27

 27

THE GAME WAS A SIMPLE ONE: it was war. In class they read a text summarizing The Iliad and during the break that followed they quickly divided into groups, the Greeks and the Trojans, without argument. Some aspired to be Greeks—that is, the winners. They wanted to be Greeks like Ulysses and Achilles or like Homer, who wrote the poem and therefore had reason and history on his side. The others wanted to be Trojans—the attacked, those who defended home and country, didn’t quarrel, and were super-honorable apart from Paris, the one bad apple. For the children this meant choosing sides between Athena, protector of the Greeks, and Aphrodite, who was aligned with the Trojans.

The Greeks had their camp near the boxwood hedges; the gravel clearing was the Plain of Troy where battles were planned and the Trojans could take refuge behind their wall—in other words the iron fence along the driveway to the gym.

Only the men fought in the war, armed with willow branches stripped of leaves. They lashed arms and legs in sheer warlike violence; it was only blows to the chest that put the enemy out of action. A soldier with a chest wound had to be accompanied to safety by a woman and treated for a defined period of time; after that he could return to battle. With his second wound, however, he had to be treated for longer, and with the third wound he was dead, out of the game for good.

The girls followed the battle with fanatical passion, shouting out any irregularities. The boys’ calves and the backs of their hands were streaked with red. They were sweating and trying to organize less chaotic attacks. They’d challenge each other to duels, and then no one could intervene.

Martino and Giulia were both Greeks. With his first wound, Martino turned to see who would be the first to come for him from the camp, but Giulia was already there at his side. Without a word, she grabbed his wrist and dragged him away from the darting blows. She made him lie down and pressed on his ribs with the sleeve she’d pulled over her fist. Silently she counted to one hundred, leaning over to perform her duty. And since she seemed to be so fiercely intent on it and there was no real risk of meeting her gaze, Martino spent that brief minute watching her instead of seeing how the war was going.

Her socks were covered in dirt, her eyelashes were dark halos, and her incisors an adult’s, too big for her mouth. He couldn’t tell whether the scent of sour apples coming from her was shampoo or warm skin.

“A hundred!” she exclaimed, and Martino sat up at once. Without wasting any more time he threw himself into battle so she wouldn’t think he preferred being on the sidelines with her.

He fought with passion since he knew Giulia was watching him—and at the same time he wasn’t against the idea of another penalty. He parried and plunged, even when it meant rolling on the ground; little scraps of gravel were embedded in the skin on his knees. He risked having a bad asthma attack but had no intention of sparing himself. He hadn’t been so full of joy, so on fire since he’d moved. The second time he was wounded it was Giulia again who looked after him, and it occurred to Martino that her facial features were like those of Pandora Groovesnore, Corto Maltese’s beloved.

All too soon, though, the game broke down. With the aid of their helpers, the wounded cheated and went back to war after a few seconds, the dead revived, Ludovico took a lashing to his ear and abandoned camp, and a few of the girls became fed up with cheering them on and went to play hopscotch in the back, leaving the fallen to their fate. The fallen and neglected accused them of treason and suggested the proper wartime punishment: lashings to the backside. The boys cheered as one while the girls threatened to tell the teacher.

Giulia decided they needed an umpire. “We need a Zeus,” she said, but at that point everyone was counting on being Zeus, and they started arguing. Because it was her idea Giulia could decide, and she chose Ludovico. The girls who were bored wanted to be goddesses too.

“Oh forget it,” Giulia concluded brusquely. “Anyway, break is almost over.” She couldn’t believe she was so upset by the collapse of that contrived setting in which it was acceptable to touch Martino Acquadro, the prickly new boy.