Chapter 1

 

 

 

INVASION had come to the town of Adano.

An American corporal ran tautly along the dirty Via Favemi and at the corner he threw himself down. He made certain arrangements with his light machine gun and then turned and beckoned to his friends to come forward.

In the Via Calabria, in another part of town, a party of three crept forward like cats. An explosion, possibly of a mortar shell, at some distance to the north but apparently inside the town, caused them to fall flat with a splash of dust. They waited on their bellies to see what would happen.

An entire platoon ducked from grave to grave in the Capucin Cemetery high on the hill overlooking town. The entire platoon was scared. They were out of touch with their unit. They did not know the situation. They were near their objective, which was the rocky crest not far off, but they wanted to find out what was going on in the town before they moved on.

All through the town of Adano, Americans were like this. They were not getting much resistance, but it was their first day of invasion, and they were tight in their muscles.

But at one of the sulphur loading jetties at the port a Major with a brief case under his arm stepped from the sliding gangway of LCI No. 9488, and he seemed to be wholly calm.

“Borth,” he said to the sergeant who followed him onto the jetty, “this is like coming home, how often I have dreamed this.” And he bent over and touched the palm of his hand to the jetty, then dusted his palm off on his woolen pants.

This man was Major Victor Joppolo, who had been named senior civil affairs officer of the town of Adano, representing Amgot. He was a man of medium height, with the dark skin of his parents, who were Italians from near Florence. He had a mustache. His face was round and his cheeks seemed cheerful but his eyes were intense and serious. He was about thirty-five.

The sergeant with him was Leonard Borth, an M.P., who was to be in charge of matters of security in Adano: he was to help weed out the bad Italians and make use of the good ones. Borth had volunteered to be the first to go into the town with the Major. Borth had no fear; he cared about nothing. He was of Hungarian parentage, and he had lived many places - in Budapest, where he had taken pre-medical studies, in Rome, where he had been a correspondent for Pester Lloyd, in Vienna, where he had worked in a travel agency, in Marseille, where he had been secretary to a rich exporter, in Boston, where he had been a reporter for the Herald, and in San Francisco, where he sold radios. Still he was less than thirty. He was an American citizen and an enlisted man by choice. To him the whole war was a cynical joke, and he considered his job in the war to make people take themselves less seriously.

When the Major touched Italian soil, Borth said: “You are too sentimental.”

The Major said: “Maybe, but you will be the same when you get to Hungary.”

“Never, not me.”

The Major looked toward the town and said; “Do you think it’s safe now?”

Borth said: “Why not?” “Then how do we go?”

Borth unfolded a map case deliberately. He put a freckled finger on the celluloid cover and said: “Here, by the Via Barrino as far as the Via of October Twenty-eight, and the Piazza is at the top of the Via of October Twenty-eight.”

“October Twenty-eight,” the Major said, “what is that, October Twenty-eight?”

“That’s the date of Mussolini’s march on Rome, in 1922,” Borth said. “It is the day when Mussolini thinks he began to be a big shot.” Borth was very good at memory.

They started walking. The Major said: “I have lost all count, so what is today?”

“July tenth.”

“We will call it the Via of July Ten.”

“So you’re renaming the streets already. Next you’ll be raising monuments, Major Joppolo, first to an unknown soldier, then to yourself. I don’t trust you men who are so sentimental and have too damn much conscience.”

“Cut the kidding,” the Major said. There was an echo in the way he said it, as if he were a boy having been called wop by others in school. In spite of the gold maple leaf of rank on the collar, there was an echo.

The two men walked up the Via Barrino. There was nobody in the street. All the people had either fled to the hills or were hiding in bomb shelters and cellars. The houses of this street were poor grey affairs, two-storey houses of grey brick, with grey shutters, all dusted over with grey dust which had been thrown up from bomb craters and shell holes. Here and there, where a house had been hit, grey bricks had cascaded into the grey street.

At the corner of the third alley running off the Via of October Twenty-eight, the two men came on a dead Italian woman. She had been dressed in black. Her right leg was blown off and the flies for some reason preferred the dark sticky pool of blood and dust to her stump.

