The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti: A New England Legend (24 page)

Equal and more rejoicing would arise at the thought that a thief and murderer—crimes not so bad, certainly, as those others—had confessed himself and sought absolution.

Yet the Priest would have had to be insensitive indeed not to be reminded, as he walked with the Warden toward the death house, of the singular parallel presented here; for here were two men whom millions loved, and who were to be crucified, and between them there was a thief who would also die; and blasphemous thought though he might conceive it to be, the Priest could not forbear comparing this finality with the finality of Jesus Christ—who also died because the State desired it, and who also was not alone in his agony, but was accompanied into whatever future there was by two thieves. And thinking this, the Priest said to himself,

“Well, who knows but that this man, Celestino Madeiros, has been placed here for a purpose, and who knows but that I too am sent to him for a purpose?—and while I do not know the whole of this purpose, I can unquestionably see glimmerings of a pattern. Being neither a Bishop nor a Cardinal, I will follow the pattern where it leads me, without trying to understand it too well.” And he turned to the Warden and said,

“It will do no good to approach Sacco and Vanzetti again?”

“It will do no good, and I do not think we have any right to.”

“Then my mission is for the thief,” the Priest nodded, and he walked the rest of the way in silence until he came to the three cells of Death Row. Here the air was so permeated with inevitability and so chilled with misery, that the Priest stayed close to the Warden, hugging his human presence for reassurance, and following him to the door of Madeiros' cell, where the Warden said,

“Celestino, I have brought you a priest so that you may talk with him and prepare yourself for the end, if, indeed, the end must come.”

Past the Warden, the Priest could see into the simple orderliness of Madeiros' cell. There was a cot, and a few books, and nothing else. Here in this place, man left the world as propertyless and as naked as he entered into it. Also, out of the corner of his eye, the Priest had glimpses of the cells of Sacco and Vanzetti, but he resolutely turned his eyes away, steeling himself for this one task which would now require all of his strength.

Madeiros sat upon his bed. He sat rather calmly, with his head up, nor did he turn to look at the door of his cell when the Warden's voice came to him. Watching him, the Priest wondered whether he knew that it was already past nine o'clock, and that already, time and hope for this world had abandoned him. If, indeed, Madeiros knew this, he gave no sign of undue disturbance, and he said, quite calmly,

“I wish to thank you, and also the Priest, but send him away. I don't want him and I don't need him.”

“Has he been like this all day?” whispered the Priest to the Warden. “So calm and so unperturbed?”

“By no means,” the Warden whispered back, puzzled himself as to how to account for the present demeanor of Madeiros. “This is very new. From early this morning, he has been upset and sometimes hysterical, and sometimes screaming with fear and horror at the top of his lungs, the way a pig screams when the first blow of the hammer tells it that death is in process.”

“Well, what now?” asked the Priest.

“You can talk to him if you wish,” the Warden replied.

How does one grapple for the soul of a murderer?” the Priest asked himself, for this particular chore had never been his before. “Where does one enter combat?” And then he decided that he would ask the question of Madeiros as simply and as directly as Madeiros had answered him, saying to the lad,

“And why don't you want a priest, my son?”

Now Madeiros raised his head, turned his eyes toward the cell door, and faced the Priest with a glance so clear and fixed in its intentness that it drove against him like a level lance, tumbling him down from his precious towers of righteousness and doctrine—to a level where he saw before him only a boy who was now waiting for his death without fear. The wonder of this—which is perhaps the most profound and miraculous of all the wonders this world has to offer—bit through the veneer of sophistry and shrewd argumentation with which the Priest had armed himself and covered himself since his own childhood, and biting through this, touched for a moment the soul of the man underneath. Thereby, the man waited for a certain answer, and was not too surprised when it came.

“I don't want a priest,” Madeiros said slowly, organizing his words and his thoughts with great difficulty and great earnestness, “because he may bring fear with him. I am not afraid now. All day long today and yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before that, I was afraid. I died again and again, and each time I died, I suffered a lot. That fear is the most terrible thing in the world. But now I have here two comrades whose names are Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and they spoke to me and took away my fear. That is why I don't need a priest. If I am not afraid to die, then I am not afraid of anything that comes after death.”

“What could they tell you?” the Priest asked desperately. “Can they give you God's absolution?”

“They gave me man's absolution,” Madeiros answered as simply as a child.

“Will you pray with me?” the Priest asked.

“I have nothing to pray for,” Madeiros answered. “I have found two friends, and they will be with me as long as I am here on this earth.”

And with that, he stretched out on his bed, his hands folded beneath his head and his eyes closed—nor did the Priest have the courage to speak to him again. As they had come, so did they go; but this time, as the Priest passed the cells of Sacco and Vanzetti, he looked into them, and he saw in them the men who had become a new legend of New England. And as he looked at them, each of these men looked up in turn, and met his glance with theirs.

Now the Priest walked more quickly through the tunnels and corridors of the State Prison—yet as quickly as he walked, he was able to control himself to a point where the Warden would not know that he was indeed in flight. Beyond him and behind him, in the death house, was a mystery which not only defied his understanding, but threatened his very existence, and now he fled from this mystery.

Chapter 17

T
HE
W
ARDEN
was pleased to be rid of the Priest finally, for so much remained to be done, and here it was already almost ten o'clock. People did not realize how much there was to an execution beyond its factual horror; and sometimes when he was in the mood to philosophize—as what prison warden isn't?—this Warden would contemplate the similarities between his own functions and those of the director of a large and complex funeral establishment. Well, so it was, and it was not any of his doing, and if ending life was surrounded with more ritual than beginning the process, he was not the one who could change this or resist it.

