Two Friends Read online

  169

  Sergio found himself alone and out of work and began to lead a solitary, monotonous existence, filled with uneasiness and anxiety. He lived at home with his father—an office worker of middling importance—and mother, and his two older sisters, unmarried and by now decidedly spinsterish. He spent most of the day in his small bedroom, reading and daydreaming, and went outside only to buy cheap cigarettes from the tobacconist across the street. Or else he wandered the streets, not daring to sit down at a café because he had no money. His daily cigarette runs and solitary meanderings filled him with a dull, subdued, deadening, airless melancholy, almost as if he were not living but rather dreaming that he was alive, in a world where the talk was increasingly of war and violence, a world that was plunging, like a rock down a steep hill, toward the abyss, an abyss that could be seen and measured. He was simply waiting, for events that he could neither avoid nor change in any way, not even within the narrow arena of his personal feelings. Every morning he bought a newspaper and cigarettes; he went home, read the front page, and then threw the newspaper aside, picked up a book, and tried to read. It was summertime and his room, facing a courtyard, was suffocating and hot. Sergio lay on his bed, book in hand, half naked, and tried to concentrate. But he was only partly successful. He was easily distracted and would inevitably begin to inspect the few worn-out furnishings in his room, or gaze out the window at the little balconies hanging from the wall across the way, loaded with belongings. Even when he managed to read, it seemed to him, as when he took walks or did anything else, that he used only one part of his brain, almost mechanically, while the rest remained far away and preoccupied, though he could not quite say with what. He took a funereal, almost morbid pleasure in this solitary, silent, passive, wan existence, while at the same time reproaching himself for it, seeing it as further proof of his impotence and lack of self-confidence. At home, his parents—however timidly and discreetly—pushed him to work, implying that they could not continue

  170

  to pay his way if he remained idle. He responded evasively that there was no point in looking for work under the circumstances, with war about to break out. But he knew that this response was inspired by the deep indolence he felt rather than by a sense of reality. There was work to be had, and it probably would not have been so difficult to secure a job. The truth was that he did not even have the strength to look.

  [III]

  He often bumped into Maurizio around town, and each time, he was struck by his friend’s lighthearted mood. It seemed to him that Maurizio was interested only in the pursuit of his own pleasures. He was usually in his car with one girl or another; the girls were constantly changing, and because of their slightly embarrassed, submissive attitude, Sergio knew that they were involved in a love affair with Maurizio. Maurizio often asked Sergio what he was up to but never seemed particularly interested in Sergio’s response, which, it must be said, was always the same: “Writing, reading, and waiting.” He seemed to consider Sergio a kind of sad sack, an idler, in other words an intellectual, and Sergio no longer cared to prove him wrong. He knew he was an intellectual of the worst sort, a man whose intelligence was neither creative nor useful and served only to poison and paralyze him like a subtle venom. Furthermore, even though Maurizio realized that war was about to break out, he did not seem to attribute any importance to this imminent threat. “None of this has anything to do with me,” he commented to Sergio one day. “Do you know what history is? An excuse to do nothing and to let oneself go, maybe even to stop brushing one’s teeth in the morning. After all, what’s the point of brushing one’s teeth?” Sergio was struck by this summary, which so perfectly encapsulated his own situation. With the excuse that war was about to break out, he no longer bothered to brush his teeth, or, in other words, to fight the effects of time. Like the destructive waters of a flood, time flowed over him, leaving him inert, like the corpse of a drowned man.

