A Soldier of the Great War

Copyright © 1991 by Mark Helprin

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Helprin, Mark.

A soldier of the great war/Mark Helprin.—1st ed.

p. cm.

I. Title.

PS3558.E4775S65 1990 90-45987

813'.54—dc20

ISBN 0-15-183600-0

ISBN-13: 978-0156-03113-4 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-15-603113-2 (pbk.)

First Harvest edition 2005

eISBN 978-0-547-54514-1

v11.0220

FOR ALEXANDRA AND OLIVIA

I

Rome, August

ON THE ninth of August, 1964, Rome lay asleep in afternoon light as the sun swirled in a blinding pinwheel above its roofs, its low hills, and its gilded domes. The city was quiet and all was still except the crowns of a few slightly swaying pines, one lost and tentative cloud, and an old man who rushed through the Villa Borghese, alone. Limping along paths of crushed stone and tapping his cane as he took each step, he raced across intricacies of sunlight and shadow spread before him on the dark garden floor like golden lace.

Alessandro Giuliani was tall and unbent, and his buoyant white hair fell and floated about his head like the white water in the curl of a wave. Perhaps because he had been without his family, solitary for so long, the deer in deer preserves and even in the wild sometimes allowed him to stroke their cloud-spotted flanks and touch their faces. And on the hot terra cotta floors of roof gardens and in other, less likely places, though it may have been accidental, doves had flown into his hands. Most of the time they held in place and stared at him with their round gray eyes until they sailed away with a feminine flutter of wings that he found beautiful not only for its delicacy and grace, but because the sound echoed through what then became an exquisite silence.

As he hurried along the Villa Borghese he felt his blood rushing and his eyes sharpening with sweat. In advance of his approach through long tunnels of dark greenery the birds caught fire in song but were perfectly quiet as he passed directly underneath, so that he propelled and drew their hypnotic chatter before and after him like an ocean wave pushing through an estuary. With his white hair and thick white mustache, Alessandro Giuliani might have seemed English were it not for his cream-colored suit of distinctly Roman cut and a thin bamboo cane entirely inappropriate for an Englishman. Still trotting, breathless, and tapping, he emerged from the Villa Borghese onto a long wide road that went up a hill and was flanked on either side by a row of tranquil buildings with tile roofs from which the light reflected as if it were a waterfall cascading onto broken rock.

Had he looked up he might have seen angels of light dancing above the throbbing bright squares—in whirlwinds, will-o’-the-wisps, and golden eddies—but he didn’t look up, for he was intent on getting to the end of the long road, to a place where he had to catch a streetcar that, by evening, would take him far into the countryside. He would have said, anyway, that it was better to get to the end of the road than to see angels, for he had seen angels many times before. Their faces shone from paintings; their voices rode the long and lovely notes of arias; they descended to capture the bodies and souls of young children; they sang and perched in the trees; they were in the surf and the streams; they inspired dancing; and they were the right and holy combination of words in poetry. As he climbed the hill he thought not of angels and their conveyances, but of a motorized trolley. It was the last to leave Rome on Sunday, and he did not want to miss it.

THE ROAD traveled relatively straight to the top of the hill, but descended the opposite side in switchbacks that, unlike their mountain counterparts, cupped fountains in the turns. Stairs cut through its shuttling, and Alessandro Giuliani took them fast and painfully. He tapped his cane at each step, partly in commemoration, partly in retaliation, and partly to make it a metronome, for he had discovered long before that to defeat pain he had to separate it from time, its most useful ally. As he went down, the walking became easier, and a short distance from the crossroads where he would board the streetcar he found himself on ten flights of gradual stairs and landings in a thick green defile. Through a confessional grille of tangled trees in a long dark gallery penetrated at intervals by the blinding sun, he saw the pale circle of light that marked his destination.

Drawing closer, he knew from the open blue awning that—unlike everything else in Rome that day—the cafe that seemed to exist solely for people who awaited the rarest streetcar in Italy had not shut its doors. He had neglected to buy presents for his granddaughter and her family, and now he knew that he would be able to take something to them. Though his great-granddaughter would not be pleased by gifts of food, she would be asleep when he arrived, and in the morning he would walk with her to the village to get a toy. Meanwhile, he would buy some prosciutto, chocolate, and dried fruit, hoping that these would be appreciated as much as his more elaborate presents. Once, he brought an expensive English shotgun to his granddaughters husband, and at other times he arrived with the kinds of things that were to be expected from a man who had many years previously outrun any possible use for his money.

The tables and chairs on the terrace of the cafe were crowded with people and bundles. The overhead wires neither vibrated nor sizzled, which meant that Alessandro Giuliani could walk slowly, buy provisions, and have something to drink. On this line the cables always began to sing ten minutes before the tram arrived, because of the way it gripped them as it rounded the hill.

Walking through the thicket of chairs, he glanced at people who would ride with him on the way to Monte Prato, though most would leave the streetcar in advance of the last stop, and some even before it lowered its whip-like antennae, switched to diesel, and ran far beyond the grid of electrical wires from which it took its sustenance on the streets of the city. It had rubber tires and a pantograph, and, because it was a cross between a trolley and a bus, the drivers called it a mule.

