History (50 page)

In the Pacifi there is a succession of kamikaze attacks (Japanese suicide pilots), in a vain attempt to destroy the American fl The naval battle of Leyte, near the Philippines, ends with a disastrous defeat of the Japanese navy.

In Germany, the Fuhrer orders general mobilization of all ablebodied males between sixteen and sixty years of age.

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER

In German-occupied Italy, a proclamation of the British High Com mand, ordering the demobilization of the resistance, in view of the im minent Allied victory, goes unheeded. The coordination of the Italian resistance is now the task of the CLN (Comitato Liberazione Nazionale, National Liberation Committee), composed of the six clandestine opposi tion parties which have survived the Fascist regime. With the active participation of the populace, the partisan forces keep the Germans engaged in a wearing struggle, driving them from various areas, which declare them selves autonomous, forming little temporary republics.

In autumn and winter, Allied operations in Italian territory are blocked at the Gothic Line . . .

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The thunder of the bombings around Rome was becoming more frequent, and more constant; and the women of the Genzano shopkeeper, each time they heard them, sprang to their feet with hysterical screams of terror. After the Allied landing at Anzio on

January 22, from the slum came songs and shouts of joy, as if the war were over by now. The very few Fascists of the neighborhood went into hiding, while all the young men came into the streets, and some even showed themselves armed : they seemed to be openly preparing the revolution. They took bread, fl and other foodstuff with violence, from the shops or wherever it was still to be found, and freely distributed copies of the clandestine
Unita,
special edition.

Ida left the room as little as possible, and always held Useppe close to her skirts, a fraid that the Germans, responding to the provocation, would invade the slum and kill or deport all males, not sparing her little man Useppe. During those days, the Werewolf vanished; and she wondered if by any chance he was a spy, who had hastened to report the people of Pietralata to the German High Command. In any case, that extreme, popular festival ended in another bitter frustration. Within a few days the Germans had succeeded in containing the operation, nailing the Allies to the Anzio beach. The shopkeeper's women huddled together, no longer screaming, not even breathing, their lips yellow with fear: for the thunder of the shellings around Rome was now steady, day and night. To these thunderclaps, there was added the enormous racket of the German supply trucks, which drove along the highways, not to retreat, but to attack with new reinforcements. The Anzio landing was only a hamstrung episode. The real front was still blocked at Cassino. The imminent liberation was again the usual lie. The war wasn't ending.

In late January, Ida received an unexpected visit from Remo the tavemkeeper, who called her outside, apart, having urgent news to commu nicate from her son Nino. Ace was in excellent health, and sent her greet ings and hoped to see her soon, and sent kisses to his little brother. However, the recent war events, with the approach of the front, the de stru of the villages, and the constant German round-ups, had forced him and his men to suspend fi in the zone. The
Liberty
group had been disbanded; some of its members had fallen, others had given up the stru Ace and Pyotr ( Carlo ) had gone off together, determined to reach Naples, crossing the front line; and it was sure that, alert and brave as they were, they would succeed in their enterprise. Moscow and Quattro were dead, and, by the way, the tavernkeeper brought Ida a posthumous message from Giuseppe Cucchiarelli. In fact, some time earlier, in absolute and universal secrecy, he had charged Remo, in the event of his death, to inform Signora Ida that the mattress already left her contained a surprise

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for her. In the wool, in the corner marked on the outside by a knot of red thread, there was something that he, as a dead man, couldn't use any more, even for the latrine, while for her and the kid, on the contrary, it might now come in handy.

