by Joanna Scott
As he walked toward Marina di Campo he composed in his mind the letter he would write as soon as he had settled into his berth. He would write directly to the girl’s mother to thank her for all she’d done for him. Then he would go on to express his respectful interest in her daughter and, tactfully, to broach the subject he’d been so reluctant to consider: the possibility of marriage. Confident that he would secure his own parents’ permission when he returned home, he would make the proposal himself. He would ask the signora to ask her daughter to wait for him. It might take many years, but he would come back for her. He hoped she would be patient. She had to grow up, and he had to finish his studies. Truthfully, he considered their union natural and inevitable. He would tell the signora everything that needed to be said in order to convince her of the sincerity of his interest, and he’d conclude with a gracious, sincere apology, in case she found him presumptuous.
Although the sea was visible from the top of every slope he climbed, he didn’t seem to draw any nearer to it, and his journey lasted through most of the day. He wandered across farmland and through villages he didn’t remember from the night he’d crossed the island. He followed dusty roads that curved in wide spirals, heading north when he wanted to go west and east when he wanted to go south.
At last he came to a place where he recognized the silent bungalows on the terrace above the sea and the well that had swallowed his rifle. Somewhere embedded in the dirt were bullets that had been meant to kill him. Look at me, he wanted to shout. I am alive. The streets in this hamlet were as empty as they’d been that first night. It was strange to see the shutters closed against the sun, just as they’d been closed against the war. He paused to examine the produce outside a grocer’s—a paltry array of withered lettuce, onions, and hard black plums the size of walnuts. No one was attending the store, as far as Amdu could tell, and no one appeared to receive the money he didn’t have after he helped himself to some fruit.
It was wrong to steal the plums, of course, though in the story he was telling himself he would come back to the island and find the grocer and pay him what he owed. Without paper and pen, he couldn’t leave a message to explain. He was sorry for this. The grocer, if he was watching from behind the door at the back of the store, as Amdu suspected, would consider him a thief. How easily a man accumulates guilt, he thought. But he wasn’t a saint and would never be a saint. He was who he was, just a young Senegalese rifleman biting into a plum, heading home.
FRENCH OFFICERS SUNBATHED on the beach at Le Ghiaie. American officers ate lemon ices. British officers drank the beer the German officers had left behind and traded news of the Battle of Saipan. Over the wire a field correspondent who had accompanied the Allies to Elba wrote that eighteen hundred German and Italian prisoners had been taken over the three-day period of fighting. By the nineteenth of June, the remaining machine-gun nests had been dealt with and the white flag of surrender hoisted at Porto Longone. By the twentieth, a Tuesday, the prisoners were on their way aboard a Royal Navy brig to England. On Wednesday, the journalist set up a typewriter at an outdoor table in Piazza Repubblicà. “There is said to be little doubt that the landing was probably the most difficult ever attempted,” he wrote, stopping to mop the sweat from his neck with a cocktail napkin. “The initial stages resembled Gallipoli in the First World War.”
On the day that Amdu disappeared from La Chiatta, Mario returned to Portoferraio and approached the journalist, intending to ask him if he’d seen or heard of any Africans wandering around the port dressed in civilian clothes. But after Mario introduced himself, the journalist made a preemptive offer to buy him a beer. He was American, though he spoke enough Italian to make a basic exchange of information possible. The conversation that followed was full of talk about the weather, for which the journalist knew a variety of phrases (fa caldo, il cielo è chiaro, il tempo è molto bello!). Their talk turned naturally to the war, and Mario learned that the Allies were within seventy miles of the German front on the mainland. But in response to the Normandy invasion and the American advance across the Cherbourg Peninsula in France, the Germans had sent “dynamite meteors,” as the people were calling them—a phrase he said in English—to explode over London. Mario admitted that he didn’t understand. A dynamite meteor? What is that? It is a plane without a head, the journalist explained—senza una testa, capisce?
“Sì, sì, ho capito,” Mario lied.
