At this point Peppone called his henchmen together.
“Any political party that manages to enroll Renzo will have a big attraction for the masses. Local elections are just round the corner and we need all the votes we can bring in. Renzo has got to join up, cost what it may!”
They discussed the problem far into the night and the next morning, when Renzo was mounting his bicycle to ride to the city, he found Brusco, Bigio, and Smilzo in his way.
“Renzo,” they said, “why don’t you join the Communist Party? We can get you a road-worker’s job and give you a new suit into the bargain.”
“I don’t want to be mixed up with political parties,” said Renzo, and pedalled away.
The comrades saw that there was no point in pressing him too hard, and so Renzo was able to go and buy the Gazzette as usual. But at the Pioppaccia intersection a group of Christian Democrats was lying in wait.
“Renzo,” they said; “you’re a God-fearing man, and you owe it to yourself to join God’s party. If you sign up, we’ll get you a job at a garage and a new suit of clothes.”
But Renzo shook his head.
“I joined God’s Party when I was baptized,” he retorted.
The stakes were high, and there were hard-headed men on both sides. When the Reds made their second attack they had more to offer: the post of road-work inspector, a suit, an overcoat, and a dozen handkerchiefs.
The Christian Democrats were not slow to match them, holding out not only the job at a garage and the suit of clothes, but an overcoat, a raincoat a dozen handkerchiefs, and six pain of stockings as well. This moved Peppone to come forward with a desperate last-minute bid: a brand-new racing cycle. After which, their rivals could propose no less than a motor-scooter.
“Choose any make you like,” they said to Renzo, “and we’ll foot the bill.”
“No,” was Renzo’s reply.
At this point they lost patience and their leader said shrilly:
“What the devil do you want, then? A car?”
“I don’t want anything,” explained Renzo. “I don’t give a hang about political parties. I get round very well on my bicycle, and I don’t need either an overcoat or a raincoat.”
By this time the espionage and counter-espionage departments had had ample time to function. The Reds were acquainted with the Christian Democrats’ tactics, and vice versa. Since Renzo showed no signs of giving in, and all the while television quizzes were becoming more and more popular, Peppone disregarded his position in the Party and fell back on that of mayor. He called representatives of all the democratic parties to a meeting in the town-hall and addressed them as follows:
“My fellow-citizens! When the spiritual and material assets of the community are at stake, partisan politics must take a back seat. We have gathered together out of concern for the general welfare, and I am speaking as one of you. The achievements of the champion from Reggello and the praise given him by his mayor point to the necessity of forming a non-partisan committee to present our candidate for television honours and win for ourselves the same glory.”
These stirring words met with loud applause, and the committee turned out to have five Communist and five Christian Democrat members. They went to work at once and closed their first session with a highly satisfactory order of the day. The next morning they went in a body to Renzo’s house and set forth the situation.
“Renzo, this is no question of politics or political parties. It involves the interests of the whole village, not to mention your own. You must get on the next television quiz. We’ll start the ball rolling, somehow or other, and put you over. Because the good name of the village is at stake, we’ll get you a whole outfit of new clothes, send you to Milan by car and give you some cash besides. That way you can win the prize money and our village will be in the headlines. Besides, the Sport Gazzette is published in Milan and you’ll be able to get it hot off the press.”
But Renzo only shook his head.
“The Gazzette I buy in the nearest city is quite good enough for me. I don’t have to go all the way to Milan.”
“And what about the money? You’re not too high-and-mighty for that, are you?”
“I said I didn’t want to get mixed up in politics, didn’t I?” said Renzo.
“But this isn’t a matter of politics. No one’s asking you to join any party.”
Renzo continued to shake his head.
“Five of you offered me a road-work job, and the other five a job in a garage. I simply don’t trust you.”
The next step was logical enough. Peppone with his five Reds and Piletti with his five Blacks converged upon the rectory. Don Camillo greeted them with considerable perplexity.
“Father,” said Peppone, “I am speaking as first citizen of the village and representative of all the rest. You’re the only man who can convince Renzo that it’s not politics, but a matter concerning the village reputation. He has a good chance of winning the jackpot of the television quiz programme and so he simply must compete for it.”
Don Camillo stared at him with amazement.
“Do you mean to say that you want to put the village idiot on the air?”
“Who else is there?” said Peppone. “You, Father? Do you know when and in what race Girardengo had cramps in his right leg?”
“No, I don’t,” admitted Don Camillo.
“Well, we need a fellow that knows just this kind of thing. And that means Renzo. He may very well win the big prize.”
“What? Renzo win five million liras?”
At this point Piletti, the leader of the Christian Democrats, intervened:
“Father,” he said with some annoyance, “I’m afraid I’ll have to remind you of something you surely know, since it isn’t among the rules of the quiz contest: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.”
“Come, come,” Don Camillo retorted; “I have a distinction to make there. The Gospel doesn’t tell us that the ‘poor in spirit’ are village idiots.”
“This is no time to bicker about trifles,” put in Peppone. “You know perfectly well how things stand, and it’s your job to tell Renzo that politics don’t enter into them.”