  This condition of inertia, discomfort, and shame

  171

  lasted until the end of the war. Sergio had not been called up, because he suffered from myopia, but he could not decide whether this was a blessing or a curse. Though from the beginning he considered the war to be unjust and a lost cause, taking arms would have at least meant doing something or, better yet, letting himself be swept up in something. The war dragged on, month after month, as merciless and inflexible as an illness that must run its course and will end only after it has exhausted its virulence. Sergio felt this illness in his blood, like a poisonous fever that precludes any struggle. He waited, like many others, for the war to reach its foregone and predetermined end. At times he asked himself why he had never reacted in some way even though he was aware of the true reasons behind the conflict, as well as its absurdity and the baseness and incompetence of the men who had driven the country to war and were now conducting it. But always he came to the same conclusion: “I can do nothing but be aware of the fact that I can do nothing.” His impotence was part of the air he breathed, a substance buried in the objects that surrounded him, in their appearance, in time itself. Later, he would remember those years—which after all had contained different seasons and climates—as one endless day, as when the scirocco blows and the colorless, cloudless sky weighs heavily on the rooftops. The air is opaque and stifling, without a whisper of wind, colors fade, and objects lose their shape and become part of an undistinguished morass, devoid of all potency or light, benign and disagreeable at the same time. He realized obscurely that for others, these years might have a quite different color: for example, for members of the regime, who had jumped into this increasingly desperate war; for its enemies, whose hope grew day by day. But he did not feel himself to be on one side or the other; even though he shared both desperation and hope, he could not find a real reason to chose one feeling over the other and join either side.

  What tormented him the most, in addition to his

  172

  impotence, was his awareness of its profound causes. The truth was that even as he wished with all his might that the regime would crumble, even at the cost of a total disaster, he was upset—without quite knowing why—whenever the regime or one of its allies was defeated on the battlefield. He realized that the regime’s victories did not upset him as he would have wished them to. Quite to the contrary, each victory inspired an obscure, shameful sense of satisfaction. In other words, he both desired and did not desire the regime’s downfall, both hated and did not hate it. What he said out loud was not always true, and what he felt in the shelter of solitude was often in contrast with his words. He asked himself what could be the reason for this unconquerable duplicity, but he was unable to pinpoint its source. At the time, one of his younger brothers had been called up and was fighting with the Italian army on the Russian front. Whenever he was gladdened by a German victory in Russia, he wondered whether his affection for his brother—with whom he was very close—was the root cause of this contradictory, painful attitude. But he had to admit that the real motives were deeper and more obscure. In truth, as he had often suspected, he did not want the German armies to be defeated, because such a defeat would lead to disaster, a disaster he was not prepared to confront. Deep down, he preferred to go on living in this deceptive, bitter limbo, between disgust and impotence, and he knew that such a disaster would put an end to it, forcing him to take some sort of action. Yes, he thought to himself, he was this limbo, this malady, this ambivalence between one and another. This limbo, this malady, was his raison d’être, wretched and bitter as it was, but he had no other. And precisely because he knew that he could not find any other reason to justify his existence, he did not want the malady to end. All of this seemed to confirm Maurizio’s careless comment. Sergio reflected: “I am nothing but an intellectual of the worst sort, in other words a man who is aware of all the reasons for action and yet is incapable of acting.” Rereading Pascal’s Pensées, he came upon the great philosopher’s definition of man: That which distinguishes man from a clum
p of reeds

  173

  is the fact that the reeds do not know that they are being crushed and a man does. “Man is a thinking reed.” Bitterly, Sergio had concluded that there was no better description for him. But it seemed to him that Pascal was mistaken about one thing: a thinking reed, in Sergio’s opinion, was far inferior to a simple reed. Not thinking was better than thinking without acting.

  At home, everyone took him for a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Fascist. His family, who was not Fascist while at the same time not daring to be anti-Fascist, did its best to avoid political discussions, never referring to the war or the political situation in Sergio’s presence. He knew that his mother and father and two sisters would have been saddened by any anti-Fascist declarations from him because they loved his brother, who was fighting in Russia, and feared for his life. They simply wanted him to come home, and they knew that a defeat would impede his return. So he was silent. And still, he felt tossed around by his own impotent duplicity, like a fragile vessel buffeted by a tempestuous sea. On the rare occasions when he met with one of his very few remaining friends, he spoke of his desire for a German defeat. But as soon as he was alone, he realized with profound self-contempt that when he read the papers and saw that defeat seemed more and more inevitable and imminent, he felt a pang of disappointment and bitterness. This ambivalence vexed and disgusted him and inspired in him a gradual, funereal melancholy, as if he were suffering from an unnamable, mysterious disease for which there is no known cure.

