The Human Body Part 19

What stings Ietri more than anything, though he would never admit it, is that his friend hasn't even noticed how angry he is or that he hasn't spoken to him since morning. Now he has two choices: answer him rudely and make his resentment known, or continue not speaking to him, make believe he doesn't exist. By the time he makes up his mind, however, Cederna has already forgotten about him.

Via radio, Rene is urging them to pick up the pace. The Third has to make up a fairly substantial gap, because in the last hour they've made two extra stops, due to Torsu's intestinal problems. The third time Rene denied him permission to get out of the vehicle and the soldier is now forced to perform his evacuation operations on the turret, standing, to the benefit of Mitrano and Simoncelli, whose heads are directly level with his pelvis. He drops his pants and briefs to his knees, unfolds the garbage bag, and manages as best he can.

Poor guy, Ietri thinks, seeing what's going on in the Lince behind them in the rearview mirror, but his sympathy stops there. At this moment he's too absorbed in pitying himself. He lets that insistent feeling draw him into a series of ever morbid fantasies that eventually verge on thoughts of death. It's the only way he's able to coddle himself, sinking deeper into misery.

He glances out the window, but there's nothing to see, not a tree or a house, not a color other than that of rock and sand. He's overcome by a feeling of nostalgia for the town where he grew up. When he was in middle school, and even more in high school, he hated Torremaggiore and its deserted streets. He was the only heavy metal freak within fifty miles and wore the Slayers apocalyptic T-s.h.i.+rts as a shout of protest. Now he'd give anything to be back there. Even just for a little while. He'd like to be dozing on the high bed with the wrought-iron headboard, in the room that was too bright in the afternoon to really sleep, listening to the rattle of his mother's pots in the kitchen, her radio set low so it wouldn't disturb him.

Why does he always want too much and always what he can't have, things in the past or, worse yet, those that will never come? At age twenty he's beginning to wish that all those desires would vanish without a trace. There certainly must be a point at which a man stops being conflicted, in which a man finds himself exactly where he wants to be.

From a dizzying height in the sky, a hawk swoops down and Ietri follows its flight. Just before touching the ground the bird soars again, picks up a current, and lets it carry him, adrift, in midair. It's a sight that the corporal finds inspiring. There, that's how he should be.

The Lince brakes suddenly, flinging him forward. Ietri's forehead hits the seat's reinforcement bar; then he bounces back. A whiplash injury to his neck that he pays no attention to, because first he has to figure out what's happened.

Di Salvo has crashed down a.s.s-first and let out a shout; a few cases of ammunition have overturned, and there are cartridges scattered everywhere, some even between his legs. Cederna swears, then slaps the dashboard. "You guys okay?" he asks.

Automatically, Ietri replies, "Yeah." He couldn't manage to keep up his silence this time either.

At first they call it a ditch, but in all respects it's a crater, so deep that, looking into it, you can see water glimmering. A well in the middle of the desert-who would believe it? The right front wheel of the Lince has ended up in it, while the others are reared up. When Zampieri tries to step on the gas, the wheels spin around in the air, shooting clumps of earth in every direction. The real problem is that the vehicle's cha.s.sis is lodged on a rock outcropping. Towing the vehicle is risky because they might damage the gas tank and they can't leave it there because regulations prohibit it. (G.o.d only knows what the enemy would do with the Lince if they were to get hold of it!) The only solution is to try to raise it and drag it forward. But it weighs ten tons.

They have a good field of vision, so almost everyone gets out, and for the first few minutes at least they're grateful to whoever caused them to stop. They take the opportunity to stretch, bending over to grab their ankles and twisting their backs from side to side. They try decreasing the vehicle's load: after the pa.s.sengers are out, the gear and ammunition are also unloaded. Cederna and Di Salvo dismount the Browning from the turret and at that point there's nothing left to remove unless they pull out the seats, as some have suggested.

It's hopeless. Even with six and then twelve pairs of strong arms trying to lift the Lince, it won't budge. Rene is furious and he's not the only one: Captain Masiero radioed his contempt from up ahead, shouting that he had no intention of stopping because Goldilocks isn't capable of driving. He ordered the column to be temporarily broken and Rene didn't have the nerve to object and say that it was an extremely risky plan. He knew the captain would lay into him and then proceed to do whatever he wanted.

