The Hill Of Shining Souls

By Emiliano D'alessandro

Emiliano D'Alessandro, through concrete narration, the obscure tragedy is told as seen by the protagonists, twelve thousand young men of the Italian army, the mamma’s boys of General Antonio Gandin who were stationed on the Greek island of Kefalonia.
It was the month of September in 1943 when they had to decide if they were to cede their arms to the Germans or resist in honour of the Fatherland: the idea prevailed that you fell on your arms and did not give them up, and so it was!
A fascinating reporting of the Italian past, a useful retrospective that puts into focus an event that is still waiting to be defined as to its role in the history of those years, but also the personal and human situation of Salvatore Di Rado who was still too young to die, perhaps the only one to have survived a firing squad in the Second World War, witness to his own odyssey illuminated by a sudden tormenting love, of a friendship consolidated day by day and of the vision of enchanted places.
Through the protagonist, the symbol of youth sacrificed, abandoned and in the end forgotten, the novel retells the Italian story of a shameless war that the world seems to have wanted to forget. A singular narration where each action is swallowed up by another, then is quickly boiled together in the caricatured cauldron of the story now defrauded by a rampant indifference.
A compelling text, that reawakens civil consciousness, at times brilliant and ironic, but overall an act of truth that reconstructs a tragedy from an original angle that has never been adequately investigated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emiliano D'alessandro
• Release date: Nov 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547521319

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www.emilianodalessandro.it

Emiliano D’Alessandro

THE HILL OF SHINING SOULS

To my parents to Salvatore to the souls of the Divisione Acqui (Acquis Division)

Acknowledgements:

A particular thank you goes to maestro Tanino Liberatore for the cover and  his infinate gentleness of the artist in putting up with my flights of fancy.

To maestro Dario Fo for having encouraged me in the literary work shouting an energetic suerte, suerte, suerte!

Further, a felt thank you for the affection demonstrated is for the most courteous Gianni Minà and all those who believed in me and gave me moral support for this work.

I lay immersed in deep sleep, and made out spindly ghosts and heard whispers and voices, when suddenly at the last valley They bring strange and fierce thoughts. Full moon in a Splendid sky, And I there in the trench and overhead the estuaries flow frenetically and I seemed to Read the years and the names of the Dead on the crosses jump, that dared to have a wreath, And the grave alternated tremendous passage For the squalor of the funereal moor. And reaching out the skeletal arm, Was the place, where it would be wise to descend, Said the proud, and I awakened lost.

Dionysios Solomos (Zante, April 1798 - Corfu, February 1857)

I

Feuer! Fire! That was the last word I heard before being shot. I heard the machine gun discharging, short, quick bursts, as if they were light years away.

Yet only a few meters separated my frail and weakened body from those instruments of war.

I could, like any carefree spectator, follow the bullets that would have taken my life with my eyes and those that would have shattered my companion’s existence seemed as though thrown by a sling-loaded with feathers.

Indeed, although everything appeared altered by strong emotions, I could clearly distinguish that the nose cone, indolent but secure, ruthlessly followed the path chosen by the disciplined assassin.

The nostrils were full, saturated with a pungent smell, strong, and all of the surrounding air was now impregnated with that disgusting stench. There was no corner, within hundreds of meters, where you could not smell that spicy stench of gunpowder.

It penetrated the skin you could almost touch it.

Breathing it, it was almost inevitable not to feel it coming up the nostrils like a well-sharpened razor blade, that went deep into the brain creating havoc and annihilating the last memories of what turned out to be our final battle.

What a show!

I thought I was witnessing a black comedy, where my companions were nothing but obscure extras, their killers consummate managers of a theatre company and me a stunned and bewildered spectator. Certainly I would not be there with them if it were an actual execution, since it is humanly inconceivable to kill the men, the soldiers, in such a mindless way. No human being could hold anything that was so heartlessly ferocious in the soul.

In that moment I considered my presence as a spectator in a well-acted farce with ever fainter belief, my eyes returned again to focus on the reality I was living, and that bullet, slowly but inexorably, channelled all its devastating energy towards my heart.

I was told that it was a matter of a moment, an instant, everything would be over: not even to have time to realize what was really happening.

I wonder today how it was possible, in that moment, to retrace my whole life, minute-by-minute, moment-by-moment.

I heard the soft sound of my mother’s voice and her hands consumed by work pass over me caressing my face. I really seemed to see her beside me strongly hugging my shoulders to attempt, like any mother would do for her child, to soothe my anguish.

Together we watched death arrive and at that moment I realized I would never see her again.

