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8 September the day Italy died (2)

Of those days spent in the farmhouse before leaving to Verona and trying to take the train to Florence Silvano remembered one morning. The sun was already high, and it was hot even though it was September. The sky appeared full of bristly and white cirrus like goat's milk. Twenty girls on bikes had gathered in the Cascina. They wore light dresses that assumed dark shadows under the sun filtered by the cirrus clouds. In the distance, in front of them, stood the a far countryside and a linear white road that stood out as if it was carved against the plain. Silvano stood under the stable's shed and looked at them like one usually would observe a painting. That image of fresh youth, of flesh exposed to the sun, provoked him. Even now the memory of that day made him feel such a strong emotion that even at the age of ninety it could become excruciating. It was the same emotion but a deaf pleasure of his flesh, now. The prostate had been tormenting him for years and only go...

8 September the day Italy died

"Odyssey? It is a myth about the nostalgia of returning home, a longing to return home suffered during the long years of "naja" by Italian soldiers taken to fight away from their families, by their worries about how they will return home after the war, by the fear that assaulted them in their dreams and overcome them with the thought of never being able to return, because of strange obstacles that arise on their journey. It is the story of September 8, the Odyssey, the story of many others September 8: the pain and the dread to go home on makeshift vehicles, along countries full of enemies. " (Italo Calvino) - Silvano ... Silvano ... - hissed the comrade from above, to warn him of the gunshots. From below Silvano beckoned him that he had understood. Gunshots were heard in the distance. On the other side of the barracks, in front of the dormitories there was a colonel with a gun in his hand and two soldiers dead at his feet, to whom he had fired becau...