The Human Body Read Online Free PDF

which is to keep any kind of anxiety and emotional involvement at bay. The turbulent angst of the period following his father’s death—with all the psychosomatic reactions and dark, seductive thoughts that the leaflet generically described as “suicidal tendencies”
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floats somewhere above it all, held in check the way a reservoir is by a retaining wall. The lieutenant is satisfied with his level of peacefulness. He wouldn’t trade that serenity for anything. Sometimes his mouth gets parched and he still hears a sudden, high-pitched whistling in his ear, followed by a roar that’s slow to fade. And there’s that other little drawback, of course: he hasn’t had a proper erection in months and the few times he did he wasn’t able to make the most of it, even on his own. But what does he care about sex at a military base in the middle of the desert, populated almost exclusively by male specimens?
    He’s been in Afghanistan for 191 days and at Forward Operating Base Ice for almost four months; the FOB is at the northern entrance of the Gulistan Valley, not far from Helmand Province, where U.S. troops have been fighting every day to cleanse the villages of insurgents. The marines consider their work in Gulistan concluded, after building a scant ten-acre outpost in a strategic area and reclaiming several surrounding villages, including Qal’a-i-Kuhna, where the bazaar is. In truth, like all operations since the start of the conflict, the mop-up operation in the area has been incomplete: the security bubble extends for a radius of just a few miles around the base. Inside there are still insidious pockets of guerrillas and outside is hell.
    After a period in which the FOB was occupied by the Georgians, the territory came under Italian command. In mid-May, a convoy of ninety vehicles left Herat, following the Ring Road south, as far as Farah, and from there cut east, vainly pursuing some Taliban caught off guard. Lieutenant Egitto had participated in the mission as head of—and sole component of—the medical unit.
    The base they’d found was in appalling condition: a few huts full of cracks, some deep holes in the ground of dubious utility, garbage, coils of barbed wire and vehicle parts scattered everywhere; showers—nylon bags riddled with holes and hanging from a hook—lined up out in the open, without partitions. There was no sign of toilets. The only structure in decent condition was the armory, which said a lot about their predecessors’ order of priorities. Egitto’s regiment chose it to house the command center. During the first weeks, efforts had focused on providing the camp with a minimum of basic amenities and strengthening the defense of the main entrance by building a long, zigzagged row of fortifications.
    Egitto concentrated on setting up the infirmary, in a tent not far from the command center. In one half he arranged a gurney and a table, with two cabinets full of drugs and a small field refrigerator to store the perishable ones. Separated by a tarp with a mottled camouflage pattern is his personal area. The waiting room is a bench outside, fashioned out of bent wire mesh.
    Once the tent became, in his opinion, sufficiently presentable, his efforts definitely slowed down. Now that he might make a number of improvements—hang some anatomical prints on the walls, see to it that patients who are waiting might enjoy a little shade, unpack the last cartons, and consider a more appropriate place for his surgical instruments—he doesn’t feel like it. Instead, he wastes a lot of time reproaching himself. It doesn’t matter much; by now he’s about to go home. His six-month tour of duty is up and the rest of his brigade has abandoned the outpost. Some of them are already back in Italy, frantically enjoying their twenty-five days of leave and renewing intimate relationships, which at a distance had taken on the appearance of pure