"That's not true. And besides, there's nothing wrong with that even if it were true."

"If you mow the lawn this time, in a month the yard will be in the same condition and I'll find myself back at square one. Then I won't know who to call and I'll call you, and you won't dare say no to a desperate widow, even though you won't feel much like doing it anymore. And so on, every month, until you get sick and tired of it and come up with an excuse not to come. You'll feel guilty and I'll feel abandoned. Let's not get into a predicament like that, Rene. Unfortunately, gra.s.s keeps growing. There's nothing we can do about it." She pauses a moment, then adds: "It's not your fault that Salvo is dead."

The marshal feels a twinge in his chest. If she only knew! If she knew how mistaken she was and how many miles of lawn he'd have to mow to make amends for what he took from her. He'd have to fell a forest with a penknife. "And if I don't mind?" he insists.

Flavia flicks a bit of ash off her sweater. "Do you at least know how to use a mower?"

"Tell me where it is. I'll show you right now."

She blows smoke upward. "No, not now. Today isn't lawn day."

"When would it be, then?"

"Sat.u.r.day, in the morning." She crushes the partially smoked cigarette in the ashtray and stands up, as if it were suddenly late and she wanted to end the visit. "You have time to change your mind, though. You don't have to let me know. And please don't do it."

But Rene is not one to back out. He keeps his promise-in fact, in the days leading up to it he thinks of nothing but that. On Sat.u.r.day he shows up early at the Camporesi house. Flavia is still in her robe. She'd forgotten about their appointment, and he registers her failure to remember with unexpected regret.

He lied to her: he's never done any yard work before-he's always lived in an apartment. In any case, it doesn't seem all that difficult. Relying on certain amateur videos he's studied on the Internet, he gets to work.

He runs the lawn mower over the gra.s.s, in one direction and then the other. He imagined it would leave strips in different shades, like on soccer fields, but something isn't right. There must be a special technique that he's not aware of. He notices Flavia watching him from the porch with a faraway look, as if seeing someone else in him as he moves about. She's now wearing a low-necked T-shirt, without a bra. She's standing in the exact spot where the sunlight shines directly on her face. "You've never done this before, right?" she says.

Rene looks over the portion of the yard he's already mowed. "Is it that obvious?"

Flavia smiles. "It's still better than before."

He ends up staying for lunch and for a good part of the afternoon. Then, like the first time, Flavia's mood suddenly changes and she sends him away abruptly, without warning. She promises to call him if she needs further help, but from the way she says it, it doesn't seem like she means it.

As he drives home, Rene is unsettled. The day has taken an unexpected turn. He's left with a chunk of the afternoon to fill; Halo 8 is waiting for him at home, but he doesn't think he'll be able to lose himself in the game. He has the feeling that all he'll be able to do is indulge in the disgraceful, perilous longing that has overwhelmed him since he shut the gate behind him: longing for the garden of one of his fallen soldiers and for his unapproachable wife, standing on the porch.

Two days later, he gives up his squash date with Pecone so he can station himself in his car outside Flavia Camporesi's house. He stays there until it gets dark, staring at the lights that turn on and off and wondering whether the months in the valley haven't really turned him into a wack job after all.

He goes back the next night and the one after that. Soon enough his evening watches outside Flavia's house become a routine finale to his days in the barracks, so that, at a certain point, he plans for it by bringing his supper along. He parks close enough to see everything, and far enough away to not be spotted. He doesn't know what he's watching for. All he has to do is glimpse Flavia, or her son, behind a curtain, steal a moment of their shattered family life, to feel better and at the same time to renew the apprehension that keeps him riveted there. As if he needs to continually make sure that nothing bad has happened to those two defenseless creatures. As for the physical thrill he feels toward the widow Camporesi, it has nothing to do with the kind of infatuation for certain girls he'd experienced a long time ago, as a teenager. It's a more complicated feeling that he can't-or doesn't want-to decipher.

Sitting in the car with the radio turned off, his thoughts don't dwell on anything for long, but are always more or less the same: the phone call from Delaram base camp, too late, to Rosanna Vitale; the garbage bags with the men inside; little Gabriele who finally decides to imitate him, getting down on his knees like him to pick up the dead leaves under the hedge, but one at a time, because his small hands can't grasp more.

