A Bell for Adano (27 page)

Nicolo said: “But the whole point of our coming across was so we could fight again. We turned ourselves in to a division in the hills just this side of Vicinamare, it was General Abbadessa’s division. Tunisia fell just then and so we were congratulated for getting away and they made us both sergeants. Giorgio was wonderful in those days before Sicily was attacked. Most of the soldiers were for faking resistance and surrendering, but Giorgio used to talk about the anguish Italy had had for so long, and he told about Garibaldi and Mazzini and Cavour, and when men said that Italy was beaten, he brought up Britain after Dunkirk. I remember one night a glib one was arguing with him and said that Fascism was evil and so why fight for it, and Giorgio said: `If Fascism is evil, why haven’t you been fighting against it for twenty-one years?”‘

The Major said: “Was Giorgio a Fascist?”

Tina turned angrily and said: “He certainly was not.” Nicolo said: “No, that’s the funny part of it. He was in jail a lot here in Adano for nothing in particular except being against the Fascists. And yet in 1940 when Mussolini put us i.^. the war, he was one of the first to go.”

Tina said: “But what happened?”

Nicolo said: “I was getting to that. The troops fought badly at the coast, as you know, and fell back on Marenisseta. It was the night of the fourteenth of July. Word came that the Americans were going to hit us the next morning. We were bivouacked in the grounds of a villa just east of the town, and as soon as the news came about the attack, most of the troops went crazy. A bunch of them went into the villa and broke into the cellar and brought out some wine.”

When Captain Purvis heard the word vino, he said: “Hurrah for vino! That’s one word of Italian I sure can understand. Say Major, what’s the word that we begin with f? I’d like to know if this little dolly understands it.”

Major Joppolo ignored the Captain. Niccolo said: “The men began drinking the wine, they said they were going to be captured in the morning, the war was over for them, why shouldn’t they have a good time? About twenty of them got very drunk, and they began throwing bottles against the wall of the house. Giorgio got furious and said he was going to stop them. I tried to tell him not to try, because the men were much too drunk to listen to reason.”

Major Joppolo began to suspect what happened to Giorgio and he said: “Do you think you ought to tell Tina the rest of this story?”

Nicolo said: “I think I owe it to Giorgio. I told Tina it wasn’t nice. “

Tina said: “Yes, Nicolo, go ahead.” But she did not sense, as the Major did, what was coming.

Nicolo said: “I tried to stop him, but I never had much influence over him, he was much stronger than I was. He ran over to the place where they were throwing bottles. They had lit a fire, which was against all rules, and Giorgio stood beside it where they could see him and shouted at them. These men had only been in one battle, but they were crazy with fear, and also with the wine. One of them would get up and shout: `To hell with the son of a frog, Mussolini!’ and he would throw a bottle as if he were throwing it at Mussolini. Then the next one would get up and he’d shout: `To hell with the shedog in heat, Edda Ciano!’ and they would all laugh and he would throw his bottle. Giorgio shouted but they either didn’t hear him or wouldn’t listen. He got in a kind of a frenzy. Remember: he had been through a lot.” Tina began to realize what was coming. She put her hand up over her mouth and her eyes grew wide. Nicolo said: “Giorgio ran over to the wall, to the very place where they were throwing their bottles, and he screamed: `Stop, stop! You are traitors! For the love of Mary Mother of Jesus, stop!’ At first just the fact of his being there made the drunkards stop, but then one of them shouted as if it were a big joke: `Isn’t that Benito Mussolini over there?’ and they all laughed and another one shouted: `Yes, the war has shrunk him!’ and they laughed some more. Then one of the crazy ones shouted: `I hate him! I hate him!’ and threw his bottle at Giorgio.” Tina put her head down and said softly: “Oh, not that way, not that way.”

Nicolo said: “The first bottle missed, but it broke against the wall and several pieces cut Giorgio. I could see the blood running down his face. He had so much courage, Tina, you would have been proud of him, he did not move away.”

Tina said softly: “Yes, I am proud, yes, yes.”

