“The high-tension station!” Don Camillo suddenly yelled, watching the parachute’s stays swerve towards the electrical wires. However, if there’s a God who takes care of fools, then the whole blessed Trinity must look after parachutists, because the flying bundle hurtled over the wires.
“That fellow’s going to wind up in the Po!” Venom shouted soon afterwards.
Instead he wound up in a field at the foot of the embankment and the great white umbrella sagged down to the still green grass. Venom flew down from the embankment along a tiny dirt road, crossed a threshing-floor at full speed, scattering a flock of chickens, and finally found a tractor trail leading into the field. They found the skydiver wallowing in the moist grass; the little man had freed himself from the parachute harness and was now attempting to take off his helmet.
Suddenly sparkling in the sun, there were Flora’s red locks. Don Camillo covered the few remaining steps in kangaroo-like bounds.
“How can it be that you never do anything sane?” Don Camillo shouted.
Flora lit a cigarette and answered very sarcastically, “This is not a sport for country priests or rural hoodlums.”
“And what makes it one for you?” Don Camillo snarled.
“If my father did it, why shouldn’t I?”
“Your father did it because it was wartime and war makes totally insane demands of men!” said Don Camillo.
“My father did it because he wasn’t chicken like some people. And anybody who’s not chicken is all right, soldier or not.”
The men from the landing field had arrived, and they were obviously quite upset at the whole scene, so Flora reassured them: “Don’t worry, the only real mess-up is this visit from my reverend uncle the priest, with his altar-boy in tow. You know how it goes, bad luck comes in threes.”
“You’re quite wrong,” said Don Camillo. “The only real mess-up was the fact that your parachute opened at all.”
Venom was frothing at the mouth and only found his tongue after he’d dropped Don Camillo off at the rectory. “I’ll show that snot-nosed brat just what kind of altar boy I am!” Venom snarled, and there was so much venom in his voice that even Don Camillo was a little worried.
Venom disappeared that day. It was only much later that Don Camillo heard Peppone speak of him—though actually, Don Camillo took the initiative to ask Peppone what had become of Venom, and Peppone answered: “Only your God knows what’s become of him! First, he refused to go into the Army and was all set to take a beating. Now, all of a sudden he’s off a month ahead of time, going through fiendish machinations to get into paratroop training. You got that? Paratroop training? The idiots who throw themselves out of planes and fall to earth using flimsy pieces of cloth? Now I ask you, what in God’s name goes on inside these kids’ minds?”
“What can I tell you,” Don Camillo sighed. “Today’s young people are a complicated lot.”
“It’s completely insane,” Peppone exclaimed. “Naturally he doesn’t care how much sleep we lose worrying about what might happen to him jumping out of planes hoping his parachute’s going to open.”
“Actually the worst danger isn’t that,” Don Camillo murmured.
St. Michael had Four Wings
The state of affairs in the bell-ringer’s house hadn’t changed, but Don Camillo felt uneasy. Habit makes us see things the way they no longer are, but the subconscious warns us of change. A certain relationship between volumes, solids and voids, light and shade had been thrown out of kilter and the rearrangement immediately registered in the subconscious. Don Camillo looked around the room for the fourth time. Finally he discovered that the ancient miniature of St. John the Baptist was gone. Desolina said she knew nothing about it, and after a search in vain, Don Camillo decided that the picture had been stolen and said, “I’m going to report the theft to the police.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t do it,” Flora said as she came into the bell-ringer’s house. He leather coat was glistening from her long ride through the fog.
“And why not?”
“Because the picture’s right here,” Flora answered, taking the St. John out of the bag she was carrying and hanging it up on its nail. “I took it to an appraiser in the city. He was prepared to hand over five sacks of gold for it—he offered half a million lire for it.”
“I’m not interested,” Don Camillo snapped. “It was given to me twenty years ago by my old bishop, and it’s dearer than my eyes to me. Why should I sell it?”
