Free A Dark Song of Blood by Ben Pastor

didn’t want to jeopardize my assignment. They did a good job in Verona, I think. The hand could not be saved regardless. I knew that.”
    “You seem to be doing fine.”
    “Oh, I do.” Bora smirked. “You should have seen me this morning. All four tires of my car were slashed. Have you evertried to change a tire with one hand? Well, I changed four, by myself. I manage, I manage.” Carefully, though he sat facing it, Bora avoided the mirror on the opposite wall. “I spent weeks learning how to do and undo my breeches, put my shirt on and button it, place the metal band of my watch on the finial of a chair so I can slip it on my right arm, all in record time. I can get dressed now more quickly than I did with both hands. I shave, drive, type, do push-ups and shoot a rifle as before. And yet, strictly speaking I can no longer even wash my hands , or clap, or hold someone. Playing the piano is also finished, which sometimes I think is the most difficult to take.” He smoked for a time, encouraged by Guidi’s silence. “Of course that’s not true. The most difficult thing is facing my wife on Thursday.”
    Guidi had to wonder what the matter really was. “Doesn’t she know?”
    “She knows. We last spoke by phone in October.”
    “I’m sure she’s dying to see you.”
    “I hope so.” Bora smiled in a self-conscious way. “Anyway, she obviously meant to surprise me. Only because of my stepfather’s wire did I find out. She’ll stay eight days. I’ll be at work, of course, but thank God I’ll have the nights with her. I don’t need to tell you how unbearably physical it becomes after a year’s separation.”
    Just then, the lights went out. Growing from a plaintive whine, the wail of sirens began to rise in pitch across the dark. Guidi heard himself saying, “An air raid here? I thought Rome was an open city,” and Bora replying dryly, “Yes, well. Bombs go awry, too.”
    “What are we supposed to do?”
    No rustle of movement came with Bora’s answer. “There’s a shelter in the basement of the hotel. In case of a direct hit, you can choose between being blown up outright or being buried under these many stories of rubble.”
    “I’ll take my chances here if it’s all the same with you.”
    “It is. I’m staying.”
    Outside the door there was a scramble of people groping their way downstairs. Guidi’s mouth went dry. In the absolute darkness, the rising and falling wail was a ghost of sound let loose over the city. I hope Francesca is safe , he thought, unexpectedly. I don’t care with whom – just safe.
    The flame of Bora’s lighter flickered. “Another cigarette?”
    “Not now.”
    Off and on the reviving tip of flame pointed Bora out to Guidi in the moments that followed – long moments, drawn and flattened into strips of time, during which Guidi simply tried to find out whether he was afraid or just nervous. To be sure, the possibility of death made him feel acutely lonely; as if suddenly no rules applied, and all life were vulnerable. If Bora was pondering the unfairness of dying on the eve of his wife’s arrival, all that showed were the slow glimmering arcs drawn by his cigarette as he took extended draughts from it. Guidi sat back, chasing thoughts from his mind, so that he would not be attached to anything when the explosions rolled in from one periphery or another.
    But the explosions were slow in coming. In the odd silence, Bora said, “I don’t know why it’s taking them so long.” Then Guidi heard him move impatiently toward the window, feel around for the lock and throw it open. The crisp night air flooded in. Searchlights scanned the sky, here and there sweeping the bottom of clouds and becoming diffused or reflecting from them. No sound of engines, no anti-aircraft, not even from the beleaguered neighborhood of Castro Pretorio. The only artillery booming at slow intervals was Anzio’s way.
    “Just howitzers,” Bora observed. “The searchlights may have struck a