First, the Warden went to the mess hall adjoining the death house, for he had allocated this dining room to the press. It was already filled with a full complement of those reporters who had received special invitations either to witness the execution directly, or to be close at hand if and when it took place. The Warden knew the value of proper press relations, and he had attempted to anticipate all the wants of the reporters and to provide for these wants. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air of the mess hall, and there were piles of appetizing sandwiches and good, fresh coffee cake. The Warden had made a special purchase of twenty-five pounds of delectable cold cuts; for he felt that while there was a need to impress upon anyone who broke bread within the prison that such bread was not worm-eaten, to satisfy so many of the press at one time was even more important.

The telephone company had been equally cooperative, and six branch lines had been installed here, that the news of the details of the execution might go out without impediment or delay to a waiting world. And the Warden had seen to it that there were sufficient yellow copy paper and pencils for any thoughts or fancies the newspaper men might wish to express. It was with some sense of irony that he reflected upon the circumstances which had brought him, his prison, and this particular spot of old Massachusetts, into the focus of all the world's attention; but once again he accepted a situation that was not of his making, and decided that the best thing anyone could do under such circumstances, was to see that everything went smoothly and without untoward incident or complication.

When he appeared in the dining room, the reporters surrounded him and plied him with questions. They wanted all the details which he could provide—the names of the guards and attendants, the name of the prison doctor, the name of everyone else who would be associated with the execution. They also asked him whether he would be in touch with the Governor's office during the last moments before the execution—to make absolutely certain that a postponement would not come a fraction of a minute too late to save the lives of the condemned men. They also wanted to know what the order of the executions would be.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the Warden protested. “I would have to spend the whole night here with you to answer all these questions, and there's still a great deal that has to be done. Now I have assigned one of my assistants here to be at your service and to give you all the information that I myself would be able to provide for you. You must understand that we are simply public servants who are given a very unpleasant duty to fulfill. I am not a judge or a policeman, but only the warden of this prison. Of course, I shall make every attempt to be in constant touch with the Governor. You must understand that I have come to know these men, and shall do all I can that might help them with just and legal aid. Now, as far as the order of execution is concerned, we have determined it in this way. The first to die will be Celestino Madeiros. After him, Nicola Sacco, and then finally, Bartolomeo Vanzetti. There you are, gentlemen, and that's the best I can do for you.”

They thanked him profusely, and he was not a little proud of the expert and unperturbed manner in which he had dealt with the situation, making neither too much nor too little of it. While the Warden was thus occupied with the press in the mess hall, the prison doctor, the electrician, two guards and the prison barber had come to the death house. Like the Warden, they were painfully aware of the significance of each move they made; but unlike the Warden, it was theirs to deal not with the press, but with the three doomed men in person—and thereby, it was only to be expected that they would shrink from the unpleasant tasks which had been set out for them. Along with this feeling of shame and unhappiness, perhaps to bolster themselves, they inflated their own importance in so enormous an event, and speculated on how they themselves would describe it the following day. Each of them, however, felt personally embarrassed, and personally felt the need to apologize to the three men, the two anarchists and the thief. The barber made his apologies as he shaved their heads.

“You know,” he said to Vanzetti, “it is my miserable misfortune to have this job in this place. What can I do about it?”

“There is nothing you can do,” Vanzetti answered him, a note of reassurance in his voice. “It's your job and you do it. What else is there to say?”

“I wish I could say something that would help a little bit,” the barber insisted. And when he had finished with Vanzetti, he whispered to the electrician that the experience was not as bad as it might have been, and that the man Vanzetti was unquestionably a most unusual and discerning man.

But Sacco said nothing at all, not a word, and when the barber made a few attempts at conversation, Sacco looked up at him in a strange way, and then the barber's words died still-born in his throat.

With Madeiros, the barber had another feeling entirely. Madeiros was like a small boy, and his tranquility became almost terrifying to the barber. Outside in the corridor, he whispered to the guards concerning his tranquility; but they shrugged and dismissed Madeiros as a “hophead,” nodding significantly at the door to the execution chamber.

The electrician watched the guards exchange the prisoners' underwear for that special underwear which is made only for such occasions. And the condemned men put on, then, the black suits of death, garments which they would wear for that short distance between the three cells and the electric chair itself; and while he was drawing this horrible suit onto his body, Vanzetti said softly,

“So the bridegroom is dressed! A thoughtful State gives me warm clothes, and the deft hands of a barber to shave me. And strangely enough, fear has gone away. All I feel now is hatred.”

He spoke in Italian, and the guards did not know what he was saying; but the barber understood, and whispered a translation of his words to the prison doctor, who shrugged it off with the professional cynicism that such a man must needs arm himself with.

It was the task of the electrician to slit the trouser legs and the sleeves of the death costumes. He did this sullenly, cursing himself and the fate that had brought here to such work. And once, when he touched Vanzetti's flesh, Vanzetti pulled away from him, looking at him with contempt, and then raising his eyes with the same contemptuous hatred to the guards who watched the work of the electrician.

“And this is a service,” Vanzetti said, his voice hard and flat as a file. “You lend yourselves to this, and in every age there will be more like you. Even if there were a God, he would not have mercy on the eunuchs who become the handmaidens of death. The truth is that all I wanted was to finish fighting, and instead, the likes of you are reserved to me. But now keep your damned hands away from me! Your hands are dirty with the dirt of the master you serve!”

Again, the barber translated, but the prison doctor said,

“Well, what do you expect? You can't do more to anyone than kill him. If he wants to talk, you can't keep him from talking, can you? Don't come to me with any more stories about what he says. He can say what he wants to say.”