“To avoid gossip,” Flora said, calm and saucy. “Look at it this way. The very reverend parish priest has his niece come round to be ‘re-educated,’ and what happens but the poor dear gets herself knocked up. Seeing as I can’t go back to my saintly mother in this condition, unless I want her to have a stroke, I thought I’d go far far away, find work, and serve up the brat myself. Naturally this requires loot. That is, provided you don’t want me going to town and working as a call-girl.”
“The only thing I truly, sincerely want you to do is be struck down by God!” Don Camillo roared, horrified beyond his wildest imagination. “I didn’t believe even you could stoop so low.”
“Having a child has nothing to do with stooping low.”
“You impossible monster, didn’t you think what you were doing to your mother?” Don Camillo shouted.
“Not at all. At the time I was thinking about what Venom was doing to me.”
“Venom! But you couldn’t stand the sight of him!”
“The fact is, I didn’t have to look at him, as it was two in the morning.”
Her immodesty implored the vengeance of God, and Don Camillo clenched his fists. “There’s no way out of it. This time I’m breaking all your bones.”
“Would you dare strike a woman in this condition?” Flora huffed indignantly. “Ah, but you’ve never been a mother and don’t know what it feels like.”
Don Camillo was a man of quick decisions. He fled at a run from the girl’s temerity, and once in the garden, he opened the curtains from the outside, and through the thick bars of the window he said, “Keep clear of this window because if you come within arm’s length, I’ll strangle you. Now, answer me: was it really that rapist who got you in trouble?”
Flora sat down in front of the fireplace and, lighting a cigarette, puffed on it calmly. “I’m in no trouble, dear Uncle. The one who’s in trouble is you. And there are no rapists involved. It’s obvious that if I hadn’t wanted to, Venom wouldn’t—”
“Venom!” Don Camillo thundered, rattling at the bars. “That delinquent is going to have to answer for his deeds. There will have to be a wedding immediately!”
The girl sneered. “Oh, really, dear Uncle, suddenly we’re back in the Middle Ages, when to save the honour of the family, girls of fourteen were forced to get married? Then to go on endlessly bringing brats into the world like rabbits, after that to set themselves up in the middle of the town square or in the doorways of the streets with tin cups just because, according to them, society owes them room and board? Is this your Catholic morality? How can a marriage between two stupid kids be considered a sacrament? Is this respect for the Institution of the Family? It’s a hundred times more immoral for two kids with no sense of responsibility to get married than to let two hundred unwed mothers run around loose. It’s just because I respect my family and marriage that I will not marry a screwed-up idiot like Venom. Redemption by marriage indeed! To heal a wound, you cut out a heart. My God, how can one take you people seriously? To drive a pitiful two-horsepower Fiat, you’ve got to pass a ten-page exam and get a license, but to get married and present the world with a herd of kids, something a thousand times more important, more serious, and dangerous for society, all you have to do is say ‘Yes’ in front of some good-for-nothing fat priest!”
Plastered against the window grille, Don Camillo was going through torture, sweating furiously, seething with rage. “I’m going to have you locked up in a girl’s home,” he spat.
“As of yesterday
, I’m legally an adult, holy, holy Uncle. And now nobody’s going to tell me what to do.”
Don Camillo tried the iron bars with his teeth, and then shouted, “Take the damn picture and sell it, and then go straight to hell!”
Flora put out her cigarette on the floor, stood up, took the picture, put it back in the bag, and made for the door. “Okay, Uncle, see you,” she said. “If it’s a boy, you can bet I’ll call it Camillo.”
* * *
Peppone’s wife had made up her mind; she wanted a mink. Not an opera diva’s mink, you understand, but just a little stole that didn’t cost more than a million lire. Peppone had set his nose against it.
“Imagine it. They’re already accusing me of going bourgeois, and now you want me to buy you a mink!”
“Now look, we don’t live in China, and there are no Red Guards here.”
“Now you look, we do live in this town, and there are a thousand cranks here, each one of whom would give his eye teeth to say I’d eaten the people’s money and gotten rich off their blood, sweat, and tears.”
