Limbo

by Melania G. Mazzucco

  Our shift proved to be more eventful. Our hearing had grown exceptionally acute over the months, and we were able to analyze the slightest sound for clues as to a projectile’s trajectory. The interval between the thud of the shot and the roar of the explosion told us the distance from which it had been fired. A rustle in the air alarmed us, but not enough to make us move; the projectile would land far away, at most sending up some sand spurts. A whistle similar to a birdcall, on the other hand, indicated a serious threat. Which is why Jodice recognized it right away. When it was launched, at 1708 hours on our one hundred and sixty-second day, it made a sinister hiss. “Mortar, Sarge!” he shouted, pulling me to the ground. The first round hit very close by with a terrifying crash, shattering the roof that covered the trench. The second ripped the door off the storehouse; the third landed in the sandbags.

  We radioed FOB immediately that we’d been attacked by Russian-manufactured mortar bombs, 122 mm, judging by the dimensions and explosive power. I asked our bombers to intervene, and was told that first they had to verify there were no civilians in the area. “Can’t you divert some Black Cats?” “Negative, the AMX are engaged to the north, assisting a Spanish patrol in difficulty.” A drone had taken off from Herat, they said. A drone flies at one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, I was thinking, it will already be dark when it starts surveying the mountain, and the sniper, or whoever it is, will already have taken cover; it will be impossible to locate him. And that’s exactly what happened. I ate disgusting combat rations with the Lambda guys, prosciutto cubes and vinegary peaches in syrup. I settled down on a cot. There were no more privileges at COP Khurd. We really were all equal there.

  At dawn the mortar rounds started falling again, with the same monotonous and implacable regularity. But more precise this time. One gutted the chemical toilet, forcing us—until the ingenious Giovinazzo managed to get it working again somehow—to crouch in the sand and scatter our excrement in an already restricted space, shedding any remaining modesty. Taking a shit became a test of one’s courage. The explosions shook the ground and rumbled in our heads. I was tormented by migraines. The ability to react to exhaustion and stress is what distinguishes a good soldier from a mediocre one. I knew it, and so did my men. I felt trapped. I didn’t want to die in a trench like a rat. Of all possible combat deaths, that seemed the most inglorious. Hunched over, I crept from one hole to the next in a tunnel that smelled of smoke and stank like an animal den. I didn’t dare raise my head. Now, when I collapsed on my cot, exhausted, I had to really make sure that whoever was on guard duty didn’t fall asleep, didn’t get distracted even for a second. And when it was my turn, on duty with another soldier, squeezed so tightly into the hole we could barely move, the heat suffocating us, the other guy’s sweat soaking my uniform, plastered so tightly together that I couldn’t have said where my body ended and his began, I had to make sure that he saw what I didn’t, noticed whatever escaped me. That sleepy, stinking, sweat- and dust-encrusted comrade held my life in his hands. In a certain sense, I was him and he was me. I put my life in Diego Jodice’s hands. And I held his in mine. When you have shared that waiting, there’s no going back. You can no longer be just yourself. His life will belong to you forever. And yours to him.

  “If it weren’t for the baby,” he said to me the second day, without taking his eye off his sight, “I would have left Imma. I thought about it every night, all the time. She’s not the one for me. The woman for me would like what I do, really be able to appreciate it, she’d accept that she came second to or alongside this, she wouldn’t try to take it from me because without it, I wouldn’t be me. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “No, Diego,” I said. We waited in the surreal silence for the hiss. Buzzing flies tormented us. I was crouched in the hole, behind the sandbags, shoulder to shoulder with Diego, hands numb, nostrils profaned by the humiliating odor of human feces. “Nothing’s going to happen to us, Mulan,” Diego said. We had given them the correct coordinates this time, we had the technology and the capacity, we could blow those fucking mortars to smithereens in three seconds. But even if something went wrong, and we weren’t able to take them out, the risk wasn’t very high. It was a question of math. An elementary calculation.

