‘We’ll soon be there now,’ he says to Pin now and again, as they walk on through the woods. He does not talk much and Pin enjoys walking beside him in silence; he is a little frightened, in his heart, of this man who goes round alone at night killing people, and then is so good and protective with him. Pin has always been embarrassed by good people; he does not know how to treat them and always longs to make fun of them and see how they react. But he feels different with the big man with the woollen cap, for he’s a person who has done a lot of killing and can allow himself to be good without regrets.
The big man talks about nothing but how endless the war is and how after seven years with the Alpine troops he still has to go round with a gun and how the only people who are well-off these days are the women and how he’d been round every country and realized that women everywhere are all thoroughly bad lots. Most of this does not interest Pin, it’s the sort of thing everyone says these days; but he has never heard anyone talk like that about women before. It’s not as if this man is like Red Wolf who just isn’t interested in women; he seems to know them well, but to have some personal motive for this attitude.
Now they have left the pines behind and are walking through chestnut woods.
‘Very soon now,’ says the big man, ‘we really will be there.’
And just after that they meet a mule, with no other harness but a bridle, wandering about on its own, munching leaves.
‘That’s not the way to let a mule out, loose like that,’ says the man. ‘Here, Corsair, here my pretty.’
He takes it by the bridle and draws it along behind him. Corsair is a mangy old mule, docile and submissive. Meanwhile they have reached a clearing in the woods, with a hut in it for smoking chestnuts. There is not a soul to be seen. The man stops and so does Pin.
‘What’s up?’ exclaims the man. ‘Have they all left?’
Pin realizes that perhaps he ought to feel frightened, but he does not know how things are and so feels no fear.
‘Hey! Who goes there!’ says the man, not very loud, and slipping the tommy-gun from his shoulder.
Then from the hut appears a little man carrying a sack. He sees them, throws the sack down on the ground and begins clapping his hands. ‘Hallo! Hey! Cousin! It’s music day to-day!’ he exclaims.
‘Mancino!’ exclaims Pin’s companion. ‘Where the hell are the others?’
The little man comes toward them, rubbing his hands.
‘Three trucks, three loaded trucks, driving up the main road. They were seen this morning and the whole battalion has gone out to attack them. Soon the music’ll begin.’
He is a tiny little man, dressed in a big sailor’s jerkin and with a cap made of rabbit fur on his bald head. Pin thinks he must be a gnome living in this hut in the middle of the woods.
The big man runs a finger over his moustache. ‘Good,’ he says, ‘I must go down and have a shot too.’
‘If you’re still in time,’ says the little man. ‘I’ve stayed behind to get the food ready. I’m sure they’ll have already put ’em out of action by midday and are now on their way back.’
‘You might have looked after the mule too, as you were here,’ says the other. ‘If I hadn’t come across it, it’d have ended on the seashore.’
The little man ties up the mule, then looks at Pin.
‘And who’s this? Have you had a son, Cousin?’
‘I’d die rather than have kids,’ says the big man. ‘This lad was working with Red Wolf and got lost.’
That is not exactly the way it was, but Pin is pleased to be introduced in such a way and perhaps the big man said it on purpose to show him in a good light.
‘Here, Pin,’ says the big man, ‘this is Mancino, the cook of the detachment. You must treat him with respect, as he’s old, and if you don’t he won’t give you an extra ration of soup.’
‘Listen, my little recruit of the revolution,’ says Mancino, ‘d’you know how to peel potatoes?’
Pin would like to bring out some obscenity in reply, just to make friends, but he cannot think of a suitable one on the spur of the moment, and answers: ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Good, an assistant cook is just what I need,’ says Mancino. ‘Wait and I’ll go and fetch the knives,’ and he vanishes into the hut.
‘Hey, is he your cousin?’ Pin asks the big man.
‘No, everyone calls me Cousin.’
‘Me too?’
‘You too what?’
‘Can call you Cousin?’
‘Of course; it’s a name like any other.’
Pin likes this. He tries it out at once. ‘Cousin!’ he calls.
‘What d’you want?’
