Limbo

by Melania G. Mazzucco

“I’m not judging you,” Stefano clarifies. “I can imagine your take on it, otherwise you wouldn’t have enlisted. But only the person who believes in something has the right to question it. Disillusionment is the privilege of purists. Did you ever feel you were in the wrong place, Manuela? Like a card in the hands of a card shark? Didn’t you ever wonder if you were being used? If the politicians are trying to recoup some international credibility by sacrificing your skin? I know you weren’t the ones who bombed those villages, but I’m wondering what the point of rebuilding them is if there’s still a war going on. Okay, not officially, but in practice, which is the same thing. It’s like poisoning the wells and then handing out bottles of mineral water.” “Twenty-two were Taliban,” Manuela replies.

  But one morning their convoy had passed a yellowish expanse of earth at the foot of a hill on which there had once been some buildings. Nothing remained but ruins blackened by fire. The hill was strewn with rocks, and here and there stood reeds, with green rags on top, fluttering in the wind. The ground swelled gently, with what seemed to be natural undulations, like ripples of erosion—or explosion craters. Lance Sergeant Spina explained that they were graves. “The cemeteries here make me sad,” he had said to her. “They only dig as deep as they need to, because the ground’s as hard as crystal, then they quickly cover the bodies with a layer of sand and at most a pile of rocks. They don’t put any names, no marker other than maybe an oblong stone, they don’t bring flowers. The desolation is unbelievable.”

  “Maybe it’s not because they don’t care,” Manuela had observed, staring dumbfounded at the empty expanse. “Maybe they’re all dead. Maybe there’s no one left to come visit.” Parallel hollows in a land as arid as ashes. Graves too big to contain just one body. Common graves. And more than twenty-two of them.

  “After all that’s happened, now that you’re back,” Stefano continues, even more animated now, “don’t you think that twenty-first-century Italians should break the spell of history that compels them to act like servants in other people’s wars? It’s been this way since even before Italy existed as a nation. The Crimean War, World War I, World War II, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq. We go to war so as not to be left out, but without any real reason, which means we end up being there without real conviction, without the consensus of the people. It must be frustrating to be a soldier in a country that makes war that way.” “But I don’t make war,” Manuela says. “I’m a soldier of peace.”

  Stefano looks at her perplexed, and is about to say something, but she seems so forlorn that the words die in his throat.

  * * *

  In front of her house, he opens the car door, retrieves her crutches, and helps her get out. “I’m sorry if you didn’t think I was very nice,” he says. “The fact is, maybe I’m not very nice. And besides, you intimidate me a little, because of what’s happened to you, because you’re a soldier, or in the military, sorry, I don’t know these things, it’s all new to me.” “You’re not the first person to say that to me,” Manuela says, extracting herself with difficulty from the low seat and grabbing her crutches. “You’re the most interesting woman I’ve met since I’ve been back,” he goes on, embarrassed. “You must not have met very many women,” Manuela cuts him off without even a glance, digging in her purse for her keys. “I’d like to see you again,” he hazards. “I’m sorry,” Manuela says, “but I’m not looking for anyone. I want to be alone. Vanessa really wanted to go out with your friend, and she never would have gone without me. I’m sure it seems strange, but we’re really close. I’m sorry.”

  The concierge at the Bellavista Hotel is watching TV in the lobby. All the keys are dangling on the board. All except one. The guest is out on the balcony, on the third floor. It’s cold, but there he is, wrapped in his scarf, his cap pulled low on his forehead, and a cigarette between his fingers, as if he were waiting for her. Manuela gives him a smile.

  * * *

  At seven in the evening Manuela goes down to the beach. Vanessa’s still not back. “I’m going to do my exercises,” she says to her mother. She feels suffocated inside the house. The sea is stormy. A cold wind blows from the west, fraying the crests of the waves and slapping the sand. It’s dark. The lights of the Tahiti, obscured by the mist, quiver faintly, like stars in some far-off galaxy. The streetlamps along the esplanade give off a soft glow and cast long yellow shadows on the black sand. But the darkness thickens as she heads toward the shore. Manuela pulls her jacket tightly around her and tries to light a cigarette. But the tiny flame from her lighter dies in a gust. “Face into the wind,” a male voice suggests, making her jump. Her heart pounds against her chest. Pounds with fear, with the habit of fear, but maybe with something else, too. “I see you haven’t been smoking long,” the voice says. “Don’t turn or try to shield the flame. You have to stay face to the wind. Like this.” A spark of flame lights a cigarette, which seems cradled by the night. When the embers catch, she sees what she already knows. It’s the guest at the Bellavista.

