History (24 page)

This, naturally, is only a partial reconstruction of the mysterious wan derings of Ninnarieddu on those nights; nor can I give any further infor mation. It is a fact that occasionally-and not always, as he claimed at

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home-he really was on duty or on patrol through the streets of the city, with his group of companions in uniform. This, in fact, as far as I know, was a special service of order and honor that was assigned in turn, a special occasion. And it was precisely on one of these special occasions that the musketeer Ninnarieddu conceived and carried out a personal, historic, pri vate exploit. Which, perforce, at the ti he kept concealed; and it re mained, indeed, a mystery-of Rome!

It seems that, for a series of nights, his squad was charged with guard ing the zone around the Victor Emmanuel Monument, in the vicinity of Palazzo Venezia itself, where in a room known as the
Sala del Mappa
mon
d
o, or Hall of the Globe, the Duce had his offi Before the war, the Duce's large window over the square was always seen alight, to make the

people believe that the Duce (called also
The Sleepless One)
was up there working, incessantly, like a perpetual Vestal who, while all sleep at night, never slept. However, since the outbreak of the war, with the blackout regulations, that window also was dark. Everything was black, in the night, around those streets. The black darkness teemed with black policemen, and Ninnarieddu himself wore black shirt, black trousers, black cap, etc. Now on one of those nights, God only knows how, Nino managed to slip off alone behind those historica palaces, like a bandit dashing to the center of the world, carrying, now hidden, a can of black paint and a brush! And, stealthily, in great haste, he wr on the wall in big letters the following words :

V I V A S T A L I N .

Not because he liked Stalin, who, on the contrary, at that period, seemed the chief enemy. But just for the hell of it, for a laugh. He would have amused himself by writing VIVA HITLER on the walls of the Kremlin.

Then, having performed his feat, he promptly cleared out, pleased to imagine the wall in the fi light of dawn and the effect created there by his prominent, personal work of art.

The winter of
1942-43
( third winter of the war in Rome) was squalid and ravenous. Ida pursued her usual occupations in a state of torpor, due in part to scant nourishment, and in part to some sleeping pills she had started taking nightly after the last summer. In their composition, they were not very different from the medicines that had helped her, in the past, with her childhood spells; now, however, they serv to provide her some rest in her unnerv nights. Thanks to these medicines, taken after

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supper every evening, she now descended, almost the moment she went to bed, into a long sleep, apparently empty of dreams.

Actually, I believe, she did dream; but the dreamed events occurred in a sealed compartment of her imagination, inaccessible to her consciousness. And this virtual splitting of her personality continued during her waking hours, through the whole next day, as that state of torp dragged on beyond the night. There was an absent Iduzza dazed, who wi the toil of another Iduzza : this one sprang up at the sound of the alarm clock, went here and there for classes, private lessons, lines outside shops, trams, and through neighborhoods, according to some preestablished rule . . . However, the second Iduzza, though it was she who acted, was, of the two, the more spectral : as if she, rather than the other, belonged to the sly world of those nighttime dreams that escaped her, but perhaps did not cease wounding her.

Since Useppe's birth, for fear of running into old Ezekiel ( now aware of her sca secret) she had considerably lessened her own visits to the Ghetto. She went only in certain extreme economic situations, for the purpose of selling, over there, some family object, second-hand. But her visits were rapid and almost clandestine, the more so since, recently, the Jews had been forbidden to practice even their ancient trade of junk dealing, and it was best to exercise it in secret. She never happened, on those quick trips, to encounter Vilma, or to exchange chatter or inform tion. Iduzza only source of political news was cut off

And so the most recent war news (barely mentioned by her reticent colleagues at school ) reached her mainly through Nino's propaganda. In Africa, in Russia, the Nazi-Fascists were withdrawing disastrously. How ever, these retreats, according to Nino's reports, were only a trick, planned

by the Reich's Commanders to guarantee the great success of the fi surprise : the secret Weapon!! This, which Ninnuzzu called Weapon
X,
or Z, or H, according to his whim of the day, was meanwhile being perfected in the underground factories of Silesia or the Ruhr, and soon (perhaps no

later than next spring) it would be ready. Announced by the general alarm of all sirens, in one moment it would end the war, with the defi victory of the Reich and the advent of its dominion over all nations.

What this sublime machine consisted of, how it acted, was, indeed, a secret reserved for the Leaders alone: though Ninnarieddu, by his tone, hinted he was also in on it, keeping it hidden there beneath his clump of curls, without, naturally, giving any clue to it at home, since it was a military secret.

But on certain days of boredom, he deigned to communicate tri phantly that the Reich's High Command had given the enemy countries an ultimatum: either total unconditi surrender, or else within twenty-four

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hours the explosion of Weapon
X.
The populace, however, was to know nothing, until
X
hour; it was to be a surprise. And here, to imitate the imminent explosion, Ninnuzzu would use his lips to produce those inde cent, perv comical noises which have diff names according to the various regions, though boys of all regions seem intoxicated by them.

Really, he was not eager for the war to end, but rather for it to begin also for him. It seemed unfair to him to be still deprived of this excep tional, formidable opportunity, excluded like a mongrel, assigned to the beardless category

And especially since, now, he was no longer beardless : indeed, he made a great show of shaving every day, using, for the operation, a real barber's razor, with a long steel blade, which was precisely that famous clasp knife, of multiple uses, left to Ida by the soldier Gunther.

Ninnuzzu had discovered it some time ago in the chest, when he was searching the house one day for objects, scraps of metal or other material to off to the Fatherland (according to the Regime's appeal to the popu lati to assist in the manufacture of armaments) . And perhaps believing it nobody's property, something that had somehow turned up there, he had taken possession of it, without reporting to his mother. But instead of donating it to the government, he had kept it for himself.

It happened that one morning, as he was shaving, Ida glimpsed that fl razor in his hands, and in an instantaneous recollection she seemed to recognize it. She felt herself turn pale; but she avoided inquiring into this disturbing reappearance and forgot it promptly, like her dreams.

That knife then accompanied Ninnuzzu for many months afterwards, in his subsequent adventures, until one day it was stolen from him, or was lost.

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1943