A construction worker who had made for himself a hat of folded newspaper thrust his right hand into a bucket to encourage a listless squid that Alessandro knew would have to die within the hour from lack of oxygen. The headline running along the rim of the hat said, inexplicably, Greeks Make Bridges of Gold for the Rest of 1964. Perhaps it was related to the Cyprus Crisis, but, then again, Alessandro thought, it might have had something to do with sports, a subject of which he was entirely ignorant. Two Danes, a boy and a girl in blue-and-white student hats, were at one corner of the terrace, seated next to German army rucksacks almost as big as they were. Their shorts were as tight as surgeons’ gloves, and they were so severely and brazenly entangled in one another that it was impossible to tell his smooth and hairless limbs from hers.

Several poor women of Rome, perhaps sweepers or cafeteria workers, sat together over glasses of iced tea and were overcome now and then with the hysterical giggling born of fatigue and hard work. Sometimes they were free for a few days to go back into the country, where they had once been sylph-like little girls completely different from the obedient cardigan-covered barrels they had become. As Alessandro went past they lowered their voices, for although he was courtly and deferential, his age, bearing, and unusual self-possession awakened their memories of another time. They looked down at their hands, remembering the discipline not of the factory, but of childhood.

At another table were five strong men in the prime of life. They were truck drivers, and they wore sun glasses, striped shirts, and faded army clothing. Their arms and wrists were as thick as armor; they had huge families; they worked impossibly hard; and they thought they were worldly because they had driven over the high Alpine passes and spent time with blonde women in German bordellos. Without thinking, Alessandro formed them into a squad of soldiers in a war that had long been over and would soon be forgotten, but then, catching himself, he disbanded them.

It hasn’t arrived yet, has it? he asked the proprietor of the cafe.

No, not yet, the proprietor answered, leaning over the copper bar to glance at the wires, for he could read their vibrations as if they were a schedule. "It’s nowhere near; it won’t come for at least ten minutes.

You’re late, you know, he continued. When I didn’t see you coming, I thought you had finally given in and bought a car.

I hate cars, Alessandro said, without the slightest energy. Would never buy one. They’re ugly and they’re small. I’d rather ride in something airy and open, or walk, because to be in a car gives me a headache. Their motion frequently makes me want to vomit, although I don’t. And they’re so cheaply made I don’t even like to look at them. He made a gesture in imitation of spitting. He was too refined to have done this in normal circumstances, but here he was speaking the language of the man behind the counter, who, like Alessandro, was a veteran of the Alpine War.

"These automobiles, Alessandro said, as if he were conceding the existence of a new word, are everywhere, like pigeon shit. I haven’t seen a naked piazza in ten years. They put them all over the place, so that you can’t even move. Someday I’ll come home and find automobiles in my kitchen, in all the closets, and in the bathtub.

Rome was not meant to move, but to be beautiful. The wind was supposed to be the fastest thing here, and the trees, bending and swaying, to slow it down. Now it’s like Milan. Now the slimmest swiftest cats are killed because they aren’t agile enough to cross streets where once—and I remember it—a cow could nap all afternoon. It wasn’t like this, so frantic and tense, everybody walking, talking, eating, and fucking all the time. Nobody sits still anymore, except me.

He looked up at a row of medals displayed in a glass case above a battalion of liquor bottles. Alessandro had medals, too. He kept them in a brown Morocco-leather folder in the credenza in his study. He hadn’t opened the folder in many years. He knew exactly what they looked like, for what they had been awarded, and the order in which he had earned them, but he did not wish to see them. Each one, tarnished or bright, would push him back to a time that he found both too painful and too beautiful to remember, and he had never wanted to be one of the many old men who, like absinthe drinkers, are lost in dreams. Had he owned a cafe he probably would have put his medals in a case above the bar, because it would have been good for business, but for as long as he could, until the last, he would keep certain memories locked away.

Let me offer you something, said the proprietor, compliments of the house.

Thank you, Alessandro answered. I’ll take a glass of red wine. He had always associated the expression compliments of the house,’ with some giant establishment twenty or fifty times the size of the one he was in—perhaps an enormous casino, or a resort on an island bulging with Germans in tiny bathing suits.

As the proprietor’s hand grasped the bottle, he asked, Anything to eat? Bread? Cheese?

Yes, but I’ll pay for them, Alessandro told him.

This was answered by a quick gesture that said, remarkably, ‘I offered, at least, but I’m glad you want to pay, because although things are not impossible, lately they’ve been kind of slow.’ Then, as his customer was eating, the proprietor edged closer and spoke in a camouflaged voice.

Do you see those two? he asked in reference to the lascivious Danes. Look at them. All they can do is eat and fuck.

I wish I could.

The proprietor looked puzzled. He saw that Alessandro was taking alternating and vigorous bites of bread and cheese. What are you doing now?

Alessandro swallowed, and looked the proprietor in the eye. I can tell you what I’m not doing, he said.

"Yes, but that’s all they can do."

How do you know?

Because if I carried on the way they do, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else, would I?

If you carried on the way they do, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else, would I?

If you carried on the way they do, Alessandro said, with complete assurance, you’d be dead. You know what they do? I’ll tell you what they do. They eat dinner and then they go back to their hotel, and for twelve hours they strain like gymnasts to pressure-weld themselves together, to fill every socket. By day, they sleep on buses and beaches. At night they’re Paolo and Francesca.

It’s disgusting.

No it isn’t. You’re jealous of their bliss because in our day such things were hardly possible.

