«Let’s be honest,» commented Bandi, «the landing wasn’t a complete circus as Abba suggests. When we came alongside the Bourbon ships, the first grenades and gunfire finally got going. We were having fun, of course. In the midst of the explosions, a plump old friar, hat in hand, turned up to welcome us. Someone shouted, ‘Come to make yourself a pain in the ass, Friar?’ But Garibaldi raised his hand and said, ‘Good Friar, what are you looking for? Can’t you hear the bullets whistling?’
And the friar answered, ‘I’m not afraid of bullets. I’m a servant of poor Saint Francis and a son of Italy.’ ‘You’re with the people, then?’ asked the general. ‘With the people, yes, with the people,’ replied the friar. And that was when we realized that Marsala was ours. The general sent Crispi to the tax collector in the name of Vittorio Emanuele, king of Italy, to requisition all revenues. These were handed over to Acerbi, the quartermaster general, who issued a receipt. A Kingdom of Italy did not yet exist, but that receipt given by Crispi to the tax collector is the first document in which Vittorio Emanuele is described as king of Italy.»
I took the opportunity to ask, «But isn’t Nievo the quartermaster?»
«Nievo is Acerbi’s deputy,» explained Abba. «So young, and already a great writer. A true poet. His brilliance shines. He’s always alone, gazing into the distance, as if trying to reach to the horizon. I understand that Garibaldi’s about to appoint him colonel.»
Bandi’s praises went further: «At Calatafimi he was getting a little behind, distributing bread. Bozzetti called him into battle and he leapt into the fray, swooping down on the enemy like a great black bird, the wings of his cloak wide open, so a bullet immediately tore a hole through it.»
This was quite enough for me to feel an antipathy toward this Nievo. He and I must have been about the same age and he already thought himself famous. The warrior poet. Of course your cloak will get shot through if you flap it open like that—a fine way of showing off a hole that could have been in your breast.
At that point Abba and Bandi described the battle of Calatafimi—a miraculous victory, a thousand volunteers on one side and twenty-five thousand well-armed Bourbons on the other.
«Garibaldi is leading us,» said Abba, «on a bay gelding fit for a grand vizier, with a magnificent saddle and fretted stirrups, wearing a red shirt and Hungarian-style cap. At Salemi we’re joined by local volunteers. They arrive from all directions, on horseback, on foot, an evil-looking mob, mountain folk armed to the teeth, with bandit faces and eyes like the barrels of pistols. But led by gentry, local landowners. Salemi is filthy, its streets like open sewers, but the monks had fine monasteries and we’re billeted there. We get conflicting information about the enemy—four thousand, no, ten thousand, twenty thousand, with horses and cannon, north, no south, advancing, retreating…
And all of a sudden the enemy appears. There’d be about five thousand men, but someone said, ‘Nonsense, there’s ten thousand of them.’ Between us and them a barren plain. The Neapolitan riflemen make their way down from the hills. How calm, how confident—you can see they’re well trained, not like our rabble. And their bugles, what a mournful sound! The first shots don’t ring out until half past one in the afternoon. They’re fired by the Neapolitan riflemen who have come down through the prickly pear cactuses. ‘Don’t reply, don’t fire back!’ our captains shout. But the rifle bullets whistle past us with such a din that we can hardly keep still. We hear a bang, then another, then the general’s bugler sounds the call to arms and the charge. The bullets rain down like hailstones. On the hill there’s a cloud of smoke from the cannon firing on us.
We cross the plain and break through the enemy’s front line. I turn back and see Garibaldi standing on the hill, his sword still sheathed over his right shoulder, advancing slowly and keeping an eye on the action. Bixio gallops to shelter him with his horse and shouts, ‘What are you trying to do, General? You’ll get killed.’ And he answers, ‘What better way to die than for my country?’ And he continues on, heedless of the hail of bullets. I feared, in that instant, the general had decided it was impossible to win and was trying to get killed. But just then one of our cannon blasts out from the road. We seem to have the support of a thousand men. ‘Onward, onward, onward!’ All you can hear is the bugle, which has never stopped sounding the charge. With bayonets fixed we pass through the first, the second, the third line, up the hill. The Bourbon battalions retreat higher, regroup and seem to grow in strength. They still look invincible—they’re up there on the summit and we’re beneath the ridge, exhausted.
