by Mark Helprin
Suddenly, he was thrown forward as if he had been butted from behind by a bull. He flew over half the clearing and was about to smash headlong into a fallen log when he was turned in the air away from it. Whatever had launched him was clinging to him still, and for its own convenience had rotated him belly up so that he now saw nothing but blue.
As they landed, and as all the air left Alessandro's lungs, he received a tremendous blow to the face. He had no chance to move, no opportunity to respond. In split seconds, he tried to comprehend. Then an enormous, balding, blue-eyed man pulled back, left him, and casually walked over to the rifle. After he took it from the forked sapling and removed the sheath from the bayonet so forcefully that it flew into the air, he twirled around and came at Alessandro.
His own bayonet, with which he himself had killed a man, was moving toward him like a routing hound, but more swiftly and more surely. The man guiding it seemed unperturbed, as if he were about to stick a shovel in a pile of earth before sitting down to have his lunch.
Alessandro watched the oiled silver point and sucked in his breath. He had a choice. He could think, now I'm going to die, and this is the last thing I'm going to see, or he could find himself a tenth of a second to one side of the blade, just having escaped and not knowing quite how.
Though he had no balance or strength, his muscles exploded and he flew to the side. The bayonet went into the soft forest floor and cut a clay-colored gash in the underside of the fallen log.
Alessandro somersaulted backward into the brush and rolled down the hill, his flesh torn by rocks and branches. To encourage gravity, he pushed with his legs and arms whenever he touched anything, windmilling recklessly down the slope until he found himself, breathing like a whore, at the bottom of a little grassy knoll.
He had a clear line of sight all the way up to where he had been, miraculously far away, and he cocked his head to see if he were being pursued. The breeze didn't even move the leaves, and the balding blond man was disappearing straight up a lava run at disheartening speed, carrying Alessandro's pack and rifle.
Without thinking, without at first even standing up, Alessandro set out after him.
HE WANTED neither to lose him nor to be observed, so he kept to the edge of the lava run, among bushes and trees. The cuts on his face still bled, the black dust that he breathed settled in the open wounds, and he turned his ankle half a dozen times, but eventually he got his breath and stopped bleeding.
He had to move quietly because he was so close. The deserter was in the center of the lava, making his way steadily up, as even in his pacing as a mountain guide. Alessandro followed him for two hours, a hundred meters to his right and a few meters behind, and in all that time the deserter did not look back once, but as the sun began to set and a shadow covered the east he stopped and scanned everything below him on the mountain. Alessandro fell flat against the rocks.
The deserter stood straight and tall, backlit by the sun. As the evening breeze came up it caught his hair and made it flash wildly, as if he were wearing a golden helmet. He was standing amid fields of yellow grasses that still showed a tint of green where the hillocks rose and the ground was uneven. Beyond him, the sky was empty. It was getting cold, and Alessandro could clearly see the outline of his rifle and bayonet slung over the deserter's shoulder, tight against the side of the pack that had food, water, ammunition, and warm clothing.
In the dark, Alessandro moved closer. He was downwind and could hear his quarry, although he himself could not be heard. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of the man's outline against the slightly violet sky of early evening, and later he could see him when he blacked out the stars.
Now and then, Alessandro heard shots from far below. They were so faint that he could not be sure that he had not imagined them. If the wind were cupped in his ear just a little, the sound would vanish, and, compared to the uncertain reports, the footsteps of the deserter were like hammer blows.
At about ten o'clock the deserter halted at the edge of the crater. With nothing to do but think and be cold, Alessandro watched him climb onto a huge boulder and settle at the top like a Biblical ascetic. He's going to rest until dawn, Alessandro thought, because he can't move through the crater at night. Then he's going to go like hell to the northeast and disappear in the direction of Messina, or to a cave where he'll be safe.
Alessandro curled up into a soft clump of grass, gripping his ankles and trying to cover as much of his body as he could with his arms. It wasn't very comfortable, but it was warmer than standing or sitting, and he fell asleep.
