You look the night in the face, Doctor.
You can tell that a few people around you are actually sleeping. You’re always amazed when you see what human beings can get used to; what they can put up with.
You look the night in the face, and it looks back, impassive. The night is accustomed to more than this, after all. It’s moved over more serious misery, it has covered up far worse yearnings.
There’s a high school teacher, over there, a Calabrian. He’s a homosexual, that’s why he’s here. He says that he has no political beliefs, but for all you know he’s actually a Fascist and they took him anyway. He won’t say how they caught him, but from a few of the hints he’s dropped you think that it must have been with a student, in the toilets. He sleeps and he snores, mouth open. As the saying goes: the sleep of the righteous.
And there’s a university student—you did your best to treat a nasty gash on his forehead—who speaks in monosyllables.
And there’s a shepherd from Avellino who cursed at the dedication of a statue of Old Bull Head, as they call the Duce.
And others, who have thoughts that now constitute crimes punished by exile in a concentration camp.
Because, you tell the night, that’s what we’re talking about: a concentration camp. And you’re about to be shipped to one of those camps.
Who knows when you said something out loud, who knows what you did and when, within hearing of vigilant ears which hurried off to report. Perhaps it was just the other morning, at Viper’s funeral, when you spoke to those four drunken thugs. The good you’ve done doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter who you’ve been or who you are.
Do you remember the night, Doctor? Do you remember it on the Carso, when the chilly morning sunlight found new corpses strewn on the ground, when the mortar marked time with greater precision than your wristwatch? Perhaps the night was less frightening then.
At least then you knew who the enemy was, and you fought him. Now someone out in the street might perfectly well tip his hat as you go by and then turn around and report you.
Someone’s crying softly. Wives, children: at least you don’t have that regret. At least you’re not leaving anyone behind.
For some reason you find yourself thinking about the dog, Doctor. And you hope that Maione will take care of him, as you had the good sense to ask him to do.
Maione, Ricciardi. Sunshine and people.
God, how you miss your life, Doctor.
Now that they’re taking it away.
You think you’re close to the water, you can smell it in the air. The air also smells of diesel fuel from ocean liners, and every so often you hear voices calling. The port, probably. So it’s going to be a ship that takes you away, along with the high school teacher, the shepherd from Avellino, and the other poor bastards.
For no good reason, you think back on Viper, on her laughter and her beauty, lost now. Seven days ago you were at Il Paradiso, drinking and laughing and playing cards, and she walked past and you blew her a kiss. Too bad about her, and too bad about you.
How you miss it.
How you miss a world you never thought you loved so much.
The night, Doctor.
The night that won’t end.