The Secret Price of History. Gayle Ridinger
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"Sandor, show me that wound at your shoulder that I can tell you have."
"It's nothing, Elly."
"Show it to me anyway."
Sandor undoes the buttons on his shirt and slides it off his arms. Although Eleonora has seen countless wounded soldiers the last few weeks, the sight of his chest is unsettling. She leans silently towards him, towards the red-splotched shoulder dressing. She had no idea that under his clothes, Sandor's torso was…was so beautiful. His liberated arms, the downy hair like a gold plate of armour, the muscles that smooth into a trim, supple waist. It is jarring.
Caterina briskly picks up his red shirt from the floor and starts in the direction of the kitchen with it.
"Please don't wash it," Sandor calls, running a hand through his hair, which has fallen over his forehead. Under his raised arm, there is a patch of softer, whiter skin and a tuft of matching golden hair.
"Please, wash only the blood on it," he begs Caterina. Sheepishly, he explains that he has none other to wear. Then with that polite candour of his, which is somehow connected (Eleonora thinks) to his physical courage, he asks Eleonora's nurse, using gestures, if she can embroider a word for him on the inside of the collar.
"A word?" Wrinkles of amusement deepen about Caterina's old eyes.
"One that reminds me of my country, of Hungary. The word is szabadsàg. S-z-a-b-a-d-s-à-g. I am very grateful."
"And what does it mean?" Eleonora asks.
"Freedom."
"Freedom," she repeats.
"Yes, there's an important Hungarian poem called 'Freedom and Love.' But that is too long to ask Caterina to sew." His eyes remain in hers.
Caterina returns with an empty wash bucket to take to the river.
"I'll be right back, ma'am."
Eleonora unwraps Sandor's shoulder, as Goffredo watches. She is the competent nurse now, expertly surmising that though the slash is fairly deep, there is more inflammation than infection. As she leans close to Sandor's chest, the salty scent of him—a good smell, despite everything—envelopes her. She can feel his nose in her hair, there on the gathered part from her ears to her crown. His nose has never touched her before...her heart quickens. His nose is right by his mouth.
There are suddenly voices calling out in the square. Beyond the window grates and through the shutter slits, shadows and torches pass. The commotion brings Caterina back to them.
"There's something," she says with the laboured breath of an old woman who has tried to hurry. "Garibaldi has declared that he is unable to defend the city."
"Unable?" Sandor's voice is hot with alarm, but he doesn't pull away from Eleonora's fingers or from Eleonora's breath.
"Unable?" Goffredo echoes, springing to his feet. "I'll go and find out more, Sandor"
"Yes!"
"Yes!" cries Eleonora.
"If it's true, come right back!" Sandor calls as Goffredo shuts the front door.
Eleonora has in the meantime placed her ear against his chest and these wonderful vibrating words of his make her shut her eyes. With difficulty she lifts her head a moment later and tries to keep her voice normal. "We need to redo the wound dressing. Caterina, can you get the soap and some cloth, please?"
Her palms are sweating, and he takes hold of her wrist. "First, my medal of courage," he laughs, their breaths finally mingling. With his free hand, he retrieves the gold medallion next to him on the couch and slips it over his head. Eleonora fingers it a moment—the strange lion-creature, the rising sun.
"There are underground places in Rome with figures like this," she says softly. "Strange places that no one knows about. I visited one as a child."
She is telling him something she's never talked about with anyone before. She presses the wet cloth that Caterina brings to his breastbone. "They are places, temples, from ancient times," she elaborates as she washes him. "When my parents wanted to punish me, they threatened to take me to one and leave me there."
"Leave you there? How could they possibly do that?"
"That's what they said. Oh dear, did I hurt you?"
"Impossible."
Each shiny circle she makes over the landscape of his body floods her own with warmth. Neither speak nor realizes that Caterina has discretely left the room, but when Eleonora has re-bandaged his wound and is putting down the sewing scissors, Sandor gropes with an agile hand for her free one, and when he finds it, he kisses it. Her knees fold under her. He springs up, alarmed. But fainting is far from her mind; rather, her aim is to press her cheek against his lap and with her hands touch what she knows must be the marble-smooth strength in his hips, in his flanks …thighs which have done their marching and walking from Hungary. He won't let her sink towards the floor; his hands lift her under the arms, and then lay her down on the sofa. Whenever he pulls away from her lips for a gasp of air, he murmurs her name as if it were a plea. His hand roams over her belly, inside her legs; then suddenly, throwing her back into the curve of his arm and looking at her, he asks as her equal in a cause in which everything must be fought for and intensely desired, if she wants him. On her next smile she says, "Oh yes."
Rome, Italy - July 2, 1849
In a few minutes Garibaldi will start addressing his men on their defeat and on their imminent retreat from the city, but for Eleonora what matters most is the presence of her men here. She longs to see them once more, though they said their goodbyes already yesterday. These goodbyes are so insignificant, however, that she hardly remembers them as real. What she does recall is Sandor telling her about a three-storey house in Hungary, surrounded by horse pastures and meadows, where two could live once the cause of liberty had been won. She knows what he is leaving unsaid; it is the same thing Goffredo leaves unsaid. She is quite sure that they both have made up their mind to marry her. Of course she has chosen Sandor, and yet it is too painful to tell Goffredo that he is excluded, and so she says nothing to either. In peacetime, she might have pleaded that she was frightened by the idea of—that was to say, by the exclusive and legally intricate nature of—marriage, even when it was for love. But this is wartime, and nothing about love frightens her. Only death does.
The goodbyes yesterday took place down on the banks of the Tiber, among the reeds so that they would be sheltered from view. At first they all acted resolute and cheerful. She gave intense effort to her own pretending. Sandor pulled the gold medallion out of his shirt pocket and tried to give it to her, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"The three of us each keep something. You the medallion, me the vial, Goffredo the whatever-it-is."
"Compass," Goffredo said. "A strange fixed compass without a pin or--."
"You bring it to me next time we meet," she said and kissed Sandor's ear. Her hand wrapped around his, she added, "But I'll keep its red sack." She snatched the sack out from Sandor's pocket and gave it the same sort of tense kiss she'd given his ear.
She believes with all her body, mind, and soul that they will be together again. Even though neither Goffredo nor Sandor knows where Garibaldi is taking them on this escape march, their last words yesterday to her were precisely these.
"Don't worry, Eleonora, you know it'll happen. You know we'll find each other."
So where are they in this square? If she can't manage to find them now, how will she ever manage it in the future?
She moves in closer in order to hear the General, addressing his men from up on his horse. "The ill-fortune we find today is destined to become immense fortune tomorrow!" There is silence, then whistles among the men that jump-start a round of enthusiastic applause. "I leave Rome today. To he who wants to continue the fight against our foreign enemies, I say, 'Come with me'! Soldiers, to those of you willing to follow me, I offer you only hunger, cold, and sun. No pay, no barracks, no weapons, just endless battles, forced marches, bayonet charges—."
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