Portrait of a Family with a Fat Daughter by Margherita Giacobino

Author:Margherita Giacobino [Giacobino, Margherita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910213537
Publisher: Dedalus Ebooks
Published: 2017-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers are taken off in that autumn of ’43. He vanishes into the crowd. He is just one of many, a little soldier boy who’s never held a rifle in his life and will never learn to hold one, because they’ve already disarmed him before he’s had a chance to fire a round, and he probably hands that unused weapon back to those who gave it him with a certain sense of relief.

Recruits like himself thought that they were going to war; they screwed up their courage by singing, drinking grappa, whistling at girls and trying not to think of home. He is just one among many non-heroes, he speaks in dialect and wears a medallion with the Virgin round his neck, hoping his mother’s prayers will do the trick and see him home safe and sound. As in the wine shop and on the village streets, he finds himself in a world of men, almost all older than himself, to be admired and obeyed and curried favour with; here there are no women to soften the blows. Hardly has it begun than his military apprenticeship turns into something else, something unexpected: people are no longer going to war – so what exactly are they going to, then?

The Germans are armed to the teeth and look as if they mean business, they’re super-manly with their bayonets and rifles and panzers, and the little prisoner soldier boys are just frail unarmed bodies beneath their uniforms, as docile and obedient as so many women, seized by iron-fisted warriors who drag them into a dance of death. The Germans give orders, and they’re not orders like those from your sergeant, who may rap you over the knuckles if you don’t obey, but orders from a German, who may shoot on sight. The Germans make them march, marsch! and woe to anyone who hesitates, you’ll get it in the neck with a rifle butt, they cram you into trains already bursting at the seams. As long as you’re in Italy, despite fear and discomfort, there’s hope, you can sense it on the faces of the women who crowd into the stations to see their boys off, throwing them bread and fruit, picking up their notes to send them on home. But once you’ve crossed that border, there’s no knowing where you’re bound for, or whether you’ll arrive.

These journeys last for weeks, which seem like years. Like everybody else, Gilin sleeps on his feet, lolling against the wall of the corridor or jammed between his fellow soldiers, because there’s nowhere to lie down, he does his business in a tin receptacle which is then emptied out of the briefly opened door, and watch out you don’t get it all over yourself, or over someone else’s feet, which will lead to a torrent of swearing. He eats what he is given, or not at all. The worst thing is the thirst. In the morning he tries to be among the first to lick the metallic-tasting hoar-frost on the wagons’ metal joints.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.