“Then you’re a donkey,” Don Camillo said calmly, continuing his walk. He had got grease up his nose, but he was proud of it.
* * *
This incident was a trifling matter, but it put Peppone in a very bad humor. That evening, when he had gathered his stalwarts together in the People’s Palace, he shouted that something must be done to show the indignation of the masses over the signing of the infamous Atlantic Pact.
“We must take over and occupy some important place,” he exclaimed in conclusion. “It’s got to be a spectacular protest.”
“Chief,” said Smilzo, “we already occupy the People’s Palace and the town hall. Our children occupy the school and our dead the cemetery. All that’s left for us to occupy is the church.”
“Thanks!” said Peppone. “And if we occupy it, what do we do next? Say Masses to compete with those of the Vatican? No, we must occupy a place that will benefit the whole people. Brusco, do you get what I mean?”
Brusco caught on at once.
“Good,” he said. “When do we start moving?”
“Right away. Before midnight all our people must be put on the alert. They must move in waves, beginning at two o’clock, and by five the whole Island must be ours.”
* * *
Just at the village the river broadened to such an extent that it seemed like a patch of sea, and there lay the place known as the Island. It was not an island, really, but a strip of land fifty feet offshore running parallel, for about half a mile, to the mainland and attached to it at the lower end by a spit or tongue of muddy earth almost submerged by water. The Island was not cultivated but was given over to a grove of poplars. That is, the poplars grow of their own accord and every now and then the owner, Signor Bresca, came to mark with a knife those which were to be cut down and sold.
Peppone and his followers had said for some time that this was a typical example of abandoned and neglected private property and that it ought to be turned over to the workers for development as a cooperative farm. Its occupation had been put off from one day to another, but now the time had come.
“We’ll oppose the ‘Atlantic Pact’ with a ‘Polar Pact’ of our own!” Peppone exclaimed on the evening of this historical decision.
It seems that, in spite of appearances, the word “Polar” in this case was derived from the river Po. It was a strictly local and proletarian term, with no reactionary Latin pedigree. Surely it was time to do away with Julius Caesar, and the ancient Romans, who together with the clergy used Latin to pull the wool over the people’s eyes. At least this was Peppone’s answer to someone who objected on etymological grounds to his idea of giving a Party newspaper the name of “The Polar Call.”
“The days of etymology are over,” Peppone told him. “Every word is making a fresh start.”
In any case, the “Polar Pact” was put into action, and at seven o’clock the next morning Don Camillo was warned that Peppone and his men had occupied the Island. The “men” were actually for the most part women but, be that as it may, they were cutting down poplars as fast as they could, one after another. One tree, higher than the rest, had been plucked like a chicken neck and now served as a pole from which the Red Flag fluttered happily in the April breeze.
“There’s going to be trouble,” the messenger told Don Camillo. “Someone’s called for special police from city. Peppone has started to cut the connecting spit of land and says he’ll hold out there indefinitely. If you don’t do something there’s no telling where the trouble will end.”
Don Camillo pulled on a pair of rough twill trousers, rubber boots and a hunter’s jacket, for he knew that the Island was a sea of mud.
* * *
Peppone was on the spot, standing with his legs far apart, directing the cutting of the channel. At first he failed to recognize Don Camillo; then he pretended not to; but in the end he couldn’t help bursting out with:
“Did you disguise yourself so as to spy on the enemy’s camp?”
Don Camillo came down from the river path, plunged halfway up his legs into the mud, crossed the channel and arrived in front of Peppone.
“Drop all that, Peppone,” he pleaded; “the police are on their way from the city.”
“Let them come!” Peppone answered. “If they want to get over here, they’ll have to borrow the United States Navy!”
“Peppone, it’s only fifteen yards from the shore to the Island, and bullets can travel.”
“It’s only fifteen yards from the Island to the shore, for that matter,” said Peppone somberly, “and we have bullets too.”
Peppone was really in a bad fix, and Don Camillo knew it.
“Listen,” he said, pulling him to one side, “you have a right to be a fool and behave like one if you want to. But you have no right to involve these other poor devils in your folly. If you want to be sent up to the penitentiary, stand your ground and shoot. But you can’t compel the rest of them to be sent up with you.”
Peppone thought for a minute or two and then shouted: “The others can do as they please I’m not forcing anybody. Those who want to stick it out can stay.”
The men who were digging the channel stopped and leaned on their shovels. They could hear a roar of motors from the main road.
“The jeeps of the special police,” Don Camillo said in a loud voice. And the men looked at Peppone.
“Do as you please,” Peppone muttered. “Democracy allows every man to follow his own will. And here on the Island we have democracy!”
Just then Smilzo and the other Comrades arrived upon the scene. Smilzo shot a curious glance at Don Camillo.
“Is the Vatican sticking its nose into things again?” he asked. “You’d better make yourself scarce, Father; it’s going to be hot around here.”
“Heat doesn’t bother me,” Don Camillo answered.
A cloud of dust rose from the road.
“They’re here,” said the shovelers. With which they threw down their shovels and made their way ashore. Peppone looked at them with scorn.