He awoke in complete silence at about four o'clock. Not even the wind was fast enough to make any noise, and the mountain air was clear and dense, with the stars and the Milky Way shining through as if they were agitated and angry. A crescent of moon so thin as to look like celestial breakage was suspended just above the sea on its way to the other side of the world.
Alessandro decided to wait until two or three minutes after the deserter had set out, when he was clean, well rested, well fed, and convinced that he was safe, when he was no longer thinking of Alessandro and was sure that he had not been followed. And then Alessandro would strike, when both were euphoric with the high-altitude dawn.
He went ahead to find the path that, before the war, tourists and naturalists had worn into the rim of the crater. No one walking over the mountain could avoid it. Though Alessandro climbed straight for the rim, it took him longer than he expected to get there. Lakes of fire in the crater far below turned over and boiled and were covered in hideous red scales and flakes as if they were the dried skin of a mythical animal. Now and then a line of fire would leap into the air and fall back, leaving an impression temporarily upon the molten lake from which it had sprung. The air that flowed past the rim was sulfurous and unbreathable, and the malevolent lakes had been working through the night for many thousands of years, scouts in a war so great and so deep within the earth that the surface was held in contempt.
Alessandro walked the path until he found a set of boulders on its eastern side. He climbed up to a flat ledge, and went down again to search for a rock that had a sharp and jagged edge and would fit comfortably in his hand. Just as the first rays of weak rose-colored sun struck the spot where the deserter had slept, a small fire appeared, as neat as the light of a lantern.
When the fire went out, Alessandros terror began. In the detonator shed at Mestre he had had training in unarmed combat, but no exercise could prepare him for what he was about to do. In a candid moment, his instructor had told the troops that they had little chance of prevailing against someone much bigger, no matter what they knew. Alessandro had only half learned the drills, and had half forgotten what he had learned. He remembered the speed and grace with which the deserter had seized the rifle, unsheathed the bayonet, and soundlessly positioned the blade. He remembered with what serenity he had attacked, not even breathing hard. Alessandro tried to master the skating that was going on in his stomach, by staring at the boulder under his feet and remaining still. The rising sun soon outplayed the molten lakes, and though they were in shadow they could not match the smallest part of its blood-colored circle. The higher the sun climbed, the less Alessandro was afraid.
The deserter was coming up the path and Alessandro was shaking, afraid that he would let him pass or that when the moment came to jump he would be so dazed with fear that he would leap either too early or too late.
No longer was Alessandro angry, or at least he didn't think so. All he wanted was to live. Why not let him go, he thought. Just let him pass. That way, I stay alive. Because the son of a bitch stole my rifle and my clothes. When he came at me with my own bayonet he was going to kill me, and for him it was nothing.
He tightened his jaw and clenched his right fist around the rock. Now the sun was blinding as it rose like a balloon past the rim of the volcano.
Alessandro thought of a lion on a rock, waiting for its prey. A lion would be neither afraid nor angry, but as it sailed onto the
back of what it was going to kill, it would appear to be angry. It would roar, and rake with its paws. Like the lion of Venice, it would have a mane stiff with sun and dust. Like the lion of Venice, with a sad face that was brutal and wise, it would let God and nature guide it in its fight.
It would have to be that way for Alessandro, because he had no time in which to think further. He heard footsteps at a rapid pace. The deserter appeared. He had no idea that anyone was waiting for him, and he moved ahead like a hiker.
In the second that Alessandro was airborne he lost his fear. He was about to return a favor, and he was flying in like a hawk. As the deserter turned, Alessandro tried to strike him in the face with the rock, but gravity conspired against him and the blow landed to the side.
They both went down, the pack fell away and seemed almost to crumple, and the rifle clattered on the rocks. For a moment neither moved. Alessandro threw a punch and felt his fists lightly touch a row of teeth, but the next thing he knew two boots were pressing against his stomach. They didn't merely kick him, they pushed until he was lifted away and thrown back against the boulder. The rock flew from his hand.
