Limbo (22 page)

“The kids had fun because they got to skip classes that day, but they didn't really listen, and their brochures ended up in the trash. But I put mine in my pocket, folded in quarters like a Kleenex so no one would notice it. I feigned the same couldn't-care-less attitude the others had. When a group is too tight-knit, it's never a good idea to be the only one to take the other side. It's better to pretend, and to act without the others knowing, so that no one will try to get in your way. Leaning against the wall, I drank Coca-Cola and spied on the officers. Their uniforms, boots, berets, and stars. They all seemed so sure of themselves. I furtively approached an old officer with a walrus mustache and a nose like a lumpy carrot. He was a colonel, but I didn't know that. His shoulder loops, ribbons, and insignia didn't mean anything, to me they were just scraps of fabric. I didn't know that soldiers wear their history on their uniforms, like a book. ‘What do I have to do to enlist?' I found the courage to ask. ‘Do I need to train? I'm a good swimmer and I run like a shot, but I don't know how to ride a horse.'

“The colonel turned around, surprised. These propaganda pilgrimages to schools, which the Ministry of Defense required, were like forced labor to him. I can understand his annoyance and frustration now, even imagine what he was thinking. Young people today are apathetic cowards—dead dogs, as we call them in the military. They don't want to work hard. Concepts like honor, dignity, and steadfastness haven't touched them. The girls from tourism management preferred to flirt with the guys from the NCO Academy in Viterbo. And those big, horny boys took the bait. They'd been holed up in the barracks for months. But they'd been brought along on these school visits to serve as testimonials, because the young never listen to the old. The colonel looked me up and down. Back then I was skinny as a rail, black bangs hiding my eyes. Dressed like a million other kids in nowhere towns all over the world: jeans four sizes too big, a faded hoodie, a tattoo on my neck. ‘How old are you?' he asked me. ‘I'll be seventeen in May,' I answered, trying to seem important. ‘So study, get good grades, graduate from high school.' I shrugged my shoulders and blew the bangs out of my eyes. That's what my mother always said to me. But I expected different advice from a military man. ‘We need to construct an elite army to represent Italy throughout the world,' the colonel said. ‘We need mature, aware, motivated youth, not soccer hooligans.' I turned red. I felt as ashamed as if he'd spat in my face. I disappeared into the crowd that was attacking the buffet table.

“Basically, he made me realize that to become a soldier, you have to go through a selection process, compete, just like when you enter the workforce. And to earn a place you have to know things. Read, become informed, learn your history and geography. So I got it into my head that I'd never become a soldier if I didn't fill the gaps in my education. I've never lacked willpower. My grades improved dramatically. In the end I surprised everyone—especially my mother. I got one hundred percent on my high school exit exam. I applied, ready to crush the competition. I became a volunteer for one year, what's known as a VFP1. To me it was really something, but it was only the lowest form of military service. The first thing they told my echelon was that this year was a kind of test. To see if military life was right for us. That explanation annoyed me. I didn't need any tests, I knew already. I didn't consider myself just some volunteer passing through. I already felt I was a professional soldier. Private Paris.”

Daria Cormon smiled. Maybe she wanted me to keep going, but to me it seemed like I'd talked too much already, and besides, I had things to do. I rushed through the rest of the interview in ten minutes. The usual questions, the usual answers. Is this a passion for you or a vocation? What does the fatherland mean to you? What's it like commanding a platoon, have you encountered any difficulties as a woman, do you have a boyfriend, do the men respect you, are you afraid? It felt rehearsed. Cormon would have liked to ask completely different questions, and I would have liked to give completely different answers. But we couldn't. Both of us knew it, so we kept to the script. I never asked if she was able to sell the interview, or if she'd send me a copy. The first time I was interviewed, back at the NCO Academy in Viterbo, the only woman in my course, I bought forty copies of the paper and gave them to friends and relatives. But I never recognize myself in the words they attribute to me, so I gradually stopped caring about my public image. I do my job and try to do it well. The rest is not my concern.

Then Daria Cormon asked if I could show her the squad weapons. I stared at the tape recorder on the table. It was still running. In a conflict a reporter, even the most famous correspondent, never mind the lowest freelancer, is like the lowest-ranking soldier. You have a very limited view of the playing field, like when you're seated behind the goal at a soccer game, or when you're the ball boy. You get very little information, and you can't verify it, can't put the pieces together, you're a puppet maneuvered by strings you can't even see. You travel forty-eight hours to spend one day holed up in an advance base, buried in the sand, and maybe you won't even sell your story. I had them call machine gunner Pieri. He was the best of my men, he deserved to have his picture in the paper, or an interview, some kind of recognition.