“That’s nonsense. The store is yours and you paid for it with your money, not to mention mine.”
“Maria! Can’t you understand that if I go out into the square and make speeches about the sufferings of the people and then go out and buy you a mink stole, that disqualifies me?”
“Stop making speeches about the sufferings of the people. They couldn’t be suffering less and they’re driving around in cars, et cetera. And whether or not anybody’s suffering has nothing to do with whether or not I have a mink coat instead of a wool coat.”
Just then somebody knocked and Peppone had a chance to catch his breath. His wife went to the door and came back, followed by Flora.
“Mister Mayor,” said Flora, “I’d like some information.”
“Go over to the town hall and ask for the community secretary,” Peppone answered.
“I can’t,” said Flora. “The father of the child isn’t the community secretary’s son, he’s the son of the Mayor.”
Peppone looked at her, open-mouthed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Not at all. According to the obstetrician, I am expecting a child.”
“Well, go and wait for it as far away from here as possible,” Peppone’s wife shouted fiercely.
“I’d be delighted,” Flora came back calmly. “Seeing as my uncle has thrown me out and seeing as the father of the child—that is, Venom—is in the Army, I’ll go over to the Town Hall and wait for it on the steps.”
“I cannot for a moment imagine that my son Michele had relations of that sort with you!” Peppone stated curtly.
“It’s not quite so difficult for me to imagine,” Flora snapped. “And in a few months it will be a little less difficult for you to imagine, too.”
Peppone’s wife was rabid. “These things you can talk over with my son. Now get out of here!” she screamed.
“Just a minute, Maria,” Peppone intervened. “This one has no morals, and she wouldn’t think anything of involving us in a scandal.”
“Exactly what my uncle said, and he put up half a million lire to get me out from underfoot.”
“You blackmailer!” Peppone’s wife howled. “That’s what you’re up to, taking advantage of my husband’s position to soak us! You think you can force my son to marry you!”
“Marry?” Flora sneered. “Does it look like a pretty girl with a lot on the ball would stoop to marry an idiot like your son?”
Peppone rushed to prevent his wife from throttling Flora and said, “Well, if it’s not marriage you’re after, may I ask just what it is you want?”
“I’d like to leave here, find a two-room flat, have the child, and raise him by myself. I haven’t the slightest intention of bringing a family of foundlings sired by your son into this world. I have my dignity, self-respect, and principles to think about.”
“Listen to her!” Peppone’s wife wailed. “She talks about dignity and principles after what she did!”
Flora had sat down and lighted a cigarette. “Quite so, signora,” she answered smiling. “I did with your son exactly what you did with your husband. That is, unless your eldest son was a medical phenomenon born in four months. The difference between us is that I won’t humiliate myself to whine and howl, or threaten to throw myself under a train if somebody doesn’t marry me!”
“I never once threatened to throw myself under a train!” the woman protested.
“That’s true,” Peppone admitted. “She only threatened to throw herself into the Po. Now, girl, will you tell us what you think you can squeeze out of us?”
“I don’t want to squeeze anything out of you. All I want is an honest job.”
“Job? I don’t have any jobs to give you.”
“Mister Mayor, my reverend uncle’s money has allowed me to buy a nice pickup truck and to rent two fine rooms at the Rochetta. I’d like to go around door to door selling your goods, and on every piece sold, you would give me a commission.”
“But why don’t you apply to the manufacturers for a dealer’s license?”
“I’ve tried that, but everywhere they want me to put up a certain sort of personal collateral which I do not want any part of. And please understand, it will appear as if I am competing against you, not working for you.”
The girl’s perfidy had no bounds. She had overheard Peppone’s argument with his wife from the porch, and scurrilously took advantage of it.