“Awful,” the Major said, for although the blood was not yet dry, nevertheless there was already a beginning of a sweet but vomitous odor. “It’s a hell of a note,” he said, “that we had to do that to our friends.”

“Friends,” said Borth, “that’s a laugh.”

“It wasn’t them, not the ones like her,” the Major said. “They weren’t our enemies. My mother’s mother must have been like her. It wasn’t the poor ones like her, it was the bunch up there where we’re going, those crooks in the City Hall.”

“Be careful,” Borth said, and his face showed that he was teasing the Major again. “You’re going to have your office in the City Hall. Be careful you don’t get to be a crook too.”

“Lay off,” the Major said.

Borth said: “I don’t trust your conscience, sir, I’m appointing myself assistant conscience.”

“Lay off,” the Major said, and there was that echo. They passed a house which had been crushed by a naval shell. The Major said: “Too bad, look at that.” Borth said: “Maybe it was a crook’s house, how can you tell? Better forget the house and concern yourself with that.” He pointed into an alley at some horse dung and goat dung and straw and melon seeds and old chicken guts and flies. And Borth added: “No question of guilty or not guilty there, Major. Just something to get clean. You’ve got some business in that alley, not in that house there.”

“I know my business, I know what I want to do, I know what its like to be poor, Borth.”

Borth was silent. He found the seriousness of this Major Joppolo something hard to penetrate.

They came in time to the town’s main square, which was called Piazza Progresso. And on that square they saw the building they were looking for.

It was a building with a look of authority about it. This was not one of those impermanent-looking, World’sFair-architecture Fascist headquarters which you. see in so many Italian towns, buildings so up to the moment in design that, like airplanes, they were obsolete before they were ever finished. This was an old building, made of stone. At its second floor it had an old balcony, a place of many speeches. This building had served kings before Fascists and now was about to serve democracies after them. In case you couldn’t recognize authority in the shape of the building, there stood, in embossed bronze letters across the front, the words Palazzo di Città.

There was a clock tower on the left hand front comer. On top of the tower there was a metal frame which must have been designed to hold a bell. It was baroque and looked very old. But there was no bell.

On the side of the clock tower big white letters said: “Il Popolo Italiano ha creato col suo sangue l’Impero, to f feconderá col sua lavoro e to di f enderà contra chiunque colle sue armi.”

The Major pointed and said: “See, Borth, even after our invasion it says: `The Italian people built the Em, pire with their blood, will make it fruitful with their work and will defend it against anyone with their arms.”‘

Borth said: “I know you can read Italian. So can I. Don’t translate for Borth. “

The Major said: “I know, but think of how that sounds today.”

Borth said: “It sounds silly, sure.”

The Major said: “If they had seen any fruit of their work, they would have fought with their arms. I bet we could teach them to want to defend what they have. I want to do so much here, Borth.”

Borth said: “That sounds silly too. Remember the alley, clean up the alleyway, sir, it is the alley that you ought to concentrate on.”

The Major walked across the Piazza up to the big black door of the Palazzo, put his brief case down, took a piece of chalk out of his pocket, and wrote on a panel. of the door: “Victor Joppolo, Major, U.S.A., AMGOT, Town of Adano.” “

Then both men went inside and up some marble stairs, looking all around them as they climbed. They took a turn and went through a door marked Podestà. The office on the other side of that door took Victor Joppolo’s breath away.

In the first place, it was so very big. It must have been seventy feet long and thirty feet wide. The ceiling was high, and the floor was marble.

After all the poverty which had shouted and begged in the streets, this room was stiflingly rich. The furniture was of a heavy black Italian style which seemed to be bursting with some kind of creatures half man and half fruit. The curtains were of rich brocade, and the walls were lined with a silken stuff.

The door where the men came in was near the southwest comer of the room. To the right of it a huge table stood, with some maps and aerial photos on it which had been left behind by the officers of an American regiment, who had used the room as a command post early in the morning. There was an incongruous bundle of Italian brooms in the corner. The south wall had a double white door in the middle, and on either side a huge sofa bound in black leather. Then on the opposite side, facing the street and giving onto the place of speeches, there were two big French doors.