Yes, but at their age I drove mules, real mules!

Alessandro awaited the connection.

I pushed mule trains over the passes in the middle of winter. The animals were so heavily laden and the ice so hard and smooth that we would lose them. They would vanish from us and fall great distances, always silently, but we went on. The snow was blinding and the ice-clad walls of rock towered over us, streaming mist for a thousand meters.

What has that to do with them? Alessandro asked, glancing at the Danes.

They don’t know such things, and I resent it. I envy them, yes, but I’m proud.

If you were one of the mule drivers, Alessandro said, I may have seen you. I may have spoken to you, half a century ago.

They let the subject drop, but certainly they had been in the same places: the front line in the north had stretched for only several hundred kilometers. Doubtless they would have been able to reconstruct in conversation a little of what it had been like, but they knew that to do so in a few idle words while waiting for a trolley would not be right.

Someday we’ll talk, the proprietor said, but . . . He hesitated. I don’t know. These things are like the things of the Church.

I understand. I never speak of them either. I want to buy some food before the trolley comes. Can you get it for me?

The proprietor shuffled back and forth between the cases and counters, and as the wires began to sing and the people outside touched their luggage to make sure that it hadn’t walked away on its own or been taken by short or invisible thieves, Alessandro Giuliani was presented with half a dozen neat packages, which he slipped into his small leather briefcase.

The wires were singing like afternoon locusts. Every now and then one of them would be drawn down so tightly that it would begin to shriek like the worst soprano in the hottest town in Italy.

How much? Alessandro asked. He was anxious because he knew he would have difficulty mounting the high step of the streetcar, and would have to fumble for money while supporting himself with his cane and balancing the briefcase and wallet as the car lurched from side to side.

The proprietor didn’t answer. The streetcar was grinding around the bend. It sounded like a traveling machine shop. How much? Alessandro asked once again. The people outside had arisen and were waiting by the side of the tracks.

The proprietor held up his right hand as if to stop traffic.

What? Again? Alessandro asked.

The proprietor shook his head back and forth.

We’re no longer soldiers, Alessandro said quietly. That was a lifetime ago. Everything has changed.

Yes, said the proprietor, but once, a lifetime ago, we were, and sometimes it all comes back, and moves my heart.

THE FARE to Monte Prato had risen from 1900 lire to 2200, which meant that Alessandro could not merely give over two 1,000-lire notes, pocket the change, and walk away in balance, as he had planned. Instead, he found himself holding on to many things at once while the airy streetcar swayed violently and the sun flashed through the trees. Trying to withdraw a 500-lire note from his wallet was difficult, but it would have been worse had not the young Dane separated himself for a moment from his sunburnt and beautiful lover to hold Alessandro’s briefcase and take his arm as a son might have done for a father.

Alessandro thanked the boy, pleased that lack of decorum did not necessarily imply lack of courtesy.

The best seat was next to the man with the newspaper hat and the squid. Good day, Alessandro said, addressing both man and squid. Sensing mischief, the construction worker looked away sullenly.

A few minutes later he peered into the bucket and poked the squid with his finger. Then he lifted his eyes and stared at Alessandro as if Alessandro were to blame. Dead, he said, accusingly.

Alessandro shrugged his shoulders. Not enough oxygen in the water.

How do you mean?

He needed oxygenated water to breathe.

That’s crazy. Fish don’t breathe. They live under water.

But they do, they do. There’s oxygen in the water, and they extract it with their gills.

So why didn’t this one?

He did, until there was no more left, and then he passed away.

The construction worker preferred to believe otherwise. The bastards at Civitavecchia sold me a bad squid.

As you wish.

The construction worker thought for a moment. Would he have lived if I had blown into the water with a straw?

Probably not, since you would have been blowing in more carbon dioxide than oxygen. How far are you going?

Monte Prato.

Impossible, Alessandro said, briefly shutting his eyes for emphasis. It’s far too warm. The bucket should have been half full of ice.

How do you know these things? I think you’re wrong.

I know them because they’re obvious.

Do you have a fish market?

No.

The construction worker was tremendously suspicious. If you don’t have a fish market, what do you do?

I’m a professor.

Of fish?

Of chicken, Alessandro answered.

Then you don’t know enough to talk.

Ah, said Alessandro, holding up his finger. A squid is not a fish.

It isn’t?

No.

What is it?

It’s a type of chicken, a water chicken.

The construction worker looked abject. Feeling sorry for him, Alessandro said, I’m not a professor of chicken, and as far as I know, there is no such thing, but the part about the oxygen is true. I regret that your squid died. He had already come all the way from Civitavecchia, and before that he had been pulled from the sea, which was his home, and he suffered many hours in the hold of a fishing boat as it worked its way back to land in the August heat. The journey was too much.

The construction worker nodded. But of what are you a professor?

Aesthetics.

What are aesthetics?

The study of beauty.

Beauty? What for?

Beauty. Why not.

Why do you have to study it?

You don’t. It’s everywhere, in great profusion, and always will be. Were I to cease studying it, it would not go away, if that’s what you mean.

Then why do you?

It entrances me, it always has, so it’s what I do—despite occasional ridicule.

I’m not ridiculing you.

I know you’re not, but others say that mine is an effeminate or a useless calling. Well, for some it is. Not for me.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think you look effeminate.