The marshal's routine falls completely apart and he doesn't give a d.a.m.n. He just wants to keep watch, period. He's considered the fact that sooner or later a police car could pull up alongside and ask him why he's been parked there for so long, but there's not a chance he'll give up being near the purple house that Salvatore once bought to prolong his life as a child. There's still a very long time yet-too long-before he'll have to mow the lawn, and meanwhile there's nothing else he can do to keep his anxiety at bay. Gra.s.s keeps growing, but not fast enough.

He receives a phone call from an old acquaintance, Valeria S., a client from the days when he used to supplement his income. No one has called him before her. They must have found a replacement during the months he was gone, or they heard about what happened and decided to stay away. He agrees to an appointment out of his usual impeccable courtesy and also because he wants to have s.e.x (the last time was in a previous incarnation, with a woman who was pregnant by him).

In front of the door he begins to think he splashed on too much cologne, a sign of insecurity, an obvious clue that he's now out of practice. It doesn't matter; much of the scent will disappear along with his clothes. Valeria S. gets right down to business. They jump each other's bones while they're still in the living room. Both seem ravenous and desperate. The woman has a nice lithe body and after shrugging off her blouse she arches her back over his forearm and offers her taut b.r.e.a.s.t.s to his mouth. Not one wrong move, not a single wasted glance, gets in the way of their hasty migration toward the bedroom. They yank and kiss and rouse and stroke each other, not letting go for an instant. Not even the nuisance of putting on protection ruins the synchronization; Rene quickly takes care of the job with one hand while keeping her distracted with the other.

He's playacting, but it's such a familiar act that it doesn't require any effort. He pins Valeria beneath him. Her eyes are closed and her face has a vague expression. She demands a little pain and he gives it to her. He squeezes a nipple between his front teeth until she cries out. He even slaps her on the face.

When the coupling settles into the repet.i.tive rhythm of penetration, though, he realizes that something is wrong. He seems to see Valeria shrinking, slipping away from him. But it could also be the opposite: he could be the one slipping away. The girl, a few inches from his eyes, becomes an indistinct object and the sounds in the room are cushioned as well.

A distasteful clot forms in the marshal's chest and rises to his throat. Nothing like this has ever happened to him before today, yet his body seems to have a primal knowledge of what is happening. All of a sudden he's sure he won't climax, that in a few seconds it will even be intolerable for him to continue. And the very instant he thinks it, the premonition comes true down in his groin.

Later, Valeria insists that he accept the money anyway: "Even though you didn't come, I did, so the service is valid just the same."

Rene is hesitant, crushed, not so much by shame, but by the vestiges of the anxiety that gripped him a little earlier in the bedroom. They agree on half the amount: half pay for half a f.u.c.k. It seems fair. Before sending him off, the girl tosses him one last consolation: "It's normal, Rene. After what happened to you. You'll go back to being the man you were. You'll see."

But that's just the point, Rene thinks as he rushes down the stairs to at least spare himself the awkwardness of waiting there for the elevator: Does he really want to go back to being the man he was before? And who the h.e.l.l was the man he was before?

He stops running in the morning, stops lifting weights in the gym, stops roaming around on his motorcycle. Now all he does is keep watch over Flavia Camporesi and her son. He realizes how risky it is, but he can't resist the powerful, burning need to keep that amputated family in his sight. The rolling shutters raised in the morning and lowered in the evening, the unfailing way Flavia takes Gabriele's hand as soon as they pa.s.s through the gate, her extreme caution when she drives the car out of the garage, then immediately glances into the mirror to check her face-all this is soothing and at the same time fuels his anxiety.

Occasionally, more and more often, he ventures out and rings the doorbell. Flavia welcomes him, though sometimes she goes back to sit on the couch and forgets about him. She still conveys the sultry negligence of the first day. Since the muggy heat settled over Belluno, she hasn't worn anything but a cotton nightdress, always the same one, very short on her thighs and with a wayward shoulder strap that stubbornly slips down to her elbow, partially revealing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Most of the time she doesn't even notice. Flavia's nudity attracts Rene with a power that he can't deny. If he gazes at her for long, he's forced to get up, find some manual task, or rinse his face with cold water.

What is he thinking of? How did he end up in that house? She's the wife of one of his men, forbidden fruit, the red zone. He was used to managing erotic urges, to utilizing them just as he did his limbs, his weapons, the leather steering wheel of his German car, but now they're muddled up with a sense of guilt and shame that intensifies and confuses them. He feels out of control. Then, too, his failure with Valeria S. has challenged the very foundation of his masculinity. He's afraid that crossing the valley has transformed him into one of those slimy individuals who spy on carnal acts from a distance without having the guts to act-a voyeur, an impotent observer. He despises men like that-he's never understood them. Anyway, it's already been three months since he spoke with Flavia on the porch and since then there have been no developments between them.

