My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More) (24 page)

‘Onto a safety net, I hope.'

‘No, using a brake rope.'

‘What's that?'

‘The corporal on the platform at the top will explain everything.'

‘Could we not have a little hint?'

‘Shut up and get climbing.'

‘How do you get up? Where's the ladder?'

‘There is no ladder, only alternating grips in the main column. Look, it's easy, all you have to do is take hold of them one after the other and place your feet on the ones lower down. It's all a question of rhythm and arm strength.'

Off we go. We are already a few metres off the ground.

‘The main thing,' Enrico Ferri shouted up to us, ‘is to stay calm and relaxed as you get higher, and never look down, especially if you're prone to giddiness. Everything'd go haywire, and you'd plunge straight down.'

I take deep breaths, hold on, support myself on one leg … then pull up the other one. I clench my teeth, stretch out one arm and cling on. I'm at the seven-metre point: I feel numb, as though it were the first time I'd done any climbing. But for God's bloody sake, this is the same person who as a boy had gone hurtling down a mountainside hanging on to a cable wire, the same one who had plunged into the water from high up a cliffside! Yes, OK, but that was fool's courage! Now that I've reached the age of reason, I'm shitting myself with terror! Come on, another five metres, another seven grips, four, three, two … made it. Here I am on the platform. The corporal instructor drags me to my feet. I'm soaking with sweat. Bianchi makes it as well, as white as a sheet.

‘Get your breath back, but move your arms about,' advises the instructor, ‘and do some half-turns with your chest, otherwise you'll catch a chill. That's the idea, keep going. Meanwhile I'll tell you what's going to happen. Look up, and above your heads you'll see a pulley.' And he showed us a long pipe rotating on an iron axle. ‘There's a rope tied around the pulley, with the other end attached to these harnesses which I'm going to ask you to put on, obviously one each. Be careful, the rotator is fixed onto one extremity of the axle. Take note: it's good and big, with four blades which rotate as they are pulled by the cable and dragged by your weight in descent, and so they brake the speed of the fall. You understand how it works?'

‘And we've got to jump off just like that? Without a trial?'

‘Exactly. This is the trial.'

‘But is there anyone who's going to show us what to do … how it works?'

‘No, that's why this is called the courage and aptitude test. If you are not up to it, it means that you're not suited for this discipline.'

In a flash, I saw the German guards sneering as they welcomed us back, arms outstretched. ‘OK, I'll jump.'

The corporal checked the attachments of my harness. ‘Right, you're all ready!' he said as he took me over to the edge of the platform. ‘You've got to let yourself topple forward with your whole body almost rigid, then once you've jumped, open out your arms and hold your head up. When you're about to hit the ground, make your leg muscles go taut and bend your knees slightly. The moment you feel the impact, react as though you were about to jump up in the air. That's all there is to it. Take a deep breath and away you go!' A dozen or so recruits who had done the jump had gathered at the foot. They shouted with one voice: ‘Don't be afraid! The fall velocity is only thirty kilometres an hour!' Then one of them with a baritone voice chimed in with the final message: ‘I warn you, if your legs fold up like an accordion, you're done for! They don't take on dwarves here!'

General guffaw and I let myself fall forward as per the handbook. There was not even time to draw breath before I hit the ground. God, what a bump! I reacted awkwardly on landing, and nearly ended up on my back. They removed my harness. Marco came down as well. God help us, he came down at lightning speed, but he managed the final leap upwards better than me. We both received hefty slaps on the back from the medical officer. ‘Well done, you've made it, you're enrolled!' Another flashback: the German guards reappear, this time cursing and swearing in disappointment.