Don Camillo threw out his arms and exclaimed:
“May the people’s will be done!”
“Renzo,” the priest said. “If I guarantee that politics has no part in this affair of the television quiz, will you believe me?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And if I give you my word of honour that they want to help you only in order that you may win the big money and put our village in the public eye, will you believe me?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Then accept their offer, and sign up for the quiz.”
“No, Father.”
Don Camillo was frankly puzzled.
“Renzo, you simply don’t want to be quizzed. Tell me why.”
“Because I have my dignity, Father.”
Don Camillo did not insist. He paced up and down the room and then came to stand with outspread legs right in front of his interlocutor.
“Renzo, if you’re giving up all that money, you deserve some recompense. I’ll hire you as bell-ringer.”
Renzo was taken with this idea. What more suitable occupation could he hope to find? He thought it over for five whole minutes and then shook his head.
“I can’t do it, Father. The bells have to be rung in the morning, and that’s when I go to the city to buy the Sport Gazzette.”
“But exactly the same paper is sold here!” shouted Don Camillo.
Renzo laughed.
“No, Father; the city paper is an entirely different thing….”
In matters of stubbornness Don Camillo was something of an expert but in this case all he could do was mutter some semi-biblical phrases about the stiff-necked race of sport fans.
The Carburettor
THE newspapers were still full of the story of the child whose life had been saved by the miracl
e drugs sent by plane from America. Even after the child had recovered they continued to feature the story. According to the Hammer-and-Sickle crowd, it was nothing but a propaganda stunt cooked up by the United States ambassadress.
It all happened in a village on the big river, some twenty miles from the parish of Don Camillo, and so when the dispute was at its hottest Peppone felt he must step in, in order, as he said, “to protect the good reputation of the lower Po valley”. His version of the tale was embroidered with so much fancy that Don Camillo found it necessary to run into him—by sheer chance, of course—under the arcade in front of the café, just as he was holding forth on the whys and wherefores of the miraculous cure. As soon as Peppone saw the priest’s bulky form looming on the horizon he raised his voice to announce:
“Of course, where political propaganda is concerned, anything goes. But there is a limit to everything, and when it comes to exploiting a helpless child, I draw the line. Any family man will understand what I mean, but naturally one that wears a long black skirt and has no hope of having any children can’t be expected to realize…”
The bystanders turned to look at Don Camillo, and feeling their eyes upon him, he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders.
“Mr Mayor,” he said blandly, “if the patient was a child, there was no way of saving an adult, was there?”
“What do you mean by ‘save’?” retorted Peppone. “There was never any real danger.”
“Well, if you’re a medical authority, I’ve nothing more to say.”
“I never claimed to be a medical authority,” said Peppone. “But specialists stated that there was no need to bring the medicine from overseas when it was available in Holland.”
“I’m quite willing to bow to the specialists’ opinion. But there’s one detail which you and the rest of the comrades seem to have overlooked. The baby didn’t need the milk of a contented Dutch cow or the air flailed by a Dutch windmill. He had to have a certain gamma globule which is the exclusive property of the state of Michigan, so why shouldn’t the United States ambassadress send there for it?”
Peppone shook his head and laughed loudly.
“Latinorum latinorum! When they’re at their wit’s end they come out with their latinorum, their alpha and gamma and omega and all the rest, and if you’re not a Latin scholar, you can’t reply.”
“Mr Mayor, gamma is a Greek letter and not a Latin one. And anyhow, scientists rather than priests gave this haemoglobin its name.”
“Very well,” said Peppone, pulling another Soviet propaganda card out of his sleeve, “but what about the Madonna that appeared to the child in a dream? Didn’t the priests think up that one?”
“Mr Mayor,” said Don Camillo, with an expression of astonishment on his face, “the clergy does not interfere with children’s dreams, or with those of adults, either. They dream when and what they please.”
“Listen to this, though,” shouted Peppone. “While the plane commandeered by that platinum fox of an ambassadress was flying over the Atlantic, the sick child did dream. And what did he dream about? The Madonna! In his dream the Madonna carried him to Paradise and introduced Jesus Christ, who said that thanks to the United States and Clare Boothe Luce, the story would be crowned by a happy ending.”
“What was the child to dream, Mr Mayor?” asked Don Camillo, throwing out his arms in resignation. “Was Lenin to carry him off to the Kremlin and Stalin to explain the Five-year Plan?”
Someone in the group laughed and Peppone grew angrier than ever.
“Let’s keep politics out of it!” he exclaimed. “We’d never saddle a child with a dream of this kind. First, because we don’t make propaganda out of children, and second, because we don’t have to resort to fairy stories….”
“… And third, because no one would believe them if you did,” Don Camillo concluded.
“And who believes your fairy stories, may I ask?”
“There are people, quite a few of them, who not only believe in Paradise, but are willing to behave in such a way as to go there, people that live good, quiet lives and trust in Divine Providence.”
Peppone pushed his hat back on his head and placed his hands on his hips.
“Divine Providence, eh? When the medicine came from the U.S.A.! If it had come from Russia, the Reverend here would have said it was a work of the devil!”