Inexplicably, despite all of the precautions, word about his visits leaks out. One day, in the mess hall, Zampieri plunks down in front of him. "Hey, Marshal. They're saying you're having an affair with Campo's wife. Is it true?"

"No."

"Still, that's what they're saying."

"I give her a hand with the yard. She's all alone."

Zampieri taps her lower lip with a fork. "Do you seriously think that's a decent thing to do?"

"You're on the wrong track, Zampa."

"I once saw a movie where something like that happened. It ended badly."

He can't be certain, but it seems that since that day the guys have tended to avoid him. He tries not to think about it. He hasn't done anything wrong; he's only offered to help a mother in need. As for the reasons driving him to be so conscientious, no one can possibly guess them, much less understand them; they're his business.

The guys might well be upset for other reasons. Replacements from other companies have arrived and so far Rene's efforts haven't been enough to create a climate of cooperation. He himself was cool toward them in the beginning; he struggled to memorize their names, continually asking them to repeat them, and this must not have made them feel very welcome. The veteran troops eat on one side, the new ones on the other. The veterans train on one side, the new ones on the other. The veterans think the new guys can't understand a d.a.m.n thing about what they've been through-and they're probably right-while the new ones don't consider that a good reason to be mistreated, and find creative ways to express the fact that the exasperation is mutual. The overall picture is frustrating. The marshal had big plans for his platoon, certain that its skills and glory would grow, yet here they are in a state of total disarray.

Maybe it's Zampieri's gall that gives him the push he needed, that makes him a little more daring. One afternoon he suggests to Flavia an idea he's been thinking about for weeks, but says it as though it has just occurred to him: "How about getting dinner out sometime, the two of us?"

She emerges from the depths of one of her absent interludes. She looks at Rene as if he were a stranger who'd snuck in, a hint of disgust tugs at her mouth, then she leaves the room without a word. When it's time to say good-bye, she coldly orders him not to come back again.

Every year in late July, the barracks in Belluno organizes sports tournaments. The six hundred soldiers who partic.i.p.ate don't do it because they're forced to, but they don't do it for fun either: the fact is that extracurricular activities allow them to rack up points useful to career advancement. The compet.i.tions attract journalists from the local papers and various sponsors, quick to offer tempting prizes just to have their logo printed in large letters on the bibs. There is also a substantial round of betting prompted by the events; Ballesio is aware of it and does nothing to hinder the illegal activity because he considers gambling, like other male vices, part of every good soldier's pedigree.

Rumor has it that this year the colonel has put twenty euros on Masiero for the summer biathlon. The bookies, including Enrico Di Salvo, give the captain three-to-one odds, making him the odds-on favorite, while Rene, who had always been a worthy rival, is barely given nine. The a.s.sessment of the marshal is symptomatic of the condition he's in: he's visibly heavier, out of shape, nervous. None of his men has bet a dime on him winning, and he knows it.

For this reason, his comeback in the second half of the event astounds him. With no particular effort, Rene finds himself outdistancing Masiero by a few dozen yards and racks up a higher score than the captain in target shooting, hitting four cardboard silhouettes right in the heart. It's the first time he's won that stupid compet.i.tion and the first time he couldn't care less.

On the podium, however, he relishes the satisfaction of standing over the captain's bald head. The soldiers applaud from the stands and his group of men is easily recognizable because they seem to have gone bonkers. Even from a distance, the marshal has the impression that it's the first source of shared pride for his newly reconst.i.tuted platoon.

"Congratulations, Marshal," Masiero snarls.

Rene realizes that his hand is sweaty. "Congratulations to you, Captain."

Ballesio awards the third-place winner a clock radio that projects the time on the wall. Masiero, in addition to the medal, receives a steel Suunto wrist.w.a.tch, an underwater model with a large dial and a wide array of functions. It must cost three hundred euros at least. His prize, Rene figures, must be worth even more.

He bows his head and lets the commander place the gold-plated medal around his neck. Then he unwraps the package. He feels Masiero's cold eyes on him and from his top spot pities the man for still being obsessed by their futile match.