There were six jeeps in all, and the police lieutenant stood up and called out to the men who were hacking at the underbrush on the Island: “Move on!”
They went on hacking and the lieutenant turned to one of his aides.
“Perhaps they didn’t hear,” he said. “Play some music!”
His aide fired a volley of shots into the air, and the Islanders raised their heads.
“Get moving!” the lieutenant shouted.
Peppone and his henchmen grouped themselves at one end of the channel. Some of the men who had been working behind them crossed over. When they reached the shore they scattered to right and left, skirting the jeeps that were in their way. About a dozen die-hards continued to cut down the underbrush. Peppone and his men fell into line, forming a wall along the canal, and stood there with folded arms, waiting.
“Move on! Vacate!” came a shout from the bank.
No one budged, and the police got out of their jeeps and started down the river bank.
The veins of Peppone’s neck were swollen and his jaw was set. “The first one to lay hands on me will get strangled,” he said darkly.
Don Camillo was still there beside him, forming part of the living wall.
“For the love of God, Peppone,” he murmured, “don’t do anything rash.”
“What are you doing here?” Peppone asked him, startled.
“Doing my duty. I’m here to remind you that you’re a thinking being and therefore have got to think things out clearly. Come on, lets go!”
“Go ahead! I’ve never run away in my life, and I never will.”
“But this is the law!”
“It’s your law, not mine. Go on and obey it.”
The police were down beside the river, just across from the Island.
“Vacate!” they shouted.
Don Camillo tugged at Peppone’s sleeve.
“Let’s go!”
“I won’t move out of here alive. And the fi
rst one to lay hands on me gets his skull cracked!”
The police repeated their injunction and then began walking through the mud. When they came up against the wall of men they repeated it again, but no one moved or gave any answer.
A sergeant grabbed hold of Peppone’s jacket and would have come to a very bad end if Don Camillo hadn’t pinned Peppone’s arms down from behind.
“Let go!” he muttered between his clenched teeth.
Don Camillo had on the same sort of trousers and boots and jacket as the rest, and when the police started laying about them he got one of the first blows and was sorely tempted to let Peppone go, and to pitch some of the attackers into the water. Instead, he took it without batting an eyelash. More blows fell on his head and on those of Smilzo and the others. But no one said a word. They held on to each other and took it in silence. Finally, they had to be hauled away like rocks, but none of them had opened his mouth or moved a finger in revolt.
“They’re crazy in this village,” the lieutenant mumbled. By now the Island was empty, because the few men who were left had escaped in boats. The police got into their jeeps and drove away.
Don Camillo, Peppone, and the others sat silently on the shore, gazing into the water and at the Red Flag waving from the plucked poplar.
“Father, you’ve got a bump as big as a walnut on your forehead,” said Smilzo.
“You don’t need to tell me,” said Don Camillo. “I can feel it.”
They got up and went back to the village, and that was the end of the “Polar Pact.”
The Petition
DON CAMILLO was walking quietly along the Low Road toward the village, smoking his usual cigar when, just around a curve, he came upon Peppone’s gang. There were five of them, and Smilzo was in charge. Don Camillo looked at them with frank curiosity.
“Are you planning to bump me off?” he asked them. “Or have you some better place in mind?”
“Don’t you dare incite us to violence!” said Smilzo, taking a sheet of paper out of an envelope and unfolding it before him.
“Is this for the last wishes of the condemned man?”
“It’s for everyone that wants peace to sign,” said Smilzo. “If you don’t sign, then you don’t want peace. From now on, honest men and warmongers are going to be clearly divided.”
Don Camillo examined the dove printed at the top of the paper.
“I’m an honest man,” he said, “but I’m not signing. A man that wants peace doesn’t have to testify to it with his signature.”
Smilzo turned to Gigo, who was standing beside him. “He thinks this is a political move,” he said. “According to him, everything we do is tied up with politics.”
“Look, there’s no politics in this,” put in Gigo. “It’s just a question of preserving peace. Peace is good for all political parties. It will take a lot of signatures to get us out of the Atlantic Pact, and if we don’t get out, it’s going to get us into a war, as sure as shooting.”
Don Camillo shook the ashes off the end of his cigar. “You’d better get going,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken, you haven’t even started.”
“Of course not. We wanted you to have the honor of being the first name on the list. That’s only natural. When peace is at stake, the clergy ought to take the lead.”
Don Camillo threw out his arms. “It can be taken for granted that the clergy’s in favor of peace, so it’s just as if my signature were there.”
“Then you’re not going to sign?”
Don Camillo shook his head and walked away.
“If we’re saddled with a clergy of this kind, then we’ll have to fight not one war but two,” Smilzo said bitterly, putting the paper back in the envelope.
A little later, Peppone arrived at the rectory door.
“No politics involved,” he declared. “I’m here in the capacities of mayor, citizen, father of a family, Christian, and honest man.”
“Too many people!” exclaimed Don Camillo. “Too big a crowd! Come in just as Peppone, and leave the rest outside.”
Peppone came in and sat down.