As for himself, Remo brought Ida some presents : a fl of wine, half a liter of olive oil, and two candles. He felt it unnecessary to tell her the details of Moscow's death, and she didn't ask him. It had taken place on January 21st in the city of Marino, and for more than two days his body had remained exposed in the middle of the street, where the Germans had forbidden its removal, kicking it whenever they passed by. In death, his body seemed even smaller and skinnier than in life, and his face, even though swollen from torture, had taken on the characteristic look of the neighborhood granddad, because of his sharp chin that almost touched his nose. The Germans, in fact, before shooting him, had ripped out the fi teeth he still had in his mouth, as well as the nails from his fingers and toes, so his bare feet and his little old man's hands were puff and black with clotted blood. He had gone to the city of Marino on duty, to deliver a coded communication from Eyeglasses to the commander of another band. And he was walking along with comrade Tarzan, assigned to collect a radio, when, seeing a vague form in the shadows of the little street, he had promptly ordered : "Halt there!" in a military tone. In reply, from behind the houses, came some voices grumbling in German, and Tarzan then fi but afterwards, quickly, in the shooting that followed from the other side, he managed to run off while Moscow was surrounded and captured. On him they found the message whose meaning he himself was really unable to reveal, since he didn't know it ( the text was:
the clean laundry is in the bucket).
Obviously, he did know, however, many other things, which his torturers wanted to make him tell. But as visible marks demonstr those Germ boys, despite their labor, extracted nothing from him but noisy sobs, like a child's; until they gave up, fi him off with a shot in the back. His dream, at this point, would have been to die shouting: "Long live Stalin!" but he had barely enough breath to emit a moan no louder than a sparrow's.

Less than a month earlier, on Christmas day precisely, he had reached the age of sixty. He was born in the same year as Benito Mussolini: 1883.

Quattro's end followed soon after Moscow's; and it was on the night between the 25th and 26th of January. Three days after the Allied landing, the Germans had had time to collect reinforcements from north and south; and the traffi of their vehicles invaded the roads towards Anzio. Still, it was believed the Allies would prevail; and the
Liberty
comrades were eager to participate in this fi battle of Rome. Adventure on those roads ex cited them with its risk, like a real decisive battle. And beneath his polite

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and laconic manner, Quattropunte (or Quat as he was now more often called), was inwardly leaping and dancing with enthusiasm: fi they were in the front line, now reduced to a thread. On this side, there was the infamous past; and over there, the great revolutionary future, almost present, now, you might say. It's true that the Anglo-Americans were capi talists; however, behind them, as allies, there were also the Russians; and once the Fascists and Germans had been driven out, the proletariat-all together-would take care to establish true liberty. On the night of the 25th, it was pouri rain, and Quattro had covered his head with a little topee, which he had painted black for camoufl and beneath which his round boyish peasant face disappeared almost to the nose. He had his sub machine gun with him, looted from the enemy; on his feet were his water proof boots, looted from the enemy; and he was carrying, naturally, his usual nightly ammunition of four-pointed nails, which, to tell the truth, on this night, were rather few. In fact, getting supplies of nails had become diffi since certain blacksmith friends who produced them (Romans, mostly) had been arrested and taken to the slaughterhouse. And recently, Quattro had taken to making them himself, at a village forge with the complicity of the apprentice, unknown to the proprietor.

The
Liberty
group's fi enterprise, on that night, involved the tele phone wires, of which they cut and carried off about a mile's length. Then on the Anzio road, the squad broke up into two groups : the fi with Quattro, especially assigned to the preparatory sca of the nails, took positions on the edge of a crossroads; and the second, led by Ace ( the commander, Eyeglasses, was in bed, wounded ), stationed itself on a rise a bit farther on, at some distance from the fi with sub-machine guns ready for the passage of the German convoy, already
fi
by the nails.

