“I said noon, mind you,” he shouted. “That’s the deadline for putting everything in order. I’ll go and see Gisella myself. If you resign, we’ll have to publish an announcement to the effect that you’ve been kicked out for deviationism. I’ve got to settle things in such a way that I won’t be a laughing-stock.”
“Go ahead,” said his wife, “but just don’t try to put over anything on me like what they pulled in Budapest!”
Peppone roared for an answer.
Gisella, the fiery head of the Women’s League, had, with Don Camillo’s accidental assistance, been tinged in red of the deepest hue by the most ferocious of her former adversaries, now her husband. She had turned into a professional politician, which meant that her husband, after working hours, had to do the housekeeping, to cook his meals if he wanted to eat, to make his bed if he wanted to sleep, and to sweep up if he didn’t want the place to be a pigsty. Ever since Gisella had become a big wheel of the Party, the poor fellow had lost all his revolutionary spirit, he confined himself to being a good proletarian husband and let politics strictly alone. Indeed, to talk politics in his presence was like referring to rope in the house of a man who has died on the gallows.
At ten o’clock in the morning Peppone went to the People’s Palace to hold a private meeting with Gisella upon the subject of his wife’s rebellion. But Gisella was at home, ill. In view of the fact that the big rally was to take place at three that afternoon and Gisella was in charge of the women’s participation, she must have been very ill indeed or else nothing in the world would have kept her away from the job. And so Peppone went to the forsaken shack where she and her husband lived and found her in bed, looking anything but well.
“What’s the matter, Comrade?” he asked her.
Gisella only shook her head sadly, for she had not strength enough to speak.
“Arthritis,” said her husband, who had stayed at home to look after her. “The poor girl’s bones are broken.”
To tell the truth, if Gisella had a bad case of broken bones, arthritis wasn’t the reason. It had all happened the previous evening, after supper, a sketchy sort of supper prepared by Gisella’s husband while she worked for the second consecutive day on the speech she was scheduled to deliver at the rally. When the comrade from the city had finished telling the true story of the Hungarian counter-revolution, Gisella was to voice the village women’s acclaim of the peaceful settlement effected by the glorious Soviet army. Naturally, so important a speech couldn’t be improvised from one moment to the next, and by the time Gisella had said everything she had to say, her crude handwriting covered some twenty long pages. At the end of the meagre meal, Gisella’s husband sat down by the fire while she put the finishing touches. When it was all done she had an urge to rehearse it.
“Even if you don’t care a fig for politics,” she said to her husband, “you can tell me whether or not my speech makes sense. Just listen…”
The poor fellow threw out his arms helplessly, and Gisella launched into her oration. When she got to the end she asked him:
“Well, what do you say?”
He tapped his pipe on one of the bricks of the fireplace, then put it back in his mouth and jerking his chair round said brusquely:
“Eat it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked in amazement.
“I said to eat it,” he repeated, pointing to the pad on which the speech was written. Gisella stood with arms akimbo and looked at him with disgust, as if she were about to put him in his place. But before she could open her mouth she received a stunning blow across the face. The blow was painful, but Gisella was even more pained by the fact that the browbeaten little man should have found the nerve to administer it. The worm had turned at last.
“Eat it,” he said again, following up the first blow with a second.
Gisella didn’t understand for some time, but at last it got into her head that if she wanted the blows to let up she would have to eat all twenty pages of her speech and her card of membership in the Women’s League as well. That evening Gisella couldn’t get up the stairs by herself. Alone, she had received enough blows to fell the entire women’s group of the local party. Her rebellious spouse carried her upstairs, as if she had been a sack of potatoes. And that is just about what she was.
Now Peppone told Gisella not to worry. “While you’re recuperating I’ll put a substitute in your place. We’ll wait for you to get well.”
“She’s not going to get well,” said her husband darkly. “It’s a chronic disturbance, isn’t it, Gisella?”
Gisella nodded assent.
“It’s not really a substitute that I’m putting in,” said Peppone. “No one can take your place. The best thing is to disband the group and build it up again on a new foundation.”
“I agree,” said the husband.
“Take good care of yourself, Comrade,” said Peppone, moving towards the door. “The Party needs you.”
“I’ll take care of her, don’t worry,” said the husband. “I need her too.”
When Peppone came home at noon, he found everything in good order. He sat down cheerfully at the table, with a whale of an appetite, as his wife knew very well. But she stood skittishly near the sink, holding the bowl of spaghetti in her hand and ready to repeat the gesture of the day before.
“Well?” she queried at last.
“Everything’s all right. Gisella is ill and I’ve had to disband the group.”
He exhibited a copy of the announcement, and in return was served his portion of hot food.
The rally was scheduled for three o’clock in the afternoon, and by two the square and the road leading to the highway were patrolled by a detachment of police sent from the city. It wasn’t clear what had drawn out so large and aggressive a crowd. The windows of all the houses were shut and the storekeepers had closed their stores, making the village seem quite dead. At a quarter to three Smilzo arrived breathlessly at the house of Peppone.
