A Bell for Adano (21 page)

“How’s that?” said Lieutenant Livingston, rising like a famished trout to a well-cast dry fly.

“Have you seen those masts sticking up out of the water near the breakwater on the east side of the harbor? Well, I heard that they belong to a little motor ship that has a cargo of sulphur and some other stuff this town really needs. I just thought that maybe one of these weeks when your floating dry dock isn’t too busy, you could raise her and the town would have the cargo and you’d probably have to drop your job and be mayor, you’d be so damn popular.”

“Say,” the Lieutenant said, “that’s a hell of a fine idea. I’ll have to get permission, but that shouldn’t be hard. Thanks a lot for the idea.”

“I called up to thank you,” the Major said. “I’m going to take you up on that Scotch invite one of these days.” “Sure thing, any time,” the Lieutenant said.

When he had hung up, the Lieutenant thought to himself, what a good guy, you never can tell about a meatball until you get to know him.

Chapter
23

BRIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM B. WILSON of the Quartermaster Depot in Algiers leaned back at his desk and shouted across the room to his deputy in a rich Southern accent: “Ham, listen to this, goddamit, sometimes I think those English think they own us.”

The Colonel addressed as Ham looked up from the Stars & Stripes. “What have the limeys done now?” he asked.

“Just got this letter, damnedest thing I ever saw,” the General said. “It’s from an American major, too, just goes to show how those glib bastards can put it over on us if we don’t watch ‘em.”

The Colonel called Ham said: “Yeah, they sure are good talkers.”

“Listen here, now, he says: `Am writing you at the suggestion o f Major General His Excellency Lord Runcin’ - that fancy bastard. I met him one time down at the Aletti, and I just happened to say, like anyone does who’s a gentleman when he says good-bye, I said to him: `If there’s anything I can ever do for you, just let me know.’ He came right back at me and said: `I may,’ he said, `you Americans have everything, you know.’ So damn if I didn’t get a letter from him about two weeks later reminding me of what I said and asking me if I’d get him a jeep. Well, this Amgot thing sounded pretty important to me, so I just about busted my neck to wangle him a jeep. Soon as he got that he wrote me a thank-you note and asked me if the Americans had any pipes, that he was lost without a pipe, and could I get him one? So I got him a pipe. Then I had to get him an electric razor, for godsake. Then he wrote me that chewing gum was such a curiosity among his staff, would I get him a large box of chewing gum? He even had the nerve to ask me to get him a case of whisky, he said he got a ration of rum and gin, but all the Scotch was imported to the States, so would I mind terribly nailing him a case of Scotch? I made up my mind I was never going to get him another thing after that, even if I got sent home.”

“What’s he want now?”

“He doesn’t want it, this Major of ours wants it, that’s what makes me mad. Old Runcin seems to think I’m a one-man shopping service, and he goes around recommending to people to write me all their screwy things they want.”

“Well, what does this guy want?” “Jesus, Ham, he wants a bell.” “What the hell for?”

“He says here: `I consider it most important for the morale and continued good behavior of this town to get it a bell to replace the one which was taken away as per above.’ I don’t know, something about a seven-hun dred-year-old bell. But that’s not the point, Ham. The thing that makes me mad is this English bastard thinking he owns us.”

The Colonel named Ham, who was expert at saying Yes to his superiors and No to his inferiors, said: “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“They do it all the time, Ham. You watch, an Englishman will always eat at an American mess if he gets a chance. Look at Lend-Lease, why hell, we’re just giving it to ‘em. And don’t you think they’ll ever pay us for it. They won’t even thank us for it, Ham.”

The Colonel named Ham said: “I doubt if they will.” “I know they won’t. And look at the way they’re trying to run the war. They got their officers in all the key spots. Ham, we’re just winning this damn war for the British Empire.”

The Colonel named Ham said: “That’s right, I guess “No sir, I’m damned if I’ll root around and find a bell for this goddam sponger of an Englishman. Where the hell does he think I’m going to find a seven-hundredyear-old bell? No sir, Ham, I won’t do it. Write a letter to this Major, will you, Ham?”

