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  The dark night ends in light.

  —AFGHAN PROVERB

  ACRONYMS

  AMX

  Aeritalia Macchi Experimental

  ANA

  Afghan National Army

  ANP

  Afghan National Police

  ATR

  Aerei da Trasporto Regionale

  BZD

  benzodiazepine

  CIMIC

  civil-military cooperation

  CO

  commanding officer

  COP

  combat outpost

  EOD

  explosive ordnance disposal

  FOB

  forward operating base

  ICOS

  International Council on Security and Development

  IDF

  indirect fire

  IED

  improvised explosive device

  IFV

  infantry fighting vehicle

  ISAF

  International Security Assistance Force

  MMPI

  Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

  NCO

  noncommissioned officer

  NGO

  nongovernmental organization

  OMLT

  Operational Mentor and Liaison Team

  PETN

  pentaerythritol tetranitrate

  PIO

  public information officer

  PRT

  Provincial Reconstruction Team

  PSYOPS

  psychological operations

  PTSD

  posttraumatic stress disorder

  PX

  post exchange

  QRF

  Quick Reaction Force

  RC

  regional command

  RPG

  rocket-propelled grenade

  SBBIED

  suicide body-borne IED

  TFC

  Task Force Center

  TFS

  Task Force South

  TIC

  troops in contact

  TOW

  tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided

  VFP

  volontario in ferma prefissata, or volunteer professional soldier

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Epigraph

  List of Acronyms

  Chapter 1: Live

  Chapter 2: Live

  Chapter 3: Homework

  Chapter 4: Live

  Chapter 5: Homework

  Chapter 6: Live

  Chapter 7: Homework

  Chapter 8: Live

  Chapter 9: Homework

  Chapter 10: Live

  Chapter 11: Homework

  Chapter 12: Live

  Chapter 13: Homework

  Chapter 14: Live

  Chapter 15: Live

  Chapter 16: Homework

  Chapter 17: Live

  Chapter 18: Live

  Chapter 19: Homework

  Chapter 20: Live

  Chapter 21: Live

  Chapter 22: Rewind

  Chapter 23: Live

  Acknowledgments

  Translator’s Acknowledgments

  Also by Melania G. Mazzucco

  A Note About the Author and Translator

  Copyright

  1

  LIVE

  Nothing ever happens in this city. There’s a frenzy the night that Manuela Paris is to return home—not even a visit from the pope would have caused such commotion. Everyone wants to see her. It’s Christmas Eve. The vendors in the piazza have already broken down their stalls, and the rides are closing, too. The cafés lower their shutters, the waiters exchanging holiday greetings with the girls at the cash registers as they turn out the lights, one sign after another going dark. Curious onlookers clump together in front of the Parises’ apartment building, huddled against the gate that defends a skinny gravel path. They stare at the intersection—two streets at right angles, like a drawing a kid in geometry class would make on graph paper. Except for the Christmas decorations—arches of colored light suspended between the buildings—there’s nothing to look at. Ladispoli’s not a very picturesque place. The only monuments, to the fallen in World War I, aren’t very compelling: from a distance they look like scrap metal left over from some construction site. The best things about the main piazza are the trees and benches. The houses are nothing special, they don’t make much of an impression. Even the Art Nouveau villas along the esplanade, built at the turn of the century when a dreamer prince believed he could transform this barren coast, at that time empty, into Rome’s preferred elegant seaside resort, are decaying in the salt and sun. The teachers had encouraged the children living on the same street as Manuela Paris’s family to hang Italian flags from their balconies. But school has been out for two days now, and only a few of them remembered, or only a few of them own a flag, so there are only three of them. They’re all faded—the last time they were dragged down from the attic was for the World Cup—and so ragged and lonely that they make for a pretty sad sight; it might have been better not to hang them at all. Worse, the biggest one is on the Paris family balcony, so it’s really like there are only two. Two flags on a street with at least fifty buildings and four hundred apartments.

  So the cameraman prefers not to film them, to avoid giving the impression that Italian people don’t give a damn. Manuela’s schoolmates—who studied tourism management with her, or say they did, even if they were in a different class and maybe spoke to her only three times in their lives—vie for attention, elbowing to get on camera. But a reporter from the local news is front and center; he is trying hard to explain—in just a few words because the story isn’t supposed to run over ninety seconds—that he’s outside Manuela Paris’s house with the mayor. Only he has to keep repeating himself because of all the honking—cars stuck in the traffic jam. The regular correspondent is on vacation so he’s filling in: a young guy nobody knows, with rectangular glasses and a blond goatee. There’s a pretty good crowd, though, they’ll give her a respectable welcome.