  “You have to consider the caliber—let’s say it’s a 122 millimeter—the explosive charge, the weight of the projectile—at least fifteen kilos—the number of rounds a minute—five, I think, even though he hasn’t fired more than three so far, maybe because he doesn’t want to overheat the tube. We’re not exactly in ideal target range, because the angle’s not so good; what’s more, he can’t see us, and there’s enough space around us for chance and destiny to work in our favor. And besides, mortars explode upward and outward, and we’re holed up in here. Let’s say the mortar is about ten klicks away, and the firing area is the outpost surface, six hundred square meters more or less. Each one of us occupies less than a square meter. So now calculate the radius of action of every hit. Let’s say twenty square meters. Divide the space—six hundred—by the radius of action—twenty—and you get the rate of probability that we’ll be hit before that fucking mortar is eliminated. Thirty. So there’s a twenty-nine-to-one chance we’ll survive. That means that in one minute we have sixty out of one thousand, seven hundred and forty chances of being hit. The situation’s not as bad as it seems.”

  “I don’t understand the first thing about math, and I don’t think you do either, Spaniard,” I said, trying to wedge myself deeper into the hole. “If your probability calculations work as well as the one you made with Imma, we’ll all go on ahead, we’ll all meet our death, and they’ll take us back to Italy wrapped in flags.” A mortar explosion, which hit just beyond the edge of the trench, deafened us. We had to keep cotton in our ears for a whole day. “If you really look at life up close, it’s just a shitload of things that happen to you by chance,” Diego observed. “Irrational, improbable things. No rhyme or reason. But from far away you can make out the pattern. You know those Nazca drawings in Peru? I saw a documentary on TV. You can only see the designs from the sky, from the ground they’re just furrows in a field. But from above you can make out birds, animals; none of those lines are by chance. Well, it’s the same thing with life. Seen from afar, there is a rhyme and a reason.” “And what might that be?” I asked skeptically. “I’m still trying to figure it out, Mulan,” Diego said, scratching his helmet. But his bizarre probability calculations worked. No one was hit at the outpost. We sang on our way back to the FOB.

  By now it was over. I could consider my tour of duty a success. I had resisted—physically and psychologically—for one hundred and sixty-seven days. I had shown character and I hadn’t let anyone trample me. I had kept my emotional nature in check, but without suppressing it, because it turned out to be a gift instead of a limitation. I had united my men. We had become a very stable unit. We had cordoned villages, located explosives, and helped capture insurgents. I had designed itineraries that might be used in the future. I had been prudent but not devoid of initiative. I had lost only one Lince, in a textbook ambush that we still managed to thwart in a real armed conflict and without any helicopter backup. The Ninth’s mission could be considered a success as well. A moderate success, yes, but a success nevertheless. We had completed numerous projects, and were leaving others at a good point for the brigade that would replace us. We had respected Operation Reawakening’s calendar and achieved our objective. Or almost. The security bubble around the FOB had been extended to eighteen kilometers, not the twenty requested. But the two thousand missing meters disappeared from the report. I don’t think anyone can blame us for having erased from the map three villages lying in ruins and already buried by sand. The school for girls at Qal’a-i-Shakhrak wasn’t ready either. After it was destroyed by fire in March, there had been some problems with the local laborers. Three weeks before it was finished, the construction workers disappeared. But Tenth Alpini Regiment headquarters wanted to inaugurate it anyway. It would have been u
nfair, after all the work we did and all the sand we ate, to deny the Alpini this satisfaction. It was a question of prestige, of image, and also of money. The schools in the small towns in the Dolomites where the regiment was stationed had gotten involved, participating enthusiastically in the project. They’d raised money and bought teaching supplies. Blackboards, felt-tip pens, notebooks. Italian children had drawn pictures and written notes to Afghani children their age. You couldn’t disappoint all those good people.

  Colonel Minotto finally informed Paggiarin that there would be a purely symbolic ceremony, a simple ribbon cutting in front of the unfinished building. The Tenth would send only a small CIMIC delegation to represent headquarters, along with the Media Combat Team cameras to immortalize it all on film. Paggiarin informed me that, other than for the school ceremony, Pegasus would not be leaving the FOB again. We had not been designated as one of the platoons to initiate reconnaissance and flank the first parachutists, who had already arrived at the base. Outreach missions were over, too. The Ninth had done nine of them, which, given the unstable situation, was respectable. When I informed my men that there would be no more activity for them beyond the base, just guard duty inside the FOB, they applauded. Now we could start looking back; the mission was already beginning to seem like a memory.

