Sergeant Fritz was happy in Milco’s house, and both Milco and his wife treated him like one of the family. He had a happy-go-lucky temperament, and since he was in charge of the commissary department he never came back to the farm empty-handed. The sergeant stayed in Milco’s house until 28 March 1945. On the evening of that day he did not come back, and the next day he was fished out of the Stivone River, near Brugello. But it was plain that he had not drowned, for three bullets from a P-38 had gone clean through his head. In those days the Partisans were very active, and Sergeant Fritz had run into one of their bands.
The twenty-eighth of March after the war was over, a blonde young German woman and her blond baby came to La Torretta. The woman knew about four words of Italian and Milco knew about four words of German, so that they were able to understand one another.
“I am the widow of Sergeant Fritz,” she told him, “and I have come to lay flowers on his tomb.”
Milco took her to the cemetery, and she laid her flowers at the foot of the crude wooden cross on which was written the Sergeant’s life story:
Fritz Hauser
2 March 1925–8 March 1945
Milco and his wife asked the woman and her child to stay with them for a whole week. The woman talked about the dreadful conditions in Germany and the difficulties she had encountered on her trip. But above all she talked about Fritz. She said that Fritz had written her a very moving account of Milco and his family, and that she had come not only to visit his tomb but also to pay a tribute of gratitude to them, in short, to thank them for all they had done for her husband.
“I had to sell every last bit of gold I possessed in order to make the journey,” she told them. “Now I have nothing. But I hope to find a job, so that next year I shall have another money to come see you again.”
She kept her word, and turned up promptly the next year and the one that followed. Punctually, on every twenty-eighth of March, she came with her child to stay for a week at La Torretta. By now everyone in the village knew her and her story. Whenever they met her in the street, they greeted her profusely because, among other things, she was ‘a fine figure of a girl’. She had the generously proportioned sort of beauty which is especially appreciated in the fertile Po valley.
Don Camillo was still perplexed.
“I don’t see what it is that requires such special understanding,” he muttered. “No one can criticize you for letting her stay in your house, even if you’re a widower. After all, you don’t live there alone; you have your son and his policewoman of a wife with you. And your wife—God rest her soul!—was already dead when this German woman came last year. What has happened since then to change the situation?”
Milco hesitated for a moment and then said abruptly:
“I simply don’t want to see her again!”
Don Camillo shrugged his shoulders. “Well, then, why have you come to me? That’s none of my business. If you don’t like her face, just write her a letter and tell her to stay away.”
But Milco had something more on his mind, as was plain to see from the way he twisted his hat in his hands.
“As long as my wife was alive, I could talk things out with her. But now, who is there for me to talk to?”
By now the channel of communication was opened, and Don Camillo had only to let Milco have his say.
“Father, you remember how it was. I was tied up with the Resistance movement, and they had put me in charge of transmitting their radio messages. I had the radio hidden under a barrel in my barn. On that evening of 28 March 1945 Fritz caught me red-handed….”
“Fritz caught you?” stammered Don Camillo.
“Yes. As usual, after we’d finished supper, I said ‘I’m going to have a game of cards with Ronchini.’ And as usual, he said: ‘Good luck to you!’ I went out and started to walk across the fields, but when I reached the beech-tree I stayed there for a quarter of an hour and then retraced my steps. There was a little door at the rear of the barn which I was the only one ever to use. I slipped through it and took out the transmitting apparatus, just as I had done a hundred times before. But this time the worst possible thing happened: Fritz burst in and caught me at it….”
He paused and wiped the perspiration off his forehead.
“A light went on, and there was Fritz standing before me, quite beside himself with rage. ‘Traitor’ he shouted, with his hand on the butt of his pistol. I had my own finger on the trigger of a loaded P-38, which was always in my pocket, and I beat him to the draw…. Cursed war!…”
And he stopped again to wipe his forehead.
