A Bell for Adano

by John Hersey

  Major Joppolo said: “Is there something I have done you wish me to correct?”

  Gargano the Two-Hands pointed both forefingers at the Major and said: “It is something you have not done.” The others laughed at that remark, and Major Joppolo became more uneasy than ever.

  “Something I have forgotten to do?” he asked.

  “No,” said Tagliavia, the prosperous-looking Maresciallo of Finance, hooking his thumbs in his waistcoat, “you did not forget to do it because you did not know you were supposed to do it. It is something you did not think of doing, and we are very angry with you for not having thought of it.”

  The others all laughed again, and Major Joppolo began to suspect that they were in a rather gay mood, and that they had put on the glum faces to fool him. But he did not show his suspicion.

  He said: “Tell me what it is. I am sorry to have made you angry.

  Signora Carmelina Spinnato bounced over to his desk and looked gravely at his profile, and then bounced around front and set up a frame with her thumbs and forefingers and looked through it at his full face. “Which do you think it should be?” she asked the others. “From the side or from the front?” Major Joppolo had never imagined that Signora Carmelina Spinnato could be playful, but she looked as if she were trying to be now, bouncing around with that look of mock gravity on her face.

  “From the back!” shrilled D’Arpa the vice mayor. All laughed again.

  Major Joppolo said: “Stop laughing at me. You can laugh at me behind my back, but this is my office, not here.”

  Old Bellanca said: “We are not laughing at you. This is something which is important for Adano.”

  “Then tell me what it is.”

  “You will forgive me,” old Bellanca said, “for giving you orders, Mister Major, but you are to go to the house at Number Twenty-three, Via Favemi, and there you are to climb to the second floor and ask for a man named Spataforo. He will tell you what to do.”

  “He certainly will,” Gargano said, and all of them laughed.

  “You will find this man Spataforo somewhat opinionated,” old Bellanca said.

  “Some people call him rude,” Signora Carmelina Spinnato said, and all laughed.

  “You must not mind him,” old Bellanca said. “Just do as he tells you.”

  The Major said: “I do not like all this mystery, but I’ll go. What was the address again?”

  “Number Twenty-three, Via Favemi,” old Bellanca said. “Go to the second floor, look for Spataforo, and forgive him his manners.”

  Major Joppolo took down the address and the name. “When must I go?” he asked.

  “At your convenience, Mister Major,” old Bellanca said.

  And the officials of the town of Adano trooped out of the Major’s office, looking like so many bad children.

  The Major did not wish to seem too curious, so he waited until after lunch to go to Number Twenty-three, Via Favemi.

  He found that the house at Number Twenty-three, Via Favemi, was just another three-storey grey stone house like all the others. By the front door there was a box-like frame with a glass cover. Inside the frame there were about five portrait photographs of that quaint style with the background touched away so that the heads seemed to float in small private clouds. The frame evidently leaked, for streaks of rain and grey dust had run down the pictures. One of the pictures seemed to be of Tina when she had dark hair.

  The Major tried the door and found it unlocked. He went up some stairs to the second floor where he found a door in a serious state of disrepair. It sagged from its hinges and one of the panels gaped and was warped. He knocked.

  There was no answer, so he knocked again. There was no answer the second time, so he went in.

  Through a dark little entrance hall he went into a large room. It was an old photographic studio, in utter ruin, it seemed.

  In the middle of the room there was a huge, woodframed portrait camera, covered with dust, and beside it a high four-legged stool. Between the stool and the box-like camera there was a spider’s web, laden with dust and the carcasses of flies and moths. At the end of the room which the camera faced there was an iron and wood bench, like an old park bench, and behind the bench there hung a faded backdrop, an out-of-scale painting of St. Peter’s Square in Rome. A pile of dusty wooden film packs lay on the floor, and in one corner there was a heap of cuttings of developed film.

  The last thing he saw in the room looked as if it were made of cobwebs and old clothes. It was a man.

