Writer, It Must Be Late

I feel good today, really good, and I’m going to tell you the whole thing, word for word, logically, it’s the set piece, in your book, it’ll be the set piece, listen and write, write and be quiet—ready? . . . It’s dawn. Tristano is alone in the goddamned woods, and he’s afraid. Because even heroes are afraid, you said so yourself. Besides, Tristano doesn’t know he’s a hero yet, he’s alone, hiding behind a boulder near the commander’s shelter, he knows he’s alone because all his comrades went down to the valley that night, under orders by that same commander, to attack a barracks, there were weapons, ammunition in the village, fascists standing guard, they had to go on a sortie, so his comrades went down to the valley, and Tristano’s alone on that goddamned dawn in the goddamned woods, on a dawn that should be pink and pale blue, soft, a dawn not made for days of tragedy but for loving, for holding onto a woman in bed, for love, not crouching behind a rock and trembling with fear; it’s an icy dawn. How many of them? They’re usually so cautious, there are never just a few when they make their raids, there could be ten, twenty, a whole platoon. Tristano heard shots, heard Maschinenpistolen fire, screaming, and now grave silence, the sun rising on that dawn, a dangerous dawn, because for Tristano, daylight’s the enemy, he’s alone behind that rock, and there are so many of them. After the slaughter, silence. But what are they waiting for? Why aren’t they leaving? What are they doing in there? Maybe looking for charts, maps, notes. They’d done it: in one master stroke, they’d eliminated the most dangerous commander of all, a great commander, not just any commander, that one, not some eager spur-of-the-moment partisan, no, an old soldier, in the Great War, already an officer in fifteen, with enormous responsibilities, a man who knows strategy, who’s calm, skilled, careful, strong-willed, he scares the Nazis, he’s caused many casualties, the order came down from the German High Command in Italy to eliminate him, the men under him don’t matter, he’s the one, crush the rebel head, the body goes too, just poor bastards on the run without a plan, it’s urgent to carry this out, and now they have. But someone led them there, otherwise how’d they find the shelter? Tristano knows this space, it’s also the headquarters, there are four rooms in that abandoned farmhouse, a kitchen on the main floor, where they meet, discuss their military actions, develop their plans, get their orders, and the adjoining room is where two soldiers from the Savoy Army sleep, two young soldiers, two sweet, inexperienced boys who are better off not seeing any action, who serve as sentries, the commander’s bodyguards; upstairs is a hayloft, where the peasants dry figs and chestnuts on straw mats, and then a room where the commander sleeps. The gunfire was downstairs. Tristano saw the flashes through the windows on either side of the sagging wooden door of that fairy-tale cottage at the edge of the woods. But why aren’t they coming out? It’s cold. It’s a cold dawn. Behind that rock, Tristano is afraid. Heroes aren’t afraid, but Tristano doesn’t know he’s a hero yet, he’s just a man, alone, clutching the submachine gun of a dead German, his hands frozen, his feet frozen, he can’t seem to think straight though his mind is racing, he keeps staring at that sagging door, now and then he looks around, barely glances, and doesn’t see a thing, all he knows is it’s growing lighter, soon it will be day. He thinks: how long since I heard the shots?—ten minutes—an hour? He’d slept in the shed near the woods where the peasants kept their pigs, he decided to sleep...