the command to gear himself for the onslaught. ‘We get in there and fight our way through! Knees and elbows!’
The compartment they choose is bursting with men in uniform. Fresh-faced army and navy recruits returning to barracks. Jaded civil servants on the edge of retirement. Railways employees in dark suits with trousers short on the ankle and shiny on the seat.
Having experienced more than one military assault during his long life, the butcher knows all the manoeuvres. He’s determined to find seats for the two of them. If he doesn’t, they’ll have to stand the whole six hundred kilometres to Rome, or at least until Florence, when half the train will empty and they’ll have to grab whatever they can.
Their knees and elbows secure them two seats in a cabin crammed with large people and their large amounts of luggage. Not too cordial either, including a rough-looking type as tall as a baby pine, who stands up to watch Zio Umberto attempting to make a space among the suitcases.
‘Attento!’ His dark voice rumbles up from his boots and he towers over Zio Umberto.
Before Zio Umberto’s eyes can narrow into the purposeful stare he bestows on doomed animals, Pistola quickly indulges in some damage control.
‘I have an uncle your size, Signor,’ he announces. ‘Grenadier in the King’s Guards.’
This breaks the ice. The man introduces himself as Giorgio Pallavicini from Friuli in the mountains, and before they’ve even reached the outskirts of the city, he’s giving them a blow-by-blow of his day in a busy rosticceria next to Rome’s Fontana di Trevi.
Pistola doesn’t know what a rosticceria is.
‘A hole in the wall where you make and sell food all day and night,’ says the Friulano, at which the rosy-cheeked woman next to him reaches into a capacious floral bag and brings out a plastic container.
‘Roman specialities,’ she says. ‘Try.’
For Pistola, their names are as memorable as what they taste like. Deep-fried mozzarella-stuffed risotto balls called ‘suppli al telefono’ because the melted cheese hangs out in delicious sticky strings like telephone wires. Mozzarella sandwiches dipped in batter, deep-fried and called ‘mozzarella in carrozza’, mozzarella in a carriage.
Not to be outdone, Zio Umberto produces several slices of Gamba Mischi’s cotechino and a bottle of Lambrusco to share.
Two soldiers are asleep next to Pistola. A slack-jawed young khaki-clad recruit drooling on the shoulder of the one next to him, a dark wiry devil with a nasty star-shaped scar on his cheek. Neither of them wake, even when the talk of food moves to more excitable talk of war.
‘Vaca troia!’ Zio Umberto announces. ‘I realised our lives would never be the same again when they told us to give up our gold rings for La Patria.’
‘And took the bronze statue of the soldier in the square,’ says the Friulano. He passes the Lambrusco back to Zio Umberto. ‘Did you also get that British propaganda plane in the middle of the night?’
The flesh on Zio Umberto’s ruddy cheeks quivers. ‘Madonna! Telling us to get the Germans out of Italy! Telling the sheep to get rid of the wolves!’ He sighs. ‘One thing I’ll never forget is the sky red with flames when the British bombed the Germans’ ammunitions depot in Verona.’
The rosy-cheeked woman leans forwards and pats Zio Umberto on the knee. ‘Let’s rather remember the day the Americans started rolling into town after all those years of misery! What a miracle!’
‘Finally!’ says the Friulano. ‘Everyone waving at the soldiers! Everyone yelling, “Hello Johnny!” and the soldiers all shouting back, “Bella Italia!”’
He pronounces ‘Bella Italia!’ with such exuberance that the two foreign blondes sitting at the window repeat ‘Bella Italia!’ with smiley strident enthusiasm. When the Roman woman joins in, the two soldiers wake.
‘National euphoria,’ says Zio Umberto. ‘In our village we had a dancing epidemic. So many breasts bouncing, and everyone becoming an expert at that boogie the Yankees brought with their chewing gum.’
‘After those six years of misery anything was fun!’ says the Friulano with a grin.
‘Fun?’ The soldier with the scar stretches his lanky legs across the space between the seats and announces in a voice surly with contempt: ‘Sorry, but none of my war tales is about fun. They’re about my friends dying in the desert thanks to Mussolini’s useless tanks. And having nothing to eat but toothpaste when we were captured in Africa …’
The rest of the compartment goes quiet.
‘Porca puttana!’ he snarls. ‘Wish I’d been there when they strung him up. I would’ve been cheering and throwing stones!’ He fingers the star-shaped scar on his cheek. ‘Got this from one of his Fascist pigs in the prison camp, always showing off his maledetto Duce medallion.’
They stare at him in silence.
Then Zio Umberto says in a firm quiet voice: ‘Yes, we certainly paid the price. No question. But I still believe Mussolini did some good things for Italy. Tried to instil in us a sense of pride in our nation. A return to the days of Rome’s glory. He had great plans for his country. Until Hitler came along and ruined it all …’
The soldier’s face goes dark. ‘Mussolini was a criminal! A monster who grabbed power and killed people!’
‘Course he was a dictator.’ Zio Umberto shrugs. ‘That’s what Italy needed. A strong hand to unify and guide us.’
‘Porca puttana! I can see you’re one of them!’ The soldier leaps up and disappears out through the door.
Immediately, a young woman comes bundling in. As she tries to take the empty seat, the other soldier covers it with his arms. Pistola gets up.
‘Don’t be silly, ragazzo!’ Zio Umberto tries to push him back down.
Pistola shrugs. ‘Fresh air …’
Passing close to the young woman, he smells lavender and is overwhelmed by a vision of Teresa in her kitchen.
In the corridor there’s not much fresh air and the soldier has disappeared. People are standing, backs against the metal, smoking as they rattle towards Rome. There’s a sordid desperation in the way they suck at their cigarettes as if sucking life’s last breath. He wonders if that’s how he looks when he smokes, even though he always tries to smoke like Massimo Girotti, to elegantly manipulate the cigarette with the same droopingly sophisticated fingers as his screen idol.
The train clatters through the back streets of a small town. Women in curlers hang out washing. Men in vests play cards at pavement tables. Boys on bikes hang around outside shops whistling at girls. Strange to see other people’s lives from the outside, other people doing the ordinary things he and his friends do in Campino every day.
‘How other people live …’ The scar-faced soldier has appeared next to him.
Pistola takes a chance. ‘Where was that prison camp you were in?’
‘A country called South Africa.’
Pistola’s heart jumps. ‘My father was