  But a sharp, nasty drizzle begins to fall, and Manuela Paris is late, and no one knows if she’s coming by train from Rome or by car from Fiumicino, no one knows anything, it’s cold, it’s getting late, and the spontaneous welcome committee dissolves. A woman in a beaver coat leaves a bouquet of roses on the ground beneath the doorbell, but a neighbor throws the roses away, saying they bring bad luck: they look like those sad flowers people place along the side of the road or on lampposts after an accident, and Manuela Paris is hardly dead. Only the mayor—a woman herself—stays; she really wants to give Manuela a token of the city’s appreciation, a little artsy something commissioned from a local sculptor that’s supposed to represent the region’s traditional product: a golden artichoke. Artichokes have been the pride of Ladispoli since the 1930s, and sometimes it seems as if they’re the only thing the forty thousand people who live here care about, even though they’re really grown by only a few farms out in the countryside. The rest of Ladispoli’s residents work in factories or shops, just like anywhere else. At any rate, the mayor, draped in a tricolor sash, has to present this symbol of indigenous virtue to the illustrious citizen who put Ladispoli on the front page. Because otherwise the city gets talked about only during April, during the artichoke festival. Or if two drunken Bulgarians knife each other in a brawl. Or some retiree drowns on the first Sunday in June. So the mayor stays to deliver the golden
artichoke, and to convey the admiration of the entire city council. Majority and opposition may fight each other on everything else, but all agreed when it came to honoring their fellow citizen, a model for young, hardworking Italians—in short, a hope for the future of our country.

  The mayor waits under an umbrella with Manuela’s sister. Everyone’s stunned to see them together, because there’s always been a lot of gossip about Vanessa Paris, for all sorts of reasons, and at any rate, the mayor never would have said a word to her if she weren’t Manuela’s sister. With her platinum blond bob, asymmetrical bangs, green eye shadow, false eyelashes, and bold fuchsia lipstick, Vanessa snags herself an interview with the TV reporter. She’s remarkably self-assured, as if she’d been giving interviews all her life. “My sister’s totally normal,” she says, her cat eyes staring straight into the camera, into the viewers’ eyes, “she hates pretentiousness and would never want people to think of her as a hero, or a victim—she was just doing her job, like when a bricklayer falls off scaffolding, or a factory worker gets splashed by acid. She chose that life, she knew the risks, and she didn’t let the difficulties get to her, that’s why I think it makes sense to talk about Manuela Paris, because young Italian women today aren’t all bimbos with no brains or values who only think about money, they’re also people like my sister, who have dreams and ideals, and the courage to try and fulfill them.” The reporter asks for her number as soon as the sound engineer turns off the mike.

  Vanessa Paris will be a big hit when the story airs the next day, because she’s still a knockout even though she’s over thirty. Prettier than her sister, who dresses like a truck driver and never wears makeup, at least that’s what everyone says, but then again, they haven’t seen her since she went away, and she was just a little squirt back then, maybe she’s changed.

  Little by little the houses light up, Christmas trees twinkle behind curtains, and the smell of fish wafts from kitchens. It’s strange to see the place so full of life. Usually Ladispoli empties out in the morning, when people leave for work, like a hotel at the end of the summer. For seven months, until the beach clubs open again, all you see are children, old people, and out-of-work foreigners. Manuela Paris’s house is the last one on the street, opposite the Bellavista Hotel, on the esplanade. Esplanade is a pretty pretentious word for that narrow strip of street that runs between the two drainage canals that define the city center and is besieged from behind by huge buildings that loom over the older villas, as if preparing to crush them. The walls and beach huts obstruct the view, so you only get glimpses of the sea. You can hear it, though. In Ladispoli the sea roars. Open sea, slapped by the wind, always rough. People who have traveled say it’s like the ocean. Don’t get the wrong impression, though—the place has a certain charm, even if it never did become the hoped-for elegant beach town. To Manuela it had always seemed perfect, and she wouldn’t have wanted to be born anywhere else. But when—it’s already after eight—she finally gets out of the car, she looks around disoriented; she doesn’t seem all that happy to be back.

  * * *

  “We’re proud to have you here with us again,” the mayor says simply, shaking her hand. Her constituents wouldn’t appreciate a lot of pomp, which they’re all strongly opposed to. That’s why she avoided a ceremony in city hall, agreeing instead to this intimate, informal encounter: hers is a tightrope walker’s existence. Manuela doesn’t mind, though—in fact, she had begged her mother not to tell anyone she was coming. Instead, to her dismay, she has become a celebrity, and has to endure the ceremony of the golden artichoke and the city pennant. The reporter already used up all his questions on Vanessa, so he merely asks her what she’s feeling. “It’s good to be home, but I can’t wait to go back, there’s so much to do over there,” Manuela says. Few words, spoken quickly, eyes lowered, not even a hint of a smile. She’s always been gruff with people she doesn’t know. She hugs her mother. Manuela is a head taller than she is, and Cinzia Colella, minute and shriveled, disappears inside her daughter’s big green jacket. “When are you going to let your hair grow back?” she asks, running her hand across her daughter’s forehead. She doesn’t say “I missed you so much,” or anything like that. Just that unfortunate question, which in truth implies another: Do you have to have another operation on your head? Nothing remains of her daughter’s long black hair, which used to shine like an Indian’s. It’s really short now, a crew cut, like a man’s. Her chocolate-colored eyes seem too big for her naked face. Her mother hadn’t been able to contain herself, because for her, a woman without hair isn’t a woman: she’s a lunatic from the asylum, a prisoner of war, or terminally ill. Then the chaos starts. Neighbors and relatives, filled with pride, clasp her hand and vie for her attention, a kiss on the cheek, a pat on the back, even her cousins Claudio and Pietro are there, with their kids, and Uncle Vincenzo, the one with the mustache and a hardware store behind Piazza della Vittoria—they all want to kiss her, and her uncle’s and cousins’ wives don’t want to be left out, even though they’re not sure Manuela recognizes them, and everyone forgets her mother’s instructions—she had begged them to avoid mentioning what had happened—and, adopting sympathetic expressions appropriate to the circumstances, they ask, how are you, how are you, and she answers distractedly, almost irritated, fine, fine, I’m better now.

