‘A film?’ Who knew what he meant by ‘film’?
‘It seems strange, doesn’t it? Now, because we’re in the dark, but if you looked at me more carefully in the light, you’d recognise me. I’m sure you’ve seen me, I’ve got the kind of face that people remember. That’s why the directors are always calling me up.’
‘And what film did you make, in France?’ There was a hint of sarcasm in the question.
Kociss gripped his quiff in one hand. ‘Damn, look, I can never remember the title, it’s an American title and I can’t keep it in my head. But I can tell you the name of one of the actors, the best of the lot, before you say his name you have to wash your mouth out with soap, wait, wait, Gary Grent?’
‘Cary Grant,’ Pierre corrected him, certain that the Neapolitan was pulling his leg. He must have made an arrangement with that other man. Mr Rock-Hard, who had asked Grant in person whether he had ever been to Yugoslavia. No doubt on the next stretch of the journey Ettore would tell him that Cary Grant was acting as an intermediary between the Red Star and Allied Command. That was what annoyed him the most. To have met a myth and not to be able to tell anyone. Like the story about the shipwrecked man and Marilyn Monroe on the desert island. She fell hopelessly in love. On the fifth day of unbridled sex he says to her, Marilyn, if you really love me, dress as a man and let’s meet on the other side of the island. She thinks it’s going to be some kind of erotic game. But the moment they meet, he giggles, jabs an elbow into her ribs and says, ‘Oh, Gianni, you’ll never guess what’s happened to me! Incredible: for the past four days I’ve been fucking Marilyn Monroe!’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ Kociss’s voice was disconsolate. ‘Yeah, I know: you meet someone in the back of a lorry and he tells you he’s made a film with Cary Grant and Winston Churchill. Who are you trying to kid? I understand you, but when the film comes out, take a good look at the scene with the fight in the middle of all the flowers. The guy in the maroon shirt.’
‘I do believe you,’ Pierre interrupted him. ‘I believe you because I’ve met Cary Grant as well, and when I tried to tell people, they all laughed in my face.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Hey, you’ve made a film with Cary Grant too!’
‘No, I met him in Yugoslavia. Some people were shooting at him, and my father and I saved his life.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Was he winding him up, or what? Was it a way of saying he didn’t believe a word? Or when someone says one thing, and the other person has to come out with something even bigger? Like the bloke with three balls on the tram who goes over to someone and says, ‘You know that you and I have five balls between us?’ And the other man says, ‘Oh, you poor thing, have you only got the one?’
Kociss locked his fingers behind his head and lay back on the sacks.
Pierre did more or less the same thing, rocked about by the potholes and the engine. A moment before falling asleep, he managed to catch the beginning of a long monologue.
‘Here, mate, I really did meet Cary Grant! And I wasn’t giving you a load of bollocks about that film, either, I exaggerated the bit about being an actor, because at the end of the day I’m still at the beginning of my career, it was pure chance, I did make an appearance, but everyone told me I was really good, and they even paid me, and I’m sure that some Italian director. Oi, Peer, are you listening to me?’
In the war you didn’t count them.
In fact some people did count them, and cut notches in the barrel of their gun.
In clashes in the middle of the woods it was hard to tell who was killing who.
And it had been hard at Porta Lame, as well. There was fog. There were smoke bombs. Ettore was sure he had killed at least fifteen, firing his Thompson gun and throwing two hand grenades.
There had been loads of them, in Bologna. More than a hundred partisans, between their base in the ruins of the main hospital and the one in the building in Via del Macello. At dawn on 7 November the Germans had encircled the block and captured some guards. The battle had begun at seven. The Germans, flanked by the Black Brigade, had had rifles, machine-guns, light guns and two cannon. They were shooting from the roofs of the nearby buildings as well. On the other side, nothing but automatic weapons, rifles and hand grenades. After five or six hours of fighting, with the block practically razed to the ground, the partisans had managed to move and take up position in another building.
The Krauts had brought in an armoured car, they had brought it into the courtyard and were shouting ‘Giff up! Giff up! ’ A Houdinistyle escape route had been found (that’s Houdini the conjuror, not Houdini the greengrocer in the Cirenaica district): a wall was knocked down, and they had escaped along the canal, leaving smoke bombs to cover their retreat and splitting up into little groups. They had actually managed to evacuate the wounded. Late in the afternoon reinforcements had arrived. The partisan detachment from Medicina. Germans and fascists, taken by surprise, had made off, leaving behind 260 dead, a few injured and vehicles loaded with ammunition.
The partisans had got away with twelve fatalities.
He had never done a job like that before. But the game was worth the candle. There was the money. And there was the shiver along the spine. For too many years he hadn’t risked his skin. His life had gone flat. No great joy, no great grief, no great rage. Many women, but no major relationship. One-night stands. Hours and hours spent with Palmo, who was a moron.
If I’d died at Porta Lame, or up in the mountains, my face would be up on the memorial in the Piazza del Nettuno. With my friends, for ever. With the fallen of the Valanga group, with Dubat, who killed himself in a cave rather than allow himself to be captured by the Germans, with Carioca, Ettore Bruni, Edoardo, Ribino, Aldo, Ferro, Silenzio, Renato. With Stelio, who had been tortured for thirtysix hours in Via Siepelunga, like Irma Bandiera, like Sante Vincenzi the night before the Liberation. Stelio disfigured, tortured, hanged in Via Venezian. ‘Justice is done’ was the headline in Il Carlino.
But if I die tonight, what will people remember of me? That I was a smuggler, a criminal. They’ve thrown me out of everything, I have no right to be remembered as a partisan.
Who knows what Il Carlino will write about me if I die tonight.
I should have died at Porta Lame. And instead here I am, protecting someone transporting drugs. A scary guy. I wonder if he’s a friend of that famous ‘Steve Cement’, the one whose name is used to frighten children?
I would guess that in those little circles, no one is a friend of anyone.
Chapter 49
Sospel, 3 July
Time 2.40 a.m. Sospel. A hamlet. Pungent air. Around it, woods and mountains.
Ahead, the plain. The headlights reveal a sign: ‘Relais l’Étape, 500 m’. The white road climbs among the chestnut trees.
Zollo gestures to Ettore. We’re there.
The lorry draws up to the crossroads. Ettore picks up his arsenal and jumps out. Thompson gun, hand grenades and a flare pistol. As in Porta Lame.
He runs through their roles again. ‘The young guys keep an eye on the lorry. I go and take up my post. You show up at three on the dot.’
Zollo nodded. Rien ne va plus. He raps his knuckles on the back of the lorry. ‘Ok, come out for a moment.’
They appear after a few minutes. They have the creased faces of people who have just woken up. They need to be reactivated. Two simpamine tablets for his migraine and two to fight their sleep. Ettore prefers to use dialectics.