Masiero, together with the bomb techs and most of the military vehicles, has continued along the track to get on with clearing the terrain. As soon as the trouble with the Lince is resolved, the rest of the convoy can catch up with them by moving more quickly. The guys of the Third and the truckers watch the vehicles that preceded them disappear behind the mountain. Now they're orphans. Their situation is as tragic as it is simple: the longer it takes them to get out of the fix they're in, the greater the distance they'll have to cover without the ACRT's protection, now in the forefront, blindfolded and barefoot in a terrain full of mines. The more time they lose, the greater the possibility that a stupid accident might turn into a much bigger disaster.

So they get busy, each however he can. They strain their biceps and cut their hands in an effort to raise the vehicle. They count one . . . two . . . lift, and only when they're out of breath do they release their grip. Even the Afghans have sensed the danger and, grouped beside the Lince, offer advice that no one understands.

Corporal Zampieri is the only one standing on the sidelines. After almost burning the clutch to drive the heap of sc.r.a.p iron forward, she's now focused on vigorously resisting the tears that are choking her. What's the matter with her? Why didn't she see the hole? She thinks she must have come close to nodding off. She'd been struggling to keep her eyes open for over an hour, tempted by the urge to doze off with her face squashed against the steering wheel, and instead of spilling a bottle of water over her head, she'd let herself be lulled.

What an idiot! She feels like kicking herself. Instead she bites her right thumb and chews the skin off, since the nail has already been bitten as far down as possible. Gnawing her fingers has an immediate calming effect. During periodic visits, the doctors always make offensive comments about that habit, but she ignores them. As she moves from the battered thumb to her middle finger (which doesn't offer as much satisfaction except for the joy of ruining something intact), she reviews, one at a time, the phases she's all too familiar with, stages from similar situations in which she's fouled up: shame, the wish to disappear, fierce anger, the urge to vindicate herself.

Cederna comes over. He throws an arm around her shoulder, more comradely than affectionate. Last night Zampieri was sure he really liked her, but now she knows that his interest was just due to the general excitement and lasted only briefly. Even when they entered the tent she had the impression that Cederna wanted to have some fun with her for lack of a better alternative. Giulia Zampieri has always been the kind of girl men have a good time with. No one really wants her seriously. They do what they want with her body, sawing off her head. She knows this and by all appearances she couldn't care less.

She tried to enjoy the fun, and later, when she was having a hard time getting to sleep, she rated Cederna's performance as coolly as guys must rate their bed mates. Nothing special, hasty and repet.i.tive. She tried to silence the insistent frustration that demanded something more, something better, and not just from a s.e.xual point of view. She fell asleep wondering whether she'd been infatuated with him for too long, an unacceptably long time, and fearing that their little fling may have punched a hole in the sealed container that kept that feeling in check.

"It could have happened to anyone," Cederna says. "Sure, it's a f.u.c.king disaster. But it could have happened to anyone. That is, almost anyone. It wouldn't have happened to me, for instance."

Zampieri says nothing. She shrugs off his arm.

"When you can't see beyond an obstacle, you always have to go around it," he continues. "You can't know what to expect up ahead."

"Are you teaching me how to drive, a.s.shole?"

"Hey, don't get mad. I'm just giving you a piece of advice."

"I don't need your advice. Why don't you beat it and leave me in peace?"

Cederna winks at her. He's really a blowhard. How can she like someone like that?

He leans over and whispers in her ear: "Maybe you're just a little tired. You were pretty wild on that cot."

There it is. That's what Cederna thinks of her. That she's a woman men can be brazen with, and say things like "You were pretty wild on that cot" and freely admit all the filthy acts that normally they only dare to imagine.

She gives him a shove. "I'm not the least bit tired, get it? If you really want to know, you didn't last long enough for me to even begin to get tired." She says it loudly so the others can hear. They turn around, curious.

Cederna grabs her arm. "What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you, huh?"

"Maybe it's time we said what you're really worth, Francesco Cederna. So everyone will know."

"Shut up!" Cederna raises his right arm to smack her, but it's not clear he'd have the guts to really hit her because Ietri appears out of nowhere and comes between them.

"What's going on?"

"Get out of my way, verginella."

"I asked you what's going on."

Cederna stands right under his nose, Ietri a whole head taller. "Get out of here, I said."

"No, Cederna. I won't get out. You get out." Ietri's voice cracks a bit with emotion.

At the far right of Zampieri's field of vision is the wedged Lince with the guys scrambling around it, in the center the aggressive profile of Cederna, and to the left, out of focus, Ietri's. Zampieri is and isn't present. Right now her heart is blank, empty. Her arms are trembling and her cheeks burning. Men always know how to handle her, but she's learned how to handle men.