The construction worker drew back to study him. You’re a tough old bastard, I think. You remind me of my father.

Thank you, Alessandro replied, slightly alarmed.

Now the way to Monte Prato was clear. He had only to fall into the pleasant hypnosis of travel; to watch the long ranks of trees as they passed; to view the mountains when they first rose over the fields; to observe the great round moon and its attendant bright stars shining through the streetcar’s glassy walls; to match the whirring of the engines with the mad chorus of the cicadas; to be comfortable, and old, and content with small things. He assumed that the remaining hours would pass without incident, that he would rest, and that he would be alone—free of memories too great for the heart to hold.

BEFORE IT came to the edge of the city, where it would pick up speed, the trolley wound through many small streets not as congenial as the one on the side of the hill where Alessandro Giuliani had embarked. It crossed and recrossed the river Aniene, and rattled down desolate boulevards scored by the patterned shadows of iron fences and trees. At every church, the sweeper ladies crossed themselves, and now and then the squad of truck drivers noticed a new German truck, or a piece of construction machinery, and turned their heads to look at it while one of them told how much it cost or how many horsepower it had.

At each stop the driver looked up into his mirror to scan both the interior of the car and the street, to see if anyone would insult and delay him by wanting to get on or off. Though no one had a short ticket, people sometimes changed their minds about how far they wanted to go, and he had to be alert: but Rome hardly stirred, offering not a soul to slow his progress. The streetcar made excellent time, and when it reached the edge of the city it was running ahead of schedule, This delighted the driver. If he beat his fares to a stop he could hurl himself forward and arrive even earlier at the next stop, where he would be less likely to encounter someone else. In this way he was able to convert his viscous long-distance local into the most ethereal express. He hated deceleration and he hated to make change, but he did like to drive, and each stop that he could pass at speed was for him the partial satisfaction of his long-standing dream of riding in the steeplechase as a jockey or even as a horse.

At a place that was neither Rome nor the countryside, where fields of corn and wheat alternated with lumber yards and factory compounds, and where a distant highway was visible, sparkling like a stream as its traffic beat against the sunlight, they made an insincere lurch at an empty stop, and started off again as usual. Alessandro had begun to dream, but was pulled from his reverie by the insistent and conscientious action of the corner of his eye. Off to the right was a slightly sloping dirt road littered with potholes. A little way down this road, someone was running desperately, leaping the potholes and waving his arms.

A long moment passed during which Alessandro begged to remain at rest but was again overruled by the corner of his eye. He turned his head for a full view. Whoever it was, he wanted to get on the streetcar, and was screaming for it to stop. Although he could not be heard, what he said was apparent in the movement of his arms as they jolted slightly at each shout.

There’s someone, Alessandro said weakly. Then he cleared his throat. There’s a person! he shouted. Because no one else had seen the runner no one knew what Alessandro meant. They were not surprised that an old man, even one as dignified as he, would blurt out something incoherent on a hot afternoon. Except for one sweeper woman, who smiled idiotically, their reaction was to hold still and not look at him. The car was on a straightaway, accelerating to the southeast.

Alessandro jumped to his feet. Driver! he screamed. There’s a person who wants to catch the streetcar!

Where? the driver shouted, without taking his eyes from the road.

Back there.

The driver turned his head. No one was visible. You’re mistaken, he said. They were far away now from the corner of the dirt road. Besides, the driver continued, I can’t pick anyone up between stops.

Alessandro sat down. He looked back, and saw no one. It was not fair for the driver to race through the stops, especially because this was the last car of the day.

Alessandro began to compose a letter of protest. It was short, but he rephrased it repeatedly. During this time the streetcar traveled a kilometer or two and was forced to slow down behind a huge truck that was hauling an arcane piece of electrical equipment almost as big as a house.

Hey, look, the construction worker said to Alessandro.

Alessandro turned to see where the construction worker was pointing. Far behind them on the road, the slight figure from the dirt track was chasing them, after having run for two or three kilometers without flagging. No longer was he begging, and he had stopped waving his arms, as if he had decided that since the streetcar would give him nothing he would save his strength so he could get what he wanted himself.

I’ll tell the driver, Alessandro said to the construction worker. He rose and made his way to the front. Signore, he implored the driver, look in back of us. Someone is chasing.

The driver glanced up into his mirror. He saw the runner. It’s too late, he said. The next stop is fifteen kilometers away. He’ll never make it.

Why don’t you let him on? Alessandro demanded, his voice rising.

I told you. We don’t pick up passengers between stops. Please sit down.

You sped right by the last stop, early. That’s why he’s running.

Please sit down.

No, Alessandro said. I want to get off.

You get off in Monte Prato.

I want to get off here instead.

I can’t do that.

Why not?

Here? There’s nothing here! We don’t let people off here.

These are my fields. All these fields are mine. I want to check the wheat.

The streetcar rolled to a stop and the doors were thrown open. Okay, then, the driver said, glancing at the mirror, check the wheat.

Just a minute, Alessandro answered. I have to get my briefcase. He began to walk back to his seat, very slowly.

The driver was angry. Come on! he screamed. You’re holding us up.

Just a moment, just a moment, Alessandro said, and, upon reaching his seat, he added, I dropped something.

