"Yeah."

"And how long is this mission?"

"Six months. More or less."

Rosanna nods. She's already finished her first gla.s.s. She pours herself another. Rene, on the other hand, sips slowly, in control of himself.

"And are you glad?"

"It's not a pleasure trip."

"Sure. But are you glad?"

Rene drums his fingers on the wood. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good. That's the important thing."

The music forces them to speak more loudly than necessary. Rene is annoyed. If Rosanna would lower the volume, they'd be more comfortable. People don't notice many of the things that he does; this has always disappointed him in a way. Tonight, moreover, Rosanna seems distracted and determined to drink herself into a stupor before they end up in bed. Drunk women are limp, their movements repet.i.tive, and then it's up to him to make an unG.o.dly effort to make them come. Pointing to her gla.s.s, he doesn't hesitate to say: "Go easy on that."

She gives him a furious look. Rene isn't talking to one of his soldiers. Until proven otherwise, she's the one paying, so she can decide when enough is enough. Afterward, though, she hangs her head as if to apologize. Rene interprets her nerves as a sign she's worried about him, and this moves him. "I won't be in any danger," he says.

"I know."

"It's more a matter of defensive operations."

"Yes."

"If you look at the statistics, the death rate in this conflict is ridiculous. It's riskier crossing the street out there. I'm not kidding. For us Italians, at least. There are some who are really fighting and for them it's a different story. The Americans, for example, have-"

"I'm pregnant."

The room sways slightly around the shimmering liquor bottle. "What did you say?"

"You heard me."

Rene runs a hand over his face. He's not perspiring. "No. I don't think I heard you."

"I'm pregnant."

"Can you turn the music off, please? I can't focus."

Rosanna walks quickly to the stereo and turns it off. She comes back and sits down. There are other sounds now: the hum of the water heater, someone trying to play a guitar in the apartment above, vodka being poured into her gla.s.s for the third time, against his advice.

"You told me clearly that-" Rene says, trying hard to control himself.

"I know. It was impossible for it to happen. A chance in a million maybe."

"You're in menopause-you told me so." His tone isn't aggressive and he looks calm, just a little pale.

"I am in menopause, all right? But I got pregnant. That's what happened."

"You said it wasn't possible."

"It wasn't. It was a kind of miracle, okay?"

Rene wonders if he should make sure the child is really his, but apparently it's beside the point. He considers the word miracle and doesn't see the connection.

"The responsibility is mine-let's get that clear right now," she continues. "One hundred percent mine. So I guess it's up to you to decide. You're the one who's been screwed. I'll respect your decision. There's still time, a month and a half, a little less. You leave now, take your time and think it over, then let me know what you decide. I'll take care of the rest."

She blurts it all out in one breath, then brings the gla.s.s to her lips. Instead of drinking, she holds it there. She rubs her lip on the rim, lost in thought. She has permanent wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, but they don't look bad. In the course of his clandestine career Rene has learned that mature women bloom one last time before fading altogether and that at that stage they're more beautiful than ever. His own body feels inadequate now, a sensation that provokes a fit of anger: "If you're pregnant you shouldn't drink."

"A little vodka seems like the least of my worries right now."

"Still, you shouldn't."

They fall silent. Rene mentally retraces the conversation, step by step. I'll take care of the rest. He has a hard time seeing clearly beyond those words.

"Do you feel like doing it anyway?"

Rosanna asks him just like that, as if it were something they could do. She's pregnant, yet she's drinking and wants to sleep with him. Rene is disconcerted. He's about to shout to her face that she's crazy, then realizes that it would be a way of giving the evening a sense of closure: make love and go out the door with the impression of having done what was expected of him and nothing more. "Why shouldn't we?" he says.

They move into the bedroom and undress with their backs turned. They start out slowly, gently, then Rene allows himself to force Rosanna down on her stomach. To him it's like a small punishment. Rosanna comes liberally, he more discreetly. He pulls out a moment before, as if it makes any difference. She doesn't reproach him.

"You can stay and sleep here," she says instead. "I'm not working tomorrow morning. I'll take you to get your things and then to the airport."

"It's not necessary."

"We can have a few more hours together."

"I have to go."

Rosanna gets up and quickly covers herself with a robe. She rummages in her bag for her wallet and hands Rene the money.

He looks at the hand holding out the bills. He can't accept money from a woman who's pregnant with his child, but Rosanna doesn't move and doesn't say anything. A discount, maybe? No, that would be hypocritical. She's just a client, he thinks, a client like any other. If something unexpected happened, it's not his fault.

He grabs the money and in less than ten minutes he's ready to go.

"So then you'll let me know," Rosanna says at the door.

"Yeah, I'll let you know."