“Don’t be astonished, Mister Mayor. I know people. People get more pleasure from other people’s misfortune than they do from their own good luck. The peasant gloats when his neighbour’s harvest is poor. In church, it’s the same: many people behave piously not for the pleasure of going to heaven but for the pleasure of knowing how many others will go to hell. The same goes for politics. Your proletarians who have nothing fight not to better their own situation but to worsen the situations of people who have a great deal. Now why, Mister Mayor, given that we can’t count on the goodness and intelligence of our neighbours, don’t we also take advantage of their badness and stupidity? And why, instead of sending your wife around the countryside looking like a washerwoman, don’t you buy her a fine mink coat and a fat, sparkling diamond ring? Mobs of people would begin to hate you, and instead of buying your goods, they’d buy from me. And we’d both have a thriving business.”
“If I were you, I try it,” Peppone’s wife advised. “This hellion has as many tricks up her sleeve as the devil himself.” An optimistic and erroneous statement, for Flora had at least two more than the devil.
* * *
Flora, lovelier, more perfidious and flamboyant than ever, launched her ship and inundated the region with washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, television sets, transistor radios, and similar merchandise.
The people, who weren’t aware of the enormous volume of business the clandestine subsidiary was doing, were delighted to see less and less people frequenting Peppone’s emporium. And when they saw his wife Maria sporting a mink stole and a flashy diamond ring, they sniggered with anticipation of the moment when she would have to pawn the ring and stole to stop the leak from the store.
After four months, Flora had acquired an immense clientele and everything was moving along swimmingly, when suddenly out of the blue, Venom came home on a weekend pass.
He returned theatrically, the way things are done there in the operatic nation. Peppone was speaking from the podium in the town square, denouncing the Vietnamese War and American military barbarism. He was wrapped up in what he was saying, and his diction was clear and pure as if it had been engraved by Bodini. But suddenly he saw something that left him with his jaw hanging. There in the first row was Venom, in the uniform of the paratroopers. He seemed at least seven feet tall and Peppone maintained that all he lacked was two wings on his shoulders and a sword in his hand to be the Archangel St. Michael.
Vietnam suddenly didn’t matter, the United States even less, and he cut it short: “An
d so let’s end today by giving three cheers for Liberty: Hooray for Liberty! Hooray for Liberty! Hooray for Liberty!”
Peppone’s wife lacked her husband’s control and decided that Venom actually did have two wings on his shoulder and a sword in his hand and there was no question in her mind that he was Saint Michael the Archangel. She even detected a little gold halo around her son’s brow. And naturally she burst into tears and said the only thing she should not have said. “Oh, Michele, what are you going to do with that poor dear Flora? If only you knew how brave she’s been and how hard she’s worked.”
Venom said he didn’t know a thing about it and his mother explained that the girl was expecting a child and that he shouldn’t go around distributing his flesh and blood the world over.
Venom jumped on his motorcycle and jetted over to the Rochetta. He found the poor dear girl on the avenue, and there was a light fog which imparted the atmosphere of a fable to the scene.
Flora was driving her pickup full of electrical appliances when Venom cut her off. She went white and gripped the steering wheel tightly as she could. She tried to catch her breath, the poor dear—it’s no everyday occurrence, running across Saint Michael in the street like that, complete with two wings, a halo, and a flaming sword in his hand.
“H-home on leave?” Flora stammered, trying to make small talk.
“Yes. They tell me you’re expecting a child by me.”
“Funny, I heard the same thing,” Flora admitted. “But actually I’m not expecting anybody’s child.”
“That’s good,” Saint Michael said, flashing his sword threateningly. “Still, I don’t understand what made you tell your uncle and my parents anything of the sort, particularly since there’s never been anything at all between us.”
Flora decided that Saint Michael’s wings weren’t that overpowering and his sword wasn’t flaming, and readjusted to her former self. “Even I have a right to a place in the sun, don’t I?” she answered. “I had to find something to do. Otherwise, how could I have squeezed the money out of my uncle and gotten your father to give me a job? Or do you think you’re the only one with a right to live?”“
Don Camillo meets Hell’s Angels Page 10