“No, Mr Mayor. The Reverend, as you call him, uses his God-given faculty of reason. He’d never say anything quite so stupid, because he knows that Divine Providence knows neither nation nor party.”
“Amen,” muttered Smilzo.
“In any case,” Don Camillo continued, “this time Divine Providence came from the West rather than the East.”
“Then hurrah for America, and down with Russia!” shouted Peppone.
“Hurrah for America, if you insist. But why down with Russia? Russia did no harm in this affair; Russia didn’t prevent the child from getting well. I am quite capable of cool detachment, Mr Mayor, and I’m not afraid to say that this is one instance—perhaps the only one—in which Russia did no damage whatsoever. But, Mr Mayor, instead of yelling Hurrah for America, why not yell Hurrah for Divine Providence, since Divine Providence cured the child?”
Peppone was as red in the face as the October Revolution.
“Why didn’t Divine Providence stop the child from getting sick, in the first place?” he asked.
“Divine Providence didn’t bring about the sickness,” Don Camillo explained. “Sickness is a product of Nature, and Nature is governed, fortunately, by very rigid laws. If we fail to observe them, then trouble is bound to ensue. As a skilled mechanic, you know, Mr Mayor, that a motor runs smoothly just as long as its single parts are in good order. If a carburettor is out of order, is it the fault of Divine Providence or of the dirt that got into it? Everything connected with Matter is in the providence of Nature. There is sickness even in Russia, which was created not by God but by Lenin.”
Peppone had gradually relaxed and at the end of Don Camillo’s little harangue he turned to Smilzo and said with a smile, pronouncing every word slowly:
“Smilzo, apropos of the carburettor, would you ask the Reverend whether when this mechanic gets the dirt out of the carburettor he represents Divine Providence?”
Smilzo looked over at Don Camillo, and asked:
“Has the defendant heard the plaintiff’s demand?”
“Yes,” Don Camillo replied. “The plaintiffs complaint is a weakness of the brain, but at any rate the defendant has heard it. The mechanic doesn’t represent Divine Providence; all he represents is a screwdriver, with a man attached to the handle. All this lies in the realm of the very lowliest kind of matter. Everything happens in accord with natural rather than divine law.”
This reply seemed to give Peppone further satisfaction.
“Let’s put it differently, Father,” he said. “Let’s say that the carburettor isn’t working for lack of a screw. Unfortunately, it’s an American carburettor, and we haven’t the right screw to replace it. What are we to do? Scrap the car? Fortunately the United States ambassadress sends a plane to Washington to get it; the screw is put in and the car moves. We’re still in the realm of matter, because a humble carburettor is the protagonist of our story. But since the new screw comes from the U.S.A. we must shout Hurrah for Divine Providence. If the carburettor comes from the East you reason one way, and if it comes from the West another.”
Peppone’s gang hooted their approval, and Don Camillo let them hoot to their hearts’ content. Then he said:
“My reason works the same way in both directions.”
“Bunk!” shouted Peppone. “If the child’s sickness is the result of natural law, just as the carburettor is broken for lack of a screw, then why is Divine Providence responsible for the American ambassadress’s offer of the missing part, or, in this case, the missing medicine?”
“Because a child isn’t a carburettor, that’s all,” said Don Camillo calmly. “A carburettor can
’t have a child’s faith in God. And this child gave proof of his faith in a spectacular way. The human machine, its disturbances and remedies are material and natural affairs. Faith in God is something quite different, which you, Comrade Carburettor, seem unable to understand. Instead of seeing Divine Providence, you see only the United States ambassadress and the Atlantic Pact. A man without hearing can’t hope to understand music, and one without faith in God can’t fathom the workings of Divine Providence.”
“Well then, this Divine Providence is something for the privileged rather than the needy. If a hundred persons are starving and only seven of them have faith, then God is unjust to send a tin of Spam only to these seven.”
“No, Comrade Mayor, God sends the Spam to the whole lot of them, but only seven possess a tin-opener, with which the rest will have nothing to do.”
Peppone had once more lost his self-possession and was sweating under the collar.
“Father, let’s drop the parable and look at reality. In our country only seven people out of a hundred and seven eat meat, because they believe in Divine Providence and have the tin-openers with which to get at it. Whereas in Russia, where nobody believes in Divine Providence, there are tin-openers for all.”
“But no tins of Spam,” said Don Camillo.
The bystanders laughed at Don Camillo’s thrust and Peppone was beside himself with fury.
“You’re clever at playing with words, Father, and you reduce every argument to a word game. But we have concrete facts for our premises. This whole thing is a political trick, an American propaganda stunt built round an innocent child. None of your big words have proved the contrary.”
“I know,” said Don Camillo, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I’ll never be able to prove a thing to you, not even that two and two make four, because you’ve been taught that they make five. I can tell you this, though. If political propaganda saved a child’s life, then I say Hurrah for political propaganda. If I had a child and his life depended on some Russian medicine, I can assure you that I…”
Don Camillo and the Devil Page 10