The deserter went straight for the rifle. He put his hands on it and was about to turn when Alessandro ran against him like a ram, butting him off the edge of the trail to a place far below. He had suf fered in the fall. Alessandro, on the other hand, was untouched, but the rifle had gone over the edge, too. The deserter slowly picked it up, worked the action, and pointed it toward Alessandro, who pulled himself back from the edge so fast that no shot was fired.
When Alessandro looked out from the rocks he saw the mountain soldier who had tried to drive a bayonet into him limping toward the floor of the crater, with the rifle cradled in his arms, checking the path behind him so frequently that it looked as if he were having trouble making up his mind about what direction to take.
Alessandro undid the pack. The deserter had not known of the pistol, wrapped in its belt, at the bottom of the left inside pocket. Alessandro strapped it on. He drank his water and ate dried meat, biscuits, and fruit as he examined the deserter's belongings—a torn sweater, a French knife with a wooden handle, a socialist political manifesto dated May, 1915, a jar of jam, and a postcard of the Sistine Chapel. The postcard was from a woman named Berta, it said that she was returning to Danzig, and it was addressed to a Gianfranco di Rienzi in a battalion of the Alpini that Alessandro knew to be superb mountaineers who had fought for years in the snow.
Perhaps because Alessandro now knew the deserter's name, that he was a mountaineer, and that he had been in love with Berta and had not been loved back, he had no desire to kill him, or even to capture him, but he could not tolerate the fact that he did not have his rifle. Alessandro wrapped a sweater around his body like a bandolier, drained the last of the water, and set out once again. As he took to the path he drew the pistol to check it and release the safety catch, and as he holstered the gun he felt the inexplicable energy that sometimes comes in the morning to soldiers who have not slept the night before.
BY THE time Alessandro reached the caldera he was very thirsty but he knew that Gianfranco di Rienzi must have been thirstier. The sun was strong and heat rising from the lakes of fire bent the air until it waved back and forth in vertical sheets that looked like water.
Because of hidden pools of magma under a crust that might collapse with a man's weight, Gianfranco now and then hit the ground with the rifle butt in much the same way that a skater stamps his feet to test the ice.
Gianfranco turned, raised the rifle, and fired a shot in Alessandro's direction. As the report echoed amidst the fumes, Alessandro winced and bent on one knee, but the shot had already passed.
The second shot was more considered. Alessandro had time to drop to the ground, and he heard the bullet fly over his head, but he was not in good cover. Gianfranco wasted two more rounds, and managed only to sting Alessandro's face as they shattered the sharp and jagged rocks nearby, and to reduce the ammunition remaining to three rounds.
Alessandro felt strangely unafraid, because Gianfranco di Rienzi now had only three chances, three little bullets. In the Bell Tower and in the trenches thereafter, bullets had been like rainfall. Three bullets in a vast open area simply did not impress him, so he ran forward, leaping the hot seams that crossed from lake to lake and patch to patch, and he forced Gianfranco, at fifty meters, to track him and waste another shot. This one, though, had been very close. Only two remained, and Gianfranco did what Alessandro thought he was going to do. He decided to use the bayonet. He carefully removed the sheath, hung it on his belt, and doubled back at a run.
Alessandro drew the pistol, flung away the belt, and fled into a rock-strewn depression, hiding the pistol in his waist. When Gianfranco appeared at the rim of the depression, shrouded in clouds of sunlit yellow fumes, he would have the option of shooting Alessandro or moving closer to bayonet him. Knowing that Gianfranco would want to preserve his last two cartridges, Alessandro sat on a rock and kept his feet on the ground.
Gianfranco did appear in the sulfur fumes, but he was behind Alessandro. He could have shot him, but they had been living off one another's mistakes for almost a day, and it continued. Gianfranco was greedy for the two cartridges. He started to descend.
When Alessandro heard the clinking of rocks rolling down the slope he rose and turned.
Gianfranco was sure that he had him. "Why did you chase me, you idiot. I took from you what I needed, and twice I let you live. Twice. Couldn't you let me live?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You're a deserter."
"You don't like deserters? You're a monarchist? Stupid!"
