THE MAN WITH BANDAGED HANDS had been in the military hospital in Rome for more than four months when by act he heard about the burned patient and the nurse, heard her name. He turned from the doorway and walked bato the clutch of doctors he had just passed, to discover where she was. He had been recuperating there for a long time, and they knew him as an evasive man. But now he spoke to them, asking about the name, and startled them. During all that time he had never spoken, unig by signals and grimaces, now and then a grin. He had revealed nothing, not even his name, just wrote out his serial number, which showed he was with the Allies.
His status had been double-checked, and firmed in messages from London. There was the cluster of known scars on him.
So the doctors had e ba, the bandages on him. A celebrity, after all, wanting silence. A war hero.
That was how he felt safest. Revealing nothing. Whether they came at him with tenderness or subterfuge or knives. For more than four months he had not said a word. He was a large animal in their presence, in near ruins when he was brought in and given regular doses of morphine for the pain in his hands. He would sit in an armchair in the darkness, watg the tide of movement among patients and nurses in and out of the wards and stos.
But now, walking past the group of doctors in the hall, he heard the woman』s name, and he slowed his pad turned and came up to them and asked specifically which hospital she was w in. They told him that it was in an old nunnery, taken over by the Germans, then verted into a hospital after the Allies had laid siege to it. In the hills north of Florence. Most of it torn apart by bombing. U had been just a temporary field hospital. But the nurse and the patient had refused to leave.
Why didn』t you force the two of them down?
She claimed he was too ill to be moved. We could have brought him out safely, of course, but nowadays there is no time tue. She was in rough shape herself.
Is she injured?
No. Partial shell shock probably. She should have bee home. The trouble is, the war here is over. You ake anyone do anything anymore. Patients are walking out of hospitals. Troops are going AWOL before they get sent bae.
Which villa? he asked.
It』s ohey say has a ghost in the garden. San Girolamo. Well, she』s got her own ghost, a burned patient. There is a face, but it is unreizable. The nerves all gone. You pass a match across his fad there is no expression. The face is asleep.
Who is he? he asked.
We don』t know his name.
He won』t talk?
The clutch of doctors laughed. No, he talks, he talks all the time, he just doesn』t know who he is.
Where did he e from?
The Bedouin brought him into Siwa Oasis. Then he was in Pisa for a while, then... One of the Arabs is probably wearing his ag. He will probably sell it and we』ll get it one day, or perhaps they will never sell it. These are great charms. All pilots who fall into the desert—none of them e back with identification. Now he』s holed up in a Tus villa and the girl won』t leave him. Simply refuses. The Allies housed a hundred patients there. Before that the Germans held it with a small army, their last stronghold. Some rooms are painted, ea has a different season. Outside the villa is a ge. All this is about twenty miles from Florence, in the hills. You will need a pass, of course. robably get someoo drive you up. It is still terribl