  He was lying on the floor under a window. Major Joppolo hurried over, because he thought he was dead. But when the Major got near, the corpse spoke: “Go away,” it said. “If you want to look at your own face, look in a mirror.”

  Major Joppolo said: “I was told to come here and to look for a man named Spataforo. Are you Spataforo?” The man said: “Spataforo is my name.”

  The Major said: “They said you would tell me what to do.”

  Spataforo said: “Oh Lord in Heaven, deliver me from vain people... Go and sit on the bench.”

  Major Joppolo went over to the bench, leaned over and blew away the dust from a spot big enough to sit on. He sat down.

  Spataforo still did not get up from the floor. He said: “You are like all the others. You can look at the faces of thousands of your countrymen, but you think your face is more beautiful than all the others. You want to take your face and put it in a frame and put it on a shelf and stare at it. You are disgusting.”

  Major Joppolo said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If there is something you wish to do, do it. I do not have all day.”

  The old man began slowly to get up. His knees cracked as he moved them. “Vain and in a hurry,” he said. “What is your hurry, vain man? Can’t you wait for your image to be made?”

  Spataforo moved slowly over to the stool beside the camera. He sat on it, being careful not to disturb the spider’s web.

  “I have been in this business a long time,” Spataforo said. “Eighty years, ninety years, a hundred years, I don’t know how long. Manufacturing faces, so that people can stare at themselves. What do you think of that as a life’s work? Bah!”

  The old man got down from the stool and went and stood in front of the Major. “What a facel” he said. “What an ugly thing a man isl”

  Major Joppolo was not disproportionately fond of his face, but he did trim his mustache once every three days, he did pull the hairs out of his nose once every fortnight, he kept his hair cut regularly, he washed; he kept care of his face and, without being immodest, thought that it was not too bad. So when the old man called him ugly, the Major said: “Old man, if the idea is that you are to take my picture, do so and stop insulting me. I am a Major in the American Army. I was sent here by some people of this town. I suppose they sent me to have my picture taken. Please take it if you are going to.”

  The old man said: “So you are an American. I did not know the Americans were so ugly. I thought they were taller and whiter.”

  Slowly the old man went around behind his camera. He took a cloth which had once been black but now was grey with dust from the top of the camera, and he bent over and put the cloth over his head and the camera, and he peered into the camera.

  His muffled voice came out from under the cloth. “Even upside down you are ugly. Usually I like faces much better upside down, but not yours. You are ugly right side up and upside down. Too puffy in the cheeks. The lips are too full. Nothing that can be repaired by turning you upside down.”

  Finally the old man came out from under the cloth. He went around the spider web and sat on the stool again. He reached for the shutter bulb and sat there with it in his hand.

  “See how the ugly young man tries to make himself beautiful for the photographl” he said. “Look at him lick his lips, so they will be moist and shinel Look at him try to make his eyes look bright by opening them a little wider than usual, so that they look like marbles to play withl Look at him fix his face in half a s
mile, which is frozen and falsel” The old man laughed a creaking, dusty laugh.

  Major Joppolo did not dare speak his annoyance, for fear the old man would squeeze the shutter bulb, so he sat there getting redder and more and more frozen looking.

  Spataforo said: “It is a funny thing: men are more vain than women. Women are said to look at themselves in mirrors all the time, and comb their hair, and paint themselves. But it is the men who are really vain. Look at you! Roosted Peacockl You think you are so handsome.”

  At last the old man squeezed the bulb.

  The Major was so relieved that he did not say any of the things he had thought a few seconds before. He just sat waiting for the old man to change the film and take another.

  But the old man said: “What are you waiting for, ugly young man? Do you want to put half a dozen pictures of yourself on your mantelpiece?”

  The Major said: “Photographers usually take two or three pictures, to be sure of getting one good one.” Spataforo said: “Not this photographer. After you have been in this hateful business for so many years you cannot count them, you do not have to practice on each sitter. No, that is all, thank the Lord in Heaven.” Major Joppolo did not waste any time in leaving. Back at the Palazzo, he met Bellanca the Mayor and D’Arpa the Vice Mayor in the upstairs hallway.

