Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

April 25. I believe there was communication between theFascists and the partisans. The latter held off, wanting to avoid aclash, sure that something would happen soon. At night Radio Londongave more and more reassuring news, the special messages for theFranchi brigade became more frequent: Tomorrow it will rain again;Uncle Pietro has brought the bread¡Xthat sort of thing. Maybe youheard them, Diotallevi...Anyway, there must have been amisunderstanding, because the partisans came down and the Fascistshadn't left.

"One day my sister washere on the terrace, and she came inside and told us there were twomen playing tag with guns. We weren't surprised: they were kids, onboth sides, whiling away the time with their weapons. Once¡Xit wasonly in fun¡X two of them really did shoot, and a bullet hit thetrunk of a tree in the driveway. My sister was leaning on the tree;she didn't even notice, but the neighbors did, and after that shewas told that when she saw men playing with guns, she must goinside. ¡¥They're playing again,' she said, coming in, to show howobedient she was. And at that point we heard the first volley. Thena second, a third, and then the rounds came thick and fast. Youcquld hear the bark of the shotguns, the ratatat of the automaticrifles, and a duller sound, maybe hand grenades. Finally, themachine guns. We realized they weren't playing any longer, but wedidn't have time to discuss it, because by then we couldn't hearour own voices. Bang, wham, ratatat! We crouched under thesink¡Xme, my sister, and Mama. Then Uncle Carlo arrived, along thecorridor, on all fours, to tell us that we were too exposed, weshould come over to their wing. We did, and Aunt Caterina wascrying because Grandmother was out..."

"Is that when yourgrandmother found herself facedown in a field, in the crossfire?"

"How did you know aboutthat?"

"You told me in ¡¥73,after the demonstration that day."

"My God, what a memory!A man has to be careful what he says around you...Yes. But myfather was also out. As we learned later, he had taken shelter in adoorway in town, and couldn't leave it because of all the shootingback and forth in the street, and from the tower of the town hall aBlack Brigade squad was raking the square with a machine gun. Theformer mayor of the city, a Fascist, was standing in the samedoorway. At a certain point, he said he was going to run for it: toget home, all he had to do was reach the corner. He waited for aquiet moment, then flung himself out of the doorway, reached thecorner, and was mowed down. But the instinctive reaction of myfather, who had also gone through the First World War, was: Stay inthe doorway."

"This is a place full ofsweet memories," Diotallevi remarked.

"You won't believe it,"Belbo said, "but they are sweet. They're the only real things Iremember."

The others didn'tunderstand, and I was only beginning to. Now I know for sure. Inthose months especially, when he was navigating the sea offalsehoods of the Diabolicals, and after years of wrapping hisdisillusion in the falsehoods of fiction, Belbo remembered his daysin *** as a time of clarity: a bullet was a bullet, you ducked orgot it, and the two opposing sides were distinct, marked by theircolors, red or black, without ambiguities¡Xor at least it hadseemed that way to him. A corpse was a corpse was a corpse was acorpse. Not like Colonel Ardenti, with his slippery disappearance.I thought that perhaps I should tell Belbo about synarchy, which inthose years was already making inroads. Hadn't the encounterbetween Uncle Carlo and Mongo been synarchic, really, since bothmen, on opposing sides, were inspired by the same ideal ofchivalry? But why should I deprive Belbo of his Combray? Thememories were sweet because they spoke to him of the one truth hehad known; doubt would begin only afterward. Though, as he hadhinted to me, even in the days of truth he had been a spectator,watching, the birth of other men's memories, the birth of History,or of many histories: all stories that he would not be the one towrite.

Or had there been, forhim, too, a moment of glory and of choice? Because now he said,"And also, that day I performed the one heroic deed of mylife."

"My John Wayne," Lorenzasaid. "Tell me."

"Oh, it was nothing.After crawling to my uncle's part of the house, I stubbornlyinsisted on standing up in the corridor. The window was at the end,we were on the upper floor, nobody could hit me, I argued. I feltlike a captain standing erect in the center of the battle while thebullets whistle around him. Uncle Carlo became angry, roughlypulled me into the room; I almost started crying because the funwas over, and at that moment we heard three shots, glassshattering, and a kind of ricochet, as if someone were bouncing atennis ball in the corridor. A bullet had come through the window,glanced off a water pipe, and buried itself in the floor at thevery spot where I had been standing. If I had stayed there, I wouldhave been wounded. Maybe."

"My God, I wouldn't wantyou a cripple," Lorenza said.

"Maybe today I'd behappier," Belbo said.

But the fact was thateven in this case he hadn't chosen. He had let his uncle pull himaway.

About an hour later, hewas again distracted. "Then Adeline Canepa came upstairs. He saidwe'd all be safer in the cellar. He and my uncle hadn't spoken foryears, as I told you. But in this tragic moment, Adeline Canepa hadbecome a human being again, and Uncle even shook his hand. So wespent an hour in the darkness among the barrels, with the smell ofcountless vintages, which made your head swim a little, not tomention the shooting outside. Then the gunfire died down, becamemuffled. We realized one side was retreating, but we didn't knowwhich, until, from a window above our heads, which overlooked alittle path, we heard a voice, in dialect: ¡¥Monssu, i'e d'larepubblica bele si?' "

"What does that mean?"Lorenza asked.

"Roughly: Sir, would yoube so kind as to inform me if there are still any sustainers of theItalian Social Republic in these parts?