History (42 page)

"Useppe . . . " she called him, in a low voice.

Useppe turned, at her summons; the same stare, however, remained in his eyes, which, even as they encountered hers, asked her no question.

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There was, in the endless horror of his gaze, also a fear, or rather a dazed stupor; but it was a stupor that demanded no explanation.

"We're going, Useppe! We're going away!"

At the moment she turned to hasten off from there, among the persis tent shouts behind her a man's voice could be distinguished, calling : "Sig nora, wait! Listen! Signora!" She turned : those calls were addressed to her, all right. From one of the little grilles that allowed her to glimpse a poor bald head with intense eyes that seemed ill, a hand stretched out to throw her a piece of paper.

As she bent to pick it up, Ida realized that there, scattered on the ground along the cars ( from which a foul smell was already emanating ), there were other similar crumpled notes among the rubbish and garbage; but she didn't have the strength to stay and collect any. And as she ran away, she stuff that little scrawled piece of paper into her pocket without looking at it, while the stranger behind the grille continued shouting thanks after her, and indistinct instructions.

In all, no more than ten minutes had passed since her entrance to the yards. This time, the Italian policemen on guard at the gate came briskly towards her. "What are you doing here? Get out! Hurry! Get out of here!" they ordered her, with an angry urgency, which seemed intended simulta neously to scold her and to safeguard her from a danger.

As she was going out of the gate with Useppe in her arms, a brownish truck arrived from the street, leaving a confused sound behind it as it passed, like a subdued echo of that other chorus from the train. Its load, however, locked inside, was invisible. Its only visible occupants were, in the cab, two young soldiers in SS uniform. Their appearance was normal, calm, like that of the usual Municipal truckdrivers who loaded up their meat supplies at this freight-yard stop. Their faces, clean, a healthy pink, were ordinary and stolid.

Ida completely forgot she had to fi her shopping, feeling only the haste to reach the bus stop. Driven by the exclusive desire to be back behind her sackcloth curtain, she had dismissed her weariness and pre ferred not to put the child on the ground again. Feeling him in her arms, near and tight, consoled her, as if she had a shelter and a protection; but for the whole distance she lacked the courage to look him in the eyes.

There were many people waiting at the bus stop; and inside the over crowded vehicle it wasn't easy to maintain one's balance, standing. Unable to reach the straps because of her short stature, Ida, as usual in these instances, performed ballerina exercises to remain on her feet in the crush, to spare Useppe too many shoves and jolts. She noticed his little head was swaying, and she carefully settled it against her shoulder. Useppe had fallen asleep.

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In the big room, everything was the same as usual. l11e gramophone was playing "The Vamp of La Scala" and at the same time Carull's sisters in-law were quarreling over a pot, amid atrocious insults; however, that familiar racket could not disturb Useppe's sleep. Ida stretched out immedi ately beside him, and closed her eyes tightly, as if they were being hit by fi Then all at once her muscles jerked faintly, and the sounds and scenes of the whole earth suddenly abandoned her.

If anyone had been near her, he would perhaps have thought her dead, she was so still and pale; but perhaps he wouldn't even have had time to notice that little spell of hers, which really was of infi esimal duration. A moment later, her eyelids relaxed, opening gently again over her cleared eyes like two slow little wings, while her mouth formed a calm and ingenuous smile, a dreaming child's.

Almost at once, she let herself sink into deep sleep, without dreams and full of silence, beyond the continued din of the room. She woke after several hours. It was almost evening. And immediately, as she sought Useppe in the cot beside her, she recognized, beyond the curtain, the unmistakable little music of his laughter. Useppe had waked before her and was already sitting there on the ground, blinking his carefree eyes, rapturously displaying his new boots to the familiar company: Peppe Terzo, Impero, UH, etc. The least convinced, among them, seemed UH, who had promptly noticed the excessive size of those
two-tone
shoes; how ever, she set to fi them for him with a pair of inner soles made from a lady's felt hat ( residue of the Charity Ladies of July) . . .