Scattered along the wall and pressed against it, as if frightened, were a heavy table, several throne-like chairs of various sizes, another couch and, in the far corner, a white stone statue of a saint. She, besides being decently swathed in a marble scarf, had a piece of American signal corps telephone wire wound around her neck on its way from the nearest French door to the desk, where a field phone had evidently been set up. To the left of the door there was a tremendous bookcase with a glass front, beyond it an enamel washstand with a big stone pitcher beside it, and then a weirdly ornate upright piano.

Up to the right, over the two sofas, there were huge pictures of Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel and his Queen, facing each other in sympathetic misery. On the outside wall there was a picture of Crown Prince Umberto, smiling at everything that happened in the room. Over the Saint of the Telephone there was a photograph of Princess Marie Jose of Belgium, Umberto’s wife, dressed as a Red Cross nurse. Above the bookcase there was a great dustless square where a picture had been but was not now.

All this, both the heavy furniture and the ironic pictures, seemed placed there merely to press the eye toward the opposite end of the room, toward the biggest picture in the room, a romantic oil of a group of men pointing into the distance, and especially toward the desk.

The scale of everything in that room was so big that hugeness in the desk did not seem unnatural. It was of wood. On either end there were wooden bas-reliefs of fasces and of the phrase Anno XV, for the fifteenth year of Fascism, or 1937, when the desk was presumably made. Under the desk there was a wooden scrollwork footstool.

“Say,” said Major Joppolo, “this is okay.”

“Looks like that office of Mussolini’s,” Borth said. “Come to think of it, you look quite a lot like Mussolini, sir, except the mustache. Will it be okay with you to be a Mussolini?”

“Cut the kidding,” the Major said. “Let’s look around They went out through the white door at the end of the room and walked through several offices, all of which were crowded with desks and files and bookcases. The files had not been emptied or even disturbed. “Good,” said Borth, “lists of names, every one registered and all their records. It’ll be easy for us here.”

The Major said: “What a difference between my office and these others. It is shameful.”

All Borth said was: “Your office?”

When the two went back into the big office there was an Italian there. He had evidently been hiding in the building. He was a small man, with a shiny linen office coat on, with his collar buttoned but no tie.

The small Italian gave the Fascist salute and with an eager face said in Italian: “Welcome to the Americansl Live Roosevelt) How glad I am that you have arrived. For many years I have hated the Fascists.”

The Major said in Italian: “Who are you?”

The little man said: “Zito Giovanni. I have been well known as anti-Fascist.”

Major Joppolo said: “What do you do?” Zito said: “I greet the Americans.”

Borth said in an Italian which was heavily accented: “Idiot, what was your job before the disembarkation?” Zito said: “Zito Giovanni, usher in the Palazzo di Cittá, native of Adano.”

Major Joppolo said: “You were the usher here?” “Every day from eight to eight.”

“Why did you work for the Fascists if you hated them?”

“I have hated them many years, I am well known as anti-Fascist, I have lived under a great suspicion.”

The Major said: “Usher, I love the truth, you will find that out. If you lie to me, you will be in very serious trouble. Do not lie to me. If you were a Fascist, you were a Fascist. There is no need to lie. “

Zito said: “One had to eat, one had to earn a living. I have six children.”

Major Joppolo said: “So you were a Fascist. Now you will have to learn to live in a democracy. You will be my usher.”

The little Zito was delighted.

The Major said: “Do not salute me that way.” Zito bowed and said: “The fascist salute, no sir.” Major Joppolo said: “Do not bow. There is no need to grovel here. I am only a Major. Borth here is a Sergeant. Are you a man?”

Little Zito was getting very mixed up. “No sir,” he said cautiously. Then he saw by the Major’s expression that he should have said yes, and he did.

The Major said: “You may greet me by shaking my hand. You will greet Sergeant Borth in the same way.” Borth said, and his expression showed that he was teasing the Italian: “First I will find out if he’s a dangerous Fascist.”

Little Zito did not know whether to laugh or cry. He was frightened but he was also flattered by these men. He said: “I will never lie to you, Mister Major. I am anti-Fascist, Mister Sergeant. I will be usher here.”

Major Joppolo said: “Be here at seven o’clock each morning.”

“Seven o’clock,” said Zito.

