The Human Body (15 page)

Ietri can barely keep it up. He still has twelve more to go. “I don't know if that's why we're here,” he persists, through clenched teeth.

“Of course that's why. Imagine if they put one of those burkas on your mother. I'm telling you, the Arabs are even worse than the Chinese. Worse than the Jews too.”

They switch places. Ietri tries to picture his mother covered by a long black garment. She wouldn't look much different than she does now. A question occurs to him, but he doesn't dare ask it. Cederna blows in his face every time he raises his torso. Damn, he's strong—it's a struggle to hold his ankles down. The face of the American Indian tattooed on his abdomen crumples up and slackens. Finally Ietri spits it out: “Listen, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,
verginella
.”

“What exactly does Jew mean?”

Cederna frowns, but doesn't stop. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

Ietri immediately gets defensive. “Forget it. You mentioned Jews before, and I . . . it was just a question, that's all.”

“It's a dumb-ass question. A Jew is a Jew, right?”

Now he's blushing. He knew it was better not to ask. But he's been carrying the question around for so long and for some reason, he's not sure why, he finds it natural to trust Cederna. He falls for it every time. “I know,” he tries to make up for his mistake, “I mean, the whole story about Hitler and the concentration camps and all that. But . . . what I mean is . . . with a black, you can see that he's black. But if someone is a Jew, how can you tell?”

Cederna stops, panting. He leans on his forearms. He spits to the side, then stares at the sky, thinking. “There's no specific way,” he says. “You just know. Some people are Jews and other people know it.” Then something occurs to him; his eyes flash. “And obviously you can tell by the last name.”

“By the last name?”

“Sure. That writer, for instance . . . Primo Levi. It's a Jewish name.”

“That's it? The last name?”

“That's it, right. What did you think it was?”

Cederna resumes his crunches. Ietri can feel his friend's tendons lengthen in his hands and then release. “You don't know a fucking thing,
verginella
.”

“Cederna?”

“Yeah.”

“Could you stop calling me
verginella
? Please.”

“Not a chance.”

“At least not in front of the other guys.”

“I'll stop when you're not a little virgin anymore,
verginella
.”

Ietri chews his lip. “Speaking of which,” he says.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Now you started. Shoot.”

He just can't keep his mouth shut, damn it! Where does Cederna get that power to pull the truth out of him all the time? He already messed up once, when he talked to him about girls, and now he feels like he's about to make another misstep, but he can't stop himself. “What do you think of Zampa?”

Cederna stops abruptly. “Uh-oh! Watch out! Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just curious.”

“The
verginella
has a crush on our comrade!”

“Ssshh! Come on, I'm serious.”

Cederna again assumes the philosophical expression he wore when he was explaining about Jews. He really gets on Ietri's nerves when he does that.

“Zampa . . . has a nice pair of tits. But an ugly face. Plus, any female who serves in the army must have a screw loose.”

“I don't know.” Ietri hesitates. He feels as bashful as a little kid. “I like her a little. Being together, that's all.”

“You're really an unlucky bastard, pal.”

“Why?”

His friend is now sitting beside him, wiping the sweat from his armpits with his T-shirt. He has multicolored tattoos even on his biceps and a smaller one on his neck, where puncturing the skin must hurt like a bitch. Each one represents a symbol, a memory, and if you ask him, Cederna is more than happy to expound on them. He keeps Ietri on tenterhooks for a while. Then he says: “Because she's a lesbian, of course.”

Ietri's head slumps. Lesbian. How can that be? Lesbians have short hair. Zampa's hair is long, golden blond. “How do you know that?”

“Come on, man, it's obvious! Besides, if she weren't a lesbian, do you think it's possible she'd be so good all the time? Twenty-four/seven thrown in with us guys without doing anything? No way. She'd be wild by now.”

Ietri would like to go into it more, but they're interrupted by Vercellin, who runs up to them waving his arms like a maniac. “Guys! Hey, guys, come and see!”

“What's happening?” Cederna gets up.

For a few seconds the silhouette of his face casts a shadow over Ietri. Darkened, that's how Ietri feels, for a myriad of reasons that he can't separate from one another. And this new, shocking news.