“Yes sir, what’ll I say?”

“Lay it on, dammit, tell him the U.S. Army doesn’t have a stock of seven-hundred-year-old bells, tell him he should realize there is a war on, tell him to watch out for these goddam Englishmen or they’ll take the war right away from us.”

“Yes sir.”

Chapter 24

MAJOR JOPPOLO enjoyed his afternoons as judge, partly because he liked to see the happy effect of real justice on the people of Adano, and partly because Gargano, the Chief of Carabinieri, acted out every crime as if it were a crime against himself.

Major Joppolo’s trials were impressive, because he managed, by trickery, by moral pressure and by persuasion, to make the truth seem something really beautiful and necessary.

“The truth, I want the truth now, not next week,” he would say, and the accused would find himself telling the truth and discarding the elaborate lie he had devised.

Trials began at about three in the afternoon, each Monday.

Gargano brought in the first culprit, one Monday afternoon, and as he led him in, he said: “We will take the light cases first.”

“You have some serious cases, then?” Major Joppolo asked.

Gargano held up his forefinger, and said angrily: “One.”

“Then maybe our fines will be high this week,” the Major said. He thought he was joking, but he had become almost miserly on behalf of Adano, and each Monday afternoon he used to try to see how much he could net in fines.

“I hope so,” said Gargano, vehemently. Then he said: “First case.”

The Major took the name, age, birthplace and sex of the accused and had Giuseppe make him swear that he would tell the Italian counterpart of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Gargano read the accusation. The man had made a public nuisance of himself while drunk.

The Major questioned the man. He was poor, where did he get money to drink with? From his wife. Where did she get it? From the Public Assistance. Did the man not know that it was very degrading to get drunk on charity? He did, but the pleasure offset the degradation. Did the man plead guilty or not guilty? Guilty. “Very well,” the Major said; “I see you’re too poor to pay a fine. I will give you your choice of losing the Public Assistance money for two months or going to jail for one.”

Without hesitation the man chose losing the Public Assistance.

“If that choice is so easy,” the Major said, “you don’t need the Public Assistance at all.” And he directed Gargano to have him taken off the list.

“Second case,” Gargano said.

This was the case of a woman who was accused of selling goat’s milk both overprice and underweight. The woman denied everything. The Major told her he wanted the truth, and that she would make out better if she were honest than if she were not. All right, she said, she had sold a little bit underweight. The Major said he would call in the woman to whom she had sold the milk and question her, and if the accused were lying, he would triple the fine. All right, she said, she also sold the milk overprice, for eight lire instead of six. This woman looked just as poor as the man in the first case, but her error was far more serious. The Major fined her three thousand lire, to be paid within a week.

The third case was a theft. A peasant was accused of having stolen some cigarets from an Army bivouac near his farm. Major Joppolo asked him to tell his side of the story. He said that some soldiers had given him one carton of cigarets, which he put under this jacket, and that he then started home. Major Joppolo called up the bivouac and got the Army story, which was that the man had stolen two cartons and some C Rations. The Major then made his speech about the truth, and by a series of adroit questions got the man to admit everything. Major Joppolo gave the man a fine of a hundred lire and a lecture.

When the theft had been disposed of, Gargano stood up and said: “And now the important case.”

The case which Gargano considered serious was the case of Errante and his mule cart.

Errante was sworn in. The Major asked for the accusation. Gargano pushed Errante to one side and stood before the Major.

“Honorable Mister Major,” he began, “this is a case of interference with the American military. I consider it one of the most serious we have yet had to handle.”

The Major said: “That is for me to judge, Gargano. What is the accusation?”

Then Gargano told, or rather acted out, the story of how Errante Gaetano’s cart had blocked traffic on Via Umberto the First. Gargano the Two-Hands leaped and swore and shook his two fists at Errante, and he made Zito act as the mule, and he attacked Zito fiercely, and then he reeled back from sham blow after sham blow. He did not ask anyone to act out the part of Errante, but let his own dodging and staggering give the idea.