A brief burst of machine gun and rifle fire echoed from distant streets. Zito cringed.

Borth said: “You are perhaps a man but you are also frightened.”

Major Joppolo said: “Has it been bad here?”

Zito started jabbering about the bombardments and the air raids. “We are very hungry,” he said when he had cooled down a little. “For three days we have not had bread. All the important ones ran away and left me here to guard the Palazzo. The stink of dead is very bad, especially in the Piazza San Angelo. Some people are sick because the drivers of the water carts have not had the courage to get water for several days, because of the planes along the roads. We do not believe in victory. And our bell is gone.”

Major Joppolo said: “Your bell?”

Zito said: “Our bell which was seven hundred years old. Mussolini took it. It rang with a good tone each quarter hour. Mussolini took it to make rifle barrels or something. The town was very angry. Everyone begged the Monsignor, who is the uncle of the Mayor, to offer some church bells instead. But the Monsignor is uncle of the Mayor, he is not the sort to desecrate churches, he says. It meant we lost our bell. And only two weeks before you came. Why did you not come sooner?” “Where was this bell?”

“Right here.” Zito pointed over his head. “The whole building tingled when it rang.”

Major Joppolo said to Borth: “I saw the framework for the bell up on the tower, did you?” Then he added to Zito: “That is your reason for wanting us to have come sooner, is it?”

Zito was careful. “Partly,” he said.

Borth said: “Usher, if you were a good Fascist you would be able to tell me why there is a big blank space up there on the wall over which there used to hang a picture. It is easy to see by the square of dust that there was a rather large picture there.”

Zito smiled and said: “The picture does not exist. It has been destroyed.”

Borth said: “You are not hiding it in the basement? You are not afraid that the Americans will be driven out by your German allies and that your leader will return some day and see the square of dust on the wall and ask questions?”

Zito said: “It is destroyed, I swear it. I cannot lie before the Mister Major.”

Major Joppolo said: “Usher, what is that big picture over my desk?”

This was where the little Zito told a beautiful lie. The picture was of a group of men in antique costume. One of them, by expression of face, position in the picture and by the accident of being the only one in the sunlight of all the men, was obviously their leader, and he was pointing out the side of the picture to the left.

Zito thought quickly and said: “That, Mister Major, is Columbus discovering America.”

Zito smiled because it was a beautiful lie. Major Joppolo did not discover for three weeks that the picture was really a scene from the Sicilian Vespers, that bloody revolt which the Sicilians mounted against a previous invader.

Now Major Joppolo said in English more or less to himself: “It’s a nice picture, I wonder how old it is, maybe it’s by somebody famous.”

The Major went to the desk, pulled out the highbacked chair and sat in it, carefully putting his feet on the scrollwork footstool.

Borth said: “How does it feel, Duce?”

The Major said: “There is so much to do, I hardly know where to begin.”

Borth said: “I know what I must do. I’ve got to find the offices of the Fascist Party, to see if I can find more records. May I take the Mister Usher and look for the Fascso?”

“Go ahead, Borth,” the Major said.

When the two had left, Major Joppolo opened his brief case and took out some papers. He put them in a neat pile on the desk in front of him and began to read:

“INSTRUCTIONS TO CIVIL AFFAIRS OFFICERS. First day: Enter the city with the first column. Cooperate with C.I.C. in placing guards and seizing records. Place all food warehouses, enemy food dumps, wholesale food concerns, and other major food stocks under guard. Secure an estimate from local food distributors of the number of days of food supplies which are on hand or available. Make a report through channels on food situation in your area. See that the following establishments are placed under guard or protection: foundries, machine shops, electrical works, chemical plants, flour mills, breweries, cement plants, refrigeration plants, ice plants, warehouses, olive oil refineries, sulphur refineries, tunny oil mills, soap manufacturing plants, and any other important establishments. Locate and make available to port authorities all known local pilots...”

And the list went on and on. When he had read three pages, Major Joppolo looked at his wrist watch. It was eleven thirty. Almost half of this first day was gone. He took the sheets of instructions up from the desk and tore them in half, and tore the halves in quarters, and crumpled up the quarters and threw them into a cane wastebasket under the desk.

