The things Carlo Frontino had noticed during these last few months were something that made him understand this place was changing. And with this place, probably also the whole country.
Not a superficial change, like he used to believe. Something akin to a new flag and a new uniform was the best he had hoped for. But this was real change.
And, surprisingly, not even a bad one.
As any person living on the peninsula, the politics of these last decades, maybe even since the Unification, had made him unfazed at best by the idea of change, if not worried.
Yes, unfazed, that was the word.
Each party could insult the other one as much as they wanted, to appear different from its rivals, gesticulating for hours in long speeches in parliament, making new promises at each new election, but the situation never really changed at all.
Liberals, Conservatives, right-wing and left-wing populists... even the socialists, they were all the same breed. They never brought any real, meaningful change to this place.
As any of his coworkers would agree, none of the twenty governments that had preceded this one had brought major changes to their industry, let alone positive ones.
If a train was arriving two hours late, it was a mild inconvenience.
Even passengers were somehow used to it.
To Carlo, they had always seemed like men playing musical chairs, pushing each other aside for the privilege of sitting briefly for a few months in the same seat, until the next scandal, corruption most of the time, removed them from that same chair, allowing the new round to begin.
And, sadly, losers from the previous game and those pushed out of the seat alike, the players never seemed to leave the game.
Keep in mind, Carlo was never a fascist, nor was he ever fond of these new ideas.
All of their populism, this collection of words mixed together about the nation or the black revolution, it never reached him.
It reeked of the same words he had heard from ten others, only worded differently, perhaps with a bit more... force behind them.
When he heard about what had happened, the march of these brutes in black shirts on Rome, and the following appointment by His Majesty of Mussolini as Prime Minister, he was as optimistic about this new government as he had been about any government for the last twenty-five years.
Even as he saw these thousands of men parading through the streets of the Esquiline Hill, their hands raised, he was not as enthusiastic as the crowd around him. He found all of this closer to a spectacle than to politics.
Honestly? He thought these men would not last more than a year. They would fall like their predecessors, crumbling under the eternally turning wheel of Italian politics.
Maybe two, if they compromised their ideas, sold their souls to the devil, and formed a coalition with the Conservatives, but they would still fall eventually. Leaving behind nothing new for the country, except perhaps a brief moment where the Capo del Governo wore the parody of a military uniform instead of the usual dandy's clothes.
And he was almost right.
Carlo let out a simple sigh as he recalled the events that occurred a few months after the first year of fascist rule. The murder of that man... Matteotti.
He was never particularly fond of the man. But this was shocking indeed. The kidnapping of a parliamentary figure in broad daylight, followed by his murder and burial in some woods, like an animal. It was revolting. Sickening.
And sickened it did. Everyone wanted the heads of the perpetrators of such a crime, and of the one who had commissioned it as well...
And if you asked him, if you asked Carlo Frontino, even in plain sight, not protected by the silence of walls, just as if you asked any person in Italy at that very moment, he and they would have bet their whole lives that it was the end of the 'Duce'.
But it did not happen.
And even now, Frontino sometimes could not believe it.
But even after that, and after the following... tightening grip of these men in black on society, he still did not believe in change.
Just another corrupt man in power, but for a few more years. That was the difference.
And the years that followed almost perfectly proved him right, as his station and his work never changed, especially the very present bad sides of it.
Until recently, at least...
The principal thing he had noticed during the last two, three, maybe four months, was the silence.
Not in the station, and not in the trains. Let's be clear.
Honestly, the simple idea of Roma Termini being somewhat close to quiet made him laugh, waving a dismissive hand toward his colleague, who was looking at him after he suddenly started chuckling out of nowhere.
No, it was a different kind of noise that had disappeared from his ears, and a particularly annoying kind of sight that was also becoming rarer and rarer in his field of vision as the days passed.
Gone, or at least greatly reduced, were the endless arguments between clerks. Fighting over missing forms, or ones that differed so much from each other that you could send three trains for the same job.
Having to constantly decipher and debate over piles of documents, coming from all corners of the kingdom, that resembled each other so little you could have thought they came from different countries.
The interminable waiting in your office for the approval of another man in the administration before the departure of each train, so you could send your own approval to the next clerk.
A huge pile of bureaucratic nonsense that slowed everything down as much as humanly possible.
The incessant shouting between stationmasters and dispatchers, who were always ready to come to blows over a train that would not leave because of technical or administrative issues. Sometimes both.
If there were not at least three fights a day, it was considered a very calm one.
All of this still happened, of course. It had not magically disappeared.
But it was clear that all of it had been reduced, and by quite a significant extent.
Even the fights were fewer in number.
But not less violent, at least.
Advice for life: never get on the wrong side of a Roman stationmaster.
Now, this station was beginning to resemble something efficient.
Five months ago, nothing left on time. Or even half an hour after the scheduled time.
Now, somehow, things had begun to move.
And in the right direction.
Carlo did not know in the slightest who in Rome he had to thank for that. But he knew that, somehow, someone had shaken enough shoulders, cut through enough bureaucratic dead weight, and pushed for enough standardization for things to finally begin improving.