*   *   *

At seven o'clock the following morning, we were lined up in the camp in squads of twenty each, around a hundred recruits in total, under the command of five instructors answerable to the captain of the training school. We began with warm-up exercises, the very same as we had done at the Gallarate club: bend to touch the toes, arm and leg stretching, short sprints, half-turns of chest and shoulders, press-ups, and so on, all executed at top speed, to the very limit of physical endurance. Half of the pupils were out of training, and in fact we all dropped one after the other, like skittles. Half an hour to get your breath back, then start all over again. In the afternoon, they gave out harnesses for us to put on, and then they suspended us from high bars held up by a structure similar to a swing: they invited us to swing about a bit, then without warning they sprang the catches supporting us and we found ourselves abruptly tossed to the ground: rolls and bumps at our own discretion. At this point, we embarked on lessons on the impact of landing, that is, they taught us somersault techniques. We had to learn how to carry out circular pirouettes while rolling on arms, shoulders, back and legs: how to transform ourselves into perfect wheels, with a suppleness which would enable us to adapt our rolling movement to any terrain or direction of impact. Of course they also taught us the angel drop with backward flip of the arms, and other acrobatic turns. As regards training for the jump itself, every day they taught us something new: diving jump into a tarpaulin, jump with weapons and rucksack, and finally the blind jump, that is, blindfolded, letting go of the swing while it was swaying. Obviously, sprains, dislocated joints and broken bones were the order of the day. And the instructors' refrain was always the same: ‘Anyone who can't stand it can pack up this very moment!'

In the evening, we would be full of aches and pains, as well as worn out by sheer fatigue. Only a few had the energy to ask for an evening pass: the bulk of us lay on the camp beds chatting. As confidence among us grew, I grasped that others among the trainees felt the same way as me: we were taking part in that gut-bursting tour de force only to escape from something worse, but no one wanted to admit it explicitly. There were also some fanatical followers of the regime who came out with high-minded banalities about fatherland, sacrifice and defence of the race, but the majority ignored them. A large number of the lads had signed up for the course principally to prove to themselves that they had the necessary courage and physical strength, or else to escape from the shell of what they themselves considered a mediocre existence, bereft of all vitality. The commanders at the barracks at Monza had found out that we had skipped off to Tradate, but no one could ask for us to be sent back. In fact, it was as if we were in the Foreign Legion.

The forty days' training passed at incredible speed. We awaited the day of the jump with anxiety and trepidation, but unexpectedly the captain informed us that there were no aircraft available at the Venegono airfield. Some of the boys burst out crying in despair. There were only a few more days, then we were to be sent who knows where, perhaps to the front, perhaps to take part in a search-and-destroy mission near Cirié, in Piedmont. That very evening, Marco and I made up our minds it was time to get moving immediately. Taking advantage of an evening off, we ran to the station and got on the last train bound for the lake and along its shoreline. I had forged two other false passes. When we got to Laveno, we said goodbye. We had no precise programme for our escape. For the moment, Marco decided to go back to his family at Besozzo, then he would see. I got off at Porto Valtravaglia.

I found the whole family at home, and explained my situation to them. I was once again a deserter, but this time the stakes were higher. My father had a friend who lived at Caldé, a colleague with whom he had organised the escape of many wanted people. He already had an understanding with him: the railwayman would put me up in the attic of an old, semi-abandoned house which belonged to him. Half ruined and almost completely overgrown, it was situated in the woods in the depths of the valley. The attic could be reached only by a ladder; once I was inside, I was to pull it up and conceal it. No one, not even my mother, knew about that hiding place. In the attic, I found a straw bed and a cupboard with some provisions obtained by the railwayman. My father and his friend did not even say goodbye; a few waves and they were off. That night, I did not sleep a wink. Sounds and noises from the woods and surrounding fields filled my ears. There were no windows, only a skylight camouflaged by creepers, but I looked out through a hole in the tiles and in the distance I could see the lake. It was a moonlit night, and the noise of barking dogs was redoubled by the echo from the valleys.

Alba, the sister of the railwayman friend, was supposed to come within three days with fresh supplies, but no one turned up. On the evening of the fourth day, I heard the sound of the engine of a truck. I looked out of the usual peep-hole: it was a National Republican Guard patrol. They stopped right under the ruin. They were chatting, but I could not make out what they were saying. On the other side of the roof, beside the skylight, I had a rope in readiness as an alternative possible escape route, but I did not move. I was afraid to make any noise. I lay there, almost without breathing. Suddenly, the four or five of them climbed back into their truck and went away. I will never know why they were up there. Had someone been spying on me? Were they looking for someone else?

