I think that the difference between those not-so-far-off days and the present is the same as that between the sound of a Spitfire engine and the roar of a jet plane a few hundred feet overhead. There was something human about the sound of old planes, and we could imitate it. During the war we would make the sound in philosophy class; Professor Benedetti thought there really was an air raid, and he would make the whole class go down to the ground floor. The masters at this imitation were Storelli and Talamini but, with a bit of practice, all of us were able to do it with fairly credible results.
That is how things were in Italy between 1945 and 1950, Girls were still interested in getting married, and that conditioned the way they acted with the boys. So our only alternative was to visit the houses or go abroad. My father often sent me to England during the holidays to study English. He did not care much about where in England. 1 usually went to stay with customers, who acted one way in Italy and altogether differently at home. My first major impact with the byways of purita-nism came one whole winter 1 spent within the walls of a grim castle set on the soft slopes of Somerset, Beds were always overpopulated, the excuse being that there were ghosts, and the only time you could get any sleep at all was during the day. To put it mildly, I made only slight progress in my studies that year.
END OF THE INTERMEZZO BETWEEN CHAPTERS EIGHT AND NINE
CHAPTER NINE
In which George and Heloise receive a visit from Tom Margitai accompanied by Lieutenant Ry-land and Sergeants Amundsen and Nobel
By seven in the morning, George had been awake for almost two hours. He had awakened with a start thinking Heloise was not there. Neither of them were deep sleepers. Just as it had been during the fourteen nights they spent upstairs from Harry’s Bar, sleep was rather a lazy, drowsy happy extension of waking reality. George felt the warmth of Heloise’s body and then her delicate breathing. He adored knowing that she was sleeping by his side. It was almost like loving her in secret. The night before, they had dined at the home of the chief merchant of the village together with his whole family The room they had been given upstairs for the past two weeks was large and bright, and the enormous bed was very comfortable.
He had been thinking ever since he woke up. He often woke up very early He considered it the finest moment of the day He lay quietly on his back and let his mind wander, enjoying the unusual clarity of his thoughts. He was trying to plan things in an orderly fashion. He thought that sooner or later he would have to write his aunt and tell her everything that had happened. She had loved him tenderly since he was a child. That childless woman had showered all her love on him, but that did not prevent her from occasionally giving expression to her strength of character. She had cracked more umbrellas over his head than his father had.
George heard the first cock crows and glimpsed the slow clearing of the night. The dogs were no longer barking, as they had the night before. Now the only sounds were the flight and chatter of small birds at the start of their busy day
While George listened and ruminated, Heloise turned over lightly on her side and her foot brushed against George’s knee. He ran a finger over her shoulder, and she complied by pressing her foot against his knee again. Then she smiled in her sleep.
George heard the voices of the family downstairs as they began to waken. He caressed Heloise, and then he too got up. He slipped on his djellaba, went out of the room, and slowly walked down the stairs. He kissed his hostess on both cheeks and sat down at the table, where everyone was eating steaming cornmeal and milk. Heloise soon joined them with her calm smile. The children stopped eating and eyed her curiously from behind their cups. The sound of a jeep came from the yard outside. George got up and went to the window He waved hello and then turned and said, “Heloise, it’s Tom. Remember? The guy who lent us the jeep.”
The jeep stopped outside, and George went to open the door. The merchant told George to invite his friends in, and so in came Tom, Amundsen, Nobel, and Ry-land, single file with caps in hand.
“Hello.” said George.
“Hello.” Tom answered.
“What are you doing in this neck of the woods?’’ George asked.
“We were looking for you.”
“Trouble?”
“A bit.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
“Did you know you died?”
“Who? Me?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“I died three weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not true!”
“Yes it is!”
“Where?”
“In goddam Lebanon.”
“I died in goddam Lebanon?”
George was very much concerned with truth. The usual term is pragmatic. George was pragmatic.
At that moment little Ryland, who had been silent all the while, spoke up: “Private Smith, Margitai is trying to tell you that you were reported dead. Why, I do not know, since I can see that you are alive and well. Maybe it’s because you didn’t report to headquarters for several weeks. 1 think you are going to have to account for that omission. Where have you been all this time?”
“Around,” George answered.
“Do you realize what you are saying?” Ryland asked.
“I think so. It means that you think I’m a deserter.”
“You said it, not me.”
“We found your body in a hole in open country.” Amundsen said, and Nobel nodded in vigorous agreement.
“It wasn’t a pretty sight.” Amundsen went on, while Nobel continued to nod.
“It must have been someone else,” said George.
“No doubt about it,” Ryland concluded. And then he added: “Private George Smith, everything you say from this moment on may be used against you. You can name your own defense attorney, provided he is accredited in the United States of America.”
“You mean I’m under arrest?”
“I guess so.”
“Do I have to go with you?”
“Seems so.”
“Heloise!” George thundered.
“Yes,” she replied.