  Sometimes he asked himself, “So, then, does this

  174

  mean I am on the other side? Am I a supporter of the regime?” He tested himself to see if his suspicions were justified. But as soon as he was in the company of Fascists, he felt something stronger than repulsion, almost hatred. Not a single one of their arguments was convincing—quite to the contrary. He was utterly incapable of cheering during military parades or speeches by Fascist officials; these displays felt like a bitter medicine, which nothing in the world could force him to swallow. When he spent time with someone who approved of or defended the regime, he experienced a deep, irrepressible discomfort, as if in the presence of a lie that must be combated at all costs. In other words, he was an anti-Fascist, at least in the presence of Fascists. But when he found himself in the company of a group of stalwart anti-Fascists, like the young men, around his age, who met sometimes in a neighborhood café, he felt only a halfhearted enthusiasm for their declarations. He did not dislike them as much as he did the Fascists, or rather he liked them while at the same time feeling a mix of envy and discouragement. Though he agreed with what they said, he did not experience the kind of heartfelt ardor that melts away the many layers of intelligent thought to become a clear conviction. He tried to attribute this lack of conviction to external causes like the fact that his brother was fighting in Russia. But the truth was that this was simply his nature; he was convinced that he would have shown a similar lack of conviction no matter what the circumstances. His heart was frozen and his mind could express only doubts.

  As time passed, the military situation worsened. Sergio noticed that the momentous, catastrophic news that appeared in the papers inspired no noticeable rumblings inside of him. The day Fascism fell, a day so intensely desired and awaited, he lay on

  175

  his bed, as usual, with a cigarette in one hand and a book in the other. One of his sisters ducked into his doorway and gave him the news, dramatically. Sergio paused and collected his thoughts for a moment before getting up to join the crowds that, he was sure, were forming in the streets of the city. Then he changed his mind and gave up on the idea of going out. The next day, even after hearing about the celebrations, he felt no regrets for not taking part.

  And then, suddenly, in the days that followed the fall of Fascism, he was finally presented with an opportunity to act, as if by miracle. This was the opportunity he had sought for so long, in vain. One day as he was crossing the sun-baked street, fiddling with a packet of cigarettes in his pocket, he heard someone calling him from across the road. He hesitated and then looked up, quickly recognizing the person calling out to him: it was Maurizio, this time on foot, no longer in an officer’s uniform but rather in a civilian shirt and crumpled trousers. Sergio noticed that his friend was waving enthusiastically. With some hesitation, he crossed the street.

  Maurizio said quickly: “I’m not an officer anymore … I threw my uniform into the weeds … What are you up to? You must be happy!”

  “Why should I be happy?”

  “You wanted the regime to fall, and now you have what you wanted!”

  “Yes,” Sergio said, distractedly, “now I have what I wanted.”

  Maurizio did not seem to be listening. Cheerfully, he said, “I’m getting out of here. This won’t last. The Fascists will be back and who knows what will happen. It’s better to get out of Rome. I’m going south … to Capri.”

  “Capri?”

  “Yes, Capri … After all, it’s an island … You never know … The Allies are already in Calabria … In a few days they’ll be in Naples, maybe even farther north … Do you want to come?”

  “With you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But I …” Sergio began, buying time to reflect on Maurizio’s proposal. “I’m totally … broke … and Capri is an expensive town.”

  Maurizio laughed; he seemed overexcited and unusually affectionate. “I’ll lend you all the money you need … I’ll pay for the trip … It’ll be fun … There are lots of pretty girls there … They must be feeling uneasy because of the war … We can console them.”

  This time, Sergio said, without reflecting: “I don’t think this is the time to be dreaming about pretty girls … People are dying … We’re in the middle of a revolution. Don’t you think your idea is a bit unseemly?”