The journalist, pleased with his ability to make himself understood in a foreign language, told Mario something about an encounter that he’d witnessed on Capo d’Enfola between French Colonial shock troops and a German battery strongly placed between granite outcrops. When the smoke cleared, the journalist had gone forward to examine the battleground and found the corpse of an Allied soldier, an African man, cut clean in two by machine-gun fire. To demonstrate, he flattened his cocktail napkin into a square and ripped it in half. “Così,” he said, though he pronounced it as the English word cozy.
Mario had been planning on telling the journalist about the Senegalese soldier who had run away from La Chiatta—a renegade soldier would make a good story for an American paper. But he thought better of it after the journalist ripped the napkin. Instead, Mario promised to introduce him to the captain of the carabinieri and also to the current mayor of Portoferraio. He didn’t add that he himself hoped to be mayor someday. The journalist said he’d appreciate the introductions, and he went on to ask if there were any Fascists left on the island. Mario didn’t disclose that he had registered as a Fascist in 1922 during the period Il Duce called “la fiumana,” the flood, when to save oneself from the violence directed against the Socialists it was necessary either to join the Fasci or leave the country. Mario had even gone through a period of wearing white spats, just like Mussolini, though he was never one of the savage nationalists who drove the country into war. He told the journalist that the few remaining Fascists who hadn’t been captured by the Allies had joined the retreating Germans. To lighten the mood, he recited the lyrics to a song the local squadra used to sing about Il Duce. He repeated the song so the man could write down a translation: He’s an electric current, his voltage runs up high; lay hands on Mussolini, and probably you die.
The journalist asked Mario to explain why Italians hadn’t revolted against the Fascists after Matteotti’s assassination twenty years earlier. Mario pointed out that it was the king who had appointed Mussolini in the first place, and the king had protected him in those early years. Without the king, Mussolini would never have consolidated power to become a dictator.
What did Italy need with a king? the journalist asked.
“It is difficult for Americans to understand our country,” Mario conceded. He let his gaze drift toward a pair of carabinieri standing on the opposite side of the piazza. “I hope we meet again,” he said, and he bid the journalist good day.
From Piazza Repubblicà Mario meant to continue toward the quay—he knew he’d find African soldiers there and hoped to find Amdu Diop among them. He surprised himself, though, by taking a diversion along a series of side streets. At first he allowed himself to wander somewhat arbitrarily, partly because he thought a renegade soldier would do the same and partly to assess what might be salvageable in the apartment buildings that had been set on fire by the retreating Germans. Somehow civilian forces, including women and old men, had managed to contain the fires before they spread across the port, but three blocks of buildings had been abandoned. People were still camped out in the Municipio, and some families who had returned from the hills to find their homes destroyed had set up tents right in the street.
It was strange to wander past the charred, empty buildings behind Piazza Repubblicà and from there up into the oldest quarter of the port, where on the narrow streets winding toward Fort Stella the stone houses stood unmarked in any visible way by the invasion. Even the pots of cyclamens had survived intact.
It was obvious that there weren’t any Senegalese soldiers in this quarter, but still Mari
o pressed on. Alone, he could admit to himself that he wouldn’t have known what to do with Amdu if he’d found him. Truthfully, he didn’t want to find him. He was glad the African had gone away—he never wanted to see or hear of him again.
He ended up on the street where Rosa, his mistress, had lived for eight years, ever since she’d arrived from Pianosa after the death of her husband, a prison official. She originally came from Sardinia and she planned to return to her family there once she’d paid off her husband’s debts. Mario had met her at the trattoria where she worked as a waitress, behind the Mercato Vecchio. She was too coarse and plump to be called beautiful, and with her fiery temper she was an unpredictable mistress, though always satisfying. He had visited her regularly for two years. He wasn’t sure why his interest had faded—perhaps because of the distractions of the war and the occupation. Now, as he approached her house, his desire ached like a hollow stomach. He had gone too long without making love. The thought of his abstinence made him irritable, and though he knew he was to blame, he was hurt that Rosa hadn’t bothered to contact him over the past months.