The driver closed the door and started up again, but the persistent runner was gaining. Alessandro looked back, and saw a boy of eighteen or nineteen sprinting behind the bus. He was wearing heavy leather work shoes, and he looked as if he were about to die from overexertion. His hair was plastered by sweat onto the sides of his forehead. He breathed hard through an open mouth. He was the color of a ripe pepper.

He’s here! Alessandro shouted.

The driver looked stonily ahead, but the boy put on a final burst of speed and ran up to the door, where he hopped onto the step and held on. He was heaving, dripping sweat, and his head was bowed.

Alessandro, briefcase under his arm, tapped his way to the front of the streetcar and hit the roof with his cane. Signore, he said in a surprisingly deep and powerful voice, I believe you have a passenger. At this very moment the boy, who looked like someone from a wild valley in Sicily, began to beat furiously on the glass. The way he hung on the door and pounded with his fists reminded Alessandro of his own tenacity in other times, and he was filled with affection and pride, as if the boy had been his son.

The driver pressed hard on the brakes. Alessandro flew headlong into the windshield but was cushioned by his briefcase and his arms, and was able to stay in balance. The boy swung around and slammed against the streetcar in the fashion of a flexible whip, but he hung on.

When the door was opened, both Alessandro and the boy thought that they had won, but when the driver got up, they saw that he was a giant. Alessandro bent his head to look at him. I didn’t realize how . . . he started to say. Then he looked at the driver’s seat and saw that it had been lowered all the way to the floor.

As the driver descended, the boy backed away from the door. If you touch this vehicle again . . . ! the driver said before he became voiceless with rage.

Alessandro walked down the steps and hopped to the ground. If you don’t let him ride, I won’t ride either. I’m an old man. It might cost you your job.

Crap on my job, the driver said, leaping back into the car. I always wanted to be a jockey. He closed the door, and the streetcar started up suddenly and began to pull away.

Alessandro was shocked to see the construction worker in the newspaper hat pressed up against the window behind which he himself, only a few minutes before, had been resting. The construction worker lifted his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. Then he changed his mind and rushed to the front, but whatever he did or said there, the car did not stop, and the faces of the truck drivers, the sweeper women, and the Danes looked back at the old man and the boy, like expressionless moons.

Seventy kilometers to Monte Prato, Alessandro said under his breath as the streetcar disappeared down the long straight road.

In a few hours the other car will pass on its way back to Rome, the boy declared, still breathing hard from his run. Maybe less than that.

I just came from Rome, the old man said. What good would it do me to go back? I’m going to Monte Prato. And you?

To Sant’ Angelo, ten kilometers before Monte Prato.

I’m aware of that.

To my sister. She lives in the convent there.

She’s a nun?

No. She washes for them. They’re very clean, but they can’t do it all themselves.

Alessandro looked back and saw that, in leaving most of the city behind, the road had become beautiful. To right and left were fields now golden in the declining sun, and the tall trees on either side sparkled and swayed as the wind rushed through them. I’ll tell you what, he proposed. I’ll go with you as far as Sant’ Angelo, and then continue on my own to Monte Prato.

I don’t know if they’ll give the two of us a ride, the boy replied. There isn’t any traffic anyway. There hardly ever is, on this road, and not today, not on a saint’s day.

Do you think I would stand on the road and beg for a ride? Alessandro asked indignantly.

I’ll do it for you.

No you won’t. I’ve had legs for seventy-four years, and I know how to use them. In addition, he said, rapping his cane on the surface of the road, I have this. It helps. It’s as long as a rhinoceros’s penis, and twice as stiff.

But you can’t walk seventy kilometers. Even I can’t, the boy said.

What’s your name?

Nicolò.

Nicolò, I once walked several hundred kilometers over glaciers and snowfields, with no rest, and if I had been discovered I would have been shot.

That was in the war?

Of course it was in the war. I’m going to Monte Prato, Alessandro declared, cinching up his belt, straightening his jacket, and patting down his mustache. If you like, I’ll accompany you as far as Sant’ Angelo.

By the time I get there, if I walk, Nicolò said, I’ll have to turn around and go back.

Would you let a little thing like that stop you? Alessandro asked.

Contemplating the old lion in front of him, Nicolò said nothing.

Well, would you? Alessandro demanded, his face so tense and peculiar that Nicolò was frightened.

No, of course not, the boy said. Why would I?

THE FIRST thing you have to do, Alessandro told him, is take inventory and make a plan.

What inventory, what plan? Nicolò asked dismissively. We have nothing and we’re going to Sant’ Angelo.

The old man was silent. They walked about a hundred steps.

What do you mean, inventory? Nicolò wanted to know. When he received no answer, he looked straight ahead and decided that if the old man chose not to talk, he wouldn’t talk either. That lasted, as Alessandro knew it would, for no more than ten steps.

I thought inventory was what they did in a store.

It is what they do in a store.

Where’s the store? Nicolò asked.

Merchants take inventory, Alessandro stated, so that, knowing what they have, they can plan ahead. We can do the same. We can think in our brains of what we have, and what obstacles are in front of us to be overcome.

What for?

Anticipation is the heart of wisdom. If you are going to cross a desert, you anticipate that you will be thirsty, and you take water.

But this is the road to Monte Prato, and there are towns along the way. We don’t need water.

Did you ever walk seventy kilometers?

No.

It may be difficult for you. It will be very difficult for me. I’m somewhat older than you, and, as you can see, I’m half lame. If I’m to succeed, it will be by a narrow margin, and, therefore, I must court precision. It’s always been that way for me. What do you have with you?

