“You bastard!” he said between his teeth, as he shot it off.
The wall of the rectory was stained with blood, and after a piercing howl, Thunder lay motionless on the ground. The city slicker got into his car and drove off at top speed. Don Camillo did not notice his departure or the fact that Peppone had followed him on his motorcycle. He knelt beside the dog, with all his attention fixed upon him. The dog groaned as Don Camillo stroked his head, and then suddenly licked his hand. Then he got up and barked happily.
* * *
After twenty minutes, Peppone returned. He was red in the face and his fists were clenched.
“I caught up with him at Fiumaccio, where he had to stop at the grade crossing. I dragged him out of the car and boxed his ears until his head was as big as a watermelon. He reached for his gun, and I broke it over his back.”
They were in the hall, and now a howl came from farther inside.
“Isn’t he dead yet?” asked Peppone.
“Only his flanks were grazed,” said Don Camillo. “In a week he’ll be livelier than ever.”
Peppone ran a big hand dubiously over his chin.
“Morally speaking,” said Don Camillo, “he killed the dog. When he shot that was his intention. If Saint Anthony deflected his aim, that doesn’t take away from the vileness of the deed. You were wrong to box his ears, because violence is never a good thing. But in any case…”
“In any case… He won’t show his face here again,” said Peppone, “and you have acquired a dog.”
“Half a dog,” specified Don Camillo. “Because I’m morally indebted to you for the money you were ready to lend me. So half the dog is yours.”
Peppone scratched his head.
“What do you know about that!” he exclaimed “An honest priest, and one that doesn’t defraud the people!”
Don Camillo gave him a threatening look.
“Listen, if you bring politics into it, I’ll change my mind and keep the dog to myself!”
“Consider it unsaid!” exclaimed Peppone, who underneath it all was a man and a hunter and cared more for Thunder’s esteem than for that of Marx, Lenin and company. And Thunder, with a bandage around his hips, came barking in to seal the pact of non-aggression.
The Wall
PEOPLE CALLED it Manasca’s Garden, but it was just a quarter of an acre of underbrush, with weeds as tall as poplars, surrounded by a ten-foot wall. A forgotten plot with a hundred and fifty feet of frontage on the square and ninety feet on the tree-lined street leading into it. Because it was the only vacant lot on the square, old Manasca had been offered any amount of money for it, but he had never been willing to sell. For years and years it lay there, just as fallow and uncultivated as its owner, until finally the old man died and it was inherited by his son, together with a pile of thousand-lira notes and other pieces of property here and there on both sides of the river. Young Manasca thought it was a shame not to put the plot to use and finally he went to see the mayor.
“Men are starving because they can’t find work,” he said very directly, “but you proletarians, as you call yourselves, with all your red kerchiefs, are such a filthy bunch that it’s a sin to give you anything to do.”
“Were not as filthy as you fine gentlemen,” Peppone answered peacefully. “The best of you deserves to be strung up on a rope made of the guts of the most miserable of us.”
Young Manasca and Peppone had had a fist-fight every day until they were twenty; as a result they were very good friends and understood one another perfectly. So now Peppone asked what he was driving at.
“If you promise you won’t trip me up with trade-unions, Party, vice-Party, victims of the Resistance movement, social justice, rightful claims, sympathy strikes and all the rest of your revolutionary paraphernalia, I’ll provide work for half the men in the village,” Manasca told him.
Peppone put his fists on his hips.
“Do you want me to help you exploit the worker? To convince him he ought to work for a dish of cornmeal mush and a kick in the pants?”
“I don’t intend to cheat anybody. I’ll pay regular wages and an old-age insurance and give you a barrel of wine in the bargain if you promise me that those stupid fools won’t walk out in the middle of the job and try to blackmail me. It’s a big project, and if it doesn’t come off, I’m a ruined man.”
Peppone told him to lay his cards on the table.
“I propose to throw up a five-story building in the garden,” said Manasca. “Big-city stuff, with a hundred-foot arcade on the square, shops, a café, a restaurant with rooms to rent above it, a garage, a gasoline pump and so on. If all goes well, I’ll let you run the gasoline pump. However much of a nuisance you are, you know how to make things go. With a building like that we’ll make this into an important market center and turn our yokels into sophisticates.”
Peppone had never laid eyes on Paris or London or New York, but he imagined the new building as on the order of theirs. And he could see a red-and-yellow gasoline pump in front of his workshop, with a pump for compressed air as well.
“A complete filling-station needs a hydraulic machine to lift cars up for greasing,” he murmured.
“There’ll be a hydraulic machine and all the other gadgets you can think of,” said Manasca. “But you’ve got to make me a promise.”
“What if I’m not re-elected mayor?” Peppone said, worriedly.
“So much the better! The new mayor will be afraid of you and your gang. And that’s more than you can say for yourself!”
Peppone brought a fist down on his desk.
“That’s a bargain! And I’ll kill the first man that gives you trouble. The future of the village is concerned, and anyone that doesn’t do a good job will get a swift kick. Tell me what you need and I’ll find you the right people.”
“Let’s have a clear understanding,” said Manasca. “You’re not to hire only people from your own party. I want men that are willing to work and have the know-how.”
