History (64 page)

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With autumn, peacebrought a series of new events.

The fi to return were the Jews. Of the one thousand fi passengers on the Rome-Auschwitz train from the Tiburtina Sta tion, the surv were fi een : of the poorest class, like almost all

the people deported from Rome. One of them, on his arrival, was taken to the Santo Spirito Hospital, where Tommaso Marrocco was working as an orderly, and from there he brought the fi news home. The man, a peddler by trade, a young man not yet thirty, at present weighed no more than a child. He had a number branded on his skin, and his body, once normal and sturdy and now decrepit-looking, was covered with deep scars. He was feverish, delirious all night long, and he vomited some blackish stuff though he was unable to swallow any kind of food. On their arrival in Italy, the fi teen, only one woman among them, had been received by a welfare committee, which had given each of them a second-class railway ticket, a small cake of soap, and ( the men ) a packet of razor blades. The oldest (aged forty ), as soon as he arrived in his empty house, had locked himself inside and was still lying there, weeping, after several days. When others happened to see one of these survivors go by, they easily recognized him at fi sight, pointing him out and saying: "That's a Jew." Because of their ridiculously scant weight and their str appearance, people looked at them as if they were jests of nature. Even those who were tall seemed little and walked hunched over, with a long and mechanical tread, like puppets. In the place of their cheeks were two holes; many of them had hardly any teeth left and, on their shaved, emaciated heads, a feathery down had just begun to grow, like a baby's. Their ears stuck out, and their hollow eyes, black or brown, didn't seem to refl the images of

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their present surroundings, but some host of haunting figures, like a magic lantern of constantly changing, absurd forms. It's odd how some eyes visibly retain the shadow of who-knows-what images, impressed on them before, no telling when and where, in the retina, like an indelible writing that others cannot read-and often don't want to. This was the ca with the Jews. Soon they learn that nobody wanted to listen to their stori : some people's minds wandered at the start, others interrupted them promptly with an excuse, and others actually stepped away from them, snickering, as if to say: "Brother, I feel sorry for you, but I have things to do right now." In fact, the Jews' stories didn't resemble the tales of ship captains, or of Ulysses, the hero return to his palace. They were spectral fi like negative numbers, beneath all natural sight, inconceivable even for common friendliness. People wanted to censor them from their days as normal families remove the mad or the dead. And so, along with the illegible visions swarming in their black eye-sockets, many voices accom panied the lonely walks of the Jews, echoing vastly in their brains, in a fugue, below the ordinary threshold of the audible.

usEPPE : ". . . say,
rn
why is that man hitting the wall with his hand?"

IDA :
". . . nothing . . it's a game . . ." ". . . he sick?"

"No, he 's not sick."

"No? No, eh? Can he see?"

"Of course, he can. He's not blind. He can see." ". . . he's not blind . . ."

This man was someone Ida saw often, passing by Piazza Gioacchino Belli, on this side of the river. He was the regular customer of a bar in the neighborhood, where she herself had been allowed to display a little per sonal advertisement, written in ink, seeking private tutoring. 1l1e man's age was beyond guessing. He could have been an adolescent, or else an old man of sixty (actually, he was thirty-fi ). The only thing you recognized about him, on sight, was that, in addition to being a Jew, he must always have been poor; and his trade, in fact, as Ida learned from the bar's proprietor, had been handed down from father to son, junk-collector. He always wore a little cap on his head, even though it was hot, and in his big brown eyes, very close to his long sharp nose, there was that kind of very sweet trust you can see in the eyes of certain dogs when they are sick. One day ( all blushing like a country girl making her fi approach as a prostitute) Ida summoned her courage and, in a stammer, asked him confi if, among the survivors of the La he knew of a Signora Celeste Di Segni and an old midwife . . . "No, no," he answered, smiling with a clumsy,

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simple-minded innocence, "no kids, no old people. They've
gone up to heaven
long ago . . .
"

And, immediately, rummaging in his pocket, he asked Ida in reply if she would like to buy a lady's wristwatch, a bargain . . . Then, when Ida evaded it, he suggested the same purchase to the barman, perhaps in exchange for a bottle of cognac, or grappa, or something else.

. . . Ida hadn't been into the Ghetto, not since that afternoon of June fi , the year before. Nor, as far as I know, did she ever set foot there afterw as long as she lived.

Towards the end of November, there was another homecoming, which fi the Marrocco family with hope: Clemente, Consolata's brother, came back from Russia.

His return, after such a long silence and so many futi inquiries, was hailed as a miracle. Less than a week later, however, Consolata could already be heard murmuring, with a sidelong glance : "Maybe it would of been better for him if he hadn't come back . . ." He had, in fact, left Rome healthy and whole, and he had come back missing the toes of one foot and three fi of his right hand, because his limbs had frozen during the retreat in '43. As a civilian, he had been a carp by trade. And how could he, now, resume his work, half-maimed, an invalid? Con solata would have to work twice as hard, for herself and for him.

On his arrival, he had kept his mutilated hand hidden in a dirty little scarf, as if he were ashamed of it. Then Filomena made him a black wool glove which covered his hand, leaving only the two sound fi exposed; and after that, in the quarter, he was given the nickname of the Black Hand.