I don’t have anything.

You have no food?

Food? The boy jumped in the air and whirled around, turning a full circle to show that he wasn’t concealing anything. I don’t carry around food. Do you? he asked.

The old man went to one side of the road and sat on a rock. Yes, he answered, opening his briefcase. Bread, and a half kilo each of prosciutto, dried fruit, and semi-sweet chocolate. We’ll need a lot of water. It’s hot.

In the towns, Nicolò volunteered.

Only a few towns line the route, but between them are springs. As soon as it gets hilly, you’ll see, we’ll have plenty of water.

We don’t need food. When we get to a village, we can eat there.

The next village is fifteen kilometers away, the old man said, and I walk slowly. When we arrive the stars will be halfway across the sky and every window will be shut tight. Though we won’t be able to eat in the towns, this food will see us through. You’d be surprised at how much you burn up on a march.

Where will we sleep? Nicolò asked.

Sleep? Alessandro repeated, with one bushy white eyebrow riding so far above the other that it looked for a moment as if he had been in an automobile accident and had not quite recovered.

Aren’t we going to sleep at night?

No.

Why not?

On a march of seventy kilometers you don’t need to sleep.

"Yes, you don’t need to sleep, the boy said, but why not sleep? Who says you shouldn’t?"

If you slept you wouldn’t be properly intent. You’d be swept away by dreams, and miss the waking dreams. And you would insult the road.

I don’t understand.

Look, Alessandro said, grabbing Nicolò’s wrist. If I decide that I’m going to Monte Prato, seventy kilometers or not, I go to Monte Prato. You don’t do things by halves. If you love a woman, you love her entirely. You give everything. You don’t spend your time in cafes; you don’t make love to other women; you don’t take her for granted. Do you understand?

Nicolò shook his head back and forth to express that he did not. He expected that the old man might be more than he could handle and was perhaps an escapee from an asylum, or, worse, someone who had contrived to avoid asylums altogether.

God gives gifts to all creatures, Alessandro continued, "no matter what their station or condition. He may give innocence to a lunatic, or heaven to a thief. Contrary to most theologians, I have always believed that even worms and weasels have souls, and that even they are capable of salvation.

"But one thing God does not give, something that must be earned, something that a lazy man can never know. Call it understanding, grace, the elevation of the spirit—call it what you will. It comes only of work, sacrifice, and suffering.

"You must give everything you have. You must love unto exhaustion, work unto exhaustion, and walk unto exhaustion.

If I want to go to Monte Prato, I go to Monte Prato. I don’t hang around like an ass with half a dozen trunks who has gone to take the waters at Montecatini. People like that continually expose their souls to mortal danger in imagining that they are free of it, when, indeed, the only mortal danger for the spirit is to remain too long without it. The world is made of fire.

Alessandro’s homily was a success, and Nicolò was beginning to get fiery himself. Swept up remarkably fast in a storm of passion and dreams, within a minute or two he had decided his fate and declared that he would go to Sant’ Angelo, to Monte Prato, twice the distance, three times the distance, without rest, driving himself until he came close to death. His face, with its dark, lateral, wolflike eyes, a crooked mouth, and a sharp and substantial nose, was tight with resolution.

Alessandro released his grip and held up one finger. Of course, he said, you must always rest. A cloud swept across the boy’s face as he was knocked from his reverie. There are times for sleep, for inactivity, dreaming, indiscipline, even lethargy. You’ll know when you deserve these times. They come after you’ve been broken. I’m speaking of a helpless, tranquil state before the great excitement of dawn.

Dawn . . . Nicolò repeated, confused.

Yes, said Alessandro, dawn. Tell me, what kind of feet do you have.

My feet?

Yes, your feet, the ones that are attached to your legs.

I have human feet, Signore.

"Of course, but two kinds of feet exist. Every army knows this but won’t admit it for fear of losing recruits.

"You may be tall, handsome, intelligent, graceful, and gifted, but if you have feet of despair you might just as well be a dwarf who shines shoes on the Via del Corso. Feet of despair are too tender, and can’t fight back. Under prolonged assault they come apart. They bleed to death. They become infected and swollen in half an hour. I have seen men remove from their boots, after less than a day’s march, feet that are nothing more than bloody sponges, soft shapeless things that look like skinned animals.

"On the other hand, if I may, are the feet of invincibility. In extreme cases such as those of South American mountain peasants it may appear that a man is wearing an old torn-up muddy pair of boots, when actually he is barefooted. Feet of invincibility are ugly, but they don’t suffer, and they last forever—building defenses where they are attacked, turning color, reproportioning and repositioning themselves until they look like bulldogs. They do everything but bleed and feel pain.

During your first days in the army you realize that despite all other differences mankind is divided into two classes. Well, what kind of feet do you have?

I don’t know, Signore.

Take off your shoes.

Nicolò sat on the ground and unlaced his shoes. When they and his socks were strewn on the stones beside him, he rolled onto his back and put his legs up into the air so that Alessandro could inspect his feet.

The old man first looked at the soles. Then he felt under the heel. He glanced at the toes. Your feet are repugnant, objectionable, and invincible. Put your shoes back on.

And what about your feet, Signore? Are they invincible?

Need you ask?

Nicolò had not needed to ask, for he had observed that Alessandro had scars even on his palms.