  He lights Manuela’s cigarette as well. The smoke spirals up and dissolves. In the dark, the guest at the Bellavista stands close to her, one hand in his coat pocket and his mouth buried in his scarf. He smells good. “Are you on vacation?” he asks after a bit. “More or less,” she says. “And you?” “Me, too, more or less.” Manuela turns to look at him. She can just make out the contours of his face, the cloud of rumpled hair, square jaw, a big, strong, slightly crooked nose. He’s nearsighted, his glasses gleam in the dark. Flashy red frames, the Tom Ford logo visible on the temple. A black, expensive-looking coat. “I don’t need to look at you now,” he says, continuing to stare at the water’s edge. “Because I already know you. I can see your house from my window. You’re thin and don’t eat much. You’re the last to go to bed and the first to get up. You sleep with the light on. Sometimes you wake up and pace around your room. You wear a white T-shirt instead of pajamas. And don’t ask me that question. The answer is no. I’m not a psycho.”

  “I know you, too,” Manuela says, strangely neither offended nor embarrassed at the idea that the guest at the Bellavista has spent three days spying on her from behind his shutters. After all, she was doing the same thing. “You drink seltzer water. You read a book before turning out the light. You spend hours surfing the Internet on your laptop. You run well. You smoke too much. You don’t get phone calls. You’re afraid of habits. You’re waiting for something.”

  The guest at the Bellavista smiles. Then, she leaning on her crutches, he jamming his fists in his coat pockets, they head slowly toward the glimmering lights of the Tahiti. Physical proximity makes Manuela dizzy, but she doesn’t shrink from him. Raked by the icy wind, silenced by the bellowing sea, they don’t say much more, nothing important, anyway. Unessential information, uttered lightly, as if it were all superfluous already. At eight she leaves him in front of the glass door of the Bellavista. She doesn’t want her mother, sister, and niece to see her emerge from the dark with a stranger. She wouldn’t be able to explain. She says goodbye without ceremony. He’s expecting her at the hotel restaurant tomorrow at one. His name is Mattia.

  5

  HOMEWORK

  Lance Sergeant Spina was my deputy. Short and squat as a cork, balding, Ray-Bans even after sunset, a voice like a crow. Several years older than me, he made a show of being both protective and deferential. I was grateful but also wary, because I suspected that he really wanted to undermine my authority. The soldiers really respected him, they’d done other tours of duty together. I was just beginning to sort out the Panthers of the Ninth. Only a quarter considered themselves true Alpini—those actually born in the region of the regiment. They called the others—terroni from the south who’d enlisted to make a living—mercenaries, and not always jokingly. And they made fun of me because I was born on the coast and was like a fish out of water among mountain infantrymen. I wore the brown feather in my cap just like they did, but I would have to eat a lot of sand and snow in order to consider myself one of them.
During training, in Italy, everything went fine. But I knew I’d have to start all over again once we were in country. My first words, my first orders, would prove decisive. If I made a mistake, I’d never be able to make up for my initial error, even if I did my best later on. Most of the guys in my platoon were veterans, professionals. Some already had wrinkles and a touch of gray hair. These men grew old before becoming career soldiers or being promoted to sergeant, and very few got even that far, so I could understand their frustration at seeing the gold stripes on my shoulders.

  I don’t remember all of them. I’ve already forgotten the names and faces of some, and others I get mixed up. The only thing that sticks in my mind about Abbate was his dysentery, which debilitated him to the point that he couldn’t leave the base. He was so ashamed. All I remember about Curcio, Montano, and Zanchi is how competent they were, they knew what to do even before receiving orders. About Fontana and Pedone, their incredible aim: they were my best shooters. Giovinazzo, his burbly laughter and kindness. They called him the Good Egg. Morucci, the awful, incredibly vulgar jokes that never got so much as a smile out of me. But the other Pegasus guys, good or bad, friends or enemies, became a part of my life. Puddu was my team’s radio operator, but I never knew his real name. Everyone called him Owl because he played chess against the computer at night. The riflemen Rizzo and Venier—known as the Cat and the Fox—I pegged right away as two slackers. Whenever they had a free moment, they’d lie down and start tanning: “We’re at over three thousand feet,” Rizzo would say jubilantly, “the sun really cooks here, it’s like being in the mountains.” Had it been up to me, I never would have let them deploy. But supposedly we were short of men, so they took whoever signed up. Pieri, a machine gunner with a sculpted physique, reminded me of the Belvedere Torso at the Vatican, but the others called him Michelin Man because he was so pumped. He’d knock himself out in the gym tent, really went crazy with the chin-ups—he could do twenty in a row without breaking a sweat. He was first-rate and I made him my squad leader.