  But she isn’t fine at all. She still walks uncertainly, leaning on her metal crutches, hopping on her good foot, as if she’s scared to put weight on the other one. Seeing her hobble like that shocks and silences them all, and all their celebrations, all their questions and congratulations stick in their throats. None of them had realized that her injuries were so serious, or that her rehab wasn’t over. If the young reporter hadn’t mentioned it in the story that will air tomorrow at lunchtime, no one would even know that Manuela has undergone four operations on her foot and knee, three on the vertebrae in her neck, and two on her skull. It’s more comforting to think that her convalescence is over and that she is coming to spend the Christmas holidays with her family, like everyone else.

  Manuela starts dragging herself up the stairs. There’s never been an elevator in their building and there never will be, because the stairwell is too narrow. Her crutches tic-tic mournfully on the stairs, and her mother can’t keep from crying. She weeps silently, sniffling and wiping her eyes on her coat sleeve. Cinzia had never resigned herself to the idea that her daughter could get herself killed one day, and for such lousy pay, when she could have become a lawyer or a notary or an astrophysicist. Yet she was the one who, ever since Manuela was little, always told her that independence is everything, that a woman needs to think about herself, choose the profession she wants, and never depend on a man. So if Manuela grew up with those ideas in her head, her mother is partly to blame.

  Manuela stops on the second floor because the stabbing pains in her ruined leg are piercing her head and she needs to rest. Vanessa wants to help and offers her arm. Manuela pushes her away, brandishing her crutch like a rifle. “I can do it myself,” she grumbles stubbornly, “I can do it.” Vanessa thinks that, despite everything, maybe her sister really is better.

  * * *

  At dinner Manuela is seated at the head of the table. They have given her the seat of honor, facing the balcony windows. In the evening darkness, the sea is a sheet of lead that the waves splinter into a thousand slivers of light. The neon sign for the Bellavista Hotel is on, but the shutters are lowered in all the rooms, and the place seems closed. The restaurant is dark. After all, why would anyone come spend Christmas Eve at the Bellavista? Manuela has never seen anyone there in winter. Off season, there are only weekend guests. Clandestine couples usually, married professionals and their young female friends. Manuela tries all the appetizers—the wild salmon, the mushrooms in olive oil, the baby artichokes, the Russian salad, the anchovy and caper rolls, the duck liver pâté, the eel—because the unusual abundance tells her that her mother has spent the entire day in the kitchen, and Manuela is the only person in the
world she’d do that for. It’s all delicious, but it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth: of salt and waste. She only picks at the linguine with clams, the grouper with capers, the artichokes; she resigns herself to the ritual slice of panettone. While Vanessa gets up and, hips swaying thanks to her stiltlike heels, heads toward the kitchen, followed by the bovine stares of the three Colella men, Manuela notices with surprise that a light has come on in the window across the way, on the third floor, behind half-lowered shutters. Someone’s there. In the Bellavista Hotel, on Christmas Eve.

  Her uncle, cousins, and mother are all shouting, or at least that’s what it feels like to her, because she’s no longer used to this much noise. In the hospital, footsteps are soft, voices low, sounds muted. You can almost hear silence screak, time breathe. For months all she did was stare at the rectangle of her window, which framed a magnolia tree, and listen to the rustle of leaves and the chirping of birds hidden in its branches. That bright green tree and those chirpy, chattering birds were so unreal, so ridiculous, that at times she would ask herself if she were really alive. The leaves were green in the fall and green in the winter: it was as if time had stopped.

  “You should come see me at the store,” her cousin Claudio is saying. “I’ll let you pick out a dog. It’ll keep you company till you’re back to regular duty. Toy Russians are really in now—they’re tiny, affectionate, totally fearless. I’ve got one that’s perfect, a real purebred, barely six pounds, you can put it in your purse. And I won’t let you pay either, it’s a gift.” Manuela bites into a piece of white nougat, hard as a rock, and stares at him in bewilderment. She wasn’t listening. She’s wishing she were somewhere else. She had known she wouldn’t feel like seeing anyone, and had begged her mother to keep her homecoming a secret, but her mother didn’t hold to their agreement, and now she’s trapped at this noisy family dinner, as exhausting as a march with a full pack. She doesn’t feel like making small talk; listening to other people’s conversations interests her even less. People talk merely to air their tongues, and she doesn’t want to waste time with that nonsense anymore. It’s as if she’d done a kind of detox therapy, ridding herself of everything superfluous. As the months passed, the things that really mattered turned out to be fewer and fewer. In the end all that was left were health, freedom, and life.