“Come and see what Torsu found,” Vercellin says. “It'll blow your minds!”

 • • • 

T
he Sardinian's hunting trophy triggers great euphoria in the Third. His platoon mates congratulate him, and Torsu stays on his feet just to enjoy the glory, despite the fact that his fever has taken a new upswing. The guys invent a courage competition: they take turns touching the dead snake—all except Mitrano, who turns out to have an atavistic terror of slithering creatures. Then a challenge is issued to see who will dare lick it. The only ones to do so are Cederna and Simoncelli; they then describe the taste, contradicting each other several times and only confirming for certain that the taste is really disgusting. Cederna wants to take the snake off the hook and wrap it around his neck like a scarf, but the others won't let him. They start dancing around the carcass, first each on his own, then in a conga line led by Pecone. Marshal René and a few others stand on the sidelines, though joining in with smiles of approval. Zampieri takes over a table and does a sensual dance. Tracing irregular circles with her pelvis, she slides her open hands from her neck to her breasts and then farther down, to her groin. Then she joins her hands above her head as if in prayer, and unwinds every joint, from her wrists to her ankles, imitating the sinuous glide of the snake. Ietri doesn't take his eyes off her for a second. Lesbian? No way—this time Cederna is dead wrong.

When their excitement dies down, the guys get on the computers to share the discovery with their girlfriends, but the women don't seem to really get it. All they do is squeal, “Eewww gross—yuck!”; they laugh but only because they hear the men laughing on the other end. Then the soldiers scatter through the base, each one in search of an audience from the other companies: Come and see, come on, we caught a snake. The pilgrimage to the Third's headquarters lasts until late in the evening. Flashlight beams flickering in the darkness converge from all over to admire the hanging reptile. Even Colonel Ballesio shows up and, contemplating the creature with his arms folded, says: “Old Mother Earth sure does produce a whole lot of disgusting things.” Then he adjusts his testicles and goes away.

Lieutenant Egitto has accompanied his guest to the Wreck and is now lighting the way back to the infirmary with his flashlight. He aims the beam of light on her legs and tries to remember the shape of her bare calves, their consistency. He's pretty sure he bit them on one occasion, and that he bit down too hard, making her angry.

Inside the infirmary, Irene slips off the fleece he loaned her (she'd hinted at having had some kind of experience in the Middle East, but she wasn't equipped for the desert cold, a strange detail that renewed the lieutenant's doubts), tosses it aside without folding it, and sits on the desk. “I doubt I'll be able to sleep now that I know there are snakes roaming around loose at the FOB,” she says.

The soldiers had hailed her when she entered the cement hut. They'd demanded that she photograph them as a group around the snake. Egitto had stood on the sidelines.

“We should have one of your beers to celebrate.”

She'd poked around in the fridge too, evidently. “They're the colonel's. I doubt he'd be pleased.”

Irene jumps down off the desk. “The colonel's, of course. I bet he won't say anything.”

She bends over the refrigerator and turning around three-quarters gives him an impudent look. Egitto accepts the can of beer she hands him. When Irene pops the cap on hers, the liquid fizzes out onto her hands and she laps up the foam like a greedy cat. “Remember when we did it at Fornari's party?”

Once they'd surrendered to lust inside a friend's shower. A lightning-quick coitus, one of the transgressive highlights of Egitto's erotic life. Sure, he remembers.

“It's been a while, huh?”

Irene Sammartino is no longer anything like the impulsive, flighty girl he used to know. She's morphed into a skillful woman, one who can translate her thoughts into Dari and a moment later flirt shamelessly while sipping a can of beer.

“Yeah, a really long time,” Egitto replies briefly.

Later they brush their teeth outside the tent. Neither of them feels like walking to the toilets, so they use a small bottle of mineral water. The toothpaste they spit out forms small frothy white gobs near the fence. Egitto ends up with spittle on his jacket; she wipes it off for him with the back of her hand. They laugh about it together. Brusquely, they say good night to each other and bed down on opposite sides of the canvas tarp. Egitto immediately turns off the light.

