Free A Winter's Night by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Christine Feddersen-Manfredi Page B

‘workers of the world, unite’?”
    Floti shrugged.
    â€œWell, he’s a guy who studied how the world of the bosses works; how they exploit the workers and use what they earn to buy new factories so they can exploit new workers and just get richer and richer, because what they earn off the labor of their workers is daylight robbery. Now do you understand?”
    â€œI do. I know what you’re saying. But I think that if one guy is the boss of a big factory and the other guy is a worker there, there must be some difference between them.”
    â€œThat the boss is a thief.”
    â€œWould you be capable of running a company like Ansaldo?”
    â€œWhat does that matter? The bourgeoisie have the money to send their children to school, while the proletarians do not.”
    â€œWell, all right, but even so, there’s no saying that the son of a worker is necessarily bright.”
    Pelloni would lose his patience at this point: “Oh, come on; whose side are you on, anyway?”
    â€œOn the side of the poor, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think it through. You, if you got rich, what would you do? Would you think the way you do now?”
    That was all Pelloni needed to hear. The conversation would heat up considerably, but their dialects were hardly the ideal instruments for speaking about such complicated economic and philosophical concepts. In any event, Floti, who had great sympathy for the socialist cause, learned over the months about industrial systems, trade unions, company profits and the organization of labor. Not that he always agreed with Pelloni. From his vantage point, the grim accounts of the war had demonstrated to him that, proportionally, as many officers died as foot soldiers, and sometimes even more. He couldn’t forget Lieutenant Caselli’s eyes as they glazed over in death, and he was convinced that even a man of humble origins, who had his wits about him, could improve his life without resorting to revolution.
    â€œI’ve seen enough blood in all these months,” he said. “There has to be a way to improve things without killing.”
    â€œYou’re a fool,” replied Pelloni. “You have to fight fire with fire. Country, bravery, honor: all hogwash invented by the rich. You mark my words: their sons will find a way to hide out while ours are being sent to die.”
    â€œWhat do you do in your normal life?”
    â€œI’m a bicycle mechanic. Why?”
    â€œThen you were worse off than me, because where I live there was always plenty to eat and to drink. And yet here you are hiding out in an office while our comrades are out there charging the enemy twice a day and are dying like flies.”
    â€œWhat about you, then?”
    â€œMe, too.”
    And that’s when silence fell.
    In the meantime, the offensives followed one after another and the carnage grew more horrific with every passing day. Floti was afraid that they’d soon be calling up the seventeen-year olds and that meant Savino as well.
    Just before Christmas, Captain Cavallotti called Floti into his office to entrust him with a special mission. “We have no more couriers and the telephone line that connects us with the forward command is out. You have to take this message to Colonel Da Pollenzo. Can you handle a motorcycle?”
    â€œNosir, Captain, sir.”
    Cavallotti had become long accustomed to doing without almost everything he needed. He stood and walked over to a gray-green Frera, laying a hand on the saddle. “I’ll try to find someone who can drive this. You’ll ride on the back.” Floti couldn’t understand why there had to be two of them; if someone else was already driving the motorcycle, he wasn’t really needed. The captain seemed to read his mind.
    â€œI trust you because I know you’re sharp, but you don’t know how to drive. I have to find a driver, even if he’s no genius. So the two