“If he hadn’t called me ‘Traitor’, perhaps I wouldn’t have shot him, but the word sounded like a death sentence…. It was dark and rainy outside. I loaded his body on to my shoulders, carried it down to the river, and threw it in. The Stivone was running high and the body was swept a couple of miles downstream, to the place where it was later found. No one had the slightest suspicion. My wife was the only one ever to know, and now she’s dead.”
Don Camillo pondered for several minutes over this story. Finally he muttered:
“What can I say? Am I to call you a patriot or an assassin? Your own conscience must be your guide.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Milco exclaimed. “I can’t look at it from the patriotic angle. Even if I were to get a medal, I’d still consider myself guilty of murdering Fritz. I can’t sleep at night…. The first time that German woman came and started to thank me for all I’d done for her dead husband, I thought I’d go through the floor with shame…. I killed him and she thanks me! And the fatherless child calls me uncle! No, I can’t stand it any longer. I can’t live through fifty-one weeks of the year dreading the fifty-second. I don’t want ever to see her again; I don’t want my stomach to turn over. Father, you can’t imagine what I’ve gone through in the last ten years.”
“Yes, I can imagine,” said Don Camillo. “And I’m glad that you suffered. It shows that your conscience is working.”
“Yes, it is,” said Milco excitedly. “That’s why I came here. I’m not looking for comfort. You can say what you please, but the fact remains that I murdered Fritz. You’ll have to help me shake off that woman. I haven’t the heart to do it, but surely you can tell her the whole story.”
“I?” exclaimed Don Camillo, with wide-open eyes.
“Yes. She’s arriving the day after tomorrow. You must talk to her…. It isn’t right that she should thank me for my kindness and treat me like a friend. I’m taking something that isn’t due. She must be told that I killed her husband, and then she must tell her son. That way she’ll never come back, and my sufferings will be at an end.”
Don Camillo shook his head.
“No, Milco, if you really have a conscience, then you mustn’t seek to evade further suffering. It’s not enough to repent; you must make amends as well. If the sight of this woman makes you suffer, then you must thank God for letting you see her. And why should you wish to hurt her still more? Aren’t you satisfied with having killed her husband?”
Milco waved his arms wildly.
“Of course I don’t want to hurt her!”
“Well, that’s just what you’re going to do. She trusts you and thinks of you as one of the family, and you’d rob her of this last illusion. If her presence gives you pain, so much the better. I’ll say a prayer for you.”
After Milco had gone away, Don Camillo went into the church to pray for him. But it was a very strange prayer.
“Lord,” Don Camillo said to the Christ on the altar, “in this filthy land, there are tens of thousands of persons who killed tens of thousands of others. And they’re not sorry; in fact, they brag about it. They want medals and positions; they want to be deputies to parliament, senators, and publishers; they want their pictures in the school-books of the nation!… Now here’s a poor devil who has suffered ten years just because he killed a man, and we are powerless to help him. We can’t say: ‘Look here, Milco…. When Fritz caught you with the rad
io, he called you a traitor, didn’t he? Well, you could have called him the same thing! While you were in the barn working for the Resistance Movement, your wife, abetted by Sergeant Fritz, was working for Germany … without thought of resistance!’ No, Lord, we can’t tell this to Milco, because his wife revealed it on her death-bed, and a priest can’t violate the secret of the confessional. Lord, You know best, but is it right, I ask you?”
“Yes, it is, Don Camillo,” Christ answered. “The sin of the wife doesn’t cancel the sin of the husband. Each one has to pay….”
March 28 rolled round, and with it came the Germans. As soon as Don Camillo heard of their arrival he hurried out to La Torretta, where Milco greeted him like a long-lost friend. It was a fine, sunny day and while the little boy played in the yard with the dog, his mother, Milco, and Don Camillo went to look at the fields, which were just stirring from their long hibernation.
“You haven’t much colour in your cheeks,” said Don Camillo to the German woman.