The midday smells of cooking drifted through open windows. Outside a closed door, three cats ate from a dish piled with cold spaghetti. At number 34, the windows and shutters on the ground floor were closed, but on the upper floor the windows to the bedroom were open and the shutters propped aslant.
Rather than ringing the electric bell, which hadn’t functioned for the two years Mario had visited number 34, he called to Rosa. When no one appeared, he called more loudly. The cats eating from the dish next door scattered. A shutter across the narrow street was flung open, and an older woman whom Mario didn’t recognize leaned over the sill. She contemplated him for a moment, apparently judged him deserving, and shouted at the top of her voice, “Rosa! Rosa, dove sei?”
“Vengo subito,” a voice answered from inside the bedroom. One of the shutters lifted, and Rosa’s sleepy face appeared at the window above. She squinted down at Mario. Though her eyesight was poor, she had always been too vain to wear glasses. “Is it you?” she asked him.
“Sì, sì.”
She disappeared. The old woman across the street continued to lean on her elbows, watching as Mario waited. His irritation increased as the wait extended over a minute. How long did it take to walk down a single flight of stairs and open a door? He wondered if Rosa meant to leave him standing in the street. Perhaps this was her response to his long absence. She would humiliate him like this, in front of her neighbor. Then he would humiliate her. He would leave and never come back. Good riddance.
But just as he was preparing to give up Rosa forever, the door opened and a hand reached out and pulled him by the wrist. Once he was inside, the door slammed shut behind him.
The entrance hall was narrow, the space illuminated only by the daylight that managed to extend across the bedroom and down the stairs. Mario’s resentment began to settle into dull regret. Instead of the fragrances of fresh-cooked food, the stink of damp wool and greasy, stale smoke from fried fish saturated the hall. Why had he ever thought he would find comfort here?
In reply to his unease, Rosa planted her lips on his, her kiss startling him with warmth. Yes, this was the kind of comfort he’d been seeking. He grabbed her by the hips, but she peeled his hands off and began teasing him with questions. Why hadn’t he come to visit her? she demanded. Did he love someone else? Had he been sick? Had he been too busy to spare an hour now and then? Was he in trouble? Was he in debt? Didn’t he care what happened to her? What if she had been killed in the invasion? She’d heard that the French Colonials had been roaming the island looking for girls and women to assault. What if they had come to number 34? What would Rosa have done? A poor widow with no one to protect her. Why hadn’t Mario protected her? Didn’t he love her? Didn’t he care that she was all alone in the world?
He didn’t bother to answer her with words. Rather, he nestled against her with a tenderness she must have found unusual, since in the past he had approached lovemaking in a hurried, businesslike fashion, as if to keep reminding her of the limits of his commitment. He felt no inclination to limit himself, however, now that his regret had evaporated.
He tugged her open-necked dark blouse free of her skirt and slipped his hands inside her bra. He had forgotten how soft she was. Even if he had remembered the fact of her, he hadn’t remembered the sensation of touch. It all seemed new to him, and the novelty made him feel youthful and vigorous but also profoundly respectful. He cupped the lower bulge of her breast and pressed his lips into the warm pocket of flesh. He licked the film of her sweat along the flat crevice of the sternum and filled his mouth with her areola. How lovely and soft and salty she was. He imagined that her compliance was more pronounced than ever, her hunger matching his own.
He held her around the waist, half-carrying her up the narrow staircase to her bed, to the matrimonial mattress he’d paid for himself. He was pleased to see the familiar cream-colored woven spread, and he wasn’t bothered to notice, in the light slipping beneath the slanted shutter, a few circles of stains on the spread. This was just what he expected of Rosa—stains and dust and a lush, inviting warmth.