"I'm not a monarchist," Alessandro said when they were standing so close that in ten steps Gianfranco would have him on the tip of the bayonet, "I don't like deserters."
"Why not?"
"Guariglia. Guariglia has a wife and children. When you left the line, you son of a bitch, you made it more difficult for him to stay alive."
"Maybe you and Guariglia should have left, too."
"No, because of the other Guariglias and the others like me."
"Perhaps they should desert as well."
"So Austrians would be looking for them, instead of Italians? You know what would happen. The deserters would band together to fight the Austrians, and they would be an army."
"I promise you,"
Gianfranco said, "that army, too, would have its deserters."
"And I promise," Alessandro responded, "that people like me would go out to look for them."
"That's too bad," Gianfranco said, "because we've come to a standstill. We both have interesting arguments, but I have the rifle." He dropped the rifle into bayonet position and came forward. His right hand gripped the neck of the stock, and his trigger finger was pulled out of position.
This gave Alessandro just enough time to move a step back, take hold of the pistol, and withdraw it from his shirt. By the time it was aimed at Gianfranco di Rienzi's head, Alessandro had cocked the hammer. If Gianfranco continued forward or changed the position of his right hand, he would be shot.
"Right through your head," Alessandro shouted, his finger so tight on the trigger that he himself could not be sure he wouldn't fire.
If Gianfranco surrendered, he would live until he was executed. And, yet, he could no longer go forward, so he threw down the rifle, drew back, and bolted, thinking that Alessandro did not have it in him to shoot.
OF THE seven prisoners on the cattle boat, three were wounded. They lay on deck, in chains, under a canvas canopy. Those who weren't wounded wanted the ship to hit a mine, for then they would be unshackled and given a chance in the sea, but the wounded had no hope: they were not strong enough to swim ashore, and in the water they would bleed to death.
Gianfranco di Rienzi was bandaged on the shoulder and on the leg. His expression was blank. Alessandro had watched him as they marched through Catania. His eyes took in everything but returned nothing. He h
ad ridden on a cart with two other prisoners, under a rain-soaked blanket. Catania is flat but gives the impression of being on a hill above the sea. All the shops were shuttered, everything gray. They passed a restaurant where Fabio ducked in and tried to order a cappuccino, and even though he was forced back into the line, he had been inside long enough for the smoky fire to make him smell of lamb and hot oil. The soldiers of the River Guard marched double time, pushing the big two-wheeled cart over the rough cobbles. Rain ran down their faces in streams. Their uniforms were wet, as were their boots, packs, and everything inside. The rifles were covered with beads of moisture, and the oil that beaded the water turned cloudy as it cooled.
Only now and then did a light appear in a window, or a woman or a child peek through a curtain at the column of soldiers. When rain swept through the streets of Catania the city had neither the architecture nor the custom to cheer itself up, for whereas cities like Salzburg or London had been built for rain, Catania had gambled everything on a blue sea and a flawless sky.
Gianfranco di Rienzi was without expression, but as his gaze jumped from overspilling gutters to water-slickened façades to rain-laden palms dripping in the wind, he studied the city as if he were a mother touching the face of her child for the last time.
They boarded the cattle boat in silence. The prisoners were astounded and depressed to see it, as if they thought they might have been happier had they been brought to the site of their execution in a new destroyer with sanded decks and polished brass fittings, and perhaps they would have been. Given their first view of the cattle boat, so low in the water that it looked like a man whose belt had dropped to his knees, their melancholy made some sense, especially in the fog and the rain. And when the cattle boat cast off and just drifted through the mist the prisoners were thrown into the deepest despair. Engines, lights, and forward motion would have given them reassuring order, and rhythms for their fingers to copy and their hearts to follow. If the modern world were to execute them, it was obliged to keep them busy beforehand, but they found themselves soaking wet, wounded, and floating blindly on a flat gray sea. In one respect it hardly mattered, for the life of a soldier is an introduction to death, and when death comes or is about to come, the soldier is at least partially satisfied.