A Tranquil Star Read Free Page B

thought was strangely worrisome. “Fool,” he thought suddenly. “Here I am racking my brainswith the cord in my hand. I could have thought of it sooner, couldn’t I. Now the first son of a bitch who sees the cap missing… But no, I can always pull, no matter what happens.” He laughed to himself: “(Even a situation like this has its advantages!) Even if they hit me in the back of the neck? Even if they shoot me?”… But yes, thanks to some mental mechanism, evidently illusory and distorted by the imminence of the decision, Marinese felt sure he could pull the cord no matter what, even the very instant he lost consciousness, perhaps even the instant after.
    But unexpectedly, out of some unexplored depths, from some recess of his body—the animal, rebel body that has trouble deciding to die—something was born and grew beyond measure, something dark and primeval, and unfathomable, because its growth arrests and then replaces all the powers of knowledge and determination. It dawned on Marinese that this was fear, and he understood that, in a moment, it would be too late. He filled his lungs to prepare for battle and pulled the cord with all his might.
    Rage was unleashed. A paw struck his shoulder, followed by an avalanche of bodies. But Marinese was able to tear the bomb away from the belt and roll up like a hedgehog, face down, his knees drawn up against his chest, the grenade wedged between his knees, his arms tight around them. The fierce blows of fists, musket butts, and heels rained down on his back; hard hands tried to violate the stronghold of his contracted limbs. But all in vain: it was not enough to overcome the insensitivity to pain and the primordial strengththat, for just a few moments, nature grants us in a time of dire need.
    For three or four seconds Marinese lay under a pile of bodies writhing in violent battle, every fiber of his being contracted. Then he heard the squeal of the brakes, the truck stopping, and the rushed thuds of men jumping to the ground. At that instant he sensed that the time had come. In a final, perhaps involuntary extension of all his powers, he tried, too late, to free himself of the grenade.
    The explosion ripped apart the bodies of four Germans, and his own. Sante was executed by the Germans on the spot. The truck was abandoned, and we captured it the following night.

Bear Meat

    Evenings spent in a mountain hut are among the most sublime and intense that life holds. I mean a real hut, the kind where you seek shelter after a four-, five-, or six-hour climb and where you find few so-called comforts.
    Not that chairlifts and cable cars and such comforts are to be looked down on: they are, on the contrary, logical achievements of our society, which is what it is, and must be either accepted or rejected in its totality—and those who are able to reject it are few. But the advent of the chairlift puts an end to a valuable process of natural selection, by which those who reach the hut are sure to find, in its pure state, a small sample of a little-known human subspecies.
    Its members are people who don’t speak much and of whom others don’t speak at all, so there is no mention of them inthe literature of most countries, and they should not be confused with other, vaguely similar types, who do speak, and of whom others speak: hot shots, extreme climbers, members of famous international expeditions, professionals, etc. All worthy people, but this story is not about them.
    I ARRIVED at the hut at sunset, and I was very tired. I stayed outside, on the wooden porch, to consider the frozen mystery of the seracs at my feet until everything had vanished behind silent ghosts of fog, and then I went in.
    Inside it was almost dark. By the glow of a small carbide lamp one could distinguish a dozen human figures gathered around three or four tables. I sat down at a table and opened my backpack. Across from me was a tall, large man, middle-aged,