Ettore started talking again. ‘Your brother was in the 36th, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s right, in Kaki’s company.’
‘And what about you?’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Pierre, his throat burning. ‘I was little more than a child. I’m twenty-two now, but if I’d been at least sixteen in 1944 I’d have gone, sure, it’s a family habit.’
‘It’s one that I have too, but a bad one if you’re as young as that. It’s not worth risking your life at the age of sixteen.’
Pierre looked Ettore right in the eye. For a moment he felt as though they were alone in the restaurant. He leaned forward and lowered his eyes. ‘My father said you shouldn’t always stand and
watch.’
A couple of people at the nearby tables glanced over at them.
Pierre lifted his elbows from the table and leaned his chair against the wall.
‘Your father was in the mountains too, wasn’t he?’ asked Ettore.
‘Yes and no. He ended up fighting in Croatia, with the Italian army. Then his company mutinied and went over to Tito’s side. My father fought with the Resistance there, between Zagreb and the coast, and then he decided to stay, because socialism had triumphed there, and also they’d given him some important jobs to do.’
He said these words quite openly. But Ettore wasn’t the kind of person to start arguing about whether Tito was a fascist or a comrade, whether or not he was a traitor. He sat there in silence, drained his brandy and lit another cigarette. Pierre did the same. They talked about other things for half an hour. The illusions of the partisans and the directives of Togliatti, Bologna football team and Cavicchi. When Ettore started talking about his father again, Pierre realised that it was time to move on to business.
‘I’ve always longed to hug my father again,’ he began, ‘but there are too many obstacles in the way: the journey, the money, the documents. For many years I’ve made do with his letters. Then there was silence, then nothing for months, and now mine have started coming back. So I made up my mind: I’ve got to go, find out what’s happened, find an answer to all those questions. That’s why I turned to you.’
‘A journey, perhaps undercover.’
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s risky. If they get you, you’ll spend a few years in jail.’
‘Only fools end up inside,’ Pierre announced, trying to look tough.
‘Then perhaps you’re about to do something foolish.’
‘Fine.’ Pierre tried to smile, but managed only to raise a corner of his mouth. ‘So let’s say it’s worth the trouble. As it was worth the trouble for you, my brother, my father and everyone else to do your duty when the time came. Sometimes it’s worth it.’
Ettore reciprocated, a full smile that vanished as suddenly as it came.
‘You wouldn’t be the only one taking a risk, and other people’s risks have to be paid for.’
Pierre stared at him. He wanted to ask him if he’d passed the test, but he held back.
‘How much?’
‘Let’s not talk about it here,’ Ettore interrupted, seeing the waiter come over. ‘I’ll get Gas to let you know when we can meet to talk about it in greater detail. And have no illusions: I don’t even know if we’ll manage to get the thing organised. Try not to think about it, and you’ll find out more in ten days’ time.’
The waiter approached and asked if they wanted anything else. Ettore ordered two more brandies, saw the worried grimace on Pierre’s face and said, ‘This one’s on me,’ and narrowed his eyes, which were irritated by the smoke.
Although perhaps it was a gesture of complicity.
Chapter 26
Bologna, Bar Aurora, 12 March
Friday, in the Bar Aurora, pools coupon day. In Bologna, especially in the centre, there are some bars where you turn up, pick up your pools coupon, sit down at a table somewhere off to the side and start filling it in. You can’t do that in our bar, it’s something only outsiders do, because in our place everyone gets involved, it’s a communal ceremony, and to do it well you need the good luck of many and the experience of a few.
Luck, as you know, is something you either have or you don’t, but there are things that can help, like the people who have been wearing the same tie to the ground ever since Bologna beat Inter. And if you point out that two easy goals slipped past them at the last home game, they’ll tell you that without the tie we’d have let in at least twice that number, and there’s no way you’ll get them to think any differently.
In the same way, the pools coupon shows up at one on the dot on Friday. While the rest of us are writing away, the few people who aren’t interested can just get on with playing billiards or chatter away without bothering anyone, but no one’s allowed to play tarocchi, tressette or scopa, because they’re all games that depend on chance, and at coupon time the Bar Aurora’s lucky star must on no account be distracted. Which amounts to saying that, on this point too, we communists are opposed to private property.
‘What do you think, Melega, shall we put two on Triestine — Juve?’ asks the Baron, sucking the tip of his biro.
The expert flicks through his notebook, then delivers his verdict. ‘Juve aren’t playing Hansen, who isn’t that great anyway, and nobody’s won in Trieste in the past season. I reckon they’ll draw, two crosses max.’
The Baron considers for a moment, then lowers his head and writes. Others nod and mark their X by the game. Walterún is still undecided. Pierre, leaning on the bar, tries to put two and two together, because everyone is doing his own coupon and writing whatever he wants, but he’s in charge of the bar coupon, the communal one, the one we’re going to buy the television with if we win. We’ve all agreed on that.
‘So what do I do, do I put an X?’
‘Go on, go on,’ urges Stefanelli, the other expert.
And because no one objects, the draw meets with general agreement.
In the Bar Aurora, every subject has its expert. Where the football pools are concerned, it has precisely two: Melega and Stefanelli. They’re the kind of people who read Stadio every day and write down important information in a little exercise book so that nothing slips past them. They know which players have been injured and which are in good form, they know the results of the games of the past twenty years, and they can tell you that if team A is playing team B, they haven’t beaten them in years. Usually they pretty much agree with each other, but plenty of times they don’t. And a few months ago there was a bit of a bust-up between those of us who agreed with one, and those of us who supported the other, and Capponi, to calm everyone down, decided to play an extra column. We did eight of the thirteen, and that was that.
‘Are you finished with that coupon?’ asks La Gaggia, poking his head through the door, his hand still on the handle.
‘We haven’t done the reserve and C Series matches,’ Melega, eyes on his notebook, calls back with a gesture.
‘Ok then, I can tell you those, you’ll never get them. They’re 2–1, I can feel it in my bones.’
‘Oi, Gaggia, aren’t you supposed to be tidying your shop?’ protests Bottone, given that La Gaggia never shows his face before two on a Friday, and his excuse is that he has to put all his tools away and finish his work as a shoemaker, but the real fact is that he doesn’t care for football, he doesn’t know a thing about it, and some people say that it’s because he’s a jinx, that he’d be happy to come but no one else wants him there, and all three things could be true.
‘I bet you haven’t even opened the paper yet, you animals!’ A glance around, no one protests, and he tries to go on: ‘Big news on the Montesi case: they’ve opened a parliamentary commission to inquire into the morals of the deputies.’