Alba, the Italian for Dawn, lived up to her name: she turned up exactly as dawn was breaking, three days late. She had with her a bag filled with foodstuffs. At long last! I had not so much as a jug of water left, but I did not dare go down. I was literally in a state of panic. The woman climbed up the ladders I let down to her. She apologised for the delay, but her brother had had to flee at short notice. The Blackshirts were after him, and so she too had had to stay in hiding.

I spent more than a month up there, without ever going out. From my vantage point, I was able to spy all around. I learned to decipher the greater part of the noises and rustles of the woodland; I came to recognise the song of the various birds, the subtle calls of each animal, the porcupines, ferrets, mice, otters, beech marten and foxes. They were my guard: it was they who gave the alarm or fell instantly silent if someone seemed to be drawing close to our territory. In my turn, I had become part of the fauna of the locality; they knew who I was, and above all knew I was inoffensive. I often threw them handfuls of crumbs, the remains of my meals. Some birds even came up to my peep-hole. Every so often I climbed up to look out through the skylight. It was possible to make out some peasant houses in the valley on the far side of the woods. Who knows if under those roofs there were other fugitives hidden in the same conditions as me.

I believe it was a Tuesday, there was a really bright sun, and all over the valley, as far as the eye could see, the flowers were in bloom. I heard blasts in the distance, and bells began to ring out one after the other from all the bell-towers in the neighbourhood. The wind was in my favour, and even the sound of bells on the far side of the lake carried over to me. I crawled through the skylight, and climbed out onto the roof from where I could see the piazza in Caldé. There was a band playing their hearts out, and young men, women and children were running about all over the place. They were yelling, but I could not make out a word. I did hear the festive shouts of people making their way up to the ruined house. I immediately recognised Alba, her friends, the railwayman and other inhabitants of the valley. ‘It's all over!' they kept on repeating in a loud voice, ‘The war is over!'

CHAPTER 25

Revisiting Grandfather Bristin

Now that the war was over, Porto Valtravaglia went through a period of wild euphoria. Professor Civolla kept repeating: ‘What we finally have before us is an enormous blank page on which to write new ideas and new dreams!' I started travelling with Bianca and Fulvio back and forth to Milan, but I spent more and more time in the city near Largo La Foppa, where my mother had rented a little villa, the property of the railway company.

One Saturday in May, I went to visit my grandfather, whom I had not seen for almost a year. Nino, one of my uncles, offered to take me in his car, known as the ‘hotchpotch', so called because it had been put together with bits and pieces from various cars and from scrap recovered from the foundry. ‘Thank you, I'll be glad to come along … and let's hope that we make it as far as Sartirana!' The journey was a bit of an adventure. We had to get a horse to pull the car across the Po. When we got near Grandfather's farm, my uncle parked his jalopy in a neighbour's stable, begging him not to breathe a word to his father about that collection of scrap metal: Bristìn would have skinned him alive with his mockery.

We found Granddad in the middle of his farmyard, putting the final touches to a ‘conservatory'. It had an enormous conical-shaped cupola of a roof, at least ten metres high, whose base rested directly on the ground. The cone covered a large well, at least ten metres in diameter and the same in depth. The conical cupola was made of interwoven wood and reeds, so that it looked like a big, upturned basket. Entry to the well was via a spiral staircase dug into the ground and reinforced with planks and boards of alder wood, and at the bottom there was a press of snow and ice from the winter cold. The plan was to preserve dairy produce, meat, vegetables and even fish on that deep frozen base. In short, it was the kind of refrigerator in use among the Romans: a ‘conservatory', in other words. Grandfather's eyesight had deteriorated considerably in recent times, and to oversee that kind of temple, he needed the help of the eldest of his sons, Aronne. I was deeply moved as I embraced him, and as he gave me a kiss I felt his cheeks were damp.