  Zandonà was the youngest of our platoon, of the entire company. Small, super thin, rust-colored hair that formed a crest like a hoopoe bird’s, freckles, and a smooth face. The northerners called him “Boy,” the southerners “O Bebè,” everybody else “Baby.” I rebaptized him “Nail” and in the end it stuck. He photographed everything, like a Japanese tourist in Rome: he wanted to get into PI—public information—so he documented our every move. He never spoke, not even a mute says less. He was twenty, but looked even younger. The platoon chose him as their mascot, but the company targeted him right away as the preferred butt of their jokes. They picked on him, teased him. In the space of three days they pinched his toilet paper, requisitioned his sunscreen, and shat in his helmet. At the end of our Christmas lunch, they made him stand up and sing “Jingle Bells.” Zandonà could carry a tune, so he pulled it off. The fact that he was a driver made me think he was an ignoramus who’d only finished junior high. They had no imagination at Army General Staff. Those with hotel management degrees were assigned to the mess, those with high school diplomas to headquarters, junior high graduates were all shooters or drivers.

  Jodice was big, strong, and swarthy. He had bushy sideburns and a mane of curly hair. A gladiator tattooed on his right biceps, and a woman’s name, Imma, on the left. He complained that the phone card he bought didn’t work, that cell phones were blocked at the FOB, and that they were allowed only one hour of free Internet a day—but there weren’t enough computer stations, headsets, or webcams, so the guys fought over them, which bred discontent. “A soldier comes all this way to hell and gone, he deserves a little respect,” he would protest. An arrogant and self-centered braggart, he always did the talking, and he knew everything, not even an old general was as wise. His name was Diego, but everyone called him the Spaniard, like the gladiator tattooed on his arm. Spina had warned me that he was the alpha male of our platoon. Even though he wasn’t older or higher ranking, he had a powerful charisma. The others followed his lead. What was right for him was right for everyone. I told Spina I wasn’t interested in ethology, I preferred psychology. Spina said that soldiers are just like a pack of jackals, lions, or wolves, and I’d do well to remember that. I reminded him the soldiers of the Ninth Company were called Panthers, and panthers don’t hunt in packs.

  But I should have listened to him. Spina soon let me know that Jodice was determined to make the guys aware that this was his fifth tour of duty, and his second in the Stan, whereas Sergeant Paris had only been in Kosovo, and the riskiest mission she’d had to perform there was to escort an Orthodox patriarch through the beautiful green countryside and a sleepy city full of shops to church. That he’d grown up on the street, in a place where they’d had to establish a curfew and where people gunned one another down in video arcades, and he’d seen plenty of people shot and killed, while she was born in a beach town where not a damn thing ever happens, and had never even seen blood. That at age fifteen he was already making criminals respect the law, while she, with that schoolgirl face, wouldn’t even know how to get kindergartners to obey her. That he was a corporal and she a sergeant, but that he had bigger balls than all the students at Viterbo put together. That my rank was higher, but that experience is the only rank that really matters, and so by that logic Sergeant Paris was worth zero point one, and he’d shit on my gold stripes. Right from the start, during those months of consolidated training at Belluno, I’d marked him as someone who would make life difficult for me. I tried to keep him at a safe distance.

  The third day, Jodice showed up for evening roll call blatantly listening to his iPod and crooning none too softly. I knew perfectly well that he was trying to provoke me, but I didn’t feel like yelling at him, calling him out for insubordination, or confining him right away to the barracks for five days. I simply held out my hand and made him give me his earbuds. “Do you like Gigi D’Alessio, Sergeantess?” he asked me as he handed them over. “Sergeant,” I corrected him. If he thought he’d get a hysterical reaction, he was mistaken: I smiled. I wanted to assert myself mildly. “And anyway, no. I prefer Gory Blister. I’m okay with Krysantemia, Delirium Tremens, or Katatonia, but the rest is sweet candy pop for little girls.” Pegasus exchanged astonished looks. They’d never imagined a woman could withstand the reverberant rape of death metal.