Then he sat and stared out the nearest French door into the empty street for a long time. He looked tired and defeated.

He stirred and reached into his brief case again and took out a small black loose leaf notebook. The pages were filled with notes on his Amgot school lectures: notes on civilian supply, on public safety, on public health, on finance, on agriculture, industry, utilities, transportation, and all the businesses of an invading authority. But he passed all these pages by, and turned to the page marked: Notes to Joppolo from Joppolo.

And he read: “Don’t make yourself cheap. Always be accessible to the public. Don’t play favorites. Speak Italian whenever possible. Don’t lose your temper. When plans fall down, improvise...”

That was the one he wanted. When plans fall down, improvise.

Plans for this first day were in the wastebasket. They were absurd. Enough was set forth in those plans to keep a regiment busy for a week.

Now Victor Joppolo felt on his own, and he no longer looker tired. He got up briskly, went out onto the balcony and saw that there were two flagpoles there. He went back in, reached in his brief case and pulled out two flags, one American, the other British.

He tucked the Union Jack under his arm as he walked out again, felt for the toggles on the American flag, mounted them on the halyard on the left-hand flagpole, and raised the flag.

Before the flag reached the top of the pole there were five Italians in the Piazza. Before he had the British flag attached to the halyard on the right-hand pole, there were twenty. By the time he had both flags up, forty people were shouting: “Buon giorno, buon giorno, Americano.”

He waved to them and went back into his office. Now he was happy and quick.

He took up his brief case again, reached in and pulled out a pile of proclamations. He took them over to the table by the door, set the leftover maps and photos aside, and arranged the proclamations in order on the table. While he was on his way back to his desk, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said in Italian.

The door opened. A man came in whose appearance was vaguely familiar to Major Joppolo. The Major realized later that he had seen, not this man, but several who looked just like him, in bad American movies. He was the type of the second-rate Italian gangster, the small fellow in the gang who always stood behind the boss and who always took the rap. He had the bald head, the weak mouth. He had a scar across his cheek. His eye was furtive and he had the appearance of being willing but in need of instructions.

He said in English: “You pull up a flag. War’s a finish here in Adano, huh?”

The Major said: “Yes, who are you?”

The Italian said: “I’m from a Cleveland, Ohio. I been here a three year. You got a work for me?”

Major Joppolo said: “What’s your name?”

The Italian said: “Ribaudo Giuseppe. In a Cleveland, call a me Joe.”

Major Joppolo said: “What can you do?”

Ribaudo said: “I’m a good American. I’m a hate these Fascisti. I could do a good a job for you.”

Major Joppolo said: “If you’re such a good American, why did you leave the States?”

Ribaudo said: “I’m a kick out.” “I’m a no passport.”

“How’d you get in, then?”

‘I got a plenty friends in a Cleveland and a Buffalo.’ “What did you do in the States?”

“Oh, I work a here, work a there.”

Major Joppolo was pleased with Ribaudo for not trying to lie about his illegal entry and repatriation. He said: “Okay, I’ll hire you. You will be my interpreter.”

“You don’t a speak Italian?”

“Yes, but there’ll be other Americans here who don’t, and I may need you for other things, too. Do you know these people well, do you know who’s for us Americans and who’s against us?”

“Sure, a boss, I help a you plenty.”

“All right, what did you say your name was?” “Ribaudo Giuseppe, just a Joe for you.”

“No, we’re in Italy, I’ll call you Giuseppe here. Just two things now, Giuseppe. You’ve got to be honest with me; if you’re not, you’ll be in bad trouble. The other is, don’t expect me to do you any favors I wouldn’t do for anyone else, see?”

“Oh sure, a boss. You don’t a worry.”

“Now tell me, what does this town need the most?” “I could a go for a movie house, a boss.”

“No, Giuseppe, I mean right now.”

“Food, a boss. Food is a bad now in Adano. Three days a lot a people no eat a nothing.”

“Why is that, because of a shortage of flour?”

“No, everyone been a scared. Baker don’t a work, nobody sell a pasta, water don’t a come in a carts. That’s all, a boss.”

“How many bakers are there in town?”

But before Giuseppe could answer this question, there were two simultaneous knocks on the door, one strong, and one weak.