“That’s right; all men are equal when they’re hungry,” Peppone said sententiously.
And that very evening, with due solemnity he gave the news to his party stalwarts.
“Tell people that while others chatter, we actually do something. We’re building a skyscraper.”
A week later, a crew of wreckers began to tear down the wall. And then it was that trouble began. The wall was a mass of stones and rubble and mortar, at least three hundred years old, which was easy enough to smash, but there was something on the wall that everyone had forgotten. On the street side, just a yard before the corner, there was a niche, with a nasty grating over it to protect a Madonna painted inside.
The Madonna was a thing of no artistic value, painted by some poor devil two or three hundred years before, but everyone knew her; everyone had greeted her a thousand times and stopped to put a flower in the tin can at her feet. And if the wall around her was torn down, the Madonna would fall to pieces. Manasca sent for an expert from the city, one of those fellows who can peel a painting off a wall. But after studying the situation he declared that there was nothing to do.
“If we so much as touch the painting, it will crumble into dust.”
Meanwhile the wreckers were advancing, and when they were a couple of yards away on either side, they stopped. Peppone came to look at the Madonna clinging to the last bit of wall and shook his head.
“Nonsense,” he said. “This isn’t religion; it’s superstition. There’s no intention of hurting anybody’s feelings. For the sake of this painting are we to give up a plan that’s providing work for a lot of people and doing something for the village as well?”
The wreckers were tough fellows, who would just as soon have demolished their own mothers. But there they stood in front of the remaining scrap of wall. Their chief, Bago, spat out a cigarette butt and shook his head.
“I wouldn’t destroy it even on orders from the Pope!” he exclaimed, and the others looked as if they felt about the same way.
“No one said anything about destroying it,” shouted Peppone. “That’s all sentimentality, traditionalism, childishness and so on. There’s only one thing to do, to tear down as much of the wall as possible, then to prop up and protect what’s left, lift it away and put it somewhere else. In Russia they move fifteen-story buildings from one street to another, and no matter how far we may be behind them, we ought to be able to pull off a trick like this one.”
Bago shrugged his shoulders.
“In Russia they may move buildings, but they haven’t any Madonnas to move,” he mumbled.
Brusco took a good look and then threw out his arms in despair.
“There’s a crack at the back of the niche, and it’s a miracle that the whole thing didn’t fall apart years ago. The wall’s made of mud and stones, and if you try to lift a piece of it out you’ll be left with a fistful of sand.”
Peppone strode up and down, and half the village gathered to look on.
“Well then, what have you got to say, all of you?” Peppone snarled. “You can see the situation for yourselves. Are we to stop work or not? Say something, or may God strike you dead!”
But no one seemed to have any answer.
“We’d better go see the priest about it,” was their conclusion.
Peppone jammed his cap down on his head.
“All right. Since the future of the village is at stake, I suppose we’ll have to call upon the priest.”
Don Camillo was transplanting some vegetables in his garden when Peppone and the rest of them looked over the hedge. Manasca explained the problem, and Peppone put the question:
“What shall we do?”
Don Camillo asked for further details and prolonged the discussion. Of course, he already knew what it was all about and only wanted to gain time.
“It’s late now,” he said at last. “We’ll decide tomorrow.”
“In the city I’ve seen any number of churches that have been de-consecrated and taken over by coal merchants or cabinet-makers,” said Peppone. “If a church can be transformed that way, why can’t we do the same thing with a picture painted on a wall?”
“The very fact that you’ve come to consult me shows that there are some difficulties in your minds,” said Don Camillo.
That night the priest could not sleep for worry. But the next morning, when Peppone and his gang appeared before him, he had a solution.
“If you are quite sure in your consciences that there is no way of saving the picture, then go ahead and tear down the wall. It’s for the good of the whole community, and a poor old painted Madonna wouldn’t want to take bread out of men’s mouths and stand in the way of progress. God be with you! But go at it gently.”
“Very well,” said Peppone, touching his cap, and marching off with his men to the square.
When they reached the Madonna he turned and said to Bago:
“You heard what the priest told us, didn’t you? We’re not giving offense to anyone.”
Bago twisted the visor of his cap to one side of his head, spit into his hands and grasped the handle of his pick. He raised the pick in the air, left it suspended there for several minutes, and then said: “Not me! I’ll not be the one to do it.”
Peppone stormed and shouted, but none of the men was willing to deliver the fatal blow. Finally he seized the pick himself and advanced toward the wall. He raised it above his head, but when through the grating he saw the Madonna’s eyes upon him, he threw it down on the ground.
“Devil take it!” he exclaimed. “Why should this be the mayor’s job? What has a mayor to do with the Madonna? The priest ought to be good for something. Let him do it! Everyone to his own trade, I say.”
And he went angrily back to the rectory.
“All done?” Don Cantillo asked him.
“The devil it’s done!” shouted Peppone. “It’s no use.”
“Why?”
“Because the Madonna and saints are your racket. I’ve never called on you to smash a bust of Marx or Lenin, have I?”
“No, but if you want me to, I’d be glad to oblige,” said Don Camillo.