  I don’t look for conflicts; I usually avoid them. Maybe because I’m a woman, and because I can’t stand a frontal attack. I’ve always preferred strategy. My technique is siege. Attrition. Infiltration behind enemy lines. But this time I couldn’t wait. Alpha male or not, he had publicly shown me a lack of respect. I knew how to retreat to defend myself, but I also had to show him I knew how to advance to check him. I’m not rigid, but I am firm. Flexible but not weak. But this thing was just between me and Jodice. I never would have humiliated him in front of the others. So when he came down from his watch in the tower, at five in the morning, exhausted and numb with cold, I summoned him. “Your sideburns are too long, Jodice,” I noted. “Regulations don’t allow it. Shorten them, shave them, whatever, but I don’t want to see them again.” Jodice protested. He said that no one gave a fuck about regulations around here. That we were in the fucking Afghan desert, not the June 2 parade on the Fori Imperiali. “You look like a hobo, or a terrorist,” I insisted. “The regulations impose decorum. Get rid of them.” “You don’t give a shit about my sideburns, Sergeant, you want to emasculate me,” Jodice said, staring me insolently in the face. “Get rid of them.” I kept smiling, unflappable. When a superior tells you something, you have to do it. Period. Jodice shaved his sideburns.

  * * *

  Our turn finally came, and Pegasus was allowed to leave the base. In a darkness already giving way to milky dawn, the soldiers loaded crates of ammunition, readied the flares, and took their places in the Linces, crossing themselves beforehand. I was team leader for Lambda team, with Zandonà. It was my duty to be in the vehicle with the youngest driver. And to convey calm and confidenc
e to my team. The soldiers get nervous if they sense their leader is nervous. “So, Sergeant, why do you think we Italians head out so early?” Jodice asked. “Because we have a long way to go,” I answered, without even turning around. The thing with the sideburns had remained between us, but Jodice had pumped himself up with negative energy. In other circumstances, had we faced a real war, I think I would have been in danger. But I wanted to show him I wasn’t afraid of his arrogance, so I put him on my team. Art of command, or something like that. “Because we’re the biggest losers,” he sneered. “Those crafty Afghanis wait till the sun’s already high before they head out. The first to take a road left unguarded during the night is the first to be blown up.” “You didn’t listen to the briefing, Jodice,” I silenced him. “Bombs here are all remote controlled. If they want to get you, they’ll get you.”

  Zandonà activated the mine lock on the doors. I buckled my seat belts. “Initiating movement, over,” Zandonà said. Then he put the armored vehicle in gear and drove through the gates of the base. I hoped he really was as skilled and experienced as the captain had assured me, but his freckles and beardless chin didn’t exactly inspire confidence. It wasn’t easy to drive that six-ton beast down streets pocked with bombs and tank tracks, control it crossing fords, and keep it from getting stuck in the sand. The thing that would have upset me most was to be injured in a road accident, in Afghanistan. That would have been ridiculous. But it could always happen.

  So here we are, a column of armored vehicles one behind the other, going ten kilometers an hour on a track riddled with craters, passing burned-out vehicles and mud villages dotted with pestilent human excrement and animal carcasses in various stages of decay, and crisscrossed by people pushing carts piled high with jerry cans of water, children prodding goats, old people riding even older donkeys, or in decrepit, unrecognizable cars, the doors a different color than the body, jam-packed, people crammed even in the trunk, and vehicles with the steering wheel on the right instead of the left, driven by hostile-looking men in turbans with no respect for the rules of the road. The villages we drove through without stopping had no electricity or running water. Nothing but rubble everywhere, ruins, and absolute, radical poverty. The farther we got from the base, the rarer the signs of reconstruction became, until finally they ceased entirely. “The magnitude of this disaster is unimaginable,” I confessed at mess that night to First Lieutenant Russo. “It’ll take a hundred years at least to get this country back on its feet.” “Things are improving,” he assured me. Russo was in charge of the CIMIC cell. An optimist, a humanist, and an anthropologist, he had faith in progress. No obstacle seemed insurmountable to him. “The first time I came here, in 2003,” he said, “there wasn’t even an airport in Kabul anymore. The terminal had been destroyed—by the Russians, I think. Burned to the ground. The only thing that had survived the bombs was a billboard that said ‘GOOD FLIGHT.’ That paradoxical slogan expressed the desire to soar again. To fly. We have to make this country fly.” “That’s why we’re here,” I replied.