The crossroads, that night, was a site of extreme danger. There the traffi from Cassino encountered the traffic from Rome and the north; and, to regulate it, there were two men of the Feldgendarmerie. Only a quick and clever character like Quattro could succeed in pulling it off and on such nights, too, his body had developed the senses and muscles of a wildcat, the wings of a hawk. With his little eyes blazing, he observed every slight distr of the two gendarmes, who were rather heavy and slow; and without missing an instant, he would slip from his hiding-place, almost beneath the hoods of the cars, hurling his nails into the road with precise aim and with the same fun as when you play marbles on the sidewalk. Then he would dart back, so quick he was invisible or, at most, mistaken for some little night animal in flight. Having used up his supply of nails, he drew back behind the edge of the road with the other two of his group (one was Decima, and the other a boy from Ariccia known as Negus ). And, in fi bent over and silent, they worked their way south,

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with the idea of joining the rest of the band if possible, to support them, without overlooking, however, any tempting proposal of destiny along their way.

They were walking blindly over traveled territory, through mud and water. Every now and then, from the road, in the rustle of the rain, they could make out the sound of German vehicles, laboring, with flat tires, and then, with a contented smile, Quattro would make the Sign of the Cross. This gesture, which had remained with him from his first childish lessons at the parish house, now held no ecclesiastical signifi for him; but it was a familiar gesture of good luck or to ward off the evil eye (as others make horns with their fingers, or tug at the curls inside their pants) .

Arriving at the foot of an embankment a little less than three yards high, they climbed to the top, to observe, from the protection of some dry brush there, the enemy traffi on the road. First they saw a row of heavy trucks go by, continuing their journey though some of their tires were pierced. After an interval, a powerful closed car, of a kind generally re served for high-ranking offi sped unharmed before the:r eyes. But not half a minute later, at some distance to the south, they heard a bold crackle of automatic fi then a crash, then silence. It must have been Ace's men, on the job. A great excitement gripped the three comrades watching from the embankment, their guns ready. At that moment, below them, a little open truck was passing, packed with soldiers, their metal helmets glistening in the rain . Immediately, the three opened fi in unison, aiming fi at the driver. And then they continued fi not lifting their fi from the trigger, while the riddled and broken truck, after skidding on the wet pavement, rolled towards the opposite side of the road, amid wild, tor mented screams. Two bodies could be seen falling from it onto the road, just as confused shooting began from the vehicle. Suggesting a carnival dancefl , the tracer-bullets' red lines crisscrossed the air, striped by the rain. Suddenly fl rose from the truck, illuminating the lifeless bodies of the Germans on the asphalt: though disfi they could be recog nized as young boys, of the most recent draft. The truck's carcass danced for a while on its side then stopped. A few last shots came from it, immediately spent in a defi volley from the top of the embankment; some raving voices were still heard from inside, murmurs of
Mutter Mutter
among other incomprehensible words. At the same time the fi raged; and fi that mass of metal, in its death agony, jerked and fell silent. This side of the steady shelling heard from the sea, now only the hiss of the fl

was audible, and a crackle of burn supplies; and the anguished barking of a guard dog somewhere among the olive groves and the vineyards.

In the shadows, the three on the embankment called one another softly: "Quat? . . . Decima? Negus? . . ." "Yes . . . yes . . . yes . . .
"

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At that point, from the north, a still-distant clank of tracks signaled the arrival of armored vehicles on the road, and the three boys hastily with drew from the embankment, fl together towards the fi behind, through the rows of vines and the ditches and the water pouri from the hea

It was only after they had gone about three or four hundred yards that Negus and Decima realized Quat was no longer with them. But they supposed he had turn off in some other direction in the confusion of the darkness, and it was now too late to track him down anyway. The arriving convoy had stopped at the little truck. The sound of cleated boots could already be heard on the road, while shouts and orders in German began to reecho in the vicinity, among the groping shoots of the withered, soaked vines, and the fl of the masked lantern Holding their breath, and crawling on all fours through the mire, Negus and Decima managed to slip into a canebrake, and from there, fording a pond, they found themselves in a wood where, already, the sounds of the hunt pursuing them were faint and scattered. Still, panting, in a low voice, they tried calling: "Quat . . .

Quat . . .
!"
There was no reply. And they resumed their fl until

dri with rain and sweat, livid and breathless, they came into a valley of a few dark little houses, defi tively safe from the pack.