The Human Body

by Paolo Giordano

  Ietri’s eyes dart from one to the other, while the blood flows from his feet to his head, making him dizzy. When he leaves the gym, in the velvety air of a summer evening, his mind is full of wild fantasies.

  It was Ietri himself, in all probability, who started certain rumors among the guys in the Third Platoon, rumors that filter back to him after making a lengthy circuit, and that he ends up believing with greater certainty than anyone. Mingled with a mild fear of death is a longing for adventure that gains the upper hand. Ietri fantasizes about the women he’ll encounter in Afghanistan, the naughty smiles during morning muster, the exotic way they’ll pronounce his name.

  Even during Captain Masiero’s lectures all he does is undress and dress them, over and over again.

  “Corporal Ietri!”

  In his head he calls them all Jennifer and has no idea where that name came from. Jennifer, oooh Jennifer . . .

  “Corporal Ietri!”

  “Sir!”

  “Would you be so kind as to repeat what I’ve been saying?”

  “Of course, Captain. You were talking about . . . the tribes . . . I think.”

  “Do you perhaps mean the ethnic groups?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And which ethnic group was I talking about, exactly?”

  “I think the . . . I don’t know, sir.”

  “Corporal, leave this classroom immediately.”

  The embarrassing truth is that Ietri has never been with a woman, not in the sense that he considers complete. No one in the platoon knows this and it would be a disaster if they were to find out. The only one who knows is Cederna; he told him about it himself one evening at the pub when they were both smashed and in the mood for confiding.

  “Complete? You mean to say you’ve never fucked?”

  “Well, not . . . fully.”

  “A goddamn little virgin! Hey, I have a new name for you: verginella. Do you like that? That’s what I’m gonna call you from now on.”

  “Don’t shout!”

  “You’re in bad shape, buddy. Really bad. Shit!”

  “I know.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Damn. So you’ve already wasted the best years. Listen up now—it’s important. The tool down there is like a rifle. A 5.56, with a metal stock and laser sighting.” Cederna shoulders an invisible weapon and aims it at his friend. “If you don’t remember to oil the barrel from time to time, it will end up jamming.”

  Ietri looks down at his mug of beer. He takes too big a swig, begins to cough. Jammed. He’s a guy who’s jammed.

  “Even Mitrano manages to shoot his wad every now and then,” Cederna says.

  “He pays.”

  “You could do it too.”

  Ietri shakes his head. He doesn’t like the idea of paying a woman.

  “So, let’s go over it,” Cederna imitates Captain Masiero’s voice. “It’s not all that difficult, Corporal. Follow me closely. You meet a girl you like, you weigh the size of her tits and ass—I personally, for example, like them both big, but there are some perverts who prefer their women skinny as a toothpick—then you go up to her, spout some bullshit, and finally ask her politely if she’d like to go someplace private with you.”

  “If she’d like to go someplace private with me?”

  “Well, maybe not those words exactly. It depends on the situation.”

  “Look, I know how it’s done. It’s just that I haven’t found the right one.”

  Cederna bangs his fist on the table. The forks clink in the empty plates where they’ve eaten French fries, attracting attention from the other tables. “That’s the point! There is no right one. They’re all right. Because they all have a—” He specifies the part by forming a diamond with his fingers. “Anyway, once you start, you’ll see how easy it is.”

  Cederna’s tone annoys him a little. He doesn’t want to be pitied, but his friend’s words are also reassuring. He wavers between irritation and gratitude. He’d like to ask him how old he was when he started, but he’s afraid to hear the answer: Cederna is too cool, and also too good looking, with that high forehead and a smile full of white teeth and mischief.

  “You’re as tall as a giant and you let women scare you. It’s nuts.”

  “Don’t shout!”

  “If you ask me, it’s your mother’s fault.”

  “What does my mother have to do with it?” Ietri balls up the napkin in his fist. An unnoticed packet of mayonnaise explodes in his hand.

  Cederna pipes up in falsetto: “Mommy, Mommy, what do all these naughty girls want from me?”

  “Stop it—they can all hear you.” He doesn’t dare ask his friend for his napkin. He wipes his hand on the edge of the chair. His finger brushes something stuck underneath.

  Cederna crosses his arms, satisfied, while Ietri grows more and more gloomy. He makes circles on the table with the damp bottom of the glass.

  “Don’t put on that face now.”

  “What face?”

  “You’ll see. You’ll find some twit who will spread her legs for you. Sooner or later.”

  “I don’t much care.”

  “We’re going on a mission soon. They say there’s no better place. The Americans are wild . . .”

  • • •

  The guys are given a weekend’s leave before the reassignment and almost all of them spend it with their respective girlfriends. The girls have come up with some outlandish ideas, like a picnic by the lake or a marathon of romantic movies, when all the soldiers want to do is tank up on sex for the upcoming months of abstinence.

  Ietri’s mother takes the night train from Torremaggiore to Belluno. Together they run some errands in the center, then go to the barracks, where he sleeps in a hot, messy dormitory with seven other men. She doesn’t fail to comment on it: “All the fault of the vocation you’ve chosen. With everything you could have done, intelligent as you are.”

