Comrade Don Camillo

by Giovanni Guareschi

  Don Camillo gazed earnestly at Peppone.

  “Comrade, when you were mayor you didn’t know any of these things.”

  “Yes, I did. I knew them just as well as I do now, only I wasn’t aware of it. Later I thought them over and crystallized my ideas. It’s just what happened when Jesus Christ was in fashion. Only in the case of Christ it was superstition that bound men together, whereas now it’s reason. The truth was always there, but it took Lenin to light a torch by which all men could see it. That’s why every visitor to Moscow wants more than anything to visit his tomb.”

  “But isn’t there somebody else in there with him?” asked Don Camillo.

  “There is and there isn’t,” said Peppone. “Anyhow, Lenin is the one people come to see. You’ll have a chance to look at him yourself.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Don Camillo, shaking his head.

  “We’re going there shortly, all of us,” said Peppone. “I’ve just been talking over plans with Comrade Oregov.”

  “I have no debt of gratitude to discharge,” said Don Camillo. “I don’t follow the vagaries of fashion, and for me Christ is still the only true Light.”

  “But you have duties, as a cell leader.”

  “My duty as a priest comes first,” said Don Camillo. Pulling a postcard out of his pocket, he set it down on a nearby table and began to write.

  “I hope you’re not up to some more of your tricks,” grumbled Peppone.

  “Isn’t it legitimate for a fellow to have a friend whose address happens to be the Bishopric Square?”

  “Except for the fact that nobody besides the Bishop has that address!”

  Don Camillo held out the card for inspection. “That’s why I’m able to address it to plain Mr. So-and-so, which happens to be the bishop’s name!”

  Peppone glared at the card and gave it back to him.

  “I’m not sticking my nose into your personal affairs.”

  “Nevertheless, if I were you, I’d add my signature.” Don Camillo advised him.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “What if Christ were to come back into fashion?” insinuated Don Camillo.

  Peppone took the card and scribbled his name at the bottom.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said sternly. “It’s only because your bishop happens to be a very lovable man.”

  Don Camillo got up and slipped the card into a mailbox attached to a column in the hall. When he came back he found the whole group gathered together.

  “According to your wishes,” said Comrade Nadia Petrovna, “we’re going to visit the tomb of Lenin.”

  Don Camillo started to go along with the others, but at the door he stumbled and turned his ankle. If Peppone had not braced him with one arm he would have fallen flat on the floor.

  “We’ll send for the hotel doctor,” said Comrade Petrovna. “I trust it’s nothing serious, but you’d better stay here and rest.”

  Don Camillo seemed so very disappointed that Comrade Oregov felt the need to console him.

  “You’ll be able to visit the tomb another time,” he said cheeringly.

  And so Don Camillo hobbled back to his chair. He rubbed his ankle and of course it was immediately restored to normal. With a sigh of relief he pulled out of his pocket the famous book of excerpts from Lenin.

  A half-hour went by, and Don Camillo was so completely absorbed in his thoughts that he forgot that he was Comrade Tarocci. Just at this point a voice said:

  “Father!”

  Don Camillo looked up and then kicked himself for his stupidity. But it was too late to cover it up. In the adjacent chair, which had been vacated by Peppone, sat a thin, dark-haired man about forty-five years old. Don Camillo recognized him at once and spontaneously called him by name.

  “Comassi!” he exclaimed.

  The newcomer held an open copy of Pravda before him and leaned over towards Don Camillo as if he were translating an article on the front page for his benefit.

  “I knew you the minute I saw you,” he explained, “even if you weren’t wearing your cassock.”

  “I wanted to see Moscow,” said Don Camillo, “but I had to wear suitable clothes.”

  “You mean you’re still a priest?” the newcomer muttered.

  “What else could I be?” said Don Camillo.

  “So many people have switched their allegiance…” said the other.

  “My allegiance is of a kind that can’t be switched… But tell me, what are you doing here?”

  “I came with a group of comrades from Prague. That’s where I’m living. We go back tomorrow.”

  “And I suppose you’ll report that I’m a Vatican spy.”

  “Don Camillo, you know me better than that!”

  The Comassis were a good churchgoing family from Castelletto; only young Athos had fallen away. His story was the same as that of many of his contemporaries. On September 8, 1943, when Badoglio signed an armistice with the Allies, he cast off his soldier’s uniform and made for home. Then when he was called up to the army of Mussolini’s short-lived Fascist republic, he took to the hills. He was not seen again until April of 1945, when the Partisans came out of hiding and with them many last-minute recruits who had foresightedly grown long beards in order to appear veterans of the Partisan struggle. Young Comassi wore a red kerchief around his neck and held a position of command. He assumed charge of local operations, which consisted largely of obtaining forced contributions of money from the landowners each one in proportion to the area of his land. Fists flew and many a landowner was lucky to escape with his life.

