(Tale of military life)

Mario does not have an easy pen. Not even with words is a champion, actually.
This story told me one evening, after a guard in the COP, the platform operations center, the realm of naval engineers.

In the official square of a powerful warship, they watch movies, they eat their meals, sometimes the normal relationships of connection are strengthened. Some friendships become so strong that they last forever.
"She was beautiful Cinzia, she was ... she's very beautiful ..." she said, while I was fumbling to insert the videotape of "Escape for Victory" in the video recorder.
We were just the two of us. The service sailor, with the excuse of going to pick up the traditional midnight pizza had been eclipsed for at least half an hour. I think that maybe he was talking to me.

"Do you pray?" I replied with such a formal attitude that I was ashamed afterwards.

"Commissioner - he continued - we all carry our lives with us, in our luggage, always too small, always so essential. At each departure, as soon as you open the bag to recompose a new mosaic of tank tops, underwear, ties, uniforms, it is as if you open the wineskin of Eolo. But Ulysses and his crew suffered only once. For us, every mission is a journey in the company of ourselves, of our past and our future is always uncertain, always linked to events, also because mother Marina is particularly silent and a little stepmother ".
I do not know why, but I would not have made a deep man. I had been embarked for a few months, suddenly, called to immediately replace an officer as powerfully protected as fragile and incapable and I had been fully involved in the need to bring the level of efficiency of my department on par with others. I had not really had time to deepen friendships or evaluate colleagues, beyond what may be the epidermis impressions: that there must be a great lick, this has an innate sympathy, that other never laughs.
I think Mario started his speech with me just because we were both Ligurians. Winning the innate privacy is easier if there is one of yours in front of you. It's a bit like confiding in the family.

"You know, this is my first" gray ship "- I replied - I did two and a half years on the Vespucci, but it was all another environment. But you know that well. Let's say that if you take your memories on warships, Vespucci gives you the opportunity to fill your bag, at least talking about women, but not only. "

"Yes - he answered - the Vespucci brings joy to the ports and receives love. But the Navy, wherever you are, will offer you opportunities to experience emotions, intense or weak, to remember or forget ... I met Cinzia in a short period on the ground. You know, I'm only twelve years old, but I already have 10 of boarding. On the ground I saw only the academy and the arsenal. In the latter I have spent about 8 months. I was injured aboard the Order, a banality, an inattention, but I had to bring the plaster for a while and then rehabilitate myself. Rather than being at home, after removing the plaster, I asked the doctor to make me fit, with destination on the ground. In Genoa, without having anything to do, I felt really useless. "

"I understand. And Cinzia? - urged him, as if I were a curious elf - Is it a memory of Genoa, of the arsenal or of some journey? "

"Cinzia I met her in the arsenal. I could not be used to follow the work on the ships, because of the leg, and then the director assigned me to a warehouse. He had a good idea ... He gave me the task, having seen that I had attended, before the military service, a course of programming, to record the spare parts that were in that warehouse, trying to reconstruct a situation a bit 'rough. Let's say that inside that warehouse, which kept materials of great value, the desire to work was very rarefied. "

"Yes, but Cinzia?"

"Belin, Commissioner, you're curious, eh!"
I felt on the spot. My touchiness was making me think of a nice tranchant phrase as "sorry, I'm going to check what's happening with the pizza", when the Ligurian, who knows his fellow, added ...

"And you're right, I was pulling her long! Wait, while we wait for pizza we make a beer "
He went behind the counter, opened the fridge and pulled out two small bottles.
Meanwhile, I had marched from the corner where the video player had been locked. I approached and began to pour myself beer in the glass - the usual one, the one supplied for the water, unsuitable to receive the foam and to transform the smell into the aroma - while he opened a packet of chips with the grace of who is more accustomed to handling large metal pipes rather than compasses and nautical squares.

