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“He’ll be here. He’s got a lot of things to arrange—”
Everyone smiles when the couple comes into view. A handsome Italian whose suit coat is tossed over his shoulders and sways with every jaunty step. A homely Fräulein, weak with laughter, made vivacious by his interest. Gallantly, the man who calls himself Ugo Messner pulls out a chair for Erna Huppenkothen, greets a couple of fascisti, mimes friendly recognition to other patrons. When his companion is settled, he leans over to whisper in her ear. Something he says provokes a scandalized shriek, and he weaves through the tight-packed tables, disappearing into the gabinetto at the back of the bar.
Santino follows, but waits outside. The Jew always locks the door while he takes a piss. When the latch slides back, Santino slips inside. “Va bene?”
The whispered response is ebullient. “Benissimo! Ottimo! Perfetto!” Messner hands Santino a packet of transport papers. “There’s an Opel Blitz waiting at the Gestapo motor pool. They’re expecting you. When you’ve finished loading the cargo, bring it to the alley just this side of the Cuneo bridge. We’ll meet you there— What’s wrong?”
Santino stares at the key in his palm. “I can’t drive.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to drive the truck! I thought you just wanted me to load it!”
Messner’s liquorish urbanity explodes into half-vocalized profanity so appalling, Santino bumps into the wall, trying to move away in the tight space.
“I’m sorry, signore! I didn’t—”
The eyes close, and a hand goes up. “Forget it,” Messner says tightly. “It’s my fault. I should have— It doesn’t matter.” He cracks the door open. “Where’s Farini?”
“In the far corner, near the kitchen. Out of uniform, and shitting-his-pants scared.”
“Good. Heroism requires fear, Cicala, which is why I am incapable of it. Stay here for a few minutes, so we don’t look like we’re together. I’ll work on Farini.”
When Santino emerges from the W.C., Messner is back in the middle of the fascisti, the Fräulein hanging on his arm, enchanted. “But do you know why so many people hate the Jews?” Messner asks the others. “Because Jews think they matter! What they say, what they do, what they believe. Even when they don’t believe in God, Jews think their disbelief is significant. It’s positively comic, and intensely a
At the table by the kitchen, Giuseppe Farini is standing like a figure on a pedestal: shoulders back, head high. Glancing at Santino, he throws a few bills down on the table and lifts his chin toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Santino asks.
“To the Gestapo motor pool, and then to the mountains,” Farini says in a low firm voice, gazing at Messner with a look just like the Fräulein’s. “I’m through eating German shit,” he swears. “And if the Allies come? By God, I’ll fight them, too.”
Santino catches Messner’s eye. Gri
Songs and jokes and fu
Ugo Messner may drink as much as any sot can swallow, while Padre Righetti wears a mask of fearless honesty and must never stagger or slur his words. Suspended between them, Renzo measures the capacity of each. Half sober, he can just keep up with the swift cu
He doesn’t always get the balance right. He awakens, now and then, fully dressed in a hooker’s bed, with no memory of what he said or did the night before. Head splitting, mouth foul, he fingers his clothing, deciding who and what he should be. Smooth serge? Don Gino Righetti will be ashamed, the troia tolerant and amused. If the rougher fabric of Ugo Messner’s linen suit comes to hand, she’ll be polite. Either way, she’ll be happy, paid handsomely, for a quiet night’s sleep. Thus far, neither of his alter egos has exposed the mohel’s work to the professional scrutiny of an unknown whore. Unma
Back in Abyssinia, after the Dolo hospital raid, he could drink for hours, and still have a woman or two. On leave in Addis, he favored the girls pimped by a displaced Russian prince who kept women in a row of doorless mud-brick cabins. He drank before. He drank after. He hardly ever ate. He couldn’t stomach sooty Ethiopian flatbread rolled around raw beef and red pepper, but he learned to love the tedj. Cheered on by other pilots, he drank that stuff without swallowing, his throat open as a drainpipe. Tanked to the top, he’d take on another of the Russian’s harem. Then, sufficiently disgusted, he’d locate a bar frequented by the lower ranks and pick a fight with an infantryman of promising bulk and evident ferocity, hoping to end the evening dead.
Pilots fly now by the hundreds, kill by the thousands. It would be easy to lose his grip on guilt, but he clings to this one truth: greater crimes do not excuse his own. When the murder of forty-three people no longer matters, civilization is extinct. His shame is the last vestige of honor in a vicious, barbaric world. He drank in Addis to kill his conscience. He drinks now sacrificially: to keep remorse alive.
And because his legs hurt. And because getting drunk is the only pleasure left to him. And because his hands shake less.
He’ll quit soon.
But not today. Today he’ll once more seek that golden land where reckless genius lives! Timing’s critical. The schedule’s tight. He’s made one mistake already, and can’t allow another. He checks his watch, makes his farewells. May I walk you home, Fräulein Huppenkothen? Of course— the dressmaker. Compliment her for me. You always look wonderful. Take care, my dear. I’ll be away on business a few days. Ja, klar, mein Schätzchen! As soon as I get back.
A splash of cold water in the gabinetto. An espresso on the way out. A surreptitious change of clothes in Giacomo Tura’s cleaning closet. And Padre Righetti emerges from the basilica ready for responsibility. One blackbird in the city’s flock, he walks across San Giobatta’s piazza. Lifts his shark-fi
He passes unremarked through checkpoints and roadblocks, progress unimpeded until he approaches the municipal jail. There the carabinieri take pains to examine papers with ceremonial attention. The queue files forward a few steps each minute, stalling completely when an old woman insists on explaining her business to them.
“My son outgrew these!” she says with a vague, worried look, clutching a bundle of rags. “I have to find a mother with an older boy and a younger one,” she confides. “She can have my son’s clothes for her little boy— I’ll trade them for her older son’s things.”
“Signora,” the policeman protests kindly, “your son must be a man by now. It’s been a long time since he outgrew anything!”
Bent and bony, the old lady hugs the bundle to her sunken chest. “My son outgrew these!” she says, quavering voice more insistent. “I have to find a mother with an older boy and a younger one! She can have my son’s clothes for her little boy, and my son can wear her older boy’s clothes!”
People begin to mutter. Smiling benignly, Gino Righetti steps out of the queue and comes to the carabiniere’s side. “Let her pass,” he says, sotto voce. “She’s just a crazy old lady, figlio mio. Completamente pazza.”