“I open ‘em up, a boss?” Giuseppe was at least eager. “Please, Giuseppe.”

Giuseppe hurried down the long room and opened the door. Two men almost tumbled in. Both were well dressed, and had neckties on. One of them was quite old. The other was very fat and looked forty. They hurried down the room, and each seemed anxious not to let the other get ahead of him.

The old one said in English, with a careful British accent: “My name is Cacopardo, at your service, Major. I am eighty-two. I own most of the sulphurs in this place. Here Cacopardo is sulphur and sulphur is Cacopardo. I wish to give you advices whenever you need of it.”

The fat one, who seemed annoyed with Cacopardo for speaking first, said in English: “Craxi, my name. I have a telegram.”

Major Joppolo said: “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

Cacopardo said: “Advices.”

Craxi said. “Telegram.”

Cacopardo said: “The Americans coming to Italian countryside need some advices.” The old man looked straight at Giuseppe the interpreter and added: “I wish to advise you to be careful, in Adano are many men who were illegal in America, some men too who were condemned to the electrical chair in Brooklyn of New York.”

Major Joppolo, seeing Giuseppe’s embarrassment, said: “Giuseppe, I want to speak to the priest of the town. Will you get him for me?”

Giuseppe said: “Which priest, a boss?”

Cacopardo said: “In Adano are thirteen churches, Major, and in some, like Sant’ Angelo and San Sebastiano, are two or three priests.”

Major Joppolo said: “Which church is best?” Cacopardo said: “In churches ought not to be good and bad, but Sant’ Angelo is best, because Father Pensovecchio is best of all.”

Major Joppolo said to Giuseppe: “Get him for me, will you?”

“Yes, a boss,” Giuseppe said, and left.

When he had left, Major Joppolo said to Cacopardo: “Is this Giuseppe fellow not to be trusted?”

Cacopardo bowed and said: “I mention only the electrical chair, I am not one to name the names.”

Major Joppolo spoke sharply: “You said you came to advise me. I must know about this Giuseppe. Is he to be trusted or not?”

The old man bowed again and said: “Giuseppe is a harmless one.”

The fat Craxi was growing very annoyed that Cacopardo was getting all the attention. He said: “I have a telegram. Please to deliver.”

Major Joppolo said: “This isn’t a telegraph office.

There’s a war going on. Do you think we have nothing better to do than deliver telegrams?”

Craxi was apologetic. “I am anti-Fascist. I have a telegram. You are the one who can deliver it.” And he pulled out from his pocket a piece of ruled paper, folded four ways and pinned shut with a safety pin. He handed the paper to the Major, who put it down on his desk, to the disappointment of Craxi.

The Major said: “You say you’ve come to advise me. Then tell me, what does this town need the most right now?”

This time the fat Craxi got there first: “To eat,” he said, “much to eat.”

Cacopardo said: “It needs a bell more than anything.”

Craxi said: “Foolishness, a bell. More than anything, to eat is necessary.”

Cacopardo said: “The town needs its bell back. You can always eat.”

Craxi, who had been rather slighted in the conversation anyhow, now became quite angry. “You can always eat, you Cacopardo,” he said. “You have a million lira, you sulphur. You can eat, but not all the people here can eat.” And he turned to the Major: “To eat here is most necessary, more necessary than any bell.”

Cacopardo broke into furious Italian: “Fat one, you think only of your stomach. The spirit is more important than the stomach. The bell was of our spirit. It was of our history. It was hung on the tower by Pietro of Aragona. It was designed by the sculptor Lucio de Anj of Modica.”

Craxi said in Italian: “People who are very hungry have a ringing in their ears. They have no need of bells.” Cacopardo said: “By this bell the people were warned of the invasion of Roberto King of Naples, and he was driven back.”

Craxi said: “People with malaria also have a ringing in their ears. “

Cacopardo said: “The bell warned the people when Admiral Targout brought his French and his Turks to this place in 1553 and burned many homes and churches, and all that was left in the Church of Our Mother was the little silver crucifix which you will see now in the Church of San Angelo.”

The Major said in Italian: “We have no time for this recital. I wish to know what things are pressing and must be taken care of at once.”

