History (21 page)

JANUARY-FEBRUARY

"Wannsee Conference" for racial planning ( decimation of the inferior races througi1 forced labor and inanition, separation of the sexes, special treatment, etc. ).

In the Pacifi and throughout the Far East, great successes of the Japanese; already masters of Indochina and a large part of China, they ad vance rapidly until they are threatening British possessions in India.

The Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek is named commander of the AIied troops in China, where the war against the Japanese invader has been going on since 1937.

Arduous defense action of the CSIR (Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia ), without adequate arms and without equipment suited to tl1e winter campaign.

Special appropriations for war industry in the United States (plans for 35,000 heavy artillery 75,000 tanks, and 125,000 planes).

In North Africa, the Halo-Germans reoccupy Bengazi, capital of Cyrenaica.

MARCH-JUNE

In the Nazi concentration camp at Belsen, the "death chamber" is put into operation.

At a meeting of the Reichstag in Berlin, Hitler (who has already as sumed personal command of the army) receives offi confi of absolute power, with the right to decide the life and death of every German citizen.

The great off of the British Air Force begins, adopting the tactic (already applied by Germany) of area bombing, night attacks without specifi targets, releasing tons of explosive and incendiary bombs, saturating built-up civilian areas. Reprisal counteroff by the Germans.

In the Pacific, the US Fleet defeats the Japanese in two battles.

In North Africa, the Halo-German forces, counterattacking, regain, at the cost of enormous casualties, the previously lost territory advancing as far as EI Aiamein, in Egypt.

J ULY-AUGUST

Among the latest products of the international war industry, tests are being made of the four-engine bombers, Flying Fortresses and Liberators, made in the United States, where, however, there is at present a reluctance, for humanitarian reasons, to engage in area bombing, or the indiscriminate bombardment of centers of civilian habitation.

To reinforce the German troops engaged on the Don, Italy sends an other Expeditionary Corps to Russia (ARMIR), composed of the country's

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fi men ( largely Alpine troops ), but pitifully lacking the means not only for fi or for a·rmed defense, but even for elementary surv

On the Volga, the Germans besiege the city of Stalingrad, where there is house-to-house fi among the ruins.

After the British again arrest Mahatma Gandhi and members of the Congress Party, there are riots and bloody repressions in India.

Unsuccessful landing of thE Allies at Dieppe, on the Channel. Almost all men engaged are killed.

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER

On the Volga, despite the desperate resistance of the Soviets, the Ger mans occupy the ruins of Stalingrad.

In North Africa, the British resume the off overw the Halo-Germans, who, after the defeat at El Alamein, withdraw towards Tripoli, while the Americans prepare a landing to their rear.

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER

In Russia, a great Soviet off breaks through all along the front.

The Soviets move to attack the Germans, trapped in Stalingrad.

In North Africa, the British reoccupy Bengazi, capital of Cyrenaica. In Europe, the air war is intensifi with the total destruction of illus trious cities and monuments, and the slaughter of the civilian population. In news reports the term carpet bombing recurs regularly. Now the Ameri cans also participate in these operations, with the recent products of their

war industry ( Liberators, Flying Fortresses, etc. ).

In Greece, where, among the consequences of the war and the occupa tion, the number of deaths from starvation runs to hundreds of thousands, some groups attempt organized resistance against the Axis.

In Italy, repeated air raids on the cities of Genoa, Naples, Turin, and other smaller centers. Sixteen hundred tons of explosive are estimated to have been dropped on Northern Italy during the autumn.

In the United States, on the 2nd of December, the Chicago laboratory puts into operation the fi nuclear reactor, achieving a chain reaction ( fi sion of the uranium isotope U-235 ) . . .

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Ring a round the roses castle all around, castle and palace,

the sun is in the sack. Come out, come out, sun, your Mamma's calling you, and throw us sandwiches

to give to the boys and throw us cookies

to give to the children and throw us fritters to give to old maids.