“I work at a factory in a big city, where there’s lots of smoke,” she explained.
“That’s no good,” said Don Camillo gravely. “And don’t you have to pinch and scrape all year in order to make this visit?”
“I don’t mind pinching and scraping,” she answered with a smile.
“Why don’t you come and live here, near Fritz?” said Don Camillo. “That would make Fritz happy, I’m sure.”
She stared at him in amazement.
“Don’t you like it here?” Don Camillo asked her.
“Oh, very much! Italy is the most wonderful place! But I have a home and a job….”
Don Camillo waved in the direction of Milco’s house.
“Why not have a home and a job here?”
Don Camillo had no gift for parlour games, and so he came straight to the point:
“You marry him … he marries you … I perform the ceremony … that way everyone will be happy!”
The woman was thirty-seven years old, but she still knew how to blush and proceeded to do so. Milco was forty-two and too old for blushing, but he turned pale. Don Camillo was no matchmaker, and now embarrassment overcame him.
“Very well,” he said. “Think it over. When you’re ready you’ll find me in my office. Guten Abend.”
And with that he went away.
Apparently they did think it over, for three days later Milco came to see him.
“Well, Father, you shall have your way, and we’ll get married.”
“Exactly. It’s your way, too, I trust.”
Milco heaved a sigh.
“Here’s hoping that to have her around all the time won’t give me more pain than ever. If my conscience still hurts me…”
“Let’s get this straight, Milco,” said Don Camillo. “Where Fritz is concerned, things are just the same. You took away his life, and you can’t restore it. That will have to stay on your conscience. But when it comes to the woman and child, it’s a different matter. You deprived her of her husband, but you’re giving her another … and there’ll no longer be a fatherless boy. Don’t mix your accounts!”
“God help me, that’s all I can say!” exclaimed Milco.
“He’s helped you already!” retorted Don Camillo.
Stranded in the Stratosphere
WHEN the carnival came for the mid-May holiday that year, the tents had to be pitched on the grounds that usually served as a livestock market. The whole region was in a political ferment and the left-wingers planned to hold a series of meetings in the village square.
The carnival’s improvised pitch was out of the way, on the outskirts of the village, along the road to Molinetto. But there were two startling new attractions: a big autodrome and a stratospheric merry-go-round. The stratospheric merry-go-round was a cornucopia of steel rods resembling the skeleton of an inverted umbrella. At the top end of every rod, there was a miniature aeroplane, and when the merry-go-round revolved, every rider could raise or lower his vehicle by simply pressing a lever.
The rectory was no more than three or four hundred yards away, and every evening, when Don Camillo retired to his room on the second floor, he looked for half an hour or so out of the window at the revolving merry-go-round before drawing the curtain and going to bed.
There is nothing in the least sinful about riding on a merry-go-round, either on the ground or in the air, but it is an amusement in which a priest cannot indulge. People have eyes to see and not much grey matter for thinking, and the sight of a priest on a merry-go-round would surely rouse them to derision. All this Don Camillo ruefully understood.
The autodrome and the stratospheric merry-go-round were the carnival’s two great money-makers, and late in the evening, when the other attractions had closed down, they continued to draw the crowd. And the merry-go-round stayed open longest of all. Don Camillo did not fail to notice this fact, and one fine evening, after the autodrome had stopped running, he went downstairs and out of the house and walked, in a studiedly indifferent manner, across the alfalfa field behind the rectory. When he had reached the hedge bordering the Molinetto road he stood behind it and bided his time. Across the way, the carnival booths lay in darkness, with only the merry-go-round, in the centre of a small island of light, still turning.
Don Camillo’s plan was eminently simple. As soon as the last load of riders had dismounted and started home to bed, he would come out from behind the hedge and ask the proprietor to let him enjoy a ride. He did not have long to wait before the merry-go-round came to a halt and a group of young fellows got down, leaped on to their motor-scooters, and rode noisily away into the night. Don Camillo stepped across the ditch and walked straight towards his goal. The proprietor of the merry-go-round, who had stepped into the cabin to count his receipts, jumped when the great dark mass appeared before him.