Craxi said: “I have spoken. Food is the first thing.” Cacopardo said: “The bell must be taken care of at once. The bell did not warn us of this invasion, or we would have been in the streets with flowers to welcome you.

Craxi said: “I needed no bell. I was on the beach to welcome the Americans. My woman was with me, the formidable Margherita, and my seven children. We were on the beach in spite of the shooting, to greet the Americans. But what did my children shout? They did not shout: `We miss the tinkling of the bell.’ They shouted: `Caramelle! Caramelle!’ They were hungry. They wanted candy. I myself, who had had enough to eat as it happens, shouted for cigarets, not for the pealing of a bell.”

Borth and the usher Zito came back. Borth said: “It’s nifty, Major. All the records are intact. They tell everything. There are lists of anti-Fascists and lists of those who were enthusiastic and the others who were lukewarm. There’s a dossier on each important person. It’s perfect. Who are these guys?”

Cacopardo said: “Cacopardo is my name, at your service, sir. Cacopardo is sulphur and sulphur is Cacopardo.”

Borth said: “I remember that name. In the records it says Cacopardo’s crazy.”

Craxi said: “That is true. He thinks that bells are more important than food.”

Borth turned on Craxi in mock anger. “And who is this?”

Craxi was apologetic again: “I am anti-Fascist. Craxi. I believe in food for the moment.”

Major Joppolo said: “They are arguing which is more important, food or restoring the bell. Since we obviously can’t do anything about the bell just now, food is our concern.”

Craxi looked very proud of himself, but Cacopardo turned to Zito and said: “We will leave this matter to the son of Rosa who was the wife of Zito. What do you say, small Zito, do you consider the food or the bell more important?”

Surprisingly Zito said: “I think the bell.”

Major Joppolo was interested by this. He leaned forward and said: “Why, Zito?”

Zito said: “Because the tone of the bell was so satisfactory.”

“No,” said Cacopardo, “it is because of the history of the bell. When the bell spoke, our fathers and their fathers far back spoke to us.”

Even Craxi was swept into this argument. “No,” he said, “it was because the bell rang the times of day. It told us when to do things, such as eating. It told us when to have the morning egg and when to have pasta and rabbit and when to drink wine in the evening.”

Zito said: “I thing it was the tone which mattered. It soothed all the people of this town. It chided those who were angry, it cheered the unhappy ones, it even laughed with those who were drunk. It was a tone for everybody.”

Giuseppe came in bringing the priest. Father Pensovecchio was grey-haired and cheerful, and as he approached the group around the Major’s desk he made a motion with his right hand which might have been interpreted either as a blessing or as a Fascist salute.

After the introductions, Major Joppolo said to the priest: “Father, we are speaking of the old bell which was taken away.”

Father Pensovecchio said: “That is the disgrace of this town. I have in my church a bell which is just as loud as the one which was taken away, though not so sweet and much younger and altogether meaningless as a bell. Any other bell would have done as well in my belfry. I wanted to send my bell. But the Monsignor would not permit it. The Monsignor is the uncle of the Mayor. He has reasons for doing the things he does -” Father Pensovecchio crossed himself, indicating that the things which the Monsignor did were somewhat ugly; “ - but in this case I believe he was wrong.”

Major Joppolo said: “Why was this bell important, then?”

The priest said: “This bell was the center of the town. All life revolved around it. The farmers in the country were wakened by it in the morning, the drivers of the carts knew when to start by it, the bakers baked by it, even we in the churches depended on that bell more than our own bells. At noon on the Sabbath, when all the bells in town rang at once, this bell rose above all the others and that was the one you listened to.”

Cacopardo, who was old enough not to have reverence for anything, said: “I think that even the Monsignor regrets the sending away of the bell, because he used to regulate his fornication by it.”

Craxi said: “I am certain too that he regulated his eating by it, as everyone else did.”

Major Joppolo said to Borth in English: “We’ll have to try to do something about getting another bell.”

Borth said: “It’s ridiculous. There are lots of things more important than this bell. Get them some food and don’t forget that alleyway.”

Major Joppolo said: “All the same, the bell is important to them.” And he said then in Italian: “Thank you for telling me about the bell. I promise you that I will do all I can to get another bell which will have some meaning as a bell and will have a good tone and its history will be that it was given to you by the Americans to take the place of the one which was taken away by the Fascists to make gun barrels.”

