Atdtda38: In a prewar hat, 1072-1073

[Paul Nightingale]

On 1069 Dally points out that flying might get her killed; by implication
she separates those who might get killed from those who can remain at a safe
distance from the war. Similarly, as the new section opens, Torino has
become a haven of sorts for Reef/Yashmeen/Ljubica, 'here as refugees'
(1072). But they are also here because Reef has heard that Kit is here. That
Dally recalls Reef 'stomping his way out of Venice' is a reminder of another
conflict. The exchange between Reef and Kit on 746 is invoked by their
opening exchange on 1072; and it is interesting that Kit is the one who
suppresses discussion, 'grabbing his brother in a delayed abrazo'. Kit's
relationship with Yashmeen is also brought up in connection with the
rewriting of the past that attends storytelling: 'I may have exaggerated'
(1073). Recollection (Kit's?) of 'pretend[ing] to dive-bomb the place'
offers another reminder that the truth is always partial and open to
revision: if there is reference here to the 'steep, stomach-lifting dive' on
1070, now forgotten is the attack on the demonstration that followed (1071).

Moreover, the reappearance of Reef follows the (however tenuous) linking of
Kit to fascism. If the previous section ends with class war as it will play
out in the near future, this section begins with the war between empires,
one that has provided Reef with work. In the previous section Renzo sought
technological innovation and Kit worked to that end. Here, Reef's manual
labour means he can describe a more traditional kind of warfare: 'in France
they kept trying to outflank each other', and now 'each army trying to get
higher ground ...' etc (1072). His account returns warfare to a time before
flight, leading to Yashmeen's punchline: '... into the sky'. Reef emphasises
the futility of armies trying to out-manoeuvre each other for the sake of
it; while Yashmeen alludes to the future of warfare. Renzo, at the end of
the previous section, might be said to dream of a working class that is
entirely expendable, in Marxian terms a denial of the logic of
industrialisation. Yashmeen's rejoinder to Reef's account of 'a totally
unreal Alpscape' suggests the obsolescence of conventional armies and
therefore any distinction between combatant and civilian. As the section
ends, the Ristorante del Cambio signifies both the absence of conflict
between this group of characters and also their shared experience of war.


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