‘Cousin, what are the trucks coming up for?’
‘To have our guts, that’s what they’re coming for. But we’ll go out and have theirs. That’s life.’
‘Are you going too, Cousin?’
‘Of course, I must go.’
‘Aren’t you tired of walking?’
‘I’ve been walking and sleeping with my boots on for the last seven years. When I die, it’ll be with my boots on.’
‘Seven years without taking your boots off. God, Cousin, how your feet must stink.’
Meanwhile Mancino has returned. But he is not only carrying the knives for the potatoes. On his shoulder is perched a large ugly bird, chained by a claw like a parrot, and fluttering its clipped wings.
‘What is it? What is it?’ exclaims Pin, who has already put a finger under its beak. The bird rolls its yellow eyes and nearly pecks it.
‘Ah! Ah!’ grins Mancino. ‘He’ll have your finger off in a second! Be careful. Babeuf’s a spiteful old hawk!’
‘Where did you get him, Mancino?’ asks Pin, who is learning more and more not to trust either grown-ups or their pets.
‘Babeuf is a veteran partisan. I got him from his nest when he was tiny; now he’s the mascot of the unit.’
‘You’d have done better to let him free as a bird of prey,’ says Cousin. ‘Some mascot: he brings worse luck than a priest.’
But Mancino has put a hand to his ear and signed to them to be quiet.
‘Did you hear that? Ta … Tata …?’
They listen. Firing can be heard from down the valley. Bursts of fire, ta … pum, and an occasional boom of hand grenades.
Mancino bangs a fist against his palm, with that harsh little laugh of his: ‘That’s it! It’s started! I’m telling you, today we’ll wipe out the lot of them.’
‘Well, we won’t wipe out much if we stay here. I’m going to have a look,’ says Cousin.
‘Wait a bit,’ says Mancino, ‘eat a few chestnuts first. There were some left over this morning. Giglia!’
Cousin raises his head with a jerk. ‘Who are you calling?’ he asks.
‘My wife,’ says Mancino, ‘she arrived last night. The Black Brigade were hunting for her down in the town.’
A woman has now appeared on the threshold of the hut; she has peroxided hair and is still young, though a little over-blown.
Cousin is frowning and smoothing his moustache with a finger.
‘Hallo, Cousin,’ calls the woman, ‘I’ve been evacuated up here,’ and she saunters towards him with her hands in her pockets; she’s wearing long trousers and a man’s shirt.
Cousin gives Pin a glance. Pin understands: things will end badly if they start bringing women up here. Pin is proud to share secrets with Cousin, secrets about women, exchanged by glances.
‘You’ve brought good weather with you,’ says Cousin rather sourly, looking away and pointing towards the valley, from which firing can still be heard.
‘What weather could be better than this!’ exclaims Mancino. ‘Just listen to the noise of the heavy machine-guns. Do you hear the racket of those flamethrowers? Giglia, give him a handful of chestnuts as he wants to go down.’
Giglia looks at Cousin with a strange smile. Pin notices that her eyes are green and her neck ripples like the back of a cat.
‘There’s no
time,’ says Cousin, ‘I must go. Get the food ready. Good luck, Pin.’
And off he goes, with the rolled cloak strapped to his back and the tommy-gun still in his hands.
Pin would like to run after Cousin and stay with him, but he is aching all over after all his adventures, and also he finds the firing down in the valley makes him vaguely apprehensive.
‘And who are you, baby?’ says Giglia, running a hand over his thatch of scruffy hair, though Pin draws his head away as he has never been able to stand women’s caresses; also he doesn’t like being called ‘baby’.
‘Your little son! Didn’t you notice last night that you were having a baby?’
‘A good answer! A good answer!’ croaks Mancino, rubbing the knives against each other and driving the hawk into a frenzy. ‘One should never ask a partisan who he is. The reply is “I’m a son of the proletariat, my country is the International, my sister is the Revolution.”’
Pin winks, and looks at him out of the corner of his eye: ‘What’s that? You know my sister too?’
‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ says Giglia. ‘He has bored everyone with his talk about perpetual revolution, even the commissars are against him. A Trotskyist, that’s what they call him, a Trotskyist!’
Trotskyist; another new word!
‘What does it mean?’ he asks.
‘I’m not sure what it means myself,’ says Giglia, ‘but it’s a word that suits him: Trotskyist!’
‘Stupid fool!’ Mancino shouts at her. ‘I’m not a Trotskyist! If you’ve come up here to annoy me, you can go straight back to the town and get yourself captured by the Black Brigade!’
‘Selfish swine!’ replies Giglia. ‘It’s your fault …’
‘Stop,’ says Mancino, ‘let me listen. Why isn’t the heavy artillery firing any more?’
In fact the artillery, which has been firing continuous bursts up till now, has suddenly stopped.
Mancino gives his wife a worried look: ‘What can have happened? Has the ammunition run out?’
‘… or the machine-gunner been killed …’ says Giglia apprehensively. They both stand there listening intently, then look at each other again and the spite comes back into their faces.
‘Well?’ says Mancino.
‘I was just saying,’ Giglia begins shouting again, ‘that it’s your fault I’ve had to live with my heart in my mouth for the last two months, and you still don’t want me up here.’
‘Bitch!’ says Mancino, ‘bitch! One of the reasons I came up here was … There! It’s started again!’
The heavy artillery is firing again; short bursts, with long pauses in between.
‘That’s better,’ says Giglia.
‘… one of the reasons I came up here was,’ shouts the other, ‘that I couldn’t stand living with you any longer, after all I saw you getting up to!’
‘Oh yes? Then what about after the war’s over and the merchant-ships sail again and I’ll only see you two or three times a year? … Hey, what are those shots?’
Mancino listens, worried: ‘They sound like mortars …’
‘Ours or theirs?’
‘Let me listen. There’s one firing. It’s theirs!’
‘It’s not firing. It’s exploding, farther down the valley. It’s ours …’
‘Always contradicting! Curse the day I met you! Yes, they really are ours … Just as well, Giglia, just as well …’
‘I told you so. A Trotskyist, that’s what you are; a Trotskyist! Opportunist! Traitor! Filthy Menshevik!’
Pin is thoroughly enjoying himself; he feels at home. In the alley there were quarrels between husbands and wives that lasted for whole days, and he used to spend hours under their windows listening to them without missing a single word, as if they were on the wireless; and every now and again he would intervene with some comment of his own, shouted at the top of his voice, so that the litigants would sometimes break off, then both appear at the window-sill to swear at him.
It’s all much better up here; in the middle of woods, to the accompaniment of firing, and with all these new colourful words.
Then suddenly everything is calm; in the valley the battle seems to have died down; and the husband and wife are staring furiously at each other, without a breath left in their throats.
‘Hell, you aren’t giving up so soon?’ asks Pin. ‘Have you lost the thread?’
They both look at Pin, then at each other to see which is going to speak, so as to contradict at once.
‘They’re singing!’ exclaims Pin. Now from down in the valley comes the faint echo of a song.
‘In German …’ mutters the cook.
‘Idiot!’ shouts the woman. ‘Can’t you hear it’s Bandiera Rossa?’
‘Bandiera Rossa?’ the little man claps his hands and gives a twirl in the air, while the hawk tries to fly above his head with its clipped wings. ‘Yes; it’s Bandiera Rossa.’
He begins running down the slope, singing: ‘Bandiera Rossa la trionferà,’1 until he gets to the edge of a bluff, where he stops and listens.
‘Yes, It’s Bandiera Rossa!’
He comes running back with shouts of delight, the hawk planing behind him on its chain like a toy kite. He kisses his wife, claps Pin on the shoulder, and all three take hands and sing: ‘Bandiera Rossa la trionferà.’
‘You see,’ Mancino says to Pin, ‘you mustn’t get the idea that we were having a serious quarrel; it was all a joke.’
‘That’s right,’ says Giglia, ‘my husband is a bit silly but he’s the best husband in the world.’