Ida lived through the rest of the day in an almost absent dreaminess. During the night, she woke with a start, hearing beside her in the cot a shrill little cry, of piercing anguish. She realized Useppe was twitching in his sleep, and after a silence he resumed moaning in a spasmodic stammer. Then she called him; and making a light with her usual, precious candle stub, now reduced to its last fl kers, she saw him all in tears, pushing her away with his tiny hands, as if refusing any comfort. And still without waking entirely, he continued his incomprehensible stammer, in which she seemed to recognize the word
horse,
mingled in confusion with
kids
and
grownups.
Calling him by name several times, Ida tried to rescue him from the dream that was invading him; and fi she showed him the new boots with their red laces, saying : "Look, Useppe! Look what's here!" At last then the child's pupils brightened amidst their tears. "Mine," he stated with a smile. Then he added, "Shoos!" and with a brief sigh of satisfaction he went back to sleep.

Th next morn merry as usual, he had forgotten the events of the previous day and night; nor did Ida mention them to him again ( to him or anyone else). In the pocket of her housedress she had the message thrown

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to her at the station by the Jew in the train; and she examined it, aside, in the daylight. It was a piece of lined copybook paper, sweat-stained and crumpled. On it, in pencil, there was written in a shaky hand, large and laborious :

If you see Efrati Pacifi tell him we're all in good health Irma Reggina Romola and everyboddy going to Germany hole family all right the bill pay Lazarino another hundred and twenty lire debt beeau

That was all. There was no signature, no address ( omitted through caution or lack of time? Or perhaps simple ignorance? ).
Efrati
was one of the most common family names in the Ghetto : where, for that matter, according to what people said, nobody was left any more. Still, Ida placed the message in a compartment of her purse, though with no precise inten tion of seeking its addressee.

In the big room, they had already stopped talking about the Jews and their fate. Almost every day, if he turned up at home, Salvatore read, syllable by syllable, more news from the
Messaggero.
A Fascist had been killed in the city, and a bulletin from the police force of the Open City ( so Rome had been declared since August) threatened severe measures. There was talk also of the famous hand-made nails wi four points, which dis abled the German vehicles, and of how the Germans were arresting smiths, mechanics, etc. The Fascist Action Squads were being formed again, etc., etc. However, the predominant news, which, though not written in the papers, circulated as a rumored certainty, was the event already predicted by the partisan Moscow: namely that on October 28th, the feast and anniversary of Fascism, the Allied troops would enter Rome.

Meanwhile the Nazi-Fascists in Rome began to be concerned with certain groups of
snipers
who were operating in the outlying slums, Pie tralata among them. The tavernkeeper's long-distance signals had become more frequent; more often now, Caruli or some other member of The Thousand on sentry duty at the windows would warn :
"Light the lamp!"
or
"I have to talw a shit!";
and the young men in the room, these days, prudently avoided being found at home. Carlo, too, stayed out most of the time, God knows where, still returning regularly at the curfew hour, surely because he didn't know where else to go and sleep. And always on sched ule, Rossella would punctually reappear in the big room a bit before him, to be ready to receive him behind the curtain with her special miau.

On October 22nd, there was a real battle between the Germans and the crowd at the Forte Tiburtino. More than once, since September, the starv people of the district had attacked the fort, carrying off not only

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food and medicines, but also weapons and ammunition; and the few Italian soldiers inside, besieged, had let them get away with it. But this time there were German sentries, who had given the alarm to their Headquarters. An SS unit in full battle array had promptly been sent to the scene of the disorders; and the news of this disturbing presence had fl in advance, beyond the borders of the slum.

In the meanwhile, Granny Dinda had gone out to collect some wild salad greens in the area. And at her hasty return, she brought the thrilling news, heard God knows where, that the German army was marching against the American army, which was arriving from the big highways; and the decisive battle would take place within minutes, right on the fi around them, just outside their room!