  * * *

  During our last weeks there, some enterprising Afghanis began entering the protective barrier at the base. The merchants, who arrived on motorcycles or in ramshackle Toyotas, were eyed with suspicion by the sentries in the towers, who kept them in the crosshairs of their machine guns; the Afghanis stopped at the proper distance from the entrance, subjected themselves to the bomb-sniffing dog’s nose, and hauled their wares in on their shoulders, like traveling salesmen. They sold homemade knickknacks at prices that were exorbitant for the locals but affordable for the Alpini. Metalwork, embroidery, glassware, kilims, carpets, embroidered tablecloths, ceramics, even lapis lazuli. The Afghanis knew that when a company nears the end of its mission and prepares to go home, military spirit fades inexorably: once they get through two thirds of their tour, the countdown starts, and at minus thirty, everything begins to slide. An apathy that no order managed to remedy, a sense of departure, of conclusion that broke down discipline, efficiency, everything. In the end the only thing the soldiers wanted, what they longed for, practically demanded, were souvenirs.

  Ghaznavi had told me that after almost ten years of forced cohabitation, the Afghanis had learned to distinguish the various contingents—and their characteristics. They had drawn up a list. The British were the best in terms of military capabilities. In terms of resources, equipment, and arms, the Americans. For the combination of the two—the French, with the Polish and Canadians right behind them. For logistics and organization, the Germans. The Italians prevailed in human potential and adaptability. But when it came to spending, well, then the classification was reversed. The Italians took first place, hands down. The Germans were good, the Americans, Spanish, and Canadians fair, the Danish and Czechs poor, and the French and Brits dead last. The Italians bought everything, though most preferred carpets and jewels, presents for their wives or girlfriends. (We were also number one in this: there wasn’t anyone who didn’t have a wife or girlfriend, and so the Afghanis, who by twenty were all married and had fathered families, related better to us.) Some even bought burqas for their wives or girlfriends. They bargained energetically, showing off the Dari and Pashto words they’d learned in the past months, not so much to save money but because it was fun.

  The second to last Sunday, D+165, or –15, Russo and Jodice were inspecting a burgundy red carpet. I was curious and went over to take a look. The vendor swore that it came from Herat, handmade, an authentic antique. “Don’t get shafted!” I warned them, convinced as I was by then that the Afghanis were the best liars in the world. “It’ll turn out to be made in Pakistan, woven by tiny fingers. Children go blind weaving carpets.” “Come on, Paris,” Russo laughed, “do you always have to be so politically correct? Whoever made it made it, it’s beautiful, we like it, we want it. How much do you want for it?” he asked the vendor in Dari, who replied by flashing him a price with his fingers. It was too much. Seventeen thousand AFN, about three hundred dollars, two hundred euros. The lieutenant and the Spaniard burst out laughing. “Here carpets are a part of the bride’s dowry,” Nicola explained to Diego, “you absolutely have to buy it for your girlfriend.” “But you saw it first,” Diego objected, flattered. “I bought one the last time,” Russo sighed, “my wife says all it’s good for is collecting dust. My daughter is allergic to mites. Her skin turns pink, like a pig, she scratches herself until she bleeds, poor angel.” “Okay, I’ll get it, then,” Diego says. “But you have to swear you’ll come to my wedding. Imma and I are getting married on August ninth, in the Marcianise cathedral. You must have plenty of vacation days, you didn’t use a single one here.”

  “Inshallah,” Russo said, making a vague gesture. He was reserved, he guarded his private life, and did not speak willingly about his family. He showed me a photo of his little girl only once, on his cell. Brown curls and sparkling eyes. She turned two that day and they had thrown a party for her, with a cake and pink candles. He was distraught at the thought of not being there, but before I could say anything he slipped his phone into his pocket. The Afghani pushed the carpet toward the lieutenant because he knew how to decipher the ranks on their epaulets and was hoping an officer would spend more than an enlisted man. In fact, Diego offered him a tenth of his asking price. “It is not good done,” Diego said in his southern Italian English. “Look, mistake, defect, not good.” The Afghani protested energetically in Dari. “He says the irregularity is intended,” Russo translated, “it keeps away the evil eye, perfection attracts the envy of wicked elves.” “Son of a bitch!” Diego laughed and repeated his offer. The Afghani repeated his request. “Keep at it, Diego,” Russo said good-naturedly, “if you can get it for less than ten thousand, it’s a good price.” Diego was stunned; it was the first time the lieutenant used his first name. “Aren’t you going to invite me to your wedding, Spaniard?” I teased as soon as the lieutenant moved on. “Or aren’t I important enough?” “You’re too important,” Diego said with a sigh. He got the carpet for a third of the original price, and both of them—vendor and soldier—were convinced it was a good deal.

