Pietro was walking along that morning, when he became aware that something was bothering him. He'd had the feeling for a while, without really being aware of it: the feeling that someone was behind him, someone was watching him, unseen.
He turned his head suddenly; he was in a street a little off the beaten track, with hedges by the gates and wooden fences covered with torn posters. Hardly anybody was around; Pietro was immediately annoyed that he had given way to that stupid impulse to turn round; and he went on, determined to pick up the broken thread of his thoughts.
It was an autumn morning with a little sunshine; hardly a day to make you jump for joy, but not one to tug the heartstrings either. Yet in spite of himself that uneasiness continued to weigh him down; sometimes it seemed it was concentrated on the back of his neck, on his shoulders, like eyes that never let him out of sight, like the approach of a somehow hostile presence.
To overcome his nervousness, he felt he needed people around him: he went towards a busier street, but again, at the corner, he turned and looked back. A cyclist went by, a woman crossed the road, but he couldn't find any connection between the people and things round about and the anxiety eating into him. Turning round, his eyes had met those of a man who was likewise turning his head at the same time. Both men immediately and simultaneously looked away from each other, as if each were seeking something else. Pietro thought: 'Maybe that man felt I was looking at him. Perhaps I'm not the only one suffering from an irksome sharpening of sensibility this morning; maybe it's the weather, the day, that's making us nervous.'
He was in a busy street, and with this thought in mind he started looking at people, and noticing the jerky movements they were making, hands lifting almost to the face in annoyance, brows furrowing as if overtaken by a sudden worry or an irksome memory. 'What a miserable day!' Pietro said over and over to himself, 'what a miserable day!' and at the tram-stop, tapping his foot, he realized that the others waiting were likewise tapping their feet and reading the tramlines noticeboard as if looking for something that wasn't written there.
On the tram the conductor made a mistake giving change and lost his temper; the driver rang his bell at pedestrians and bicycles with painful insistence; and the passengers tightened their fingers round the handrails like shipwrecked sailors.
Pietro recognized the physical bulk of his friend Corrado. Sitting down, he hadn't seen Pietro yet, but was looking distractedly out of the window, digging a nail into his cheek.
'Corrado!' he called from right over his head.
His friend started. 'Oh, it's you! I hadn't seen you. I was thinking.'
'You look tense,' said Pietro, and realizing that he wanted nothing better than to recognize his own state in others, he said: 'I'm pretty tense myself today.'
'Who isn't?' Corrado said, and his face had that patient, ironic smile that made everybody listen to him and trust him.
'You know how I feel?' said Pietro. 'I feel as if there were eyes staring at me.'
'What do you mean, eyes?'
'The eyes of someone I've met before, but can't remember. Cold eyes, hostile . . .'
'Eyes that hardly think you worth looking at, but that you must at all costs take seriously.'
'Yes . . . Eyes like . . .'
'Like Germans?' said Corrado.
'That's it, like a German's eyes.'
'Well, it's understandable,' said Corrado and he opened his paper, 'with news like this. . .' He pointed to the headlines: Kesselring Pardoned . . . SS Rallies . . . Americans Finance Neo-Nazis . . . 'No wonder we feel they're on our backs again . . .'
'Oh, that . . . You think it's that . . . But why would we only feel it now? Kesselring and the SS have been around for ages, a year, even two years. Maybe they were still in gaol then, but we knew perfectly well they were there, we never forgot them . . .'
'The eyes,' said Corrado. 'You said you felt as if there were eyes staring. Up to now they haven't been doing any staring: they kept their eyes down, and we weren't used to them any more . . . They were the enemies of the past, we hated what they had been, not them now. But now they've found their old stare . . . the way they looked at us eight years ago . . . We remember, and start feeling their eyes on us again . . .'
They had many memories in common, Pietro and Corrado, from the old days. And they were not, as a rule, happy ones.
Pietro's brother had died in a concentration camp. Pietro lived with his mother, in the old family home. He got back towards evening. The gate squeaked as it always had, the gravel crunched under his shoes the way it did in the days when you listened hard every time there was a sound of steps.
Where was he walking now, the German who had come that evening? Perhaps he was crossing a bridge, pacing along a canal, or a row of low houses, their lights on, in a Germany full of coal and rubble; wearing ordinary clothes now, a black coat buttoned to the chin, a green hat, glasses, and he was staring, staring at him, at Pietro.
He opened the door. 'It's you!' came his mother's voice. 'At last!'
'You knew I wouldn't be back till now,' said Pietro.
'Yes, but I couldn't wait,' she said. 'I've had my heart in my mouth all day . . . I don't know why . . . This news . . . These generals taking over still. . . saying they were right all along. . .'
'You too!' Pietro said. 'You know what Corrado says? That we all feel those Germans have got their eyes on us . . . That's why we're all tense . . .' and he laughed as if it were only Corrado who had thought of it.
But his mother passed a hand over her face. 'Pietro, is there going to be a war? Are they coming back?'
'There,' thought Pietro, 'up until yesterday, when you heard someone talking about the danger of another war, you couldn't imagine anything specific, because the old war had their face, and nobody knew what face the new one would have. But now we know: war has got its face back: and it's theirs again.'
After dinner Pietro went out; it was raining.
'Pietro?' his mother asked.
'What?'
'Going out in this weather . . .'
'So?'
'Nothing. . . Don't be late . . .'
'I'm not a boy any more, Mum . . .'
'Right. . . Bye . . .'
His mother closed the door behind him and stood listening to his footsteps on the gravel, the clang of the gate. She stood listening to the rain falling. Germany was far away, far beyond the Alps. It was raining there too, perhaps. Kesselring went by in his car, spraying mud; the SS who had taken her son away was going to a rally, in a shiny black raincoat, his old soldier's raincoat. Of course it was silly to be worried tonight; likewise tomorrow night; even in a year's time perhaps. But she didn't know how long she would be free not to worry; even in wartime there were nights when you didn't have to worry, but you were already worrying about the next night.
She was alone, outside there was the noise of the rain. Across a rain-soaked Europe the eyes of old enemies pierced the night, right through to her.
'I can see their eyes,' she thought, 'but they must see ours too.' And she stood firm, staring hard into the dark.