Peppone clenched his fists.
“Do what you see fit,” said Peppone. “But remember that as long as the Madonna’s there, we can’t go on with the work, and you’ll be responsible for the resulting unemployment. I’m a mayor by profession, not a destroyer of Madonnas. And I don’t want to be told that we’re a bunch of sacrilegious Reds, smashing up saints wherever we find them.”
“Very well, then,” said Don Camillo. “The rest of you can go along, while I talk to the mayor.”
When the two men were left alone together, they said nothing for several minutes. Then Don Camillo broke the silence.
“Peppone, it’s no good, I can’t tear it down.”
“Neither can I,” said Peppone. “If you, who specialize in saints, haven’t got the nerve…”
“It’s not a question of nerve,” said Don Camillo. “It’s the way it was with the angel in the bell tower, that for hundreds of years had looked down on the village. The eyes of this Madonna have seen all our beloved dead, they have reflected the hope and despair, the joys and sorrows of centuries past. Do you remember, Peppone, when we came back from the war in 1918? I gave the Madonna flowers, and you gave your tin cup to put them in.”
Peppone grunted, and Don Camillo ran his hand over his chin. Then he threw his coat around him and put on his hat. When they arrived in front of the Madonna, they found half the village waiting there. There was a stranger also, a young man who had come in a car, and from the manner in which Peppone ran to greet him, it was clear that he was a Party bigwig from the city. Now he stepped forward and looked at the Madonna.
“Well,” he said, “if things are the way you tell me and the priest agrees that you can’t give up a project that’s so beneficial to the community and to the working-man, then I’ll be the one to cut through your middle-class sentimentality. I’ll do the job myself.”
He took a pick and started over to the wall. But Don Camillo laid a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.
“It’s not necessary,” he said roughly.
There was a silence, while everyone looked expectantly at the wall. Suddenly the wall quivered and then slowly cracked open. The wall did not fall to the ground, it crumbled into a heap of stones and plaster. On top of the heap, free of the rusty grating and the shadows of the niche in which it had dwelt for so long, stood the Madonna, completely unscathed. Although she had been painted two or three hundred years before, she was as fresh as a rose.
“She can go back to the same place in the new wall,” said Manasca.
“Motion carried by unanimous applause!” shouted Peppone. And he thought of his old army tin cup, with the offering of flowers from Don Camillo.
The Sun Also Rises
ONE AFTERNOON an old woman by the name of Maria Barchini came to confession. Don Camillo listened to her quietly, but toward the end he was startled almost out of his skin to hear her say hesitantly: “Father, I’m going to vote for the Communists.”
He came out of the confessional and said to her:
“Come along over to the rectory.” And when they had sat down in his study, he asked if there were anything wrong with her head. “I thought I’d explained all these things any number of times,” he told her. “Didn’t you understand me?”
“Yes, I understood,” said the old woman. “I’m willing to do whatever penance you prescribe, to fast or make a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary… But I’m voting for the Communists.”
“There’s no use in my wasting breath to explain something you say you already understand,” Don Camillo said brusquely. “If you vote for those people, I can’t give you absolution.”
She spread out her arms in a gesture of resignation. “God will forgive me,” she said, “and I’ll pay whatever the price may be. The main thing is for my boy to come home, a mother must be ready to sacrifice herself for her son.”
Don Camillo
looked at her in bewilderment and asked her what her son had to do with the election.
“Two ladies came from the city the other day,” she explained, “and promised that if I voted for the right candidates my boy would be sent back from Russia. These people are friendly to the Russians, and if they win they’ll bring back the prisoners of war. They took down my name and put it high on their list. And I gave them the boy’s picture. I can understand why you can’t give me absolution, but I still say a mother must sacrifice herself for her child.”
Don Camillo shook his head.
“I see,” he muttered. “But you’ve got to be sure your boy will really come.”
“I had lost all hope until they gave it back to me. When you’re drowning, you know, you’ll clutch at any straw.”
“I see,” said Don Camillo. “But what if the Communists don’t win?”
“Ah well…” the old woman sighed. “I have to do all I can. They put his name at the head of the list. I saw them write it down. And they were respectable people, educated people. They said they knew the way things are, but a mother has to do everything she can for her son. I’ll have to vote for the People’s Front.”
Don Camillo stood up and traced a cross in the air.
“Ego te absolvo,” he said. “Say four Our Fathers, four Hail Marys and four Glorias for penance. And God be praised.”
And when from his window he saw the old woman leave the church, he went to talk to Christ on the altar.
“Lord,” Don Camillo said impetuously, “if a woman is willing to sacrifice herself in the hope of saving her son, Don Camillo has no right to take her hope away. If I had refused her absolution it would have been like saying: ‘You’re willing to make any sacrifice for your boy, but God is against you.’ And that would have been a wicked thing to say for even when hope is based on material things, it’s origin is divine. In Your divine wisdom You know how to turn evil means to a good end, and You chose to speak through sacrilegious mouths in order to restore hope to a mother’s heart. To refuse her absolution would have meant telling her she had no right to hope, and to deny hope means to deny You.”
Don Camillo and his Flock Page 9