  The carpet I brought home is not the burgundy one that Diego had bargained over that day. It’s blue, with a tangle of green leaves. Maybe it wasn’t made in some factory in Pakistan. Maybe some widow in Herat really did weave it on a loom, in some rural workshop, financed by the military co-op that supported women’s work. I found it on my cot Sunday evening, unrolled like a blanket. “It’s from Baluchistan, at least that’s what Russo told me,” Diego said, coming up behind me. “He knows these things, he’s already done two tours here.” “But didn’t you buy the red one?” I asked with surprise. “It’s yours,” Diego said. “Consider it a wedding gift from the Spaniard. A bride can’t not have a carpet.”

  “But I’m not getting married,” I objected with a smile, “not when I get back or ever. I’m a free spirit. I’m not made to be somebody’s wife. I prefer to be wholly myself than half of something.” “Maybe you’ll change your mind one day and you won’t be able to come back and get one,” Diego said. “And besides, I already bought it, keep it, that way you’ll remember me.” “Thank you,” I said, “it’s really elegant. What’s the design?” “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world,” Diego said, enthralled. “The tree of life.”

  * * *

  The next day, at 0700 hours, I learned I had to choose a team to escort the lieutenant to the inauguration of the girls’ school in Qal’a-i-Shakhrak.

  20

  LIVE

  Diego Jodice’s son is baptized at noon in the Marcianise cathedral. Diego Lorenzo Nicola Jodice. Godfather: General Astorre, commander of the brigade in which the deceased young father served. Godmother: Sergeant Paris, picked up at her
house by Lieutenant Gautieri and taken to the ceremony in an army car. Some Panthers are there, Ninth Company comrades-in-arms, and a sizable contingent from Pegasus platoon, twenty or so emotional men in uniform, their black feathers flying. Almost all of Lambda team is there. In Lorenzo Zandonà’s place is his older brother Fabio. It’s a moving ceremony, but not as sad as Manuela had feared. The Jodice family turns out to be a tribe of about a hundred people, including at least two dozen wild children, excited by the unusual presence of so many men in uniform. When they exit the church and stretch their legs in the churchyard, the bells are pealing, like on Easter.

  Manuela is amazed to see that Imma, Diego’s brown-haired and buxom girlfriend, is only twenty or so. During mass, and even at the baptismal font, she avoided meeting Manuela’s gaze. Outside the church, Manuela makes her way among the soldiers to greet her. She doesn’t really know how to act. She feels tender toward her, because Diego spoke about her every day, tormenting them all by singing her praises. Manuela is meeting her for the first time, but in truth she already knows her well. Knows what she likes to eat, what her favorite beer is, what outlet she buys her clothes at, where she goes on vacation, what her sign is, even what she says when she makes love. Manuela goes to hug her, but Imma turns her head and presents her cheek for a formal kiss. Manuela is about to say something appropriate to the occasion, but Imma is swept away by a whole host of festive girlfriends who compete for the newborn, squealing in admiration, and Manuela is pushed to the end of the line. General Astorre has to leave, an unavoidable commitment. He asks her hurriedly how she is, promises that the army will not forget about her, we’re all family. Paggiarin has to leave right away, too. Unfortunately he can’t come to the reception. He’s rounder than before, and there are some gray hairs in his beard. Manuela recognizes the merit cross for Afghanistan on his chest and the tower of new ranks on his epaulets. He has been promoted to major. “I appreciate that you found the strength to come, Paris,” he tells her. “This child is the son of the entire regiment. We can’t forget about him. We’re taking up a collection, so the family knows we’re here. They’re good people, and they need it.”