So saying she raises his rabbit-fur cap and kisses him on his bald pate. Pin cannot tell if they are lying or not, grown-ups are always so double-faced, but anyway he has enjoyed himself very much.
‘Let’s get down to peeling the potatoes,’ says Mancino, ‘they’ll be back in a couple of hours and won’t find anything ready.’
They turn out the sack of potatoes and sit round peeling them and throwing them in a pail. The potatoes are cold and freeze Pin’s fingers, but it’s pleasant to be peeling potatoes in the company of this strange little gnome who might be good or bad, and of his wife who is even more incomprehensible. But Giglia soon stops peeling and begins combing her hair. This annoys Pin who does not like working with someone lazing in front of him. But Mancino goes on peeling the potatoes; perhaps he’s used to this, it’s what always happens with them.
‘What’s there to eat today?’ asks Pin.
‘Goat’s meat and potatoes,’ replies Mancino. ‘D’you like goat’s meat and potatoes?’
All Pin knows is that he’s hungry, and he says yes.
‘You cook well, do you, Mancino?’ he asks.
‘Hell,’ says Mancino, ‘it’s my job. Twenty years, I’ve spent, cooking on ships; ships of every kind and every nationality.’
‘Pirate ships too?’ asks Pin.
‘Yes, pirate ships too.’
‘Chinese ships too?’
‘Chinese ships too.’
‘Can you speak Chinese?’
‘I can speak every language under the sun. And I know how they cook in every country under the sun; Chinese cooking, Mexican cooking, Turkish cooking …’
‘How are you cooking the goat’s meat and potatoes today?’
‘Eskimo style. D’you like goat à l’Eskimo?’
‘Hell, Mancino, goat à l’Eskimo!’
Pin now sees that Mancino has a drawing of a butterfly on the skin of one of his ankles, showing below his ragged trousers.
‘What’s that?’ he asks.
‘A tattoo,’ says Mancino.
‘What’s it for?’
‘You ask too many questions.’
When the first men arrive the water is just on the boil.
Pin has always wanted to set eyes on partisans. Now he is standing open-mouthed in the middle of the clearing in front of the hut, and no sooner has he begun staring at one of them than another two or three arrive, all looking different and all hung with weapons
and machine-gun belts.
They might even be soldiers, a company of soldiers who had disappeared during a war many years ago and been wandering in the forests ever since without finding their way back, their uniforms in rags, their boots falling to pieces, their hair and their beards all matted, carrying weapons which now they only use to kill wild animals.
They are tired and coated all over with sweat and dust. Pin had expected them to arrive singing; instead of which they are looking grim and serious, and throw themselves on the straw in silence.
Mancino is skipping round them like a dog, beating his fist against the palm of his hands, and giving great hoots of laughter: ‘We’ve given ’em a good hiding this time! How did we do it? Tell me about it.’
The men shake their heads; they are lying about on the straw and not speaking. Why are they so discontented? They look as if they’d returned from a defeat.
‘Well? Did things go badly? Have we had many killed?’ Mancino goes round saying from one to the other, completely nonplussed.
Now Dritto, the commander, arrives. He is a thin young man, with eyes framed in long black lashes and curious movements of the nostrils. He goes round swearing at the men and complaining because the food is not ready.
‘Come on now; what’s happened?’ insists the cook. ‘Didn’t we win? If you don’t tell me I won’t do any more cooking.’
‘Yes, yes, of course we won,’ says Dritto, ‘two trucks captured, twenty Germans killed; a good haul.’
He says this in a tone of irritation, as if he were being forced to admit it.
‘Then did we have lots of killed too?’
‘Two wounded in the other detachment. We’re all intact, of course.’
Mancino looks at him; he is beginning to understand.
‘Don’t you realize they sent us over to the other side of the valley,’ shouts Dritto, ‘so we couldn’t fire a shot! They’ll have to make up their minds at Brigade headquarters; either not to trust the detachment and break it up; or to consider us partisans like all the others and send us into action. Another time if we’re just put on rearguard duties we won’t move. And I’ll resign. Anyway I’m ill.’ He spits and goes into the hut.
The Path to the Spiders' Nests Page 9