Silvano kept a safe distance from the partisans, who wandered between woods and gullies around Montaione, San Gimignano and Volterra. He did not understand their reasons, their way of thinking. He felt instinctively that their smell was not his own smell. Their skin had different reasons than his.
And those strange, incongruous noms de guerre, detached from any human logic: Sandokan, Ursus, Falco, Caserta, Camoscino, Intrepido, Lampo, Mitra, Tigre, Leone, Condor, Cobra, Orso, Bufalo, il Vendicatore, Potente, Birba, Bistecca, Chicchirichì, Cognach, Emorroidi, Fastidi, Fifa...maybe they had a logic, it had to be a logic in those names, it was undeniable, but still they formed a language that Silvano had difficulty to learn.
He did not completely avoid them. In the woods of Jetta, Casa al Rosso and Cetine, he had often met them, had shared their food, smoked their cigarettes, talked to them but had always felt an unbridgeable distance between his own world and their distant world.
They had asked him many times to join the Resistance but Silvano had just delayed. He had not fought as a soldier for the Royal Army and he did not see why he had to do it right now.
— Listen…why don’t you join us?
— I do not know. I have to decide.
— Are you afraid?
— No.
— So, you're a fascist?
— Do you know any fascist in my family?
— So, what are you waiting for?
— Look ... I defected ... I did not fight for the King. And now I have to hide because the carabinieri are after me. And I do not even know why they want me arrested...I thought the war was over and instead ... it's not my war. I do not see any reason to fight it.
— I see…you are not a compagno...
— What do you mean by "you are not a compagno" ?
— You are not a Communist. You don’t believe in the proletarian dictatorship.
— No, I don’t even know what you mean by that…I think it’s not my case to believe in what everybody pretends to believe ...
— You are a defeatist, that's what you are! ... Don’t you want to free Italy from Germans and fascists?
— Allies will do that, not you.
— But we will help them. And then they will treat us as a victorious country and we will be treated equally.
— You are idiots! That’s what you are. They will give you a good kick in the ass. Here's what England and the Americans will give you all!
One of them pointed a gun at him and maybe he would have fired, if one (perhaps the commander) who was called Guido l’ Ebreo had not bellowed out: "Put that bloody gun away. Not among Italians! "
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