Then Alessandro took inventory of his briefcase. The first objects did not please Nicolò entirely, for they were a set of webbing straps that attached to the case so that it could be carried like a knapsack. Take it, Alessandro said matter-of-factly, until Sant’ Angelo. You’re young. Next to emerge was a pocket knife, very sharp and very old, with a flint in the handle. The flint pulls out, you see, Alessandro said, and if you strike it against the top of the blade, you get a spark. When we rest, we may need a fire to keep us warm.

In August?

The higher you go, the colder it gets, even in August.

After the packets of food came a map. Having the appropriate map at hand, Alessandro explained, was an obsession that he had had for a long time. He liked to know where he was in the world and what was around him. A map, he stated, was for him what a Bible was for a priest, a book for an intellectual, and so forth.

They discovered on their map, among mountains, rivers, empty plains, and settlements too small to have their names shown, four beacon-like towns strung along the road. Alessandro knew that at night these towns would sparkle and shine. Just their few lights in the slate-blue darkness would have, in their simplicity and purity, more of what made up light itself than the accumulated phosphorescence of whole ranks of great cities.

He indicated on the map that, here, if they were hungry or had not already eaten, they would halt for dinner. Here they would be able to see Rome far behind them, lower, and seething with lights. Here they would see no villages, Rome would be obscured, and they would have only stars—because the moon would rise that night, Alessandro said, late, but when the moon did rise it would be perfectly full. Here they would go off the road and traverse a set of rounded peaks that overlooked Sant’ Angelo and, farther beyond, Monte Prato.

Alessandro said that they would walk through the night, the next day, the whole of another night, and the early part of the next morning. The weather would be good and the full moon would be their lantern.

Already Sant’ Angelo and Monte Prato had become far more than just mountain villages on the line of the motorized trolley. They seemed far away, beautiful, and high. Before reaching them, Alessandro Giuliani and Nicolò would have much walking to do, and would have to pass through the towns of Acereto, Lanciata, and perhaps five or six others with beautiful names, equidistant over civilizing fields and groves of trees waving against the perfectly blue sky. At the start of their long walk, the road was deserted, and, perhaps because the world was silent, they were too.

ALESSANDRO GIULIANI believed that if all things went smoothly and well on a journey, the momentum and equanimity of walking or riding would overshadow whatever the traveler had left behind and whatever he was traveling to reach. Making good time on the road was in itself reason for elation.

Once, in a lecture, he had stated this in passing, only to be abruptly challenged by a student who had wanted to know if the respected professor thought that elation could come to a condemned man on his way to the gallows.

I don’t know, Alessandro had answered. Usually, the way to the gallows is not long enough to be called a journey, but let us say, for example, that a condemned man must be transported from one extreme of a country to another, where he will be executed, and that his journey will take days or weeks.

Is that realistic? the student asked.

Yes, Alessandro replied. Yes, it is realistic. In such a case, he continued, the man may know the greatest elation and the most savage despair—as if, in anticipation of eternity in heaven or in hell, he were previewing both.

I don’t understand. Elation in a man condemned to die?

Elation, mad elation, visions, euphoria. A long silence had followed, during which the lecture audience had been as motionless as if it had been under the gun, and the professor had been unable to resume the lecture, on account of memories that made him forget momentarily where he was and what he was doing.

Even a trip across the city provided minor joys and desperations that, although of a lesser order than those experienced on a journey of days or weeks, stood in relation to one another nonetheless in much the same way as those of a voyage around the world. The scale might change, but the patterns were the same. Alessandro guessed that Nicolò would expect the walk to be of one complexion. Why should it not be? Despite enough variation in the experience of a child by the age of fourteen to show him twenty times over that life is stupefying and complex, a single great force drove him forward and gave him both the momentum he would need for the rest of his life and the immediate resilience for surviving the blows he attracted with his adolescent stupidities and excesses. Nicolò would have chased the streetcar not only to Acereto, but, if he hadn’t caught it there, to Lanciata and perhaps all the way to Sant’ Angelo. He expected the world to be complected uniformly.

Nicolò would be bitterly disappointed by the slow and difficult, but Alessandro had learned to love these as much as or perhaps more than he loved the fast and easy. To him, they seemed not so far apart. It was almost as if, facing off invariably at odds, they conducted a secret liaison, with their hands enwrapped under the table.

Nicolò could not yet know this, and he would be troubled when the road grew dark and steep. For that reason, Alessandro was disappointed that they had set out with such glory all around them, everywhere—in the trees that swayed lightly, like ocean waves; in the rich colors of late afternoon as the retreating sun made the east a shadowless perfection of evenly throbbing light; in the slightly dusty haze that came with the approach of evening, dry and cool; in the wheat as the wind traveled through it as slowly as a boat in the thick of polar seas; and in all the memories summoned by these beauties to resonate and sing, until, in their ecstatic multiplication, they closed themselves off to mortal view by virtue of the light that is too bright to see.

Nicolò had no notion that everything was not well. He thought that the fine weather, the flat road, and the sun at their backs were all to be expected. He was surprised by Alessandro’s silence, for he had assumed from the very beginning, because the old man had left the streetcar for Nicolò’s sake, that the walk would be paved with his words. Did he not, in his first sentences, launch the explosive shell about his escape over the ice fields? Even if the old were inconsistent and cranky, they did sometimes tell good stories, and this fellow, with his shock of straight white hair, his finely tailored suit, the slim bamboo cane, and a noble bearing that Nicolò had seen only . . . well, had never seen . . . would undoubtedly have a lot to say.