Michelin was over six feet tall and ripped like a decathlete. An incredibly gentle soul despite his disturbing Terminator look. When, during training in Italy before deployment, he discovered that his commander was going to be a woman, he told the others—Nail, who had become my confidant, perhaps without even realizing it, told me—that he found the idea intriguing, he wasn't upset at all by the strangeness of it. It was a new challenge, and he liked to set goals for himself. He came running, drying the sweat that ran down his cheeks from under his helmet. I authorized Private Pieri to accompany our guest to the shooting range. “Yes, ma'am,” Michelin said, without even lifting his eyes to look at her.

Michelin didn't sleep in his tent that night. I should have punished him, because it was strictly forbidden, and if he'd been found out or if something had happened, I would have paid for it. Steadfastness, honor, duty, integrity. But also good sense. Flexibility is the key to every human relationship. I pretended I didn't notice. The visitors left at dawn, the grumpy photographer with a long beard, and smiling Daria Cormon, her hair wrapped in her blue shawl. At roll call Michelin had a hickey on his neck and was falling asleep. At the morning briefing Paggiarin asked me if Cormon's visit had caused any problems; he was staunchly against outsiders at the FOB, but they didn't understand that at the ministry: sometimes the media's perception of the operation seemed more important to them than the operation itself. But it matters what you do, not what you say you do. “No problems, sir,” I said, “the platoon is very grateful to have been chosen.”

*   *   *

That evening, in the mess, the men called me over to their table and offered me a glass of prosecco. Cormon had smuggled in the bottle, she knew that the scarcity of alcohol at Sollum was demoralizing. I accepted, just a token sip, to show team spirit. But Zandonà filled my glass and I downed it. Later I learned from Nail that the platoon's respect for their leader had increased after the Blue Fairy's visit. Paris didn't humiliate them just for the sake of it. She wasn't like the college graduates, or the other parasites who kiss the officers' asses to get even with the soldiers. She was on their side.

“Tell her, Spaniard,” Michelin goaded him. “Tell her, tell her,” the others prodded. Jodice, sitting at the far end of the table, refused, protested, made them beg. “No, I'm not going to, women go all soft, she might think I'm doing it so I can ask her a favor, no.” “Tell her, man,” Zandonà insisted. “Paris is all right.” I didn't understand what they were talking about. They were all excited. Giani's eyes were wet with tears. “Spaniard scored,” Owl said with a wink. “Sarge,” Jodice finally said, “my heart's melting.” Zandonà turned the laptop toward me so he could show me the DVD. From the soldiers' expressions, I could tell they'd already seen it, and they were stunned.

A sort of black funnel appeared on the screen, slashed horizontally by clearer streaks, lines almost. In one corner of the funnel was a spot. It was pulsating. I didn't understand. “It's my baby,” Jodice said. “This is the ultrasound, the Blue Fairy brought it to me from Herat, if I'd waited any longer for the mail to arrive, Imma would have already given birth. If you look, you can already see his little weenie, it's a boy.”

I couldn't imagine what he must have been feeling, two thousand eight hundred miles from home, his son on a DVD, and rockets overhead. I'm not easily moved, and anyway, I had learned to keep my emotions under control. Besides, that microscopic dot that I could barely make out didn't seem human to me or even alive; it was more like a star. I didn't know what to say, or what all the soldiers pressing against me expected. I did know that their sharing their secret with me was a kind of initiation.

“Congratulations, Diego,” I said. “You must be glad it's a boy, you don't really like women.” “It's weird, right?” he said. “Here I am showing you the ultrasound, all emotional, like it's me who's pregnant, and you, Sergeant, you're looking at me like I'm some sentimental little lady because you don't give a shit. Either the world is turning upside down, or one of us was born the wrong gender.” “I don't think so,” I said, “and it's not true that I don't care. If you toe the line, I'll send you to Dubai to see your girlfriend.” Jodice understood that it was a pact, not a promise. I held out my hand. He shook it, hard and for a long time. It was the coarse, callused hand of a soldier.

*   *   *

No sooner had the supply planes started making deliveries again, and spaghetti with tomato sauce and frozen fish started showing up in the mess hall again, no sooner had the snow melted on the mountain passes and the tracks were passable again, and the waning moon became a crescent, a sickle, a line of light, and finally nothing, then the order I'd been waiting for all winter arrived. This time it was for real. It was our turn. Ninth Company Panthers—Mars, Cerberus, and Pegasus platoons—departure at 2100. Cordon and search. Operation Goat 4.