“We have to go.”
“I’m ready”
George turned to his merchant friend, who had not understood very much of what he had heard. George embraced him, patted the man’s wife on her cheek, and knelt down to say good-bye to the children. The old grandfather kept on eating, unaware of anything else going on. George said, “So long, Cramps.”
“Bye,” the old man replied, and he waved his hand without lifting his eyes from his bowl.
Then they all went outside, The two jeeps were parked one behind the other. Tom took the key from George and got behind the wheel of the one in front, with George and Amundsen behind him. Heloise got into the jeep being driven by Nobel. Ryland was the last to get in. The little clearing seemed deserted, and two hens slowly strutted in the motionless dust. The engines started up without much noise, and the vehi-cles started to move. The merchant and his wife stood for a long time in front of the door.
END OF CHAPTER NINE
INTERMEZZO
BETWEEN CHAPTERS NINE AND TEN
Dear Abelard,
It occurs to me that aside from telling you how Harry’s Bar in Venice came into being, in all this time I have never really talked to you about my father. So here goes. One hot August evening in 1931, a few months after opening Harry’s Bar, he took my mother dancing at the only place they knew at the time, the famous Martini dance hall, owned and operated by Cavalier Baldi.
As far as alcoholic beverages are concerned, my father was probably the greatest barman of his era, and so he remained for a great many years, partly because he was mad about the drinks he mixed with such incredible bravura. If it had been up to him, he would often have drunk a great deal, but what saved him from alcoholism was the terrible hangover he usually had the morning after a real bender. I could give you a detailed account of all the sensations and the numerous and frightening discomforts, because
I too, to my good fortune and for reasons I will explain later, have suffered hangovers all my life, despite trying all kinds of ways to avoid them.
Whenever it happens—and it still does on occasion—that I lay my head down on the pillow because the room has no intention of staying still, it is as sure a thing as the national debt that about five o’clock the following morning I will wake from a gasping half-sleep in a state near death, a state marked by extensive hot and cold sweats and a murderous headache that throbs at every unusually rapid beat of my heart. The heartbeat intensifies the headache in geometric progression, and the only thing the heart seems to be doing is pumping a poisonous liquid that has nothing whatever to do with blood through veins and arteries.
Breathing is extremely rapid, and inhaling and exhaling are uncontrollable. The general impression is what any mortal must feel when he has only a few minutes left to balance his accounts before meeting his Maker. At this point the mere thought of imbibing even the smallest amount of alcohol is clearly unbearable torture. And the different sensations that usually go with this post-bibendum state are enough to make anyone a strict teetotaler for the rest of his presumably very short life. And then there’s the added fact that because of business neither my father nor 1 have ever been able to enjoy a Sunday off, which, people say, is a great way to recover from the effects of liquor. Quite the contrary, even in the worst throes of this unbearable agony we have always had to get out of bed and carefully tread our way to work. Treading carefully is exactly what I mean, because it is hard to take more than thirty or forty steps without having to throw up, so you have to plan your itinerary in such a way that you can find some place that offers discreet protection from the eyes of perfidious busybodies.
Despite all the experience that ought to remind you of the disadvantages rather than the pleasures of wine and its derivatives, there often comes a moment in which you are overwhelmed by the innocent charm, freshness, and incomparable delight of good liquor. So, every now and again, in the evening, when all the customers in your bar have wined and dined, you set out a glass for yourself. You have no desire at ail to set your head spinning, but you succumb to the pleasures of taste and smell. You are also in rather a hurry to close the place up after the last customer has paid his bill, and then you realize that you drank too fast, and you notice the first troubles the moment you get to your feet. These include difficulty in pronouncing correctly any word in which a nasal sound comes immediately after a sibilant, and you can’t pronounce labials that aren’t interspersed with a friendly vowel without twisting your tongue or getting it stuck against your palate. Words like Has-drubal, for example, become all but unutterable. This is the point when you are torn between embarrassment that your inebriation may be discovered and a desire to proclaim forcefully all sorts of absurdities that strike you as truth.
You walk out of the place with an orderly lurch after a very affectionate leave-taking from your colleagues, whom at that moment you feel you love more than anyone else in the world. You are usually brought back to the real world when you run into a customer on the little steamer that takes you back home. You realize that if your condition is recognized, the report of the owner of Harry’s Bar in a state of inebriation will go round the world faster than the speed of sound. So you try to hold yourself steady on the unsteady deck, and you still have to make intelligent responses to the idiotic remarks that usually come from the kind of people you casually encounter on shipboard. All this, of course, while you are doing everything you can to avoid words that might sound like Hasdrubal.
As you walk down the ramp, you make every effort to keep your eye on the ground in order not to stumble, and you walk very carefully so that no reeling motions betray your rather suspect condition. When you have finally gone around the first corner, you are all but indifferent to the fear of being seen from a window, and you let yourself go. You stagger so that you bounce from one wall to the other of the narrow calk leading home.