There’s a moment’s rest, with them above and us flat on the ground. Gunfire here and there. The Bourbons start rolling boulders, throwing stones. Someone says the general’s been hit. I see a fine-looking youth among the prickly pear cactuses, fatally injured, supported by two companions. He’s pleading with his companions to take pity on the Neapolitans because they too are Italians. The whole slope is strewn with dead and wounded, but not a groan is to be heard. Now and then, from the summit, the Neapolitans cry, ‘Long live the king!’ Meanwhile, reinforcements arrive. Bandi, I remember that was when you appeared, covered in wounds, but worst of all with a bullet stuck in your left breast, and I thought you’d be dead in half an hour. And yet there you were on the final assault, ahead of everyone—what spirit you had!»
«Nonsense,» said Bandi, «they were only scratches.»
«And what about the Franciscans who were fighting with us? One friar, all filth and bones, was loading a blunderbuss with handfuls of shot and pebbles, then clambering up to within sight of the enemy and firing it. I saw one who’d been hit in the thigh pull the bullet out of his flesh and carry on firing.»
Abba then began to describe the battle at Ponte dell’Ammiraglio: «By God, Simonini, a day out of Homer! Pure poetry. We are at the gates of Palermo and a troop of local insurgents come to help us. Someone—perhaps he’s the first sentry we take by surprise—cries out ‘Oh, God!,’ staggers backward, takes three or four steps sideways like a drunkard and falls into a ditch beneath two poplar trees, near a dead Neapolitan rifleman.
And I can still hear one of our Genoese comrades, just as lead shot was hailing down on us, shouting, ‘Hell, which way?’ And a bullet hits him in the forehead, splitting open his skull. At Ponte dell’Ammiraglio, along the road, over the arches, under the bridge and in the fields, they’re massacred by bayonets. Near dawn we hold the bridge, but we’re cut off by fierce gunfire from an infantry line behind a wall, and charged by cavalry from the left, but we drive them back into the fields.
Once over the bridge, we regroup at the crossroads by Porta Termini, but we’re bombarded by cannon from a ship in the port and are under fire from a barricade in front of us. We carry on regardless. A bell rings out the tocsin. We continue on through the narrow streets, and at a certain point—dear God, what a vision!—three ravishing young girls dressed in white, clinging to a railing with hands as white as lilies, are watching us in silence.
They look like angels you see in church frescoes. ‘Who are you?’ they ask, and we tell them we’re Italians and ask who they are, and they tell us they’re nuns. ‘Oh, poor young things,’ we say—we wouldn’t mind releasing them from that prison and offering them some sweet amusement—and they cry, ‘Long live Saint Rosalia!’ We reply, ‘Long live Italy!’ They also shout ‘Long live Italy!’ with gentle holy voices, and wish us victory. We fought for another five days in Palermo before the armistice…but with no young nuns to comfort us, just whores!»
How far can I rely on these two fanatics? They are young and this is their first experience of war. They had worshiped their general from the very start and in their own way are storytellers like Dumas, embellishing their recollections so that all their geese are swans. They certainly fought well during those skirmishes, but it sounds very strange that Garibaldi could wander around in the midst of the battle (and his enemies would have been able to see him clearly from far away) without ever being hit. Or was the enemy shooting wide on orders from higher up?
I had already begun to form these opinions based on various rumors I’d heard from my innkeeper—he must have traveled around other parts of the peninsula, and speaks a language that is almost comprehensible. And it was he who suggested I should have a chat with Don Fortunato Musumeci, a lawyer who apparently knows everything about everyone, and has shown his distrust of the new arrivals on several occasions.
I certainly couldn’t approach him wearing my red shirt, and I thought about Father Bergamaschi’s cassock, which I’d brought with me. A comb through my hair, a sufficiently unctuous tone, eyes lowered, and there I am slipping out of the inn, unrecognizable to everyone. It was,