  On edge, the corporal is compelled to get away. He invents an excuse and retreats to a corner of the square to smoke. When he comes back, he finds his mother holding the photograph of his induction oath tight to her chest.

  “Look, I’m not dead yet,” he says.

  The woman’s eyes widen. She gives him a sound slap on the cheek. “Don’t say such things. Idiot.”

  She insists on packing his bags no matter what (“Mama knows you’ll forget everything otherwise”). Ietri dozes off as he watches her devotedly lay out his clothes on the bed. Occasionally he gets distracted and his mind wanders back to the Americans. He lets himself drift into an exciting half sleep, drool trickling onto the pillow.

  “There’s moisturizer and soaps in the side pocket, one lavender and one unscented. Use the unscented one on your face—you have sensitive skin. I also put in some chewing gum for when you can’t brush your teeth.”

  That night they share a double bed in a deserted small hotel and Ietri is surprised that he isn’t embarrassed to sleep with his mother, even now that he’s a man and has been away from home for so long. He doesn’t even find it strange when she pulls his head to her soft bosom and holds him there, listening to the strong beat of her heart beneath her nightgown, until she falls asleep.

  The room is lit intermittently by the storm that broke out after supper and his mother’s body jerks each time the thunder claps; it’s as if it scares her in her dreams. It’s past eleven when Ietri slips out of bed. In the dark, he empties the pocket of the backpack and throws everything into the trash basket, way down at the bottom so she won’t see it. Then he fills the pocket with condoms of various kinds, which he’d hidden in his jacket and in his spare boots, enough to last his platoon for a month of nonstop orgies.

  Back in bed, he has second thoughts. He gets up again, sticks his hands in the trash, and gropes around for the chewing gum: you
never know, it might come in handy if he were to find himself close to the eager mouth of an American without having brushed his teeth.

  Jennifer, oooh Jennifer!

  • • •

  Cederna and his girlfriend are back in the apartment they’ve been sharing for almost a year. The storm caught them on the way home, but they were so high they didn’t even look for cover. They went on staggering along under the downpour, stopping from time to time to exchange lingering kisses, tongues probing.

  The evening has taken an excellent turn, though it didn’t start out that well. For some time now, Agnese has become obsessed with ethnic restaurants and just tonight when Cederna wanted only to have a good time, Agnese decided to celebrate his departure with a proper dinner by settling on a Japanese restaurant where her university friends had gone. “It’ll be special,” she said.

  But Cederna didn’t feel like anything special. “I don’t like that Asian stuff.”

  “But you’ve never even tasted it.”

  “Sure I tasted it. Once.”

  “That’s not true. You’re acting like a child.”

  “Hey, watch your mouth.”

  When he realized they were headed for a serious fight he gave up and said, “Okay, let’s go to the damn sushi bar.”

  Except he didn’t eat a thing at the restaurant and spent the time making fun of the waitress, who bowed continually and wore terry socks with her Japanese tatami sandals. Agnese tried to explain to him how to hold the chopsticks and it was clear she loved playing teacher. He made only one attempt, then stuck the tips of the chopsticks up his nostrils and started talking like a retard.

  “Can’t you at least try?” Agnese burst out.

  “Try what?”

  “To be a civilized person.”

  Cederna leaned toward her: “I am civilized. It’s these people who are in the wrong place. Look outside—take a look. Does this seem like Japan to you?”

  They didn’t say a word to each other for the rest of the meal—a dinner at which he stubbornly refused to taste a thing, not even the batter-fried tempura vegetables that didn’t look too bad, while Agnese forced herself to finish it all, just to show him how much braver and more emancipated she was. But the worst moment came later, with the bill. “I’m going to raise hell,” Cederna said, his eyes popping.

  “I’ll pay. Just stop making a scene.”

  Cederna shot her down coldly: “I don’t let my woman pay for my dinner.” He threw the credit card at the waitress, who bowed for the umpteenth time as she picked it up.

  “What a shitty place!” he said when they were finally outside. “You ruined my last night of freedom, thank you very much.”

  Agnese started crying softly, her hand pressed over her eyes. Seeing her like that made Cederna feel ashamed. He tried to hug her; she pushed him away.

  “You’re an animal—that’s what you are.”

  “Come on, baby. Don’t be like that.”

  “Don’t touch me!” she yelled, hysterical.

  She didn’t hold out for long, though. In the end he nibbled her ear and whispered, “What the hell do they call that stuff—yadori? Yudori?” Finally she laughed a little and admitted: “It was really disgusting. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

  “Yuuudori! Yuuuuuudori!”

  They started laughing and didn’t stop even in the pouring rain.

  Now they’re both sitting on the floor in the small foyer, sopping wet, and they’re still chuckling, though less enthusiastically. Cederna is beginning to feel that dissociating sense of emptiness and dejection that comes after laughing so hard. And there’s a lump in his throat, because he won’t see her again for many long weeks.

  Agnese collapses on him and rests her head on his legs. “Don’t die over there, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Don’t get wounded either. Not seriously, at least. No amputations or conspicuous scars.”

  “Only superficial wounds, I promise.”

  “And don’t cheat on me.”

