff, protected by some bigwig at the ministry, or the lover of some high-ranking officer. I was determined to ignore their resentment, which in any case I understood. But I would win them over. I would treat my subordinates as I wanted my superiors to treat me. I would lead without coercion and instruct with behavior rather than with words. I would be firm and consistent; I would delegate so that my subordinates felt involved: I merely had to identify my most capable men. I would face problems calmly, and with the utmost self-control. More than anything, I wanted to appear sure of myself. But I knew I had to earn their respect. That's how it always is when you're a woman. You have to work three times as hard to prove you're worth half as much as a man.

*   *   *

And besides, I'd already been through it. I'd spent twelve months in the rank and file. At eighteen, I survived it. At twenty-seven, I considered myself strong enough to deal with Afghanistan and my platoon's prejudices at the same time. In a Sollum perennially enveloped in a cloud of sand and smoke, I sought the joy and enthusiasm I'd felt during my first months in the armed forces, and which I thought I'd lost. I was nostalgic for those ten weeks of basic training in Ascoli Piceno, in a barracks reserved for women. We slept in a dorm, six beds to a room, like at summer camp. My bed creaked and my locker was small, but it didn't bother me, because I really didn't have much. Apart from my underwear, gym socks, rubber insoles for my boots, seal fat to keep them soft, apart from my sweatsuit, flashlight, padlocks, toothbrush, shower shoes, toilet paper, multi-outlet for charging my cell phone, gel Band-Aids for the blisters on my feet, and a hairnet to hold my hair in a bun, all I had was one change of clothes for when I was off duty: a pair of jeans. The prohibition on colored nail polish—which upset my fellow soldiers, who considered it an offense to their femininity—left me indifferent: I'd never used it.

Life followed an elementary, repetitive rhythm. Reveille at 0630 hours, fall in, flag-raising, marching, military theory, push-ups, training, guard duty, firing range, fall out, lights out at eleven thirty, like when we were kids. The other women were done in by the marches in the rain, the training runs where we had to follow the instructor all around the barracks and then along dirt roads, but I enjoyed them. (I was a cross-country champion when I was young, and I might have kept at it if I hadn't found out that my father had been a good runner. I didn't want to have anything to do with that worm.) The overnight field training exercises—three days in the woods with a tent, a sleeping bag, and a pack—thrilled me (I'd always dreamed of going camping). Being away from home, which for many was the cause of tears and sobbing, turned out to be good for me, because my family was made up of rancorous, unhappy, and confused individuals who unloaded their frustrations on one another, punishing each other for imagined wrongs. The only one I missed was Vanessa. We'd grown up together: her voice and her laugh had been the soundtrack of the first eighteen years of my life. But Vanessa—even though she was pregnant and for some reason I can't remember anymore wasn't supposed to drive—would take the car and come see me on Saturdays. And a few hours of her talking nonstop—she's a real motormouth—was more than enough. Communal living, which the other women considered agreeable at first but increasingly trying as the weeks wore on, was for me a pleasant surprise: I'd felt very alone growing up. The discipline didn't seem oppressive to me, as it did to more than half my companions, who dropped out; on the contrary, it relaxed me, because for the first time in my life someone was telling me what to do, and I had no choice but to obey. I had to accept the rules or be punished or excluded; I had to zip it, even if I was convinced I was right. In short, it was as if I was always wrong, no matter what: a total demolition, from the bottom up, of everything I'd ever been. Up till then, I'd always made my own decisions, and the more someone tried to force me to do something, the more I'd resist. I'd never made my bed before; at most I'd pull the covers up over the pillow, and by morning the crumpled sheets would have left zebra stripes on my skin. I had never cleaned up my room, never cared what condition my clothes were in. But in the barracks—after three savage scoldings—I complied. My bunk was perfect, my uniform pressed, my boots polished. When I went home months later, my mother said I was so changed she hardly recognized me.