“Everything’s ready, Chief. The comrades have gathered in the auditorium, and outside all is quiet. The enemy doesn’t dare let himself be seen.”
At that very moment, however, the enemy let himself be heard, for from the church tower the death-knell sounded. Deeply and gloomily it toiled against a background of perfect silence. Peppone listened for a few minutes and then said:
“Go back to your place. I’m going to do something about this.”
“Be careful, Chief,” said Smilzo; “it’s a critical moment.”
“In moments like this we must show that we are not afraid.”
He put on his coat, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and hurried off towards the church.
Up in the bell-tower, Don Camillo was pulling intently at the rope when Peppone’s head appeared at the trap-door, followed by his body.
“Father,” he said, “there’s got to be an end to this provocation.”
“There’s an end to everything,” said Don Camillo. “In human affairs, nothing is eternal.”
“I can’t answer for what may happen.”
“Never mind, Comrade Mayor; I’ll answer for it.”
Peppone looked cautiously out of the window. From this height he had a clear view of the empty square, the police car, and the forces of law and order. It was a grey day, and even without the tolling bell there would have been something infinitely lugubrious and funereal about it. Punctually at three o’clock, the Party speaker’s car, with its police escort, drew up in front of the cinema.
“Comrade, aren’t you going to the rally?” asked Don Camillo, between one sound of the bell and another.
“I want to see for myself exactly how long you’ll go on with this music,” said Peppone, sitting down on the floor.
“For a very long time,” said Don Camillo. “This is no ordinary death; it’s the death of a whole people.”
Peppone sat hunched up in one corner with his hat over his eyes. He was dead tired and soon this gloomy lullaby sent him off to sleep. So it was that
he never heard the true story of the Hungarian counter-revolution.
Togo the Bull
IT was one of those things that usually come out in the tabloid papers. If it didn’t, the reason was that certain ramifications of the affair induced the village people to pretend to have seen and heard nothing.
It was the afternoon of 31 December, and everywhere people were preparing to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. Those who weren’t at home were out going from shop to shop or else just loitering in the square. Children had been dashing madly about all day long, whiling away the hours before the climactic noise-making, with the explosion of an occasional firework.
In the Rotti farmyard there was a big band of boys, letting off crackers in this way, in spite of their elders’ admonitions. But when it was time to lead the animals out of the stable to water, old man Rotti came into the yard and said that if he heard as much as a squeak, he’d give the whole lot of them a beating. The boys quieted down, and the animals enjoyed their drink. But just when Togo reached the trough, an unfortunate cracker rose up from behind the fence, whistled across the yard, and landed on his nose.
Togo was a Carnation-type bull, a Sherman tank of such massive proportions that the very sight of him was intimidating. With a single leap he broke away from the cowherd, smashed the bars of the gate and rushed out on to the road. The Rotti farm was hardly outside the village; fifty yards away the road became a village street, leading in a few hundred feet to the square. And by the time the Rottis had recovered from their surprise and started to pursue him, this was where Togo had arrived, or rather erupted. It was a confused scene, and one of only a few minutes’ duration. Togo started to vent his wrath on a group of hysterical women, who squeezed themselves into the narrow space between a wall and two big trucks, while the sergeant of the Carabinieri appeared from nowhere and stood in the way with a pistol in his hand.
The sergeant’s shot grazed the bull’s side and only intensified his anger. It looked as if both the sergeant and the little group of shrieking women were in danger of being trampled down. Only a volley of machine-gun bullets into Togo’s brain could have stopped him in his mad course. And, just in the nick of time, there was just such a volley. No one knew where it came from, but it hit the target, and the bull collapsed at the sergeant’s feet. He put his pistol back in the holster, took off his cap, and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, looking down all the while at the great carcass of the bull.
People all around him were making a racket, and he women were shrieking just as loudly as if the bull were still charging upon them, but in the sergeant’s ears there rang only the rattle of the machine-gun. The gun was silent now, but he felt sure that he had only to turn round and look up in order to pick out the window from which it had been fired. This was the real reason for his sweating. He knew that he ought to turn and look, but he didn’t have the courage to do so.
The sergeant’s paralysis was broken by a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Good for you, Sergeant!” said Don Camillo. “These people owe you their lives.”
“He’s a very brave fellow,” wheezed an old crone who was standing near by, “but if it hadn’t been for…”
She meant to say “for the fellow who fired the machine-gun,” she never finished the sentence because someone stepped on her foot so hard that she almost fainted away, and a moment later the gathering crowd absorbed her.
“Good for you, Sergeant!” everyone was shouting.
Don Camillo went back to the rectory and waited for the sergeant to turn up. After an hour he did free himself and turn up, as expected.
“Father,” he said, “you’re the only person to whom I can say what’s on my mind. Will you listen to me?”
“That’s why I’m here,” said Don Camillo, seating him in front of the fire.
“Father, did you see exactly what happened?” the sergeant asked him after a few seconds had gone by.
“Yes, I was just coming out of the tobacconist’s, where I had gone to buy some stamps, and I saw the whole thing. I saw you throw yourself in front of the bull and shoot him down.”