  His friend began to laugh: “I knew you would say that. You wouldn’t be an intellectual if you didn’t say such things. But my dear Sergio, what can we do? The things which are taking place around us are out of our control. Did they ask us if they should go to war? Are they asking us whether we want a revolution? The only thing I know is that we could die here, just like that, for no reason. You know what they say: every man for himself. Come on, let’s go to Capri.”

  “No, I can’t,” Sergio answered, somewhat irresolutely.

  “I knew it. Always the same. What are you doing here in Rome? Well, it doesn’t matter … I’ll call you tomorrow morning … I’m leaving in the afternoon. You have twenty-four hours to think about it … Good-bye.” Maurizio shook Sergio’s hand and walked off.

  Sergio was in a state of anxiety, filled with indecision and disgust. Maurizio was right. For him, and others like him, the only option was to leave town and save his own skin. It was true that he too had no reason to stay, no cause to defend, no side to uphold. Maurizio, who, as usual, was more honest and clear than he, had come to the only logical conclusion commensurate with his circumstances, which were not really so different from Sergio’s: he had decided to leave town, hide, and wait for the storm to pass. Maurizio joyfully,

  177

  resolutely embraced that which Sergio felt forced to accept with regret, sadness, and indecision. On the other hand, somehow he had had the courage to utter those austere words in response to Maurizio’s offer. They had slipped out of his mouth, without reflection or forethought, almost against his wishes. What did they mean? Perhaps simply that he had a conscience, vigilant though inert and inoperative, and that this conscience did not allow him to behave thoughtlessly and selfishly as Maurizio did, while failing to motivate him to do the opposite.

  Finally, he reflected that he had twenty-four hours to consider Maurizio’s offer, and with this prospect in mind he was able to momentarily quiet his doubts. But he realized on some level that if at first he had refused Maurizio’s offer, it was mainly out of pique. All that separated him from his friend was an almost physiological rivalry, the desire to be different, to behave diffe
rently than he did. He felt contempt toward Maurizio, only barely mitigated by his involuntary sympathy and attraction. Maurizio was, in his mind, a typical representative of the society that had driven Italy to war, of the people who had sent the powerless into the battlefield and who, when danger approached, threw their uniforms “into the weeds,” as Maurizio had put it. Of course, Maurizio was more charming, spontaneous, and, it must be said, more disinterested than the corpulent commendatori of the Via Veneto. But it was a question of age; one day, Maurizio too would become one of those pleasure-seeking fat cats, cynical and opportunistic. Sergio did not want to follow in Maurizio’s footsteps or imitate his actions, even though in truth, he had no real reason not to.

  That day, at the table, he could feel his family’s sadness, bewilderment, and worry as they gathered around a spartan meal. Their anxiety felt like a reproach as he debated the question of whether or not to leave Rome. He knew that his family would not flee. More important, it was clear that they had no desire or thought of fleeing. His father, an aging public employee who for the last forty years had worked at one of the government ministries; his two spinster sisters, who were terrified by what was happening; and his mother, who understood nothing except that she had a son in uniform in a far-off land whom she did not know when she would see again, all seemed to consider the events around them to be a horrifying calamity, however inevitable. Sergio sensed that their vulnerable, frank unhappiness showed greater courage than his doubts and indifference. He told them that he had been invited by Maurizio to go to Capri and saw, shamefaced, how quickly they embraced the idea and begged him to accept this providential offer. Sergio’s father sighed and said: “I would happily leave if I could. My place is at the ministry. But you have no reason not to … Why stay here?” His mother encouraged him anxiously: “Yes, you should go … go now … It’s a good idea. That way you can have a little holiday; you need it, you’re so pale.” His two sisters said the same thing, although their arguments were tinged with envy, however innocent. Faced with their disinterested and, in its own way, courageous affection, Sergio felt even more guilty and disgusted with himself. He said he would consider it and retreated to his room.