“We’ve come to the ragged edge,” he began. “If honest men don’t stick together, the world’s headed for a smash-up.”
“Sorry to hear it,” Don Camillo answered seriously. “Is there anything new?”
“Only that if we don’t safeguard peace, everything’s going to pieces. Let’s leave politics and parties out of it and all get together.”
Don Camillo nodded. “That’s the way I like to hear you talk,” he said. “It’s about time you cut loose from that brood of Satan.”
“I said we’d leave politics out of it,” retorted Peppone, “This is a time for thinking in worldwide terms.”
Don Camillo looked at him with astonishment, for he had never heard him mouth such big words.
“Do you want peace or don’t you?” asked Peppone. “Are you with Jesus Christ or against Him?”
“You know the answer.”
Out of his pocket Peppone took the envelope and paper Don Camillo had seen earlier in the day.
“When it comes to fighting for peace, the clergy must be in the front line,” he asserted.
Don Camillo shook his head. “You’re changing the rules of the game. Didn’t you say politics wasn’t in it?”
“I’m here as a plain citizen,” Peppone insisted.
“Very well then, as one citizen to another, I tell you I’m not biting.” And as Peppone started to rise excitedly to his feet, he added: “You know very well that if I sign your paper, a lot of other signatures will follow. Without me, you can only hope for those of your own people, and a lot of them can’t write their own names. Since you see that I’m not to be taken in, put that pigeon back in your pocket and hand me two glasses from the sideboard. Otherwise, you and your pigeon and your cause of peace may as well all go back where you came from.”
Peppone tucked the paper away.
“Since you’re giving yourself such airs,” he said proudly, “I’ll show you that I can get all the signatures I want without yours as an attraction.”
Smilzo and the rest of the “peace gang” were waiting outside.
“Start making the rounds,” said Peppone. “But go to our people last. Everyone’s got to sign. Peace must be defended, with blows, if necessary.”
“Chief, if I go to jail, what will happen?” Smilzo asked him.
“Nothing will happen. A man can servo the cause perfectly well in jail.”
These words were not exactly comforting. But Smilzo set out, with the gang at his heels, strengthened by some reënforcements from the People’s Palace.
Now when people have haystacks and vineyards and fields, it’s almost impossible for them to say no to a fellow who asks them to sign up for peace and swears politics doesn’t enter into it. And in a village the first five or six signatures are what count. It took several evenings to cover the whole area. But there were no arguments except from Tonini, who shook his head when they showed him the paper.
“Don’t you want peace?”
“No,” said Tonini, who was a fellow with hands as big as shovels. “I happen to like war. It kills off a lot of rascals and clears the air.”
Here Smilzo made a very sensible observation.
“But you know, of course, that more honest men are killed off than rascals.”
“But I care even less for honest men.”
“And what if you get killed yourself?”
“I’d rather be killed than sign a paper. At least, when you die, you know where you’re going.”
The gang started to come forward, but Tonini picked up his shotgun, and Smilzo said he needn’t bother.
Everything else went smoothly, and when Peppone saw the sheets full of signatures, he was so happy that he brought his fist down on the table hard enough to make the People’s Palace tremble. He compared the peace list with the village census and found that they tallied. The mayors of the neighboring villages complained that they cou
ldn’t get people to sign because the reactionaries obstructed them. There had been shooting at Castellina and fisticuffs at Fossa for a whole day. And to think that Smilzo, after taking an hour to persuade each of the first five or six signatories, had won over the rest without a murmur.
“It’s the prestige I enjoy as mayor,” said Peppone, and he gathered together the papers and went to savor his triumph.
Don Camillo was reading a book when Peppone appeared before him.
“The power of the clergy is on the decline!” Peppone announced to him. “I thank you in the name of the world’s democracies for not having signed. Your signature wouldn’t have brought in half as many others. It’s too bad for the Pope, that’s all.” And he added, spreading his papers out on the table, “America’s done for! The Atlantic Pact is no good, because we have a totality of votes against it. And everywhere else it’s going to be the same way.”
Don Camillo scrutinized the lists carefully. Then he threw out his arms. “I’m sorry to tell you, but one signature is missing. Tonini’s. So you can’t claim a totality.”
Peppone laughed.
“I have all the rest,” he said. “What’s one against eight hundred?”
Don Camillo opened a drawer, took out some papers, and scattered them in front of Peppone.
“You have signatures against the Pact and I have signatures in its favor.”
Peppone opened his eyes wide.
“Russia’s done for,” said Don Camillo. “Because I have Tonini’s signature along with the rest.”
Peppone scratched his head.
“There’s nothing so remarkable about it,” Don Camillo pointed out. “I worked by day, and your men went around by night, when people were already softened up. As a matter of fact, they were glad to sign for you, because that cancelled their signing for me. The only one who didn’t like it was Tonini, because I had to knock his head against a wall. But I advise you not to go after him, because he says that before he’ll sign another petition he’ll shoot to kill.”
Peppone took his papers away. And so it was that in Don Camillo’s village, America triumphed by one to zero, all on account of Tonini.
Don Camillo and his Flock Page 5