The sergeant smiled and shook his head.
“Did you see me shoot at him with a pistol and bring him down with a machine-gun?”
Don Camillo threw out his arms.
“Sergeant, I’m not an arms expert. I know you had a firearm of some sort in your hand, but I couldn’t swear to what it was.”
“Do you mean that you can’t tell the difference between a pistol-shot and the crackle of a machine-gun?”
“It’s not taught in the seminary, Sergeant.”
“But it’s taught at the public schools, I can tell you. And so I can’t help knowing that the animal at which I shot my pistol was milled by a volley from a machine-gun.”
“Sergeant, if you say so, I can’t contradict you. I repeat, that’s not my speciality. The main thing is that the bull was killed before it could gore the life out of you and those poor women who were huddling behind you. I don’t see any point in a discussion of ballistics?”
“Yes, the machine-gun volley did save the lives of quite a few people. The only trouble is that it had to come from a machine-gun.”
Don Camillo shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m no expert, as I’ve said twice before,” he insisted. “But I may say that what you call a ‘machine-gun volley’ might just as easily have come from a shotgun. I don’t see how your higher-ups could find anything wrong with that.”
“If it were just a matter of explaining to the higher-ups, that’s a plausible story,” said the sergeant. “But how am I to justify it to myself? You see, Father, a Carabiniere is never alone; there is always another Carabiniere on watch inside him.”
The Carabiniere touched his breast and Don Camillo smiled.
“If you were dead, would he be dead too?”
“Exactly. But I’m not dead, and the Carabiniere inside me says: ‘Someone in the village has a machine-gun, in perfect working order. This is against the law, so you must proceed against him’.”
Don Camillo lit and puffed at the butt of his cigar.
“There’s no use talking in riddles,” he said. “Say what you have on your mind. If you suspect me, I am at your disposal. You and your double can proceed against me.”
“Father, let’s drop the joking. I know who shot the machine-gun, and so do you, because you saw it.”
“You’ve come to the wrong place,” said Don Camillo harshly, looking him straight in the eyes. “I’m the last person in the world to give out such information. And, if you like, you can summon me for failing to cooperate with the law. I haven’t another Carabiniere inside me, but I have my conscience, and there is a lot that the both of you could learn from that.”
“There’s one thing it couldn’t teach us! A private citizen, who is the local leader of a movement in favour of revolution and mob rule, has no right to own a machine-gun!”
“I don’t care about revolutions and their local leaders,” said Don Camillo. “I only want to tell you that I’m neither a spy nor an informer.”
“You’ve misunderstood me,” said the sergeant, shaking his head. “I only came to ask you how an honest man can report and turn in someone who has just saved a number of lives, including his own. And how can an honest man not report and turn in the owner of a weapon which is a menace to the community?”
Don Camillo was somewhat pacified.
“Sergeant,” he said, “as you’ve just put it, the weapon is the menace, not its owner. There’s been entirely too much melodrama for strictly political reasons, over machine-guns. They’re certainly lethal arms, but not everyone that has one in his possession is a criminal. The owner of a hammer or a kitchen knife may be just as much of a threat to society. When a man has been through the war, his machine-gun may be a sentimental reminder of an honourable past, of days of faith, hope, and self-sacrifice…”
“I see,” the sergeant interrupted. “Just a well-oiled little souve
nir that can fell the biggest bull for miles around!”
“And save the lives of several citizens, including a sergeant of the Carabinieri!”
“Father,” said the sergeant, rising from his chair, “I can look, successfully or unsuccessfully, for the machine-gun’s owner. But I simply must find the gun.”
“You’ll find it,” said Don Camillo, rising in his turn to bid his guest good-bye. “I’ll bring it to you myself.”
Once the sergeant had gone, Don Camillo hurried over to the house of Peppone.
“You did a good job, killing the bull,” he told him. “Now hand over that machine-gun.”
“Are you trying to make me laugh?” asked Peppone.
“Peppone, the sergeant knows that you fired the gun. Even if you saved his life, it’s his duty to report you for the possession of a concealed weapon….”
“The sergeant must be mad. He can’t know anything of the kind. I don’t own a machine-gun, and I never, even in my wildest dreams, killed a bull.”
“Peppone, stop joking. You shot the bull; I saw you with my own eyes.”
“Then go and tell the sergeant. Why come to me?”
“I’m not a spy, I’m a minister of God, and God doesn’t need me to tell Him anything.”
“You’re a minister of the Vatican and the U.S.A.,” Peppone retorted; “that’s why you want to make trouble for honest men.”
Don Camillo had resolved not to let himself be drawn into an argument, and so did not answer, but merely sought to convince Peppone of the gravity of the sergeant’s dilemma. But Peppone jeered at all his supplications.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “All these machine-guns, bulls, and sergeants have nothing to do with me. You’d better knock at some other door. Better luck next time! You might try the parish priest. See if he doesn’t come up with a machine-gun!”
Don Camillo was disconsolate as he left Peppone’s house. From the door he fired his parting shot:
Don Camillo and the Devil Page 12