She turns slowly. She reaches out to the back of Ietri's neck, pulls him to her. The sensual kiss she plants on his mouth has no sentimental implication; it's a clear act of revenge, of self-defense, a rejection of the ferocious animal threatening her.

She breaks it off with a smack of her lips and glances sidelong at Cederna, who's turned pale. "You should ask your friend to teach you, you know. He's no verginella. No way! He knows what's what."

It's after five and the sun is low on the horizon when Rene decides to take a chance and go for broke. "We'll hook it up to the ambulance," he says.

"That way we could wreck both of them."

"We'll hook it up to the ambulance, I said."

They use a double tow hitch; then Rene himself gets behind the wheel. He doesn't want the responsibility for any slipup to fall on one of his men. He'd like the guys to recognize his generosity, but instead they stare at him skeptically as he gets set to start; some even think he wants to take credit for it. He tries not to pay any attention. By now he knows: the chief quality required of a commander is to be able to forsake any form of grat.i.tude.

He steps firmly on the accelerator. The ambulance's tires spin at full speed, kicking up a dust cloud. The tachometer goes to six thousand rpm; a high-pitched screech forces the soldiers to cover their ears. The Lince rocks back and forth and seems to want to tip over on its side, but instead, with a single violent lurch, it's out of the hole. The accident leaves its mark in a silvery scar on the underside of the vehicle.

Rene regroups the column and they set out again, but the severed convoy doesn't get very far. By now the sun is gone. Moreover, through his binoculars Rene can see a village. Lartay. He can't make up his mind whether it frightens him or not. Captain Masiero got past it unscathed with his troops and is now awaiting the stragglers in an area with better visibility, beyond the group of settlements. Ending up so far apart wasn't part of the plan-the captain, completely ignoring his own error of judgment and skipping over any apology of course, had muttered into the transmitter that there was no suitable place to spend the night until they reached Buji Pa.s.s, so he'd pressed on down there, end of story. Rene is tempted to try to join him, but he can't run the risk of being trapped in a village in the dark.

This is the first time he's heading a mission with any real danger, the first time he has to make such a difficult decision. If he'd been handed the prospect of such an opportunity, even just that morning, he would have been dazed with excitement, but now he doesn't feel the sense of achievement he expected. He's definitely more worried than proud.

He gives the order to encamp. Although Lieutenant Egitto is the highest-ranking officer now that Masiero has left them on their own, the marshal is a more experienced strategist and the doc supports him.

Rene keeps the vehicles lined up in a row-in case of an ambush they could start moving more quickly-then establishes the s.h.i.+fts for guard duty. He feels drained. He hadn't really noticed it until the minute he turned off the ignition key and the seat under his b.u.t.t stopped vibrating. His neck has tensed up, his limbs are stiff, and his back aches, especially his lower back. Not to mention he itches all over. He's not one to complain, but this time he admits: "I couldn't take it anymore."

"You're telling me, Marshal," Mattioli agrees.

But Rene doesn't believe the others find themselves in the same condition as he does. No one else has carried the burden of command on his shoulders.

He unfastens the seat belt, which isn't just an ordinary seat belt, but an infernal contraption composed of a metal ring on which four very taut straps converge: two of them have been squeezing his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es the entire time. He removes his helmet, the sungla.s.ses that made him think it was later in the evening than it was-could they have gone a little farther? h.e.l.l, it's time for some rest!-and his gloves as well, then leans over the steering wheel to perform the most complicated operation: taking off his bulletproof vest. He yanks open the velcro on each side, then ducks his head like a turtle and struggles to pull it off. As soon as the vest is tugged off his body, he feels an intense burning in his abdomen, as if he'd ripped a piece of flesh off along with it. Cramps? He has no idea what's going on anymore; the pain is all one big ache. He tosses the protective vest over the steering wheel, pulls his cotton T-s.h.i.+rt out of his pants, and rolls it up over his belly.

When he sees the bruise he's speechless. The purplish, nearly black streak runs across his stomach from one side to the other, where the lead plate rested. It's an inch wide and in some spots vivid sc.r.a.pes and clots of dried pus can be seen. Mattioli provides the audio commentary: "Holy s.h.i.+t, Rene."

The others lean forward to see, even Torsu bends his knees and sticks his head into the cab; he's white as a sheet and almost relieved that someone is as bad off as him. They all start undressing feverishly to check what's under their vests, and to anyone watching them squirm around that way, they'd look pretty comical, because it's not easy to take off that paraphernalia sitting down, squeezed in like that. They each have some redness, but no one is as skinned as Rene.

"You have to go see the doc," Mattioli says.

"What for?"

"You need some ointment."