The marshal, the first-place winner, also gets a watch: a measly plastic Swatch with a green-and-black camouflage band. Incredulous, Rene's eyes question Ballesio, who pretends he doesn't understand. Then the marshal turns to Masiero and the captain smiles at him: there's always something new to learn about command.

He doesn't have to wait long for his consolation prize, however. It's a stifling night, already past one, and Rene is stationed in the street because the light is still on in Flavia's room. He's almost dozing off-it wouldn't be the first time he fell asleep in the car and then woke up at dawn, aching and stiff-when the interior lights up with an electric blue gleam. An instant later his cell phone wiggles on the empty pa.s.senger seat, next to the leftovers of his take-out supper. Flavia's name appears on the display.

The marshal listens intently for the sound of approaching police sirens, but doesn't hear anything. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Are you still out there?"

Rene the strategist, Rene the sharp-witted man who less than a year ago set off on a mission destined to turn into a bloodbath, would have said no, then would have moved cautiously from the incriminating spot to a more secure hiding place. Instead, this new screwed-up version of himself can't help telling the truth: "Yeah, but I'll go if you want me to."

"No. Stay a little longer."

"Can't you sleep?"

"I can hardly ever. Last fall I lived as if I were in Afghanistan too; now I think I'm just a little unhinged. Do you know what time zone the dead are in?"

"No."

"I'm sorry. That was a bad joke."

"You don't have to apologize."

"You were good in Sunday's compet.i.tion."

"Who told you that?"

"I was there. Gabriele pointed at you while you were being awarded the medal. I think he recognized the lawn mower man."

"It must be time to mow again."

Flavia ignores him. "A neighbor complained about the pile of cigarette b.u.t.ts he finds each morning at the curb. You should use the ashtray."

"Okay. I'll remember that."

"Salvo used to say that some days your clothes smelled of smoke so bad that it was impossible to be around you."

"I guess he was right."

"Do you still go with cougars?"

The question is fired at him point-blank. Rene struggles to contain his shock. "I don't know what you mean."

"Look, Salvo told me about your second job. So, do you still see them?"

"No. Anyway, they weren't cougars. Just friends."

"How much do you charge?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Come on, I'm curious-tell me how much."

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On how well-off they are."

Flavia laughs loudly. Rene holds the phone a few inches away from his ear.

"How altruistic! And if I were to hire you?"

"Don't kid around."

"A young mother with her dead husband's survivor benefits. You should be generous."

"Stop it!"

"Fifty? A hundred? I can manage up to a hundred."

"I wouldn't go to bed with you."

"Why not?" Her tone has suddenly changed. "So it's true then, that I'm used goods, ready for the sc.r.a.p heap."

"It's not that."

"Oh, no?"

"You're . . ." He begins, but can't find a way to finish.

"Salvo's wife? A widow? A bizarre sense of moral ethics. Anyhow, forget it." Suddenly she's aggressive. She takes a breath, as if to compose herself. "I'm going to sleep."

Can her intentions be serious? Does she really want to invite him in? Not long ago she kicked him out for daring to talk about having dinner together and now she's longing to have s.e.x with him? Maybe she's just teasing him, but Rene doesn't hesitate to explore the possibility: "However, if you . . ." he throws out.

"A hundred euros is a lot for me right now," Flavia responds quickly.

"We don't have to discuss money."

"Yes, we do."

His head is spinning. He's negotiating a fee to service the wife of the man he let die. "Thirty is fine," he says without thinking.

"I'm not asking for charity."

"Fifty, then."

And so, still incredulous, he finds himself usurping the bed of one of his soldiers. They're in complete darkness, in a sweltering room that Rene has never seen in daylight. Flavia is lying on her stomach, naked, her legs clamped tight, as if awaiting a punishment. Rene has never found himself trembling before approaching a woman. Is he afraid of failing again? Or is it the unusual circ.u.mstances that terrify him? He's fantasized about this moment for so long that now, caught off guard, he's slow to get aroused.

He's having second thoughts. Flavia doesn't move, doesn't encourage him. Lying motionless like that, she might even be asleep, if it weren't for the fact that she's plainly on her guard. When Rene kisses her neck, she jerks her head violently, resisting. Then he lightly traces her back along the curving line of her spine, playing for time, but Flavia rejects any kind of foreplay. She stops his hand, pulls him to her by the hips. She wants to be just a body, not a person; she wants to be any other anonymous client from his second career. Rene feels overwhelmingly sad. Get on with it, Marshal, that's all they want from you.