floor. He had a long sausage, a jar of something and two bottles of wine under his arm.
“Come up,” I said. “There is the ladder.” Then I realized that I should help him with the things and went down. I was vague in the head from lying in the hay. I had been nearly asleep.
“Where’s Bonello?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you,” Piani said. We went up the ladder. Up on the hay we set the things down. Piani took out his knife with the corkscrew and drew the cork on a wine bottle.
“They have sealing-wax on it,” he said. “It must be good.” He smiled.
“Where’s Bonello?” I asked.
Piani looked at me.
“He went away, Tenente,” he said. “He wanted to be a prisoner.”
I did not say anything.
“He was afraid we would get killed.”
I held the bottle of wine and did not say anything.
“You see we don’t believe in the war anyway, Tenente,”
“Why didn’t you go?” I asked.
“I did not want to leave you.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know, Tenente. He went away.”
“All right,” I said. “Will you cut the sausage?”
Piani looked at me in the half-light.
“I cut it while we were talking,” he said. We sat in the hay and ate the sausage and drank the wine. It must have been wine they had saved for a wedding. It was so old that it was losing its color.
“You look out of this window, Luigi,” I said. “I’ll go look out the other window.”