Poor woman, because she had already suffered! Now even this additional trial.

Though, I perceived the baritone voice of my father, among the copious shots. He reproached me for the trousers that were perennially worn at the knees and my sloppy dressing but, as usual, the stern tone was clumsily deceived by his expression, which was patently affectionate.

Those large, dark eyes almost always expressed the opposite of what his mouth was saying.

But it was his mocking objectivity in that moment that called to mind that an instrument of death was going to clearly cut my thinking. I looked directly at the rapidly advancing bullet, even considering how idiotic a bullet could be and instead how appealing the land I found myself in.

Even this thought soothed that rapid, slow agony.

For the last time I managed to enjoy that wonderful place that would host my corpse. I had the strength to turn around and with my eyes I sought the many lush green hills that surrounded me.

On my right I heard the sea shout. Enchanting and seductive, blue as my sister’s eyes and vast as the love I had for life; the rippling of the waves accelerated now demonstrating all its anger about the massacre taking place in front of it.

Suddenly I saw my sister at my feet, like a priest in the act of devotion on the kneeler. Her eyes were full of tears, but she did not want me to see her as she wept; she never did, only our mother could look at her and gather the most intimate confidences. I saw her with pupils wide open and blushing she offered me those delicious cookies she prepared herself and she knew how much I liked them.

I also waited anxiously for Sunday for this reason: to hungrily swallow her sweets. I filled my mouth with those delicacies and rejoiced in tasting while talking, for I had the impression that my family sailed in abundance.

It was grandmother who revealed the ancient secret of that tasty recipe. The sweet grandmother who promptly tucked in the covers of the bed before her little grandson fell asleep. My heart was breaking at the thought I would never be able to enjoy that affection. Every gesture was laden with an immeasurable and meticulous fondness. Scrupulous about every detail, she was careful to check that the pillow was placed well under my neck. She stroked my hair and at the same time tidied it so that it was not too untidy. I felt her warm hands rest on the blankets as if they wanted to mould those bedclothes to my slender body, turning it into an homogenous, compact shape, all one with the bed.

I realized at that moment how I would miss even those double-layered blankets, warm and strong like my grandfather’s cheeks, who had died three months before I left for the front and who had already unrealistically prepared me to embrace him again.

But is it right to die at twenty-six? This was the question that I persisted in assiduously repeating to myself. However, there was no plausible answer that I could permit myself. None comprehensive.

As for the rest no sentence would have been able to render justice to that hard and brutal query. Nothing and no one was able to justify such an illogical and irrational death.

Not even the Lord could.

Only at that moment, with that question held between clenched teeth and my family still before my eyes, I felt an uncontrollable need to cry. I wanted to do so as a child when I saw my dog dying. I wept for days and no one, it seemed, would ever have been able to console me.

Despite this need, the speed of the bullet aimed straight at the heart was able to impede even a liberating cry.

Here we are!

As time and space seemed to dilate, the bullet was about to end its deadly race.

These were the words that Salvatore uttered, without ever raising his eyes from my incredulous gaze, with his agitated hands and elbows resting on the table, in the confined space of his house.

I was however certain, that those old walls had been lucky enough to accommodate solid existences. An ancient home certainly strengthened by a thousand fiery stories of a harsh reality that was the life of the fields; among adolescents and children, youth and grandparents; laughter and tears, joy and suffering. I watched, careful not to be seen, Salvatore’s hands intertwined a little magnetic: the gestures of the fingers nimble and decisive, as if he were a conductor, accompanying his words, in turn, agile and idiomatic; full of his rocky abruzzese dialect. Impressed by what I had heard, I wrote the most important passages of the compelling narrative in a notebook.

And while considering myself a repository of unknown and precious memories I pulled my portable recorder from my bag. I used it only for services concerning policy and public affairs; in short, when it appeared necessary that every spoken word should be recorded, if only to avoid unwanted and annoying complaints.

I established, without thinking one moment longer, that my fatal duty and obligation was to record each word pronounced by the veteran on tape.

The red light glowed as I starting to record, and the tape began to rotate slowly around the small white heads of my old Olympus.

That little scarlet light would mark the long journey of a man who sought a refuge, a retreat where he could filter that drama, and also the indignation of a young and zealous chronicler.

At first, however, I’d been seized by doubt: I asked myself if he were making fun of me, a journalist who was just starting out, perhaps using the same method used by a skilful illusionist with his audience.

Yet, it seemed to me that, with a profound benevolence, he wanted to concede me the joy of having found news that was untouched and unique at the same time. 

Or he was boastful to the point of sticking to himself the military farce of war that led to