  Seventy-five-year-old Count Mossoni, together with his seventy-year-old wife, a servant girl and a dog lived quietly in an isolated manor house in the centre of the plain. One morning when their tenant farmer came to deliver a can of milk nobody answered the bell. He walked into the house and found it empty. Only the dog stood in one corner and could not be persuaded to leave it. The farmer called in some neighbours and they found that the dog was standing guard over the rim of an old, indoor well. At the bottom of the well lay the bodies of the count, the countess and the servant girl. Apparently thieves had broken in during the previous night, jemmied open a safe hidden behind a portrait hanging on the second-floor drawing room wall and killed all three human occupants of the house.

  A dozen people had seen young Comassi leave the village by car that evening with a group of young toughs and a strange man who was apparently their leader. Other witnesses had noticed the car going up the Mossoni driveway. The three young toughs had kept watch outside while Comassi and the stranger went in. Twenty minutes later they all drove away together.

  These were dangerous times and no one dared come forward and testify against them. For three years the affair was forgotten. But during the elections of 1948 posters were stuck up in the village telling the whole story of the murder and pointing out what kind of men the Reds were trying to put in power. The three young toughs were able to prove that they hadn’t gone into the house and claimed they had never known the identity of the stranger. As for Comassi, he had once more disappeared. That is, until this moment, when Don Camillo discovered him at his side.

  “What are you doing in Prague?” he asked him.

  “They say I have a good voice, and I make news broadcasts in Italian.”

  “That’s a dirty job,” said Don Camillo. “Does your family know?”

  “No, they don’t. But I’d like them to hear my voice and know that I’m alive.”

  “That wouldn’t make them very happy. They’re better off thinking that you’re dead.”

  “But I want them to know,” Comassi insisted. “That’s my whole purpose in speaking to you. God must have meant to give me this chance.”

  “God! This is a fine time to remember Him! He wasn’t in your thoughts when you murdered those poor old people!”

  Comassi made an abrupt motion as if there were something he felt impelled to say. Then, apparently, he thought better of it.

  “I unde
rstand,” he murmured. “I can’t expect you to believe me. But since you’re a priest, you can’t refuse to hear my confession.”

  The hotel lobby was thronged with people of every race and tongue. Black, brown and yellow faces mingled together and a discordant clamour filled the room. Don Camillo felt as if he were in the jaws of hell, and yet God was there, perhaps more vividly than anywhere else in the world. Christ’s words rang in Don Camillo’s ear: “Knock and it shall be opened unto you…” He made the sign of the cross and Comassi followed his example, cautiously and deliberately, because there were hundreds of watchful eyes around him, beyond the paper curtain of the Pravda.

  “O God of infinite mercy, here at Your feet is the sinner who has offended you … humbly seeking Your pardon … Lord, do not turn me away … do not despise a humble and contrite heart… Cor contritum et humiliatum non despicies…”

  In an almost inaudible voice Comassi repeated the prayer which Don Camillo recalled to him. Then he said what he had to say, and the words came from his heart, although he seemed to be reading them from the newspaper.

  “We went in and threatened them with a gun. At first they wouldn’t reveal the hiding place, but finally they did. The leader told me to go up to the drawing-room on the second floor and take the money while he kept an eye on them. When I came back he was all alone. He took the money, saying that it would all go to the Cause… Then, just before the election, when the posters told the story, they helped me to get away…”

  “Why didn’t you protest your innocence?”

  “I couldn’t. He was a higher-up of the Party…”

  “Then why don’t you come forward now?”

  “I can’t. It would be even worse now than then. The Party would be involved in a scandal.”

  “You mean to say that you still respect the Party?”

  “No, but I’m afraid. If I said anything they’d liquidate me.”

  “But what is the leader’s name?”

  The name was one so much in the news that Don Camillo could hardly believe it.

  “Nobody must find out what I have told you, but I want my father and mother to know that I’m not a murderer. That much you can tell them. And I want them to listen to my radio broadcasts, not on account of what I say but simply in order to hear my voice. That way I can feel that I’m still alive, and not just a dead man crying in the wilderness…”

  He pulled a sealed envelope out of his pocket and surreptitiously transferred it to the pocket of Don Camillo.

  “Here’s the whole story, with my signature. You mustn’t open the envelope, but you can tell that man that it is in your possession and that I want to go home…”

  Comassi was very pale and his voice trembled.

  “Ego te absolvo…” said Don Camillo.

  Comassi seemed to have recovered his peace of mind. He folded the newspaper and handed it to Don Camillo.

  “You can keep it as a souvenir,” he said. “You’ve never heard a confession in a stranger place than this… Forget what I said