look how that grass grows; and the iron’s in the earth along with Gino’s leg, both of Randolfo’s legs, and my right kneecap. It’s a wonderful monument. It has everything. Fertility, money, blood and iron. Sounds like a nation. Where fertility, money, blood and iron is, there is the fatherland. We need coal though. We ought to get some coal.
Then he looked across the river to the rebuilt white house that had once been rubble, and he spat in the river. It was a long spit and he just made it.
“I couldn’t spit that night nor afterwards for a long time,” he said. “But I spit good now for a man who doesn’t chew.”
He walked slowly back to where the car was parked. The driver was asleep.
“Wake up, son,” he had said. “Turn her around and take that road toward Treviso. We don’t need a map on this part. I’ll give you the turns.”