He could say nothing specifi about Giovannino. The last time he had seen him had been during the retreat, this side of the river Don, in January of 1943, maybe the twentieth, according to his calculations-or else the twenty-fourth or the twenty-fi (who could keep track, there, of nights and days? ) . They were escaping together, he and Giovannino, on a road or a frozen swamp, in an enormous confusion of little trucks, sleds, oxen, horses, and men on foot. He and Giovannino were on foot, stragglers from their unit, which had been broken up and dispersed. At a certain point, Giovannino, exhausted, had sunk to his knees under his knapsack. And Clemente, after slipping the pack off him, had helped him to stand up again and continue; but after another mile or so, Giovannino had fallen again, and then again, two or three ti Until, unable to resist his own weariness, he had lain down to rest at the side of the track, waiting for some sled or wagon to stop and pick him up. He wasn't wounded, only he

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complained of thirst; and Clemente, before resuming his march alone, had collected a handful of snow from the ground, holding it out in his palm for Giovannino to drink. After that, they lost sight of each other defi

Later, then, Clemente had surrendered, a prisoner, to the Russians, but among his prison mates of those years in Siberia and Asia, he had never met any mutual acquaintance who could give him news of Giovannino.

The day of his arrival, Clemente had turned up at home, leaning on a crutch, wearing a German army greatcoat, with a few lire in his pocket. At the Italian border, against the pay he hadn't received, they had given him fi hundred lire, which he, unaware of the new Italian prices, had considered wealth. Instead, he had spent nearly all of it on the trip from the Brenner to Rome, to buy himself a few liters of wine and some sand wiches. "Two slices of salami, two hundred lire!" he remarked, sarcasti cally. And in all his infi adventure, this was the one point he kept coming back to, insistently. Of all the rest, he spoke as little as possible, and with reluctance.

He was born in 1916, so at present he was getting on for thirty; but since every remembered him from civilian days as fat, he now seemed almost more of a boy than when he was young. His weight when he left for the front had been over two hundred pounds; now it was under one-forty And his complexion, formerly ruddy, had turned yellowish, beca of the malaria he had caught in Asia, in the prison camp. Now he felt well and in good health, according to what he said. He also declared that his mutila tion didn't in the least prevent him from working, and in the prison camp he had always done his share : picked cotton, gathered dry grass to burn, chopped wood, and, when necessary, also performed carpentering jobs. For example, by himself, back there he had made for his broken and sore covered foot a sort of wooden support fi out and attached with some laces to his leg, so that he could walk also without a stick, normally.

In saying all this, he would take on a grim expression; and though he addressed no one in particular, it was clear his words were aimed chiefl at his sister, to let her know he wasn't a poor sickly cripple, as she seemed to believe, and he had no need of her or of anyone else. To tell the truth ( though he wouldn't admit it), in the Asian prison camps, the Russian medical offi had already observed his intermittent fevers and for a ti had exempted him from work, putting him in the hospital there, known as
lazaret.
However, in the end, they had discharged him, like the healthy prisoners; and according to him, the constant weariness that weighed on him now was only the result of his very long return journ which had lasted two months.

Before, as a youth,
Black Hand
had had a rather slow and lazy person ality; for example, he was always irked that ( except on Sundays ) he couldn't

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have a siesta after his midday meal; and when it was time to go to the shop, early in the morning, he had to be called a dozen ti before he could bring himself to get out of bed. But now it was all diff his willpower no longer suffi The slightest exertion tired him; on some days, even if he stood still on his feet for a few minutes, his eyesight would suddenly fail through weakness, and he would be able to see again only when he was lying down.

Another source of humiliation for him was not being able to drink as in the past. Wine had never been a vice with him, but a pleasure. Besides liking its taste and the excuse to be in company, he had found real self satisfaction in wine, which made him lively, talkative, even eloquent; and, more, allowed him to boast how he could hold it, because he could drink quantities without getting drunk. Now, instead, as everyone celebrated his return from Russia and, especially during the early days, fought to off him drinks, any wine, whether white Frascati or Orvieto, or Chianti red, like the Nebbiolo of prime quality bought on his arrival in the North, had the same bitter taste in his mouth. And from the fi sips he felt depressed by it, worse than ever, his stomach burn as if he had swallowed coals. And yet a nostalgia for his old habit still drove him to the tavern, where, with a little jug of wine, he was capable of spending whole days at the same table. But nobody recognized now the jovi boy of the past in this grouchy mute with yellow skin.

Like his sister, his acquaintances had long since given up any hope of seeing ;1im come back alive; and they had welcomed him with incredulous exclamations as if he had risen from the dead, spreading the word and running to greet him. However, in the center of such general wonder, he, though celebrated, felt himself, God knows why, set aside, as if he were an encumbrance; and in company, he withdrew into himself, like a Lazarus in his shroud. The presence of others, all the same, was necessary to him : to be alone, even for a few minutes, filled him with anguish and fright.

In the tavern, not only the friends at his table, but also the other customers at fi besieged him with demands that he tell his adventures. But he evaded the subject, saying with a grimace and a reluctant tone: "What's the use of talking about it!" ". . . people who weren't there can't understand it . . ." ". . . anyway, what I saw, nobody would be lieve . . ." At times, rabid from his bitter wine, instead of a reply he would hurl insults : "You slackers," he would cry, "what do you want to know, now?! You should of been there, on the spot!" Or else, at their in sistence, he would toss out some fragment of information, snickering : "You want to know what I saw? I saw dead bodies by the hundreds, from here to the ceiling, like piles of beams, hard, without any eyes! . . ." "Where?" "Where! In Siberia! There were crows there . . . and wolves . . ." "I saw

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the wolves come running, at the smell of the convoys . . ." "I've seen WHITE CANNIBALS!"

". . . and that's nothing!" he would add each time with a spiteful pleasure and a sad gaze, hinting at all the rest he wasn't telling.