When you get to your door, there is a struggle to find the right key and somehow get it into the invisible lock. Once inside the darkness of your own home, you try not to make any sound that might awaken wife and children, for they would immediately recognize your shameful condition. A friend of mine was telling me about the terrible problems he has every time he comes home drunk late at night. He insists on taking a very large guitar with him, and his problem is to keep from banging it against the door frames and the furniture on his way to the double bed that is already half-occupied by his wife.
This is where 1 ought to explain why i have suffered all my life from the same aftereffects as my father, 1 think the trouble started right after my father and mother went home from Martini’s that famous night in Venice. Young as they were, they followed certain procedures that resulted in my conception. Since my father had bent his elbow considerably that evening, they worried for a long time whether the fruit of their union might come into this world with some mysterious affliction. But this was not the case, except for an endless string of trivial ailments that afflicted me throughout childhood and made my skin so pale that every now and then my father would ask if a fart had got into my bloodstream. I did have a mysterious ailment after all, and my father probably suffered from it for the same hereditary reason I did: it seems that my late grandfather Carlo had the habit, as people did in his day, of drowning in wine the joys and sorrows that usually accompany our life on earth.
END OF THE INTERMEZZO BETWEEN CHAPTERS NINE AND TEN
CHAPTER TEN
In which George and Heloise are taken to the headquarters of the armed forces of the United States of America,
One jeep followed the other over the dirt road. George was in the second jeep and could see nothing in front of him except a great deal of thick white dust. Finally they reached the barrier of the Israeli-controlled zone, and from that point on the road was asphalt. Now George caught an occasional glimpse of Heloise’s windblown hak He felt a bit depressed and utterly unable to guess what might happen.
They all got out at headquarters. Heloise turned to George, She gave him a tender smile, and he felt better at once. Together they went up to General Custer’s anteroom. Two MPs were standing at attention outside the door, their helmets down to their eyes. Ryland went up to them. “I’m Lieutenant Ryland with Sergeants Amundsen and Nobel, Privates Margitai, and Smith, and”—Ryland cleared his throat as he looked at Heloise—”this lady We have to see the general.”
One of the MPs did an about-face and knocked on the general’s door.
Suzy’s answer came like a shout: “Yes?”
“Lieutenant Ryland requests permission to speak with the general.”
“Come in.” Custer’s voice came through peremptorily.
They all went in.
“Lieutenant Ryland reporting, sir.” He snapped to attention,
“Make it quick, Ryland. So you’re Private Smith,” the general said.
“1 am, sir,” George said.
“Well, well, well, well, so you’re Smith?”
“Yes sir, General.”
Tin, Smith?”
“Yes sir, General.”
General Custer seemed to be having trouble formulating his next question. “Well, well, well, well,” he repeated himself, “and how are you?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Well, well, well, well.”
Custer had caught sight of Heloise in the meantime, and as he continued to repeat “well, well,” he seemed unable to take his eyes off her. It was very much like what had happened the first time he saw Suzy in his office,
Ryland spoke. ‘Tve already explained his responsibilities to him, and I told him to get legal counsel,
cir”
UJ.JL.
“What?” Custer exclaimed. “You asked him to get a lawyer?”
“Yes sir, General.”
“Ryland,” Custer thundered. “What ever gave you such an idea. Where did you get the authority to say something like that? What were my orders
to you? Margitai!”
“Yes sir.”
“What were my orders?’’
‘To find Private Smith, this lady, and my jeep.”
‘And did you?”
“Yes sir, General.”
“Fine! Did 1 ask you to do anything else?”
“No sir.”
“Right! Is that right, Ryland?”
“Well”
“Well what? Yes or no?”
“Yes sir, General,”
“Ryland, you think too much. You mustn’t think, because you don’t know how to think. Let others do the thinking for you! Always! Understand?”
“Yes sir,” Ryland mumbled. He was depressed.
“And now get out of here.” He nodded at Amundsen, Nobel, and Ryland.
Custer, Tom, George, Heloise, and Suzy were alone now.
Custer got up from his chair, walked around the desk, and put both hands on Smith’s shoulders”. “Dear boy, we are proud of you.”
George was rather embarrassed, but he managed to get out the words “Thank you, sir.”
“I know all about it, all about it,” Custer said. “They must have been four terrible weeks. Did you suffer a great deal? How did they treat you?”
George did not understand what the general was driving at, but he thought it better to go along with him and answered, “Well, it could have been worse, sir.”
“Such modesty! It must have been sheer hell, being a prisoner of those bandits. And you, ma’am?” He turned to Heloise but didn’t wait for an answer. Then he turned to Tom. “Margitai! Thank you for rescuing Private George Smith. Thank you in the name of the United States Army 1 am going to recommend you for a medal.”
‘‘Thank you, sir.” Tom smiled,
“Now get those jeeps back to the motor pool,” the general ordered.
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