  “No.”

  “If you cheat on me, I’ll wound you myself.”

  “Ooh!”

  “Never mind ooh. I’m serious.”

  “Uh-oh!”

  “So will you come back for my graduation?”

  “I’ll be back, I told you. René promised me leave. But it means that afterward we won’t see each other for a long time.”

  “I’ll be a young unemployed graduate waiting for her husband’s return from the front.”

  “I’m not your husband.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “What was it, some kind of proposal?”

  “Could be.”

  “The important thing is that the unemployed young lady not console herself with someone else in the meantime.”

  “I’ll be inconsolable.”

  “There, that’s better.”

  “Inconsolable. I swear.”

  • • •

  In a larger apartment, with a sliding glass door overlooking a parking lot, Marshal René is awake, looking out at the night. The storm has released the heat from the asphalt and the city smells like rotten eggs.

  When it comes to picking a woman to spend his last night in friendly territory with, the marshal has a wealth of choices, but the truth is he doesn’t feel much like any of them. After all, they’re clients. He’s sure they wouldn’t want to listen to his concerns twelve hours before the flight. When he talks too much, women feel the urge to turn their backs and do something, like light a cigarette or get dressed or take a shower. He can’t blame them. None of them knows what it means to be in command; nobody knows what it takes to hold the fate of twenty-seven men in your hands. None of them is in love with him.

  He takes off his T-shirt and absently runs his fingers over his chest: the line between his pecs, the dog tag with his date of birth and blood type (A-positive), three well-defined abdominal bands. Maybe when he returns from Afghanistan he’ll stop taking gigs. Not that he dislikes the activity, and the extra money comes in handy (last month he was able to buy saddlebags for his Honda, which he’s now watching proudly from the window, wrapped in its tarpaulin). It’s more a moral issue. Though the stripteasing was a necessity when he’d first moved to Belluno, now that he’s career military he could afford to give it up, focus on a more mature plan. He doesn’t yet know what, however. It’s difficult to imagine a new version of yourself.

  By midnight indecision has also eliminated the possibility of a proper dinner: he’s munched on two packets of crackers and is now no longer hungry. A little miserable as a celebration. He would have been better off letting his parents come from Senigallia to see him. Suddenly he feels sad. The TV is unplugged, covered with a white sheet to keep off dust. He’s shut off the central gas valve and collected the garbage in a bag. The house is ready to be deserted.

  He lies down on the couch and is already dozing when he gets Rosanna Vitale’s message: “Were you going to leave without saying good-bye? Come on over. I need to talk to you.” A few seconds later there’s another one: “Bring something to drink.”

  René takes his time. In the shower he shaves and masturbates slowly, to make himself immune to pleasure. He picks up some spumante at the Autogrill on the highway. As soon as he steps out the door, he turns around and goes back in to add a bottle of vodka and two bars of chocolate. He feels a certain gratitude to Rosanna for saving him from a monotonous last night and he plans to reward her as she deserves. Usually he goes to bed with younger women, mostly girls who want to create a bold memory before embracing the life of a judicious wife. Rosanna, on the other hand, is over forty, but there’s something about her that he likes. She’s an expert at sex and is extraordinarily open-minded. Sometimes, after they’re done, René stays for dinner or to watch a movie—he on the couch, she in a chair nearby
—and maybe they make love again, in which case the second round is on the house. If he wants to leave, though, she doesn’t keep him.

  “Did you get lost?” Rosanna is standing in the doorway, waiting for him.

  René comes up beside her, kisses her on the cheek. He notices a different perfume than usual, or maybe it’s a different smell beneath the usual perfume, but he doesn’t say anything.

  The woman checks out the bottles. She puts the spumante in the refrigerator and opens the other bottle. The glasses are already set out on the table. “Would you like a little music? The silence is getting on my nerves tonight.”

  René doesn’t mind. Like other distractions, music doesn’t matter to him. He sits at the kitchen table. He’s been sent off before—Lebanon twice, Kosovo—so he knows how difficult it is for civilians to come to terms with it.

  “So you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how long is this mission?”

  “Six months. More or less.”

  Rosanna nods. She’s already finished her first glass. She pours herself another. René, on the other hand, sips slowly, in control of himself.

  “And are you glad?”

  “It’s not a pleasure trip.”

  “Sure. But are you glad?”

  René drums his fingers on the wood. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Good. That’s the important thing.”

  The music forces them to speak more loudly than necessary. René is annoyed. If Rosanna would lower the volume, they’d be more comfortable. People don’t notice many of the things that he does; this has always disappointed him in a way. Tonight, moreover, Rosanna seems distracted and determined to drink herself into a stupor before they end up in bed. Drunk women are limp, their movements repetitive, and then it’s up to him to make an ungodly effort to make them come. Pointing to her glass, he doesn’t hesitate to say: “Go easy on that.”

  She gives him a furious look. René isn’t talking to one of his soldiers. Until proven otherwise, she’s the one paying, so she can decide when enough is enough. Afterward, though, she hangs her head as if to apologize. René interprets her nerves as a sign she’s worried about him, and this moves him. “I won’t be in any danger,” he says.