10

LIVE

On December 30, the roadside diner is unusually quiet. Every now and then someone comes in for a newspaper or cigarettes, but for most of the morning, Cinzia doesn't have a lot to do. She heats up a few sandwiches on the grill, and between customers she enjoys the company of her daughter who—for mysterious reasons she prefers not to ask about—insisted on coming to work with her. The persistent smell of mortadella, coffee, and disinfectant wafts through the vast space. The radio plays the latest hits. Tomorrow's the last day of the year, the DJ keeps insisting, how are you going to celebrate? And don't forget to wear something red, something old, and something new. Manuela wandered among the shelves, perused the stuffed animals, maps, and outdated CDs on sale for a few euros, then flipped through the books heaped in a metal basket. Then she moved a bar stool behind the counter and for hours has simply been staring hungrily at the cars zooming by. Her mother is afraid she's bored, but Manuela reassures her: the only thing she wants to do is sit right here.

The customers are in a hurry, they keep turning around to check on their cars through the window; they talk about insignificant things or important things, all without noticing Manuela or her mother. “I warned him, but he wouldn't listen,” a woman says to her son. “There's not much snow, but the lifts are open,” a kid says to his friend. “I barely even saw my Christmas bonus.” “He went to Germany, makes three times as much, but the Germans are awful and the weather's miserable, so now he wants to come home.” Lives light up for an instant—voices, people—and then the place is deserted again. The customers look at Cinzia Colella without actually seeing her. For them, she simply doesn't exist. Maybe because she's over fifty, or maybe because she's a waitress. She's simply an efficient machine, one of the restaurant's appendages. This discovery both offends and moves Manuela. Her mother exists only for her.

Her co-workers turn out to be nice. The other woman who works the counter—a redhead, thirty years old, with ample breasts that must make the truckers happy—keeps discreetly to herself. But Manuela isn't here to discuss the meaning of the universe. She wants to make up for her absence in the past in some way—and for her absences in the future. Because she wants to go back to Afghanistan. She wants to see that damn school. To start patrolling that endless road again. So, in a way, she has come to take her leave. “Teach me to make coffee,” she says all of a sudden. Cinzia is surprised but agrees. She explains how to bang the cylinder on the edge of the base once, to loosen the wet grounds so they drop into the trash. To use your wrist to turn it. It's simple, a child could probably do it. Nothing like the things Manuela does. Here the biggest danger is being held up by a drug addict or yelled at by a drunkard. But that's never happened to her. Besides, there are video cameras. Apart from that, her life has been reduced to just a few actions and even fewer words, always the same. Make coffee, heat up sandwiches on the grill, tear the receipt in such a way that the customer can't get served twice, say good morning, say goodbye. The biggest challenges are slicing lemons for tonic water and pouring a beer—it can't have too much head, which her customers don't like, or too little, which her boss doesn't like. The proportions have to be just right. She doesn't have anything else to teach her daughter.

But Manuela seems to be enjoying herself, and wants to make coffee for the gas station attendant who comes inside to soak up a bit of warmth. “It's good,” he assures her. It took her less than ten minutes to learn. Her mother says she shouldn't spend too much time behind the counter, people might recognize her, it's better if she doesn't let herself be seen with her. “Why?” Manuela asks with surprise. “It's not very heroic,” Cinzia responds confusedly. What she means is that she doesn't look like the mother of a hero, that she's worried she might diminish her daughter's glory. But she doesn't know how to explain. The words get all tangled up inside her. When the redhead disappears into the bathroom, Manuela bends over her mother, who is intent on working the coffee machine, puts her arms around her waist, and kisses her neck. Cinzia starts, frightened. When Manuela was little and her mother would bend down to kiss her, she'd make herself into a ball, offering the smallest possible surface area. Manuela was so tall, dry, and closed that Cinzia would jokingly compare her to the artichokes that thrive in Ladispoli's volcanic soil: hard, compact, and closed up. She would remind her daughter, who was allergic to her outbursts of affection, that Ladispoli artichokes are famous because they're sweet and don't have any thorns. But Manuela still wouldn't let herself be kissed. “I must be a different species,” she would say. So Cinzia realizes that something's about to happen, and an oppressive sadness washes over her. Her daughter is the only precious thing in her miserly life. Incongruous in this world of cheap goods. So determined and so intransigent. So rare. But how can you keep a daughter from following her own path?