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“Is that all the articulation you have?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a crime to send you back. They ought to get complete articulation.”
“It’s a lot better than it was. It was stiff as a board.”
Rinaldi bent it more. I watched his hands. He had fine surgeon’s hands. I looked at the top of his head, his hair shiny and parted smoothly. He bent the knee too far.
“Ouch!” I said.
“You ought to have more treatment on it with the machines,” Rinaldi said.
“It’s better than it was.”
“I see that, baby. This is something I know more about than you.” He stood up and sat down on the bed. “The knee itself is a good job.” He was through with the knee. “Tell me all about everything.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “I’ve led a quiet life.”
“You act like a married man,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“This war is killing me,” Rinaldi said, “I am very depressed by it.” He folded his hands over his knee.
“Oh,” I said.
“What’s the matter? Can’t I even have human impulses?”
“No. I can see you’ve been having a fine time. Tell me.”
“All summer and all fall I’ve operated. I work all the time. I do everybody’s work. All the hard ones they leave to me. By God, baby, I am becoming a lovely surgeon.”
“That sounds better.”
“I never think. No, by God, I don’t think; I operate.”
“That’s right.”
“But now, baby, it’s all over. I don’t operate now and I feel like hell. This is a terrible war, baby. You believe me when I say it. Now you cheer me up. Did you bring the phonograph records?”
“Yes.”
They were wrapped in paper in a cardboard box in my rucksack. I was too tired to get them out.
“Don’t you feel good yourself, baby?”
“I feel like hell.”
“This war is terrible,” Rinaldi said. “Come on. We’ll both get drunk and be cheerful. Then we’ll go get the ashes dragged. Then we’ll feel fine.”
“I’ve had the jaundice,” I said, “and I can’t get drunk.”
“Oh, baby, how you’ve come back to me. You come back serious and with a liver. I tell you this war is a bad thing. Why did we make it anyway.”
“We’ll have a drink. I don’t want to get drunk but we’ll have a drink.”
Rinaldi went across the room to the washstand and brought back two glasses and a bottle of cognac.
“It’s Austrian cognac,” he said. “Seven stars. It’s all they captured on San Gabriele.”
“Were you up there?”
“No. I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve been here all the time operating. Look, baby, this is your old tooth-brushing glass. I kept it all the time to remind me of you.”
“To remind you to brush your teeth.”
“No. I have my own too. I kept this to remind me of you trying to brush away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.” He came over to the bed. “Kiss me once and tell me you’re not serious.”
“I never kiss you. You’re an ape.”
“I know, you are the fine good Anglo-Saxon boy. I know. You are the remorse boy, I know. I will wait till I see the Anglo-Saxon brushing away harlotry with a toothbrush.”
“Put some cognac in the glass.”
We touched glasses and drank. Rinaldi laughed at me.
“I will get you drunk and take out your liver and put you in a good Italian liver and make you a man again.”
I held the glass for some more cognac. It was dark outside now. Holding the glass of cognac, I went over and opened the window. The rain had stopped falling. It was colder outside and there was a mist in the trees.
“Don’t throw the cognac out the window,” Rinaldi said. “If you can’t drink it give it to me.”
“Go something yourself,” I said. I was glad to see Rinaldi again. He had spent two years teasing me and I had always liked it. We understood each other very well.
“Are you married?” he asked from the bed. I was standing against the wall by the window.
“Not yet.”
“Are you in love?”
“Yes.”
“With that English girl?”
“Yes.”
“Poor baby. Is she good to you?”
“Of course.”
“I mean is she good to you practically speaking?”
“Shut up.”
“I will. You will see I am a man of extreme delicacy. Does she—?”
“Rinin,” I said. “Please shut up. If you want to be my friend, shut up.”
“I don’t want to be your friend, baby. I am your friend.”
“Then shut up.”
“All right.”
I went over to the bed and sat down beside Rinaldi. He was holding his glass and looking at the floor.
“You see how it is, Rinin?”
“Oh, yes. All my life I encounter sacred subjects. But very few with you. I suppose you must have them too.” He looked at the floor.
“You haven’t any?”
“Not any?”
“No.”
“I can say this about your mother and that about your sister?”
“And that about your sister,” Rinaldi said swiftly. We both laughed.
“The old superman,” I said.
“I am jealous maybe,” Rinaldi said.
“No, you’re not.”
“I don’t mean like that. I mean something else. Have you any married friends?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I haven’t,” Rinaldi said. “Not if they love each other.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t like me.”
“Why not?”
“I am the snake. I am the snake of reason.”
“You’re getting it mixed. The apple was reason.”
“No, it was the snake.”
He was more cheerful.
“You are better when you don’t think so deeply,” I said.
“I love you, baby,” he said. “You puncture me when I become a great Italian thinker. But I know many things I can’t say. I know more than you.”
“Yes. You do.”
“But you will have a better time. Even with remorse you will have a better time.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, yes. That is true. Already I am only happy when I am working.” He looked at the floor again.
“You’ll get over that.”
“No. I only like two other things; one is bad for my work and the other is over in half an hour or fifteen minutes. Sometimes less.”
“Sometimes a good deal less.”
“Perhaps I have improved, baby. You do not know. But there are only the two things and my work.”
“You’ll get other things.”
“No. We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete. You should be glad not to be a Latin.”
“There’s no such thing as a Latin. That is ‘Latin’ thinking. You are so proud of your defects.” Rinaldi looked up and laughed.
“We’ll stop, baby. I am tired from thinking so much.” He had looked tired when he came in. “It’s nearly time to eat. I’m glad you’re back. You are my best friend and my war brother.”
“When do the war brothers eat?” I asked.
“Right away. We’ll drink once more for your liver’s sake.”
“Like Saint Paul.”
“You are inaccurate. That was wine and the stomach. Take a little wine for your stomach’s sake.”
“Whatever you have in the bottle,” I said. “For any sake you mention.”
“To your girl,” Rinaldi said. He held out his glass.
“All right.”
“I’ll never say a dirty thing about her.”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
He drank off the cognac. “I am pure,” he said. “I am like you, baby. I will get an English girl too. As a matter of fact I knew your girl first but she was a little tall for me. A tall girl for a sister,” he quoted.
“You have a lovely pure mind,” I said.
“Haven’t I? That’s why they call me Rinaldo Purissimo.”
“Rinaldo Sporchissimo.”
“Come on, baby, we’ll go down to eat while my mind is still pure.”
I washed, combed my hair and we went down the stairs. Rinaldi was a little drunk. In the room where we ate, the meal was not quite ready.
“I’ll go get the bottle,” Rinaldi said. He went off up the stairs. I sat at the table and he came back with the bottle and poured us each a half tumbler of cognac.