“First priest you’ve ever seen?” asked Don Camillo.
“No, Father, but the first one I’ve ever seen out at this late hour. What can I do for you?”
“I sleep over there,” said Don Camillo, pointing to the rectory, “and you’ve no idea of how your cursed music disturbs me.”
“I’m truly sorry,” said the man, throwing out his arms to signify that there was nothing he could do about it. “But a merry-go-round without music would be a funereal affair. Late in the evening, I turn the volume very low, but after dark the slightest sound seems to be booming.”
“I quite agree,” said Don Camillo. “But after you’ve upset so many of my evenings you ought to be ready to do me a favour.”
“Certainly, Father; anything you say.”
“Then give me a ride on your machine. And I mean right away.”
The proprietor assumed a sincerely regretful air.
“Father, I’ll have to ask you to be patient. I’m waiting for a group that arranged to have a couple of rides all together. There they are now.”
Don Camillo wheeled round with the intention of making his escape, but it was too late. The group was directly behind him, and at its head stood Peppone.
“Our beloved parish priest!” he exclaimed. “Were you expounding the view that it’s a mortal sin to ride on the merry-go-round?”
“No, I was simply saying that the music keeps honest folks from sleeping.”
“Oh, is that it? I thought for a minute that you were the one that couldn’t sleep.”
Smilzo, Bigio, Brusco, Lungo, and Fulmine, in short all the rest of the gang, had paid no attention to the encounter but were gaily clambering into their seats in the planes.
“And what has brought you here, Mr Mayor?” asked Don Camillo in his turn. “Did you come to give your bad boys some wholesome recreation?”
“Come on, Chief!” called out Smilzo from the merry-go-round.
“Go along, Mr Mayor,” said the smiling Don Camillo. “The bad boys are calling. What fun to see such a great hulk of a mayor flying a miniature plane!”
“Not half as much fun as to see a great hulk of a priest like yourself at the same
occupation!” Peppone retorted.
“The fact is, however, that I shall see a flying mayor, but you’re not going to see a flying priest.”
“Well, enjoy the sight while you can,” roared Peppone, striding towards the merry-go-round. “And don’t fail to write a sensational article about it in the scandal sheet with which you plaster the village walls.”
Peppone hoisted himself into a plane while the proprietor prepared to start up the motor, which was inside the cabin.
“Have fun, Father!” repeated Peppone. “Tell all your good little boys and girls that the Communist administration is spending the taxpayers’ money on nocturnal orgies!”
The motor began to run, and out of a loudspeaker came the muted notes of a sprightly march.
“Give her gas, boss!” shouted Peppone, as his plane swung in front of the cabin. “That way the good Father will have a lullaby to put him to sleep.”
“Shut your big trap!” sounded a voice directly behind him, and when Peppone turned round he saw that Don Camillo was in the plane following his.
By now the merry-go-round was turning at full speed and everyone was having a good time. But soon the damp night air got the better of Don Camillo.
“Tell that fellow down there to go a little more slowly,” he shouted to Peppone.
Peppone pressed the lever and his plane dipped down. As it swung past the cabin he started to call out, but the words stuck in his throat.
“What about it?” shouted Don Camillo.
Peppone muttered something unintelligible and pointed to the cabin. Then Don Camillo went down in his turn and caught sight of what had startled Peppone. What he caught sight of was this: three men with handkerchiefs over their faces, all the way up to the eyes, and revolvers in their hands. The proprietor stood facing the wall and the three men were pushing the barrels of their revolvers into his back, while a fourth one of them dipped into the cash-register drawer and transferred handfuls of paper money to a briefcase. Meanwhile the merry-go-round was whirling at full speed, to the customary musical accompaniment.
Don Camillo and the Devil Page 4