Now, new circulars arrived every end of the week, bringing with them new procedures, new rules, and new things to apply. Replacing a system that had barely been updated in years.
It was difficult to adjust, and even more difficult to keep up with the pace. Some of the new rules made very little sense.
But Carlo Frontino could see that most of them were as good as the ones he had dreamed about in his youth.
When he was young, he had wanted to become someone important. Someone capable of taking over the whole system and finally bringing order and efficiency to all this garbage.
It seemed someone had finally done it.
It was not him. He did not even dream of such things anymore.
But the changes were enough to satisfy him.
Now, for each departure, there were fewer signatures.
And far less waiting.
When the roaring locomotive arrived, another was often already standing beside it, waiting to take over the task, with no need to adjust after the arrival.
As the machine stopped, everything was loaded meticulously and quickly. Water was already being filled while fresh coal was brought.
Cargo lists were checked and stamped as carts were already loaded or delivered.
Nothing stopped moving until it was finished and you were waiting for the next train.
It felt...
Efficient.
Maybe a little unwise when it came to security.
The inspection standards had been softened considerably, with checks often being carried out during unloading instead of before departure.
But it was not as if they had ever been particularly strict to begin with.
Besides, now everything was checked a second time, unpacked as goods were sorted and distributed outside the station.
Everything felt as if it was finally in its proper place.
Almost annoyingly so.
Carlo had worked on the railways for twenty-seven years.
His humour was not far from becoming bitter when he thought about all those years wasted in a mess that now seemed surprisingly easy to fix.
Easy and quick.
It was true, he had to admit that these last few months had made everyone's work easier.
Carlo Frontino had never been a fascist.
Nor had he ever been a political man.
He had been like that even in his youth, when he was still wandering through the deepest parts of Calabria.
Parts of this kingdom where fertile and generous land was controlled by hands that did not care about it in the slightest.
Where ordinary people had to struggle for things considered simple here in Rome.
Where were the politicians' when the people of the south needed help?
Where were they, when he had to make deal with the local società, those men who truly controlled the villages far more than any distant official, just to help his mother raise his eight siblings ?
Dirty work.
Illegal work.
Things he wasn't proud of, but that he would done again. If necessary.
Dirty work done, but enough to put food on the table for his starving brothers and sisters.
Nowhere to be found, were the politicians.
When he was hired as a railway controller. There in the capital. He became even less of a political man as he thought he could be.
He was in Rome, in the first scene to see the spectacle of politics.
He had to deal with politicians because they delayed trains. By their mistakes, their reforms or the fact some shipment where waiting for days for simple signatures form them to be approved to shipping.
He had never cared about the speeches, the debates, the parties, or the endless arguments that consumed Rome until the red of the evening.
Railways were simple. Simpler than most things. Especially simpler than politics.
A train was either arriving on time or it was not.
There were only technicalities to it. Not these broad differences in vision about what life was and how it should be lived.
A locomotive had no ideologies, and did not require any.
Weight, distance, and supply.
That was the whole thing.
And schedules, of course.
He deeply cared about his schedules.
His telephone rang again, dispersing his thoughts into the wind. The voice of another dispatcher shouting could be heard somewhere in the station.
Carlo picked up the machine and listened silently. Another shipment for another place.
He ended the call with a quick thanks before placing the phone back in its place as the other man's voice faded away.
Frontino then dipped his pen into the inkpot on his desk, writing the important information on his certificate before placing it in the pile.
He then turned toward one of his coworkers.
"Platform eight for the shipment from Milano. They are early."
"No."
The other man interrupted without looking up, quickly leaning over to verify the information written on the bill hanging from the wall before adding:
"Still occupied by the train from Umbria."
"Seven?" Carlo asked tentatively.
"Tsk."
The other man made a noise that ended Frontino's suggestion. It seemed that option was not possible either.
Before Carlo could continue, a new document arrived from another colleague, whose face carried a slight smile as he read the news.
"The military train on platform four just cleared."
"Good. Then let's send it there. The next military train should not arrive before twelve o'clock. We have enough time."
His colleague nodded in agreement before taking his own phone and sending the order as quickly as Carlo had finished the sentence.
This, not his colleague, but the military train itself, made him ponder.
There had been far too many military shipments lately.
Far more than usual.
Not that he particularly minded.
Soldiers, even if sometimes arrogant, had a tendency to complain less than merchants or simple passengers.
Besides, there was always some sort of competition between different corporations over who deserved priority on the railways.
Everyone made endless arguments and sent letters of complaint, thinking their tractors, their machinery, their steel, or their agricultural goods deserved ultimate priority over everything and everyone else in the country.
The army was simpler.
There were not many arguments.
They simply knew they were the priority.
Stamped orders.
That was all there was.
Simple, easy, efficient.
Besides, as a veteran himself, he would always have some fondness for the Regio Esercito.
He reached for another stack of papers.
Coal supplies, steel, machinery, agricultural equipment, raw materials, and countless other resources.