Nicolo said: “I shouted to him to come away but he wouldn’t. He screamed at the men: `We must fight! The only chance for our nation is to go down fighting. The only chance for us as men is to die in battle.’ The men stepped up in turn now and threw their bottles. They were not laughing any more now. Giorgio had touched some spring of â ;1_t in them  1                  , „ __

and they wanted to kill

him. The men were so drunk that I don’t see how any of them hit him, but the third one did. The bottle hit him in the right shoulder. Of course the bottle didn’t break and didn’t knock him down, but it must have hurt terribly. But he went right on trying to scream to their brains, but they had none now.”

The Major said: “It must have been awful.”

Nicolo said: “After he was hit for the first time. He screamed louder and louder, but the pain must have done something to him, because he screamed religious things. He screamed: `Oh Christ Jesus lamb of God heart of Jesus,’ and things like that. The drunkards kept on throwing their bottles. Several of the ones that broke on the wall cut him and soon his face and hands were covered with blood and his uniform began to be torn and blood seeped through. The second one that hit him struck his groin and that apparently hurt him so much that he couldn’t shout any more. When he stopped shouting the drunken men closed in toward him and began throwing their bottles from close and closer.” He stopped and asked Tina: “Do you want me to stop, Tina?”

She said: “No, Nicolo, I’ve got to hear it now.” Nicolo said: “He finally fainted and the drunken men took bottles and beat him.” Nicolo turned to the Major again. “They were crazy, sir. Their one battle and the air raids and what they had had to drink. They were not Italians any more, sir. They were not even men.” Major Joppolo said: “A thing like that could happen in any army, if the men were frightened enough.” Nicolo said: “Thank you, sir.”

Then he went on: “I had a pistol. Giorgio and I each had a pistol that we had taken off the Germans we killed. I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I took out my pistol and fired a shot in the air. That only seemed to frighten the men more and didn’t stop them, so I went right up to one and knocked him over the head with the butt and he fell down. Another one who was much bigger than I am turned on me with a bottle, so I fired a shot into the air right in front of his face. He was bringing the bottle down and the shot hit the bottle and cut him up and he started to squeal and that made the others think I was going to kill them all so they ran off.”

Tina looked up with a question in her eyes.

“He was alive,” Nicolo said. “He spoke a little. I tried to do what I could for him, but he had lost too much blood.”

Tina said pathetically, knowing what the answer would be: “Did he speak my name?”

Nicolo said: “Tina, I have been beside many men who died in this war and no one of them ever mentioned a woman when he died. Men do not talk that way when they die. They talk about their stomachs and they swear, but they do not mention the names of women. I remember he said a snatch from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, and he asked me to move his head to one side, it would be easier that way, but when I did he asked me to move it back. And then he died, Tina.”

Tina put her head down again and said: “Not even in battle.”

Nicolo reached out his hand and took Tina’s hand and said: “Oh, yes, it was in battle. It was Giorgio’s battle, Tina. When I fired the shots officers came and they thought Giorgio was one of the drunks, so he will never get a medal. But Tina, no Italian has died more bravely in this war. Look at me! The drunks and I, we were all captured in the morning. I am ashamed of myself, and the shame I feel and the awful shame the drunks feel and all Italian soldiers feel - we were weak, Tina - the shame will hurt our country for many years. Our only chance is to remember men like Giorgio. If we couldn’t go down fighting the way he wanted us to, we can remember the ones like him who did.”

Major Joppolo wanted to help. “That’s right, Tina,” he said.

Nicolo said to the Major: “You see, we are very mixed up. We had no cause to fight for that appealed to us. Do your men?”

Major Joppolo said: “I don’t know, Nicolo. I think the cause is there, all right. We’ve got to get rid of the bad men, and the Germans have some, and I’m afraid you did - and of course we have some, too. I just don’t know whether our soldiers think much about causes. That’s one thing that worries me about this war.”

Nicolo said: “That’s what worries me, too. Giorgio was an exception.”

Major Joppolo said: “That’s true, he was. He would have been an exception on our side, too.”

Captain Purvis said: “Look at that sonofabitch holding hands with your girl, Major, you ought to root him in the tail and teach him a lesson.”

