This Has Happened by Piera Sonnino

Author:Piera Sonnino
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466887046
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

After Maria Luisa’s departure, Bice began to get worse. She cried often and complained. She was visibly losing her strength. Her eighteen years seemed to be contracted, almost crumpled, she was like a leaf torn, still green, from a tree, lying in the dust in the sun. She was becoming a creature without age, pale with that papery white pallor of the “subhumans.” She had grown feeble and she moved slowly, as if every gesture cost her infinite effort. As long as Maria Luisa was there, we were two to help her; then I was alone. Alone I dragged her along the road that led to work, alone I protected her from the guards, alone I tried to prevent her from getting the harder jobs, alone I strove to maintain life in her. And I, too, found myself completing the most elementary gesture as if it were terribly complicated and difficult. I discovered that I was without flesh, skin stretched over bones.

What I mainly managed to do was to stay beside her, to never lose sight of her. I suffered at night because we slept apart, Bice among the Hungarians, next to a wooden beam that had once held a stove or work equipment, and I against a wall of the stable.

On the night of January 13 Bice complained more than usual on the way back. Her dysentery was continuous, unstoppable; there was no position that moderated it even for a moment. At work, on the road, on her bed. That night my sister, after the first spoonful of broth, had a bout of vomiting; she pushed away her bowl and threw herself on her filthy pallet. I stayed with her until the Hungarians ordered me away. I intended to remain awake to hear if Bice cried out, but I was so exhausted that I fell immediately into a deep sleep. At dawn, as usual, the guards woke us shouting and waving sticks. I ran to Bice: her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. I had the sensation that she hadn’t slept. I tried to raise her so that she could get up. The guards in the yard outside were already announcing the roll call. Bice tried to help my efforts, but she fell back heavily. I urged her. It was in vain. I ran desperately out of the stable.

A guard threatened me with a stick. I wept as I tried to make her understand that Bice was too sick to work that day. The guard hurled herself at me like a fury. She beat me and I went on crying, she hit me on the head, in the face, on the chest, and I went on crying, screaming, I didn’t feel the pain of the blows, I felt nothing: there is no trace of them in me, there is only the anguish of anticipating that I would not make myself understood, that the guard would enter the stable and beat Bice, too. I managed to grab the woman by an arm and drag her inside.

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