For a moment, it seemed to Sergio that the statue, rather than the girl, had spoken. Maurizio beamed his flashlight in the girl’s face once again, holding it there. “Forgive us, but we were noticing the truly extraordinary resemblance between you and the statue.”
“What statue?” she asked. Her voice was neither sweet nor delicate. Like the rest of her, it was on the heavy side, and low, but still affectionate and caressing.
“Pauline Bonaparte,” Sergio repeated.
The girl did not respond, as if she hadn’t heard, or hadn’t caught the reference. A moment later she asked, “Do you think the alarm has passed?”
“Usually there is a signal,” Maurizio said.
The girl observed them with diffidence tempered by a touch of curiosity and a glimmer of hope. Finally she said: “Is the train station far from here?”
“No … why?”
“Do you know this address?”
In the light of the flashlight, she opened a shabby
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purse and proceeded to hand Sergio a scrap of newspaper. It was an advertisement for a furnished room near the train station. “So you’re not from here,” Sergio commented.
“No,” she answered with a slightly embarrassed tone. “I’m from T.,” a city in central Italy. “I arrived just yesterday.”
“And why did you come to Rome?” Maurizio asked, boldly.
The girl seemed self-conscious: “I’m looking for work.” She was shy, Sergio thought. She avoided looking at Maurizio but answered Sergio’s questions, as if responding to something intimidating in his voice. Maurizio began to laugh: “What a time to be looking for work in Rome.”
“Why, is it difficult to find work?” she asked cautiously, almost fearfully.
“It’s impossible,” he said, harshly.
“That’s not quite true,” Sergio said gently. “What do you know how to do?”
“Nothing, really,” she said, simply, “but I thought …”
They heard voices just beyond the bend in the hallway. They could clearly hear Maurizio’s mother calling out “Maurizio … Maurizio …” Then she appeared, with the small case still tucked under her arm, waving the other arm gaily. “It’s all over … They’ve sounded the all clear. Let’s go, Maurizio.”
Beneath the vaulted ceiling, in the dark, Sergio thought her voice sounded like a ghost calling from the underworld, surrounded by other melancholy, incorporeal spirits. Maurizio, the girl, and Sergio all stared at her in silence. She too was still and silent,
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the case still under her arm, in the half light of the hallway. Finally, Maurizio said, dreamily, “All right, Mother, let’s go.” She seemed to finally take a breath, as if her son’s words had released her from a spell and she had once again become a sentient being, no longer a ghost, as she had feared. As they walked silently behind her she went on about how frightened she had been, how long the alarm had lasted, and whether any bombs had been dropped. Maurizio walked slowly, as if trying to linger behind with Sergio and the girl. But his mother matched her footsteps to his and finally she took his arm, as if confirming her maternal role. Turning to Sergio, she said: “Of course, Maltese, you must understand the fears of a mother … In moments like these, I think principally of him.” Sergio said nothing and instead gazed at the girl walking beside him with her eyes lowered.
They walked toward the exit with the rest of the people from the shelter, who were moving with the docility and deliberate pace of a multitude emerging from Mass or a cinema. One by one, they climbed the spiraling staircase and emerged into the blinding sunlight, across from the large square surrounded by trees and statues. Maurizio’s mother turned to Sergio and said, in a worldly, detached, and somewhat disdainful tone: “Good-bye, Maltese … I hope to see you again in less extreme circumstances.”
“Good-bye, Maltese,” Maurizio’s father repeated, smiling affably.
“Good-bye, Maltese,” Marisa said. She squeezed his hand and as she let go, her fingers lingered on his with an air of complicity.
“Good-bye,” the governess echoed, hurrying after her mistress.
Maurizio asked Sergio, “Where are you off to now?”
Sergio realized that the girl was still there, walking slowly nearby. He called out to her, suddenly decisive: “Signorina …”
“Yes?” she answered with a start.
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“Would you like … may I walk with you?”
“Yes, thank you,” she answered with complete frankness. Maurizio looked at her, then at Sergio, and said, “Call me after lunch. I’ll join you.”
“All right.”
“See you later,” Maurizio said, seemingly with some regret, before calmly joining his family, which was already some way off. Only after a little while, when he was already far away, did Sergio remember that Maurizio was supposed to leave early that afternoon. He felt a touch of surprise. The young woman asked, in her confident, trusting voice: “Where should we go?”
[V]
Under a burning sun, in the silent emptiness of the
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park, they slowly approached the main path. The sun seemed fixed at a point directly above them, beating down on their heads. Time stood still, as if events were taking place outside of time, like figures beyond an impenetrable pane of glass. “Here I am,” Sergio could not help but think as he gazed at the girl walking next to him and then at the path in the deserted park. “Here I am; all around, everything is disappearing, but I’m standing still … It’s 1943 and this mysterious girl is here next to me … Many years hence, if I survive this test, I’ll remember this insignificant moment of no historical importance more than anything else in this clamorous, crucial period.” It was true; he could feel that this moment, clearly delineated by his unhappy, fearful sensibility, was unique and would never be repeated, and that furthermore, it was important, though he couldn’t quite say why. He felt a sensation that was deep, pungent, and intense and at the same time completely ineffable and indefinite. A feeling that encompassed not only the girl and himself but everything, all of reality, as if suddenly the dam holding back this wave of feeling had opened and the emotion flowed freely into the outside world, becoming one with it and staining it in its own hue. His eyes welled with tears. “So then, could there really be something beyond these important events taking place all around us … and is it possible that we are not just spectators or actors in these events?” He could not fully answer either of these two questions. He tried to define what he was feeling and understood that it was something terribly vast, a cosmic compassion that encompassed both the Fascists and the anti-Fascists, Germans and Italians, as well as the sky, the sun, the trees, and both himself and the girl walking next to him. She must have noticed his agitation, because she turned and asked, in her childlike voice: “Are you crying? Why?” […]
She answered, firmly: “Please don’t ask me […]”
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“But why?”
“Please.”
“At least tell me why you left T.”
“I can’t tell you that either.”
“Why this mystery?” Sergio asked. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” she said, staring at him with a kind of desperation. “Please don’t ask any more questions, I beg you.”
For a moment he sat perplexed, a flurry of ideas streaming through his mind: perhaps she was a spy or an adventuress, or a thief, or some other kind of criminal. But it was enough just to look at her, to see her innocent, almost childlike face, in order to know that this was impossible. There were doubtless dishonorable people in the world, but most of them were innocent victims, forced into crime by the war. Even if the girl’s life was a mystery, it was sure to be a mystery in her image, innocent and simple. “Forgive me,” he said, sincerely, “I didn’t mean to be indiscreet.”