Major Joppolo took Tina home and spent the afternoon with her. He was wonderfully gentle with her. His sympathy seemed to help her, and quite often she looked up into his face in a way which gave him a feel, ing in the chest.

Finally he said to her: “Tina, I don’t know whether it’s fair to say this now, this afternoon, but I’m going to say it anyhow. Tina, I - well, maybe I’d better wait and tell you another time.”

She looked up into his face in a way that made him think she was disappointed, but she said very softly: “Maybe you’d better.”

He said: “I’ll tell you at the party on Friday.”

She repeated softly: “On Friday.” And then she looked away and said: “You know, it’s very strange, but I never knew whether I loved Giorgio. I admired him and sometimes I was afraid of him, and he meant very much to me in ways. But his flesh was very cold. His mind was very stubborn. I still don’t know...”

She started crying again.

Chapter
32

IN Lojacono’s studio - if a single room with small winows could be called a painter’s studio - a delegation of town officials stood around and criticized as the whitehaired artist tried to work.

The old man stood before two easels. One held his unflnished painting, the other his subject: the photograph of Major Joppolo made by the crazy Spataforo. The photograph was an excellent likeness, and the portrait was already a fair one.

Gargano the Two-Hands made two circles with his thumbs and forefingers and put the circles up to his eyes and peered through them at the picture. He said: “The eyes. On the whole, the face is good, but the eyes: it seems to me the eyes are not quite the eyes of the Mister Major.”

Old Lojacono said: “The portrait is not yet finished.” D’Arpa the Vice Mayor said in his little weasel’s voice: “Should the nose seem to recline on the mustache in such comfort? I think that nose is asleep.”

The old painter said: “It is not finished

Saitta, the clean one, the man concerned with keeping the town fresh, held his white suit close to him so as not to get any driblets of paint on it and said: “Could not the background be cleaned up a little?”

The white-haired painter turned on his critics and said: “It is not finished. It is not finished. It is not finished. Can you get that through your thick official skulls?”

D’Arpa, in his capacity as senior official on the spot, took it upon himself to say: “We are not deaf, Lojacono. We are here on behalf of the town of Adano to see that you finish this portrait well and make it good enough for its purpose.”

Gargano lifted his shoulders and stretched his hands out, palms up, as if to say what he did say: “We mean no offense, old man.” Then he made motions of painting and said: “Go ahead, old man.”

Lojacono went back to his work. He grumbled as he dabbed. “Now for the first time in months,” he said, “I have a subject of which I wish to make a superior painting. What happens? I get into my work, I begin to love it, my brush seems deft in my hand. Then what happens? Officials visit me, men who know less about art than I do about cleaning streets” - he said this with great contempt and Saitta the street-cleaner drew his white suit a little closer around him, as if he suspected that the angry old man might flick a blob of pigment at him - “and they criticize my work, though it is not finished.”

Gargano made the two circles again and said: “I merely pointed out that the eyes are not yet those of the Mister Major.”

D’Arpa said: “I simply said that the nose looks comfortable, perhaps a trifle too comfortable, perhaps even asleep.”

Saitta said: “To suggest that the background might be cleaned up a little is not to criticize the likeness.” Lojacono said: “I told you that the painting is not finished. When it is done, I promise that you will like it -     D’Arpa said in his -high voice: “It is more important  that the Mister Major should like it.”

The old painter said: “He will, I promise it.” Gargano placed both hands over his heart and said: “He must, old man, or else the whole point of our presenting it to him will be destroyed. Do you know why we are giving it to him?”

Lojacono said wearily: “Yes, I know why you are giving it to him.”

Gargano had not expected the old man to answer his rhetorical question. He took his hands off his heart and said: “Well then...”

The white-haired painter turned again toward the three men. “Well then, he said, “why don’t you leave me alone so that I can put into the painting what you feel toward this man?”

Gargano started to make the circles and said doubtfully: “The eyes -”

The painter said: “The eyes are not finished. Neither is the tired nose. Neither is the dirty background. I might explain to you, street-cleaner, that I use the background as the place to test my colors. Do I come to you with suggestions as to how to remove horse-manure from the streets?”