At the echo of the shots, which followed a little la ter, the unenlight ened inhabitants present wondered whether they should really believe Granny Dinda. With some hope, but also with great fear, the women took shelter in the corners, as if they were in the trenches, while Granddad Giuseppe Primo saw to arranging the sandbags at the windows, with a slow and haughty manner, like a gouty old general. Carulina, for her part, was quick to throw a rag over the cage of the canaries entrusted to her care; and the whole business intoxicated the gang of kids present, who rampaged heroically, amus at the women's fright. Merriest of all, as usual, was Useppe, who jumped up on the pile of desks and ran and crouched, then fl himself to the fl , shouting: bang! bang! bang! Though Ida had beseeched him to wear his old sandals around the house, saving his new footgear for when they wen t out, he wouldn't hear of this; and so at present, his footsteps, in his constant running around the room, could be distinguished by a new, characteristic sound : plop, plop, due to the still somewhat excessive size of the boots with their thick crepe soles.

The shooting didn't last long, and a little later the room was visited by the Germans. It seemed they were searching for the hiding place of some local
snipers
who had escaped capture after the confl at the Fort. Awed by their grandiose equipment ( they had huge helmets down to the nose, and held their automatic guns aimed), Useppe, who had understood noth ing of the whole episode except the racket, asked in a loud voice if these were
Mericuns.
Luckily, these men couldn't know that this term, in Useppe's language, meant
The Americans;
and for that matter, Carulina immediately signaled Useppe to keep quiet.

They shoved all the inhabitants into the road, and began searching every corner of the interior, even the roof and the latrine. Luckily, there was no meat being kept in the latrine today, and they didn't bother to examine the other victuals store, under Sora Mercedes's blanket, confi because, a moment before, they had seen the heavy, arthritic lady emerge

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from beneath that same blanket. Again, thanks to luck, at that hour the ablebodied males of the room were all absent. And so, after having barked some incomprehensible warn in German, the armed men went off again, and never came back.

Some days later, also at Pietralata, the following proclamati was seen posted, in German and in I talian :

On
22
October, 1 943, Italian civilians, members of a Communist band, fi on German troops. They were taken prisoner after a brief skirmish.

The Military Tribunal has sentenced to death 10 members of this band for having taken part in an armed attack on units of the German forces.

The sentence has been carried out.

The sentence was carried out the day after the attack in a fi near Pietralata, where the corpses were immediately buried in a ditch. But, later, when the ditch was discovered, there were actually eleven corpses, not ten. The eleventh was a harmless cyclist, who had happened by, and was shot along with the others, because he was there.

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The weather was variable, and there were numerous sunny morn ings, but Nino still hadn't kept his promise to Useppe. It's hard to say whether Useppe remembered it or not. True, he still went often to the doorw to look towards the sunny road, as if he

were waiting; however, perhaps in his mind, distance (almost two weeks had gone by ) was confusing Nino's promise with the mornings and with the sun in one vague mirage. Meanwhile, before the mirage could fi be come incarnate, destiny began, through a precipitous series of events, to reduce the number of people in the room.

On about October 25th, early in the aftern a monk knocked at the door. At that moment, only UH, the kids, Sora Mercedes, and the grandmothers were present. The grandfathers had gone to sit at the tavern Ida was behind her curtain, and the sisters-in-law had climbed to the building's little terrace, to collect in great haste some laundry they had hung out.

In fact, it was beginning to rain. The monk had covered his head wi his hood, and he had that busy and circumspect manner that marks reli-

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gious. He greeted them with the customary phrase
Pax et Bonum
and asked for Vivaldi Carlo. Being told the young man was out, he sat down on a packing-case to wait, in the circle of kids who looked at him, wide-eyed, as if watching a movie. But after a few minutes' waiting, he got up, having to run off to attend to some other matters. And, crooking his little fi

he called aside Carulina ( who must have seemed, among those around him, the most trustworthy secretary) and said to her softly: to tell Sig. Vivaldi Carlo very promptly and in strict secrecy that he was to go as soon as possible to the
place he knew about,
to receive urgent news. Then he repeated
Pax et Bonum
and went off