He painted a terrible picture of the unknown but possible consequences of Errante’s holding up the procession of amphibious trucks. He himself seemed to die several times as he imagined the deaths of American boys which resulted from the bone-headedness of this cartman.

Gargano went on to show how Errante had defied authority and had tried to make it ridiculous in the eyes of the people. He stepped to one side and acted out the part of the people, giggling at authority because of the rudeness of this cartman.

He wished to impress on the Major that this cartman’s crime was doubly serious because it all took place in the full view of fifty-odd children. What kind of idea of law and authority would these children grow up with? As he put this point across Gargano himself ran up and down shouting for caramels.

He wound up by attacking Zito again, staggering some more, giggling on behalf of the people, and pointing to the ceiling as he swore by the Heavenly God that he had never been so humiliated in his life.

It was clear to Major Joppolo from this exposition that the seriousness of this crime was closely bound up in Gargano’s mind with the embarrassment of Gargano. He asked for the cartman’s story, and he let Errante tell just as long a story as Gargano had, even though his own mind was already made up on the case. Errante’s slow, painful story was a beautiful thing to hear, and yet it was tragic. It was the story of any Italian peasant who had lived so many years in the realm of fear.

“I am poor, Mister Major,” he began. “I have a cart. A cart is all I have.”

He looked around the room and thought.

“My wife died of the malaria,” he said. “My wife was a serious woman. She did not laugh for eighteen years. However, she cooked rabbit well. She died of the malaria.”

Errante paused again. His mind had to reach out for each memory.

“I do not like the place where I live. I have to brush the goat droppings aside each night before I lie down. It is crowded living with four goats in my room. It is not as crowded as it was before the invasion. Five other goats were killed by the bombardment. I was sorry that they were killed, but I look at it this way: there are less droppings to brush away at night.”

The cartman paused for a long time. Gargano muttered: “Come to the point, stupid one.”

Major Joppolo said: “Tell it as you wish, cartman.” Errante said: “I still do not understand why they shot my mule. I was asleep on the cart. Perhaps it was because I had had too much to drink. But that is a fault common among cartmen, and I have not heard of any other mules being shot. To say nothing of the necessity of repairing the right wheel of my cart. I do not understand it, Mister Major.”

Major Joppolo realized for the first time that this man was the victim of General Marvin’s rage. There was nothing he could say to the cartman to explain, but then, Errante did not seem to expect the Major to explain.

He went on: “There are many things I do not understand, Mister Major. When I was young, I was handsome. At least that is what my wife, who was able to laugh then, told me. Why am I ugly now, Mister Major? That is something I cannot understand. What has happened to my face?”

He stopped and thought. “My son looked well in his uniform,” he said. “That is, he looked well before he was killed. After he was killed, he looked badly. He had no legs and he only had half a head. That is what his Captain told me. Was it necessary for his Captain to tell me all that?”

Gargano burst out: “We are trying the case of a cartman who blocked military traffic. Must we listen to this kind of talk, Mister Major?”

Major Joppolo said: “Yes, Gargano, I think we must. It is my opinion that what the cartman is saying is relevant to his case.”

“You are the judge,” Gargano said, with both hands in the air, in resignation.

The Major said: “Go on, cartman.”

Errante said: “I do not like this man. It seems to me that he waves his hands too much. God gave us tongues to talk with. For several years I have not liked this man. I have never liked him since the day he spat in the face of my wife. That was long after she had stopped laughing.”

The cartman turned then away from the fuming Gargano to the Major. After a pause he said: “I ate a watermelon the other day. It was the first fresh fruit I had eaten since the disembarkation. I stole it. All the good things are being sold to the Americans at high prices. There is not much left for a cartman except goat’s milk.

With every good there is an evil. With goat’s milk one has to accept goat droppings.”

He paused and said: “With Americans I suppose one has to accept hunger.”