"Cinzia was one of the employees in charge of accounting for the warehouse. She had been drafted a dozen years before and had been employed in that office ever since. Every day he had to deal with the various stakeholders of the ships, who went to the warehouse to reclaim spare parts, to replace the worn ones on board. In principle, the great work was that of research - he stopped - I'm sorry, I was getting lost in the details! "

"No, no, I did, I'm interested. After all, the more I know, the better it is for my work. Let's say that, as you said before, it's like you help me fill the bag. "
He smiled at me. We had reached a certain harmony. Our merit, or the calm sea across. The beer, in fact, had just been sipped, with a silent cinkin, raising the glass, between a potato and the other.

Cynthia lent himself, by duty and altruism, to help in research. Although we were already in the 1995, all the work was handled with large paper records. Only those who had spent a lifetime in that warehouse could extricate themselves in the lists of materials, transcribed with great approximation. Often, after being able to identify the sector in which the materials could be crammed, the consignee was left in the huge, cold and damp warehouse to rummage on the shelves, to look for the missing piece. More often, however, and more sadly, he returned on board the defeated. The director of the arsenal wanted to computerize all the warehouses, and took advantage of my presence, as an additional resource, to assign the task of recording the materials, creating an updated database that would allow us to verify the usefulness of stocks (there were ships disarmed for years!), faster and more efficient searches. In short, a more correct and managerial management. He used to tell me, when I was going to report, that the spare parts were nothing but money in other form and that that money was the labor of the Italians, to whom we owed respect, as well as having to make the bill. "

"He does not wrinkle," I added, "and I suppose this Cinzia harpooned you in the course of work."

"No, look, harpooning is not the exact term. There has never been any kind of physical contact between me and her. I'm not telling you a story about sex. It is a story of agreements, of looks ...

"Explain better".

"I worked in the management offices, upstairs. For those in the management offices, those who worked in the warehouse were those below. Conversely, those above were us for them. A replica of the Italian attitude to make a parish. So I had a few opportunities to meet her; when I came down, it was to take the information necessary to develop the program I was supposed to create. She, on the other hand, came up or down the toilet (but it was an obvious excuse, because there was one downstairs), or to deliver the documents that the director would have to sign. Each time it was a flash of glances, that if they could talk, they would have said too much, perhaps everything. In some cases, mine would have been banned for minors and perhaps even his own! "
He smiled. I think that at that moment he was no longer on board but to see himself on his desk, to scrutinize the corridor, feeling light footsteps approaching.

One day some of those below had the idea of ​​organizing a lunch in one of the beautiful towns that crown La Spezia. They warned me only in the afternoon of the previous day. Mr Barabino - they told me - we organized a group lunch for tomorrow. Would we like to have it with us, if you like it too? Of course I'm glad, I replied, in the certainty that Cinzia would be there too. I did not ask. It would have been unseemly for the officer so professionally detached to be shamelessly interested in that beautiful girl. On the other hand, there had been or not, I had been invited, I had nothing else to do and in any case it was gone, I would have been fine. "
"Then? - interloquii also because his eyes intuitive that more than remember, was reliving those moments. It seemed right to bring him back to this world - how was it? "

"You're in a hurry, eh? Look, from that moment I was taken by a strange excitement. Although I did not know if it would come or not, I tried to imagine it. With my head I fantasized about having her close, to be nice, despite that a good part of those below could not see me, given that my efficiency highlighted their inactivity at work and, perhaps, from my reports to the director he could have some shuffling of cards in the employee deck. Probably in this I had to look for the reason for that invitation. Anyway, I kept thinking of her, how she would dress, where she would go, since I, with good chances, would have been placed in the middle of the table. If it had been glued to me, even discreetly, to sit close to me, it would have been a good sign. I imagined a certain audacity, for my part, that I am an absolutely frank shy, to place her hand lightly on the knee, under the table. I thought that if he had taken me back, I would have pulled out the incredible but always valid excuse of the napkin that fell under the table.
The morning came and I asked for confirmation of the rendezvous. Halfway there we met in front of the exit and we made a small caravan, up to Cadimare. We took an aperitif at the bar of the same restaurant. I had not seen her yet, caught up in the chatter with the marescialloni. There were those who tried to induce me to tolerance, who to scire information (which I did not), who to suggest all the details necessary for me to do their job better - smiled, happy to be able to insert in the story a nice beaten - until his blond hair attracted me like the magnet with the iron filings.
It was a crash! He had a black suit, I do not know how to say technically - here is the naval engineer who took over the tender young man! - I think it was satin and tulle, in short, a beautiful dress, which emphasized its forms, rightly rich but not overflowing. What a difference compared to the everyday dress! I liked to think that this dress was for me. "