I've had a hat made with fl on it. "And when will you wear it ?"

When I become engaged. I've had a smart hat made.

"And when will you wear it ?" When I marry.

And I'll drive out with two coaches. "Good morning, Knight."

And I'll go out with two fl "Good morning, Knight." And tra-la-la tra-la-lee,

Sugar cream and tee-hee-hee.

( Traditional children's song )

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The fi winter of his life, like the fi autumn that preceded it, Giuseppe spent in total isolation, although his world had gradually extended from the bedroom to the rest of the apartment. During bad weather, all the windows were closed; but even with the win

dows open, his little voice would have in any case been lost in the noises of the street and the voices from the court The courtyard was immense, since the block of apartments had many separate entrances, from Entrance A to Entrance E. Ida's was apartment number nineteen of Entrance D, and since it was on the top fl it had no immediate neighbors. Besides hers, in fact, there was only one other door on that landing, farther up, leading to the water tanks. And for Ida, in her situation, this was a stroke of luck.

The rooms of Apartment
19
Entrance D were, for Giuseppe, all the known world; and indeed, the existence of another, outside world must have been, for him, as vague as a nebula, since he was still too little to reach the windows and, from below, he could see only air. Unbaptized, uncircumcised as he was, no parish had bothered to rescue him; and the state of war, with the mounting confusion of orders, favored his banish ment from creation.

In his precociousness, he had soon learned to move around the house on his hands and knees, imitating Blitz, who was perhaps his instructor. The front door, for him, was the extreme barri�r of the universe, like the Pillars of Hercules for ancient explorers.

Now he was no longer naked, but bundled up against the cold in various woolen rags that made him look a bit rounder, like puppies in their coat. The shape of his face was now becoming cl defi His nose began to assume a straight and delicate line; and his features, pure though minute, recalled certain little Asiatic sculptures. Decidedly, he didn't re semble any of his relatives : except for the eyes, almost twins of those distant eyes. Twins, however, in their form and color, not in their gaze. The other gaze, in fact, had seemed terrible, desperate, and almost fri ened; while this one, on the contrary, was trusting and festive.

A merr baby than he had never been seen. Everything he glimpsed around him roused his interest and stirred him to joy. He looked with delight at the threads of rain 011 the window, as if they were confetti and multicolored streamers. And if, as happens, the sunlight reached the ceiling indirectly and cast the shadows of the street's morning bustle, he would stare at it fascinated, refusing to abandon it, as if he were watching an extraordinary display of Chinese acroba ts, given especially for him. You would have said, to tell the truth, from his laughter, from the constant brightening of his little face, that he didn't see things only in their usual aspects, but as multiple images of other things, varying to infi Other wise, there was no explaining why the wretched, monotonous scene the

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house off every day could aff him such diverse, inexhaustible

amusement.

The color of a rag, of a scrap of paper, sugges to him the resonance of all prisms and scales of light, was enough to transport him to awed laughter. One of the fi words he learned was
ttars
(stars). However, he also called the lightbulbs in the house ttars, and the derelict fl Ida brought from school, the hanging clusters of onions, even the door knobs, and later also swallows. Then when he learned the word
wallows
(
swal lows ) he called wallows also his underpants hanging out on a line to dry. And in recognizing a new ttar ( which was perhaps a fl on the wall ) or a new wallow, he burst out each day in a magnifi ence of laughter, filled with contentment and welcome, as if he were meeting a member of the family.

Even the things that, in general, arouse aversion or repugnance, in him inspired only attention and a transparent wonder, like the others. In his endless journeys of exploration, crawling on all fours around the Urals and the Amazon and the Australian archipelagoes which the furniture of the house was to him, sometimes he no longer knew where he was. And he would be found under the sink in the kitchen, ecstatically observing a patrol of cockroaches as if they were wild colts on the prairie. He even recognized a ttar in a gob of spit.