In the morning the heat is unbearable, the sky covered with a bright gray glaze that triggers a headache. Civilians hang around the airport terminal, drawn by the unusual concentration of soldiers. The ashtrays outside are overflowing with cigarette b.u.t.ts. Ietri and his mother have arrived by bus. He looks around for his buddies and some of them wave to him from across the way. Mitrano has the largest family and the only one in his group who isn't making a racket is his grandmother in her wheelchair: she has her back turned to her grandson and is staring straight ahead, as if seeing something horrible, though in all likelihood-Ietri thinks-she's just senile. Anfossi's parents check the clock repeatedly, Cederna is smooching with his girlfriend, his hands boldly on her a.s.s, Zampieri is holding a child who is having fun yanking her hair and pulling her velcro insignia on and off. She lets him do it for a while, then abruptly puts him down and the child begins to whine. Rene is sitting down, talking on the phone, his head bowed.

Ietri feels someone grab his right hand. Before he has time to protest, his mother has already squeezed the tube of cream on the back of his hand.

"What are you doing?!"

"Be quiet. Look how chapped they are. And what about these?" She lifts up his fingers for him to see his nails.

"What's wrong with them?"

"Come to the bathroom and I'll cut them for you. Luckily I have my nail scissors with me."

"Mama!"

"If we don't cut them now, they'll be all black before evening."

After a lengthy negotiation, Ietri gives in, but at least he gets to do it himself. He goes off to the toilets, browbeaten.

He's just finished the first hand when a loud fart trumpets from one of the stalls.

"Gesundheit!" the corporal says. He's echoed by a grunt.

Shortly thereafter, Colonel Ballesio comes out of the stall. He goes to the mirror, b.u.t.toning his fly, followed by a foul stench.

Ietri snaps to attention and the colonel smiles at him complacently. He eyes the nail clippings in the sink and his expression changes. "Certain matters should be taken care of at home, soldier."

"You're right, Commander. I'm sorry, Commander."

Ietri turns on the tap. The nail clippings bunch around the drain and clog up there. He lifts the stopper and shoves them down with his finger. Ballesio observes him coldly. "First mission, soldier?"

"Yes, sir."

"When you get back, these toilets will seem different to you. Spotless as those in a hospital. And the faucet. When you see a faucet like this again, you'll feel like licking it."

Ietri nods. His heart is pounding like mad.

"But it won't last long. At first it all seems magical when you get back. Then it goes back to being what it is. c.r.a.p."

Ballesio tugs on the towel roll, but the dispenser is stuck. He swears, then rubs his wet palms on his pants. He nods his head toward the corporal. "I can't manage with scissors," he says. "My wife bought me a nail clipper. Only thing is, it leaves rough edges."

When Ietri returns to the airport terminal, he's furious. He looked like a fool in front of the colonel and it's all his mother's fault.

She stretches her neck to check his fingernails. "Why did you only cut them on one hand? I told you I should do it. Pigheaded-that's what you are! You can't do it with your left hand. Come on, let's go."

Ietri pushes her away. "Leave me alone."

The woman looks at him sternly, shakes her head, then starts rummaging in her handbag. "Here. Eat this-you have bad breath."

"Will you stop it? s.h.i.t!" the corporal hollers. He knocks her hand away. The candy falls to the floor and he stamps on it with his boot. The green sugar shatters. "Happy now?"

Di Salvo and his family turn to watch them, and out of the corner of his eye Ietri notes that even Cederna has turned around.

He doesn't know what's gotten into him.

Two teardrops well up in his mother's eyes. Her mouth is open, the upper lip trailing a resilient strand of saliva, and her lower lip is trembling a little. "I'm sorry," the woman whispers.

Before now she's never apologized to him. Ietri is torn between wanting to shout at her that she's a stupid imbecile and the urge to bend down and pick up the slivers of candy one by one and piece them back together. He feels his troop mates' eyes on him, judging him.

I'm a man now, and I'm going to war.

Later he won't remember if he actually said it or if he just thought it. He grabs his backpack and throws it over his shoulder. He kisses his mother briefly on the cheek, one side only. "I'll be back soon," he says.

The Security Bubble

Securely stored in Lieutenant Egitto's cabinet, though with the key handy in the lock, is a personal stockpile of medications, the only ones in the dispensary not recorded in the inventory register. Besides a few over-the-counter drugs for short-lived ailments and some totally ineffective ointments for flaking skin, there are three bottles of yellow-and-blue antianxiety capsules. The bottles are not labeled and one is just about empty. Egitto takes sixty milligrams of duloxetine in the evening before going to the mess hall, as he has for almost a year; it seemed to him that most of the unwanted side effects were worked off during sleep that way, starting with sleep itself, which hit him like a ton of bricks and rarely allowed him to stay up later than ten o'clock. When he first started taking the pills, he had experienced just about all the side effects mentioned in the explanatory leaflet for antidepressants, from acute headaches to loss of appet.i.te, from intestinal bloating to intermittent nausea. The most bizarre of all was a severe numbness of the jaw, like when you yawn too wide. He's past all that, however. Just as he's past showing any trace of the shame he felt at the beginning, when he felt like a loser for taking the capsules, like a drug addict, the same shame that led him to slip the pills out of the blister packs and transfer them into unlabeled bottles. For some time now, Egitto has accepted his defeat. He's discovered that hidden within him is a vast, soothing amiability.