He can't get to sleep, though. He keeps seeing the guys crowded around the snake's mutilated carcass and Irene popping the tab of the can, the beer foaming over her hands. He's extremely aware that she's just a few yards away and he knows the meaning of the look she gave him just before—the word
available
comes to mind and the word
intention
is also spinning around in his head.

Skipping over several logical steps, he finds himself fantasizing about married life with Irene Sammartino. He imagines her as a woman who drags along a heap of clutter with her, fills the space with magazines and piles of paper, and leaves her clothes piled up on the couch. This doesn't bother Egitto, not too much; he observes her through the chinks of that disorder. He loses himself in a close scrutiny of her anatomical merits and defects, the way he used to back when they were together, as if attraction could be computed that way, at a desk, based on a two-column table.

Just look at what he's come to, imagining detailed little scenarios around the only woman he's shared a room with in a long time, a woman he would never, ever have wanted to meet again. Fate, or more likely someone forcing its hand, put them together and now expects to spawn the obvious consequences. But the lieutenant doesn't like the idea. He's not about to get himself in hot water, not with Irene Sammartino.

He's prepared for what happens next. Irene moves cautiously, but the silence is too absolute for Egitto not to recognize the sound of the sleeping bag's zipper inching down, then the rustle of the polyester fill, the soles of her bare feet sticking to the synthetic fabric of the floor. One step, another step. The lieutenant opens his eyes. The refrigerator's tiny LED is the only light in the tent; it looks like a distant lighthouse glimpsed from out at sea. Egitto stiffens; he considers the most effective way to get out of the spot he's in.

Now it's the zipper on his bag that's being slid open. It's not time to open fire yet, he thinks; he has to wait until the enemy gets closer. Irene lies down on top of him and starts voraciously kissing his neck, his cheeks, his mouth.

“No!”

The lieutenant's voice explodes in the silence like thunder.

She stops, but not right away, more as if she were trying to catch her breath. “Why not?”

“No,” Egitto repeats. His pupils have adjusted to the dim light—they must be dilated to the maximum, as he's able to make out the contours of Irene's face above him.

“But don't you find it strange to sleep apart, you and I, just a step away?”

“Maybe. But no. I'd rather . . . not.”

For a moment he wavers. His body displays an unexpected interest in that nocturnal visit; it rebels, confuses him. Egitto is no longer sure why he's steering clear of the trap. Really, why? Because he made that decision earlier, that's why. Out of a sense of responsibility to himself. To protect himself.

Meanwhile, Irene is still lying on top of him. A hand quickly slips down to the lieutenant's groin, dips into his briefs. The contact with Irene's fingers radiates pleasure throughout his body. Egitto grabs her arm firmly and pushes it away. Then he clears his throat to make sure his voice will come out sounding decisive. “Get away. Now. Good night.”

She rises to her knees. That was easy, Egitto thinks, easier than he'd imagined. Irene places a foot on the floor, climbs off him. There, she's going. He's safe.

With a surprising move, the sweeping gesture of a bullfighter who makes the red cape vanish before the bull, she whips the flap of his sleeping bag open and uncovers him. A blast of cold air drifts over the lieutenant's bare legs. Egitto murmurs another no, but it's a lackluster attempt.

Still struggling with himself inwardly, he lets her have her way. In the end he closes his eyes again. All right. Okay.

When they've finished, he asks Irene if she'd like to stay and sleep with him there—the cot is narrow, but they could make do. Pure courtesy, a somewhat hypocritical and very inept offer of reparation.

“Don't do me any favors,” she says. “Good night, Alessandro.” Her lips lightly brush his forehead.

Walking in the dark, she bumps into something, maybe the defibrillator cart. “Shit,” she exclaims.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

Irene whimpers in pain. She doesn't answer him. Egitto, under the protection of darkness, smiles.

In the pitch-black dead of night, as the lieutenant finally sinks into sleep, the two soldiers on guard duty at the main sentry tower are alerted by unusual movement in the Afghan truckers' camp. They mount the night vision binoculars to see better, but there's no need, because the headlights of a vehicle come on in the meantime. A truck, just one, sets out slowly in a southwesterly direction toward the entrance to the valley, and within a few minutes disappears.