"It's just a bruise."

"It's bleeding. There. And there too."

"It looks like you've had a C-section," Mitrano says.

"A C-section isn't that long, you a.s.shole!" Simoncelli says.

"What do I know? Who's ever seen one!"

Rene gives in and agrees to trade places temporarily with Camporesi. Even a maneuver as trivial as that requires a degree of diligence. You can't just get out and walk the fifteen yards that separate you-there might be snipers posted right there, at eight o'clock, along the cleft in the rock face. You first need to create a security corridor with the tanks.

Finally the marshal climbs into the ambulance, in place of the driver, Camporesi. The doc has him lie down on a stretcher in the rear compartment. The medication he applies burns like pure alcohol, and maybe it is. Rene has crescent-shaped swellings under his armpits as well and another large one on his back. A few seconds after the doc has swabbed a wound with a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant, the burning eases, leaving a cool feeling in its place.

"Breathe, Marshal."

"Huh?"

"You're holding your breath. It's all right to breathe."

"Oh. Okay."

Rene closes his eyes. He's lying down. He stretches his back muscles. Relaxing his limbs triggers a kind of o.r.g.a.s.m that spreads throughout his body.

The doc begins ma.s.saging his shoulder muscles; his hands are warm. It's certainly the most intimate contact Rene has ever had with a man. At first he's embarra.s.sed, but then he relaxes. He wishes it would never end.

He's struck by the prospect of spending the night in the ambulance, stretched out, rather than cramped in the driver's seat in the overcrowded Lince, with the steering wheel preventing him from even turning on his side. However, the stretcher he's occupying belongs to Camporesi by all rights. He drove that vehicle all day; Rene himself a.s.signed him that role: changing places now would be a s.h.i.+tty thing to do. Yet the marshal is totally wiped out. For the first time in his career, self-interest engages in a violent struggle with what's right.

It's what every one of my men would do. Not one of them would sacrifice himself for me.

That's not so, and you know it.

In the end, they're all selfish. We're all selfish. Why do I always have to act like I'm better than them? Why should I be the better man this time too, if they won't repay me later on? I worked harder than all of them. Tomorrow I have to be rested, to lead them past the village.

No, no, no! It's not right. This place belongs to Campo.

Rene knows that if he gives in to the stretcher's temptation, his self-esteem will be damaged forever. He'd be taking advantage of his rank to be a little more comfortable. He won't be any different from many of the higher-ups he's always despised.

Everyone takes advantage. We're all b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, in one way or another. Besides, it's only for tonight.

He sits up. The doc objects, telling him to lie still until the painkiller has taken effect. "Only a minute," Rene says.

He leans toward the radio in the front of the vehicle and contacts the Lince in front of them, asks to speak to Camporesi.

"Camporesi here, Rene," the soldier answers.

"We're trading places. Tonight I'm staying in the ambulance."

There's a long silence on the other end.

Rene presses his thumb on the b.u.t.ton. "I'm staying in the ambulance. Over."

More silence.

"Campo, do you read me?"

"Roger that. Over and out."

When Rene lies back on the stretcher, however, he finds it less comfortable than before. All of a sudden he notices how rigid it is and that his arms hang down over the sides, so that he has to keep his hands clasped together on his chest like a corpse in a coffin. Maybe it wasn't worth dirtying his conscience for a little bit more s.p.a.ce, but what's done is done. He's surprised that his remorse isn't greater after all.

Lieutenant Egitto, after cleaning his teeth with a plastic swab, without water, lies down on the adjacent stretcher. He and Rene are the two highest-ranking soldiers in what's left of the convoy and they will spend the night better than all the others. It's shameful and unfair, but that's how the world works. Maybe it's time Rene learned to come to terms with it. He inhales the stale air.

It's the evening of the first day and they've covered a little over nine miles.

Angelo Torsu and Enrico Di Salvo's heads stick out of the turrets of the armored vehicles, in the valley's chill, rosy dawn. The two gunners are bleary eyed and their legs are stiff. The barrels of the Browning automatics protrude oddly from the wool blankets wrapped around their necks.

"Hey," Torsu says.

"Hey."

They whisper.

"I need to go."

"You can't. You have to hold it in."

"No, I really need to go."

"If Rene catches you, you're done for."

"He's sleeping. I can see him from here. Cover me."

Torsu's head disappears for a few seconds, a duck diving under to fish in a pond. When he resurfaces he has a roll of toilet paper clamped between his teeth. He pushes himself out of the turret. He walks along the hood, keeping his balance with open arms, then places a foot on the running board and jumps down.