"And then? Where did she sit? "
I know that I was interrupting the thread of a story, as when, in the projection of the super 8 movies that dad projected us as children, the film block formed "the bubble", as we called it, a microcombustion of the film, inflamed by the powerful projector light.

"They sat me in the center, with many ceremonies, as planned. She was going to look for a sheltered place, when some of the old sailors I had at the table did not start to be a pimp: Cynthia, come here, next to Mr. Barabino. Young people must be with young people.
Maybe it was studied, maybe not, the fact is that while she was shielding and I did the face of indifferent (but I do not think I was very credible, after becoming red as a tomato san marzano) everyone sat down, leaving her standing with the only place on my left free.
He had to face a bad game, while I was not in the skin. But she, too, became rather reddish. Good sign, I thought.
I boring you?"
He was saying to me. Although he described a private and perhaps trivial fact in his ordinariness, he had succeeded in capturing my interest. I thought that, in the end, nothing happens by chance and that things happen in life to which an explanation can be given only many years later.

"Are you kidding? Go ahead, you'll be well aware that I'm curious! "

During lunch I tried to avoid talking about work. Somehow, talking to others about my interests, about my experiences, I tried to make myself better known by her. I had made some jokes, struggling, in the day before I remembered them. I had also phoned friends to let me tell a few. To remember the nicest I had found key words, which I had tied together like a nursery rhyme, as was done at school, Il cane Battista opens the track that summarized a joke about two dogs contending for a bone, another, a little 'scollacciata, on a butler a little' too attentive to the needs of the landlady and the latest on the misadventures of a skier.
I'm not able to do the splendid, I'm a bloody Ligurian of few words, but I seemed to have made my figure. Between an appetizer and a glass the conversation became more and more fluid, cheerful. Of course I was not able to do the dead hand, as I had promised myself, and all I could do was to let her look down on me, self-conscious, because I really did not want to share my feeling with that cheerful masnada. But I felt I liked it. I was more than sure!
In one evening the conversation went down between one chat and another. It was the last days of winter, though spring had already begun to scream its joy. Around five o'clock in the afternoon, sipped the ammazzacaffè, we prepared to return to La Spezia.
He stopped, and looked really annoyed. I went under: "And the next day?"

"The director called me. There was a need for a steam engine expert like me on the Audacious. He ordered me to present myself immediately on board because my predecessor had obtained from the Court, with immediate effect, the resignation, which the Navy had refused him and so he would immediately leave. Answered commands !, I went to the office to take those four things that we are fond of and that we always carry around, greet those above and begged them to greet those below. At nine o'clock I was on Audacity. Two days later we left for an exercise.
I was very tempted to write them, but I'm not very good with the pen. I would have ended up ruining that beautiful harmony that had been created. I liked it, I was sure! On my way back I would have passed by again to say goodbye, this time more calmly, and I would have asked her for the telephone number, I would have invited her out. "

"IS…?
I did, with a great desire to feel the happy ending, as in all the beautiful stories. "

"I went from the warehouse. From those below, this time, because I was not in the skin, after two long months.
She was not there. They told me, without much regard, that she had taken a few days to be with her boyfriend. A fresh story.
The sack of the sailor is getting heavier. So many things come in. Few come out of it. It's been six years since then. I'm still a bachelor. She, I do not know. But it was beautiful. It must still be so beautiful.
He stood up. The beer was long gone. He put the glass down on the bar shelf. The bottle flew into the bin. Before leaving, he turned and ...

"Thank you, Commissioner. Telling does not erase the memories, but to share them with a friend, they become less heavy. "

Mario and Cinzia are names of fantasy. This story no.