Another ordinary morning.
Under unremarkable circumstances.
His hand stopped as he read the new document.
Some heavy freight.
Again?
He frowned at the news.
The axle count had once again been increased, testing the limits of the railway.
It was the fourth time this week.
Someone somewhere in the south was shipping extremely heavy loads toward the Mezzogiorno.
And doing so more than regularly.
Considering the pace this person had ordered, and the constant increase in demands, whoever was behind it was particularly eager to see these loads arrive.
As quickly as possible.
His veteran senses made him curious about such things as he examined the freight description.
This was not artillery.
After his two years loading cannons and unleashing hell on the Isonzo, he could recognize every type and piece of artillery that had passed through his hands.
Whether he saw them directly or only read their descriptions did not matter.
And artillery was long.
This thing was not.
At least, not nearly as much.
The wagons were too short to transport artillery pieces.
And yet, somehow, it was still heavier than the usual loads of weapons.
Odd.
He looked at the paperwork with interest for a few seconds longer, lingering on the list of measurements and calculations showing how much of this material could and should be loaded onto each train, with as much capacity used as possible.
Then he shrugged.
Whispering:
"This is not my concern."
A railwayman did not need to know his passengers or what cargo he was responsible for.
He only needed to know how heavy it was and where it was going.
Outside, another locomotive crawled into the station for its new shipment of people and crates.
The whistle of the arriving train echoed beneath the iron roof of the modern station.
Steam drifted out from the metal beast, lingering across the platforms for a few seconds before slowly dissolving, escaping through the ceiling and disappearing into the August heat.
As usual, men shouted everywhere, trying to be louder than the trains themselves.
A crane placed another anonymous crate onto a waiting flatcar.
Everything moved with the newfound speed the workers had discovered during these last months.
Nothing stayed here for long anymore.
His colleague then returned, suddenly appearing beside the desk.
"We'll need another siding. Quickly."
"For what?"
Frontino asked, perplexed.
"They want to add at least two more freight convoys this afternoon."
Carlo looked at the timetable, then at the clock.
Already full.
And far too late.
"They'll have to wait."
He responded calmly.
It was not the first time he had dealt with people who wanted more than they could reasonably expect.
They were nothing special.
His colleague shook his head.
"They won't."
"By 'they', do you mean the ones I think it is?"
He asked, already knowing the answer.
It was more a formality than a question.
The younger man nodded, his eyes moving toward the two large red stamps printed across both papers on Carlo's desk.
Carlo Frontino sighed.
Of course.
It was them.
It seemed he would have to change his opinion about military matters being easier to handle than corporate shipping.
Priority...
It was funny.
Lately, almost everything seemed to carry that very same stamp.
He did not really see the point.
If everything was labelled as priority, why not simply automatically label the army as such?
At least that would save them from wasting the stamp.
But who cared?
He did as he was told.
The afternoon passed as quickly and loudly as any afternoon in Roma Termini.
Full of telephone calls.
Paperwork signed and stamped.
Steam whistles filling the air with mist while roaring in the distance.
Bottles of ink emptied.
Complaints thrown into the garbage bin.
Or at least the ones he could afford to throw away without getting sanctioned.
And another load of convoys.
As many as they could send, it seemed.
By sunset, his left hand ached slightly from all the writing.
He rubbed his fingers and sighed with pleasure as he reached for the last one.
The final folder of the day.
Tomorrow, another pile would be waiting for him.
But for now, this would do.
Just this.
Then home.
A kiss for his wife.
A well-deserved glass of whisky.
And bed.
Only one page remained.
The routine authorization.
Another freight convoy.
Again.
Priority.
Of course.
Destination:
He dipped his pen.
Then signed without even thinking.
Only when he pushed the folder aside did his eyes briefly fall upon the final line.
The destination of the train.
And then, after that, the destination of the ship leaving the port where the packages where landed.
Port of Naples.
Transfer by sea?
Interesting.
Destination: Benghazi.
He hesitated for a second, more intrigued than anything else.
Then he applied the stamp to the paper.
He did not understand why.
And he did not need to.
It was just another train.
Toward another destination.
Like any other.
What was inside the train, and for what purpose, was not his problem.
His job was not to know why things moved.
His job was to know when, how, and to make sure they arrived.
He placed the document on the stack with the others.
Then he reached for his desk lamp.
The last light remaining in the room, as the cold air of the Roman night breathed against his neck.
And then he pulled the switch.
Just another day, and others trains to come.
But it will wait tomorrow.
______________
Of course, as you probably understood, Carlo Frontino is fictional character whose name is inspired by an historical figures.
The figure is Sextus Julius Frontinus.
Famous roman engineer of the first century. Particularly famous for his acqueducs and his managing of the water supply network of Rome.
I would've liked to be less 'subtle' (not the best word but the only one i have for this), on this one, and not ahving to chabge to luch his name. But it is difficult to make a Latin name sound very natural in Italian. So I had to Italianized it.
Oh and BTW. I've rewritten the chapter 9, 10 and 11