He wanted Alessandro to talk endlessly in stories and regale him with things from an age before he was born. He would listen eagerly not because he had any hint of what the old man would elucidate, but, to the contrary, because he hadn’t the vaguest idea of what had made the man who limped steadily alongside him on the road to Sant’ Angelo and Monte Prato.

Nicolò also didn’t understand that Alessandro knew exactly what a young man would expect, and (before Nicolò had given any indication whatsoever of such expectations) was offended by what were, in fact, the boy’s assumptions.

After all, Alessandro Giuliani was paid more than decently to speak and to write. Why should this boy expect that, in walking, he would overflow with speech? And why should the boy assume that the old man, having seen what he had seen, having contended throughout his life with great and ineffable forces, having survived into old age, and having known, intimately and deeply, both natural and feminine beauty, would want to say anything at all? For kilometers and kilometers, they walked the straight road in absolute silence.

NICOLÒ FOUND it difficult to believe that Alessandro was not moving faster, for, perhaps because of the blurred-spokes effect caused by the movement of his legs and his active cane, and the unusual up-and-down motion of his limping gait, he looked as if he were going very fast. It seemed as if, had he been able to channel all the energy with which he moved and checked himself, he would have been swifter than a gazelle. But he was slow.

Nicolò, who moved smoothly and effortlessly, ached to run or climb. What’s that? he asked, though not as a question, pointing to a mound of earth sitting in the middle of a field. Soon he was racing toward it, the briefcase bouncing against his back as he jumped irrigation ditches and ran among the furrows. Then he re turned by way of a little dam over which water was pouring in a curve that looked like a leaping fish.

What are these side trips? Alessandro inquired.

Nicolò shrugged.

You know, I once had a dog, the old man continued, a big black English dog named Francesco. Every time I took him for a walk, he covered three times the distance I did.

Why do you tell me this? Nicolò asked.

I don’t know, Alessandro said, waving his arms in the air as if to indicate confusion. It just came to me.

Do you still have him?

No, that was a long time ago. He died when I was in Milan, but I think of him on occasion, and in teaching I often use him as an example.

You’re a teacher? Nicolò asked, with noticeable discomfort, for he had never been to school, and he thought of teachers as a dangerous species of male nun.

Alessandro didn’t answer. The sun was low now. Everything was warm and golden, and they were still ten kilometers from Acereto. Soon it would be dark. The old man did not want to waste energy, because he was beginning to warm up, to feel an oncoming sensation of strength and equanimity. If he didn’t upset it, the equanimity would carry him forward in a trance.

They continued on in silence until Nicolò began to dance through his steps.

You have so much energy you can’t contain yourself, can you.

I don’t know.

Marvelous. I, if I had your strength, could unite Europe in a week and a half.

You were young, Nicolò challenged. Did you unite Europe?

I was too busy thinking about girls and climbing mountains.

What mountains?

The Alps.

With ropes and things?

Yes.

How do you do that? I saw a movie once where the guy fell. Do you throw the rope to catch on a rock, or what?

No. Its different, but if I have to explain, I won’t have any breath.

You’re a teacher. Teachers should explain.

Not when they’re on long marches.

What do you teach?

Aesthetics.

Who are they? Nicolò asked, thinking that they might be initiates in a hilltop religious order.

You mean what are they. You’re the second person to ask me that today, Alessandro said. Are you sure you want me to answer? If I do, your squid may die.

Nicolò’s suspicions about the old man’s sanity resurfaced.

He came all the way from Civitavecchia. Alessandro turned to the boy and looked into his eyes. Marco . . . the water chicken.

Don’t tell me Marco the water chicken, Nicolò commanded. What are aesthetics?

The philosophy and study of beauty.

What?

What? the old man echoed.

They teach that?

I teach it.

That’s stupid.

Why is it stupid?

For one, what is there to teach?

Are you asking or telling?

Asking.

I’m not telling.

Why not?

I’ve already answered you, in a book. Buy the book and leave me alone. Better yet, read Croce.

You wrote a book?

Yes, many books.

About what?

About aesthetics, Alessandro said, rolling his eyes upward.

What’s your name?

Alessandro Giuliani.

I’ve never heard of you.

I still exist. Who are you?

Nicolò Sambucca."

What do you do, Mr. Sambucca?

With some pain, in the way of self-deprecating beginners who are facing long apprenticeships, Nicolò said, I make propellers.

Alessandro stopped to stare at Nicolò Sambucca. Propellers, he said. Naturally! I’m going to walk seventy kilometers with a kid who makes propellers.

What’s wrong with propellers? Nicolò asked.

Nothing’s wrong with propellers, Alessandro answered. They’re necessary to drive airplanes. Where do you do this, if I may ask? Certainly not at home.

At F.A.I. I don’t really make them, I help. Next year I’ll be an apprentice but now I’m a helper. I sweep the chips and the curlings, keep the tools in order, serve lunch, and push around the big frames that they make the propellers on. It takes a long time to make a propeller: it has to be tested. We have wind tunnels. Because of the union, I’m not allowed to touch the propellers yet. I can’t even put my finger on one.