He kicked off his shoes and trousers and sat patiently while she unbuttoned his shirt. He shrugged when she exclaimed at the small bandages on his back—he insisted it was nothing, and she asked no questions. He undressed her slowly. In her haste when she’d found him waiting outside her door, she had pulled on stockings without garters, and when he discovered this she let out a silly giggle, which delighted him. He caught sight of their reflection in the mirror above the bureau. They moved together easily. But when she bent to take him in her mouth, as she had often done, he caught her and held her face between his hands and kissed her again, sinking his tongue deep inside her, feeling the uneven surfaces of her back teeth, and at the same time nudging apart her thighs and entering her, pushing with a long, gradual thrust as far as he could go.
His only disappointment was that it ended too quickly. He was confident that he’d fulfilled her, and he enjoyed the warm pride that had replaced his desire, but he couldn’t shake off the disappointment. At first it came to him like the initial awareness of reality upon waking from a good dream. But after he’d put on his clothes and gone down to the kitchen to light the single burner so that Rosa could have her tea, he felt the disappointment growing like rain that slowly, almost imperceptibly, turns from a drizzle into a steady downpour.
She was a loyal woman—he knew as much, and he welcomed her dependence on him. After all these months, she had continued to wait for him. He would have heard if other men had started visiting number 34. Surely she could have taken another lover, had she wanted one. Or she could have made herself available to the Germans, who were eager for female company. But Rosa had remained determinedly alone.
As they drank tea together, Rosa recounted her experience of the invasion—which mostly involved sitting right there in the kitchen, holding her hands over her ears to block the noise of the bombs exploding around the port while she wondered if she was going to die. Half listening to her, Mario asked himself if they would be better off married. If they shared a home, they could make love every day. And yet he knew this wouldn’t happen. He didn’t want to make love every day, and he didn’t want to drink tea with Rosa. In fact, he didn’t much like her. Maybe this was the source of his disappointment—though he loved the warmth of her and the feeling of moving with her and being inside her, he didn’t like listening to her thoughtless chatter afterward. Or maybe he disapproved of her self-absorption. Through two cups of tea, she hadn’t asked him what he’d been doing during the invasion. She didn’t seem to want to know how he’d been wounded. True, the wounds on his back weren’t grave, but they were more than the nothing he’d pretended they were. Rosa should not have believed him when he’d said that. She was a silly woman and would never be more than an occasional pleasure.
She was too concerned with her own needs to notice his disapp
ointment. She asked him to bring a bottle of aleatico next time he visited. Also, she hadn’t eaten any meat for weeks. If he had any sausage to spare, she’d appreciate it. Would he come for supper the following Wednesday and spend the night? And could she borrow fifty lire?
His wallet was empty, he lied, but he promised to bring her the money on Wednesday. She remained in the kitchen while he let himself out. He noticed water puddling on the doorstep of the house across the street, and he looked up to see the old woman watering her geraniums. She called buongiorno to him. He answered her with a cold greeting and walked away, down the street and out of the shadow of Fort Stella.
Unsure where to go next, Mario tried to recall what he had been intending when he’d left La Chiatta, after the pandemonium caused by the dog and the soldier and Ulisse’s boys. The dog, it turned out, wasn’t dead—it wasn’t even injured—but the soldier had disappeared. Of course he had disappeared. Permitted to wander unattended around the property, he ran away like a thief without thanking his kind hostess or saying good-bye to Adriana, who had foolishly come to trust him.
Mario was convinced that the soldier had stolen something small and valuable, even if Giulia wouldn’t admit that anything was missing. Also, he guessed that the soldier had a more significant secret. Guilt had brought him to La Chiatta in the first place. Guilt had kept him away from his regiment. It was easy to commit an actual crime during a night of chaos. If the renegade soldier hadn’t eaten from the corpse of a German, then he had set a wounded man on fire. If he hadn’t set a wounded man on fire, then he had participated in the assault on Sofia Canuti.
Mario was aware as he headed back toward Piazza Repubblicà that the disgust aroused by the thought of the African soldier helped to relieve the disappointment he’d felt after making love to Rosa. It was good to be reminded of unfinished business, even if he couldn’t precisely define what that business entailed. He had some imprecise notion that the citizens of Elba needed to be stirred into action. Although the soldier had disappeared, he must still be held accountable. Every one of the French Colonials should be held accountable.