But nothing had the power to make him rejoice as much as Nino's presence. It seemed that, in his opinion, Nino concentrated in himself the total festi of the world, which everywhere else was to be found scat tered and divided. For in Giuseppe's eyes, Nino represented by himself all the myriad colors, and the glow of fireworks, and every species of fantastic and lovable animal, and carnival shows. Mysteriously, he could sense Nino's arrival from the moment when he began the ascent of the stairs! And he would hurry immediately, as fast as he could with his method, towards the entrance, repeating ino ino, in an almost dramatic rejoicing of all his limbs. At times, even, when Nino came home late at night, he, sleeping, would stir slightly at the sound of the key, and with a trusting little smile he would murmur in a faint voice : ino.

The spring of the year 1942, meanwhile, was advancing towards sum mer. In place of the many pieces of wool, which made him look like a bundle of rags, Ida dressed Giuseppe in some very ancient shorts and little shirts formerly belonging to his brother, and ill-suited to him. The shorts, on him, turned into long pants. The shirts, taken in as best they could be at the sides, but not shortened, reached almost to his ankles. And for his feet, thanks to their ti size, his infant's bootees still suffi Dressed in this fashion, he looked like an Indian.

All he knew of spring was the wallows that crisscrossed at the windows by the thousands from morning till evening, the multiplied and brighten-

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. . . . . .
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ing stars, some remote clumps of geraniums, and the human voices that

echoed in the courtyard, free and resounding, through the open windows. His vocabulary was enriched every day. The light, and the sky, and also the windows, he called
tun
(sun). The outside world, from the front door on, since it had always been forbidden, prohibited to him by his mother, he called
no.
The night, but also the furniture (since he passed beneath it) were called
ark
(dark). All voices, and sounds,
oice
(voice). Rain,
ain,
and also water, etc., etc.

With the coming of good weather, as can be imagined, Nino played hooky from school more and more often, even if his visits to Giuseppe in the company of his friends were now only a distant memory. But one marvelously bright morning, he appeared unexpectedly at home, lively and whistling, in the company of Blitz alone; and as Giuseppe popped up from beneath some piece of
ark,
coming towards him as usual, Nino announced to him, peremptorily :

"Hey, kid, let's go ! We're off to have some fun!"

And having said this, he immediately went into action, hoisted Giu seppe astride his shoulders, and fl down the steps like the thief Mercury while Giuseppe, in the divine tragedy of this infraction, murmured in a kind of exultant chant: "no . . . no . . . no . . . " His little hands were closed calmly inside his brother's; his feet, swaying in their race, hung over
Nino's
chest, so they could sense the violence of his breathing, in thrilled freedom, against the maternal laws! And Blitz followed, overcome by his double amorous happiness to such a degree that, forgetting how to walk, he tumbled down the steps like an idiot. The three came out into the courtyard, crossed the passage to the street; and no one, as they went by, stepped forward to ask Nino : "Who's the kid you're carrying?" as if, by a miracle, that little group had become invisible.

And so Giuseppe, confi since birth, made his fi excursion into the world, exactly like Buddha. Buddha, however, left the gleaming garden of the King his father to encounter, just outside, the a
b
struse phenomena

of disease, old age, and death; while in Giuseppe's ca , on the contrary, you could say the world opened out, that day, like the true gleaming garden. Even if disease, old age, and death happened to place their simu lacra along his way, he didn't notice them. Close, immediately beneath his eyes, the fi thing he saw, during the outing, was his brother's black curls, dancing in the spring wi nd. And all the surrounding world, in his eyes, danced to the rhythm of those curls. It would be absurd to note here the few streets where they went, in the San Lorenzo distri and the people who moved around them. That world and those people, poor, anxious, and deform by the grimace of the war, unfolded before Giuseppe's eyes like a multiple and unique phantasmagoria, to which not even a descripti of

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the Alhambra in Granada, or the gardens of Shiraz or perhaps even Eden

could compare. All along the way, Giuseppe did nothing but laugh, exclaiming or murmuring, his little voice tinged by an extr