The serotonergic drug performs to perfection the task for which it was created, which is to keep any kind of anxiety and emotional involvement at bay. The turbulent angst of the period following his father's death-with all the psychosomatic reactions and dark, seductive thoughts that the leaflet generically described as "suicidal tendencies"-floats somewhere above it all, held in check the way a reservoir is by a retaining wall. The lieutenant is satisfied with his level of peacefulness. He wouldn't trade that serenity for anything. Sometimes his mouth gets parched and he still hears a sudden, high-pitched whistling in his ear, followed by a roar that's slow to fade. And there's that other little drawback, of course: he hasn't had a proper erection in months and the few times he did he wasn't able to make the most of it, even on his own. But what does he care about s.e.x at a military base in the middle of the desert, populated almost exclusively by male specimens?

He's been in Afghanistan for 191 days and at Forward Operating Base Ice for almost four months; the FOB is at the northern entrance of the Gulistan Valley, not far from Helmand Province, where U.S. troops have been fighting every day to cleanse the villages of insurgents. The marines consider their work in Gulistan concluded, after building a scant ten-acre outpost in a strategic area and reclaiming several surrounding villages, including Qal'a-i-Kuhna, where the bazaar is. In truth, like all operations since the start of the conflict, the mop-up operation in the area has been incomplete: the security bubble extends for a radius of just a few miles around the base. Inside there are still insidious pockets of guerrillas and outside is h.e.l.l.

After a period in which the FOB was occupied by the Georgians, the territory came under Italian command. In mid-May, a convoy of ninety vehicles left Herat, following the Ring Road south, as far as Farah, and from there cut east, vainly pursuing some Taliban caught off guard. Lieutenant Egitto had partic.i.p.ated in the mission as head of-and sole component of-the medical unit.

The base they'd found was in appalling condition: a few huts full of cracks, some deep holes in the ground of dubious utility, garbage, coils of barbed wire and vehicle parts scattered everywhere; showers-nylon bags riddled with holes and hanging from a hook-lined up out in the open, without part.i.tions. There was no sign of toilets. The only structure in decent condition was the armory, which said a lot about their predecessors' order of priorities. Egitto's regiment chose it to house the command center. During the first weeks, efforts had focused on providing the camp with a minimum of basic amenities and strengthening the defense of the main entrance by building a long, zigzagged row of fortifications.

Egitto concentrated on setting up the infirmary, in a tent not far from the command center. In one half he arranged a gurney and a table, with two cabinets full of drugs and a small field refrigerator to store the perishable ones. Separated by a tarp with a mottled camouflage pattern is his personal area. The waiting room is a bench outside, fashioned out of bent wire mesh.

Once the tent became, in his opinion, sufficiently presentable, his efforts definitely slowed down. Now that he might make a number of improvements-hang some anatomical prints on the walls, see to it that patients who are waiting might enjoy a little shade, unpack the last cartons, and consider a more appropriate place for his surgical instruments-he doesn't feel like it. Instead, he wastes a lot of time reproaching himself. It doesn't matter much; by now he's about to go home. His six-month tour of duty is up and the rest of his brigade has abandoned the outpost. Some of them are already back in Italy, frantically enjoying their twenty-five days of leave and renewing intimate relationships, which at a distance had taken on the appearance of pure fantasy. The last to leave was Colonel Caracciolo, whose words, as he climbed into the helicopter and looked over the barren landscape, said it all: "Another s.h.i.tty place I won't miss." Colonel Ballesio's confident, well-rested division took over the place and it will be a good number of days before the base is operating normally. Just in time for the new rotation.

Seated at his desk, Egitto is dozing-undoubtedly the work he's been best at for some time-when a soldier sticks his head into the infirmary.

"Doctor?"

Egitto jumps. "What is it?"

"The colonel informs you that the relief medic will arrive tomorrow. A helicopter will take you back to Herat."

The young man is still half in and half out, his face indistinct in the shadows.

"Has Sergeant Anselmo recovered?"

"Who?"

"Sergeant Anselmo. He's the one a.s.signed to replace me."

As far as he'd been told, the sergeant had the flu with respiratory complications; until a few days ago he'd been in the field hospital in Herat with his nose and mouth squeezed into a soft oxygen mask.

The soldier raises his hands, intimidated. "I don't know, sir. They just told me to inform you that the relief medic will be here and that the helicopter-"