Cacopardo said: “You are kind.”

Craxi said: “I thank you, Mister Major, and I kiss your hand.”

Major Joppolo said: “You what?”

Cacopardo the historian said: “He meant no offense. It is an old custom here. Once the important people make us kiss their hands, and later when the actual kissing became too much of a bother, it became the habit merely to mention the kissing, as if it had been done.”

Craxi said: “I meant no offense, Mister Major. I am anti-Fascist.”

Major Joppolo said: “It appears that everyone in this town is anti-Fascist. Well, we will see about the bell. Now I wish to speak alone with the priest. Zito, you may stay. You are my usher. Giuseppe, you may stay. You are my interpreter.”

Craxi said: “Mister Major, the telegram.”

Major Joppolo said: “I will try to send it.”

Craxi mentioned the kissing again, and turned to go. When the others had gone, Major Joppolo said to Father Pensovecchio: “Father, I wish to tell you that the Americans want to bring only good to this town. As in every nation, there are some bad men in America. It is possible that some Americans who come here will do bad things. If they do, I can assure you that most of the Americans will be just as ashamed of those things as you are annoyed by them.”

Father Pensovecchio said: “I think we will understand weakness in your men just as we try to understand it in our own.”

Major Joppolo said: “Thank you. Father, I have been told that you are the best priest in Adano.”

The priest said with quite honest modesty: “I am here to do my duty.”

Major Joppolo said: “Therefore I should like to ask a favor of you. You must feel perfectly free to refuse me if you wish. I should like to ask you to say a few words before your mass tomorrow morning about the Americans. I shall leave it to you to say what you wish, if you will merely add that there are certain proclamations which the Americans have posted which ought to be read

Father Pensovecchio said: “That I can easily do.” Major Joppolo said: “I myself am a Catholic. If you will have me, I should like to attend your mass.”

The priest said: “It will be a pleasure to have you.” Major Joppolo was glad that he did not say it would be an honor.

Major Joppolo said: “I shall see you tomorrow then.” Father Pensovecchio said, just to make sure: “At the Church of Sane Angelo. It is by the Piazza of that name. At seven in the morning. Until then, son

When the priest had left, Giuseppe said in his brand of English: “You doing okay, a boss. All you got a do now is fix a food.”

“Yes,” said Major Joppolo, “food. We’ll go to the bakeries. But first, do you have a crier here?”

Giuseppe said to Zito in Italian: “What is the name of the crier? Did he run into the hills with the others?”

Zito said: “No, he is here. Mercurio Salvatore. He is here. Only, Mister Major, he does not always say exactly what you tell him to say. He will say the general meaning of what you wish, but he will change it some. Even if you write it down, he will change it some.”

Major Joppolo said: “Will you get him, please, Zito? I want to send him out to tell the people to read the proclamations. “

Zito went. Major Joppolo said to Giuseppe: “We will go to the bakeries, then we will post the proclamations.” Giuseppe said: “Okay, a boss.”

Major Joppolo looked down at his desk and saw Craxi’s telegram. He undid the safety pin and unfolded the paper and read:

“To Franklin D. Roosevelt, Capitol Building, Washington D.C. Fremente di gioia per la lbertá da molto tempo attesa the i vostri valorosi soldati anno dato alla città d’Adano stop vi prego accettare i sentimenti sinceri della mia gratitudine e riconoscenza. Antifascista Giovanni Craxi fu Pietro.”

“Giuseppe,” the Major said, “let’s see how good you are as an interpreter. Now, this is for President Roosevelt. You must make it as eloquent as you can. What does it say?”

“To Franklin D. Roosevelt and a so forth,” said Giuseppe. “Crazy with joy because of a liberty so long time awaited which your brave a soldier have a give to a town of Adano. What’s a stop?”

“That’s just the end of a sentence, Giuseppe.”

“End a sentence. I beg a you accept a sincere sentiments of my gratitude and a recognition. Signed a this Craxi. You going to deliver it, a boss?”

“Sure,” the Major said, “the President will be glad to hear.”