  “I have been to see your friend at Number Twentythree, Via Favemi,” the Major said, and he was just able to smile.

  Bellanca said: “Did he tell you that you are ugly?”

  “He certainly did.”

  D’Arpa made motions of cranking at the side of his head, and Bellanca said: “He tells everyone the same thing. He even tells the most beautiful girls in town, like Tomasino’s daughter Francesca, that they are ugly and vain. He is crazy.”

  The Major transferred his annoyance from Spataforo to old Bellanca -for citing Francesca instead of Tina as an example of beauty. He said: “What in the world did you send me to the old crack-brain for? What do you want the picture for?”

  “You will see,” old Bellanca said. “It will be the nicest picture you have ever seen.”

  Bellanca looked at D’Arpa. D’Arpa looked at old Bellanca. The two of them laughed delightedly.

  Chapter 27

  TACTFULLY Major Joppolo left the project of the raising of the motor ship Anzio entirely in Lieutenant Livingston’s hands.

  The Lieutenant made fine headway. By the twentyfirst, he had acquired the use of the floating drydock. By the twenty-fourth, the Anzio was up. By the twentyseventh, gangs were ready to go to work unloading her.

  At ten forty-five on the morning of the twenty-seventh the foreman had just finished making his speech of instructions to the workmen. There were about forty men. Some of them were good men and some were not so good. Things were going so busily in Adano that the labor supply was getting pretty low. Some of the men in these gangs were from out of town, and even the lazy Fatta was here, at work for the first time in years.

  When the foreman finished his speech, he told the men that there would be a wait of about fifteen minutes before the donkey engines had enough steam to start hoisting the cargo.

  Among the laborers there was one stranger to Adano who seemed above the average. He was a handsome man, and he did not have the pouches under his eyes which are usual among heavy lifters. He spoke good city Italian, too. He had a likable smile, and persuasive ways.

  When the foreman was finished speaking, the stranger engaged four men in conversation. One of the four was the lazy Fatta.

  “Did you hear the news?” the stranger said. “News about what?” one of the four said.

  “About the German counterattack. I am uneasy this morning, because of what I heard.”

  “What did you hear?” one of the four said.

  “This sounds like the real thing. It started on the twenty-third, and it’s apparently reaching its peak this morning. The Germans are trying to throw the Americans into the sea.”

  Fatta was not too lazy to wish to seem impressive. “Oh, I heard about that,” he said.

  One of the others from Adano, who knew that Fatta. never knew anything, turned on him and said: “Where did you hear that, lazy Fatta?”

  Fatta said: “Let me think. Oh yes, it was Mayor Nasta, before he was sent away. He said that the Germans would begin their attack on the twenty-third and that they planned to throw the Americans in the sea between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-eighth.”

  One of the Adano men said: “Mayor Nasta was a liar. The Americans sent him to Africa.”

  The stranger said: “Maybe the Americans sent him away because they knew that what he said was true, and they didn’t want him spreading fear in the town.”

  Fatta, who was too lazy to think it through, said: “Yes, that may be so.”

  But one of the others said: “How would the Americans know of the German plans?”

  The stranger said: “They have spies. They have agents.”

  Fatta said impressively: “It is possible. I heard about the attack several days ago.”

  The stranger said: “You said between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-eighth? Today is the twenty-seventh. That checks with my information. Today is the big day, I guess.”

  One of the men of Adano said: “What do you think will happen?”

  The stranger said: “Well, that’s what makes me uneasy. I’d rather not talk about it.”

  One of the men said: “Why not?” Another said: “Tell us.”

  The stranger said: “No, it would not be fair to you, or to the Americans either. I would rather be uneasy by myself.” This stranger was a clever man, as you can see.

  One of the men said: “We are uneasy now. Fatta has made us that way, and so have you. We would rather be uneasy about something specific. Tell us what you have heard.”

  “No,” the stranger said, “it is too terrible.” The men insisted: “Tell us, tell us.”

  The stranger, who was clever, and who had spotted the lazy Fatta as a fool and a potential rumor-monger, said: “Well, I will tell this man” - indicating Fatta - “Since he had heard the news previously.”

  He took Fatta aside. The others saw the man whisper to Fatta, and they saw Fatta’s face go pale. Then they saw the stranger leave Fatta and move off into the crowd of workmen.

  Fatta came over to them directly. He blurted out at once: “The Germans are going to put on an attack on the harbor of Adano at eleven o’clock - poison gas. It will come from a single plane.”

  In a very few moments the crowd of men had begun to stir uneasily, and the rumor moved among them like a vapor: “Poison gas at eleven o’clock,... Gas at eleven... Gas, eleven, a plane... Gas, eleven... Gas... Gas... Gas...”

  By two minutes before eleven, the simple Italian workmen were full of fear. At that time the foreman shouted out that all should be ready to go to work at short notice: the donkey engines were warmed up: the men should split into gangs as instructed.

  The men divided themselves, and whenever two who had not been talking together met, one would say: “Have you heard... ?” and the other would nod.

  Eleven o’clock passed. At three minutes after eleven, just as the men were moving toward the Anzio, to take their various stations, the drone of a plane could be heard.

  This plane was the regular courier, which was due to pass over Adano each morning at eleven o’clock - as any enemy agent could easily ascertain, and as any Italian laborer could easily forget. It was a few minutes late this morning.

  As the plane flew over Adano harbor, keeping about a thousand feet above the barrage balloons, all the workmen beside the Anzio looked up at it. The stranger strolled over to Fatta and murmured: “That is it.”

  Fatta passed the word along. The crowd literally seemed to shudder.

  Some asked each other: “What shall we do?”

  Others said: “The harbor is the target. We are right in the middle of the target.”

  Others said: “Does gas drop in bombs? Or does it just spray on us?” />
  The stranger, who had apparently had some experience in this kind of thing, waited for the exact moment when fear reached a kind of climax among the men. Then he threw up his arms and screamed: “I can smell it. Oh Christ Jesus, I can smell it.”

  And he turned and ran toward the town.

  The panic of the workmen was immediate. They all ran. The lazy Fatta ran for the first time since 1932, when his wife Carmelina implored him for the love of God to run for the midwife.

  Someone screamed: “Into the waterl Save yourselves!” And about eight men jumped into the sea. Two of them could not swim and had to be rescued.

  The lazy Fatta found himself running beside a strong young man named Zingone.

  “What shall we do?” Zingone said fearfully.

  The lazy Fatta said: “Let us not run quite so fast. We must save our strength, we might have to run a long way.”

  So they slowed down a little.

  “What do you think we ought to do?” Zingone asked again.

  Fatta saw someone up ahead who had covered his face with his handkerchief, so he said: `Tut your handkerchief over your face. That will keep the gas out.”

  So both of them clapped handkerchiefs over their faces.

  “Did you smell it?” Zingone asked through his handkerchief.

  “Oh, yes,” Fatta said importantly, “I smelled it plainly.”

  “What did it smell like?” Zingone asked as they ran. “It smelled a little like the smoke from the Cacopardo Sulphur refinery.”

  Zingone was silent for about thirty feet, then he said: “Are you sure it wasn’t smoke from the Cacopardo Sulphur refinery?”

  “It was poison gas,” Fatta gasped.

  Fatta was gasping from running, but Zingone, who was in good condition and not yet gasping, thought he was choking from the gas.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Fatta.

  Fatta said: “I think we should not run quite so fast. I understand that gas affect’s one’s endurance. Let us save our strength.”

  So they slowed down to a trot.

  Their route took them past Fatta’s house. Carmelina his wife had been attracted out of doors by the sound of the first fleet-footed workmen running past. She had shouted to later ones to ask what the trouble was. They had shouted back through their handkerchiefs about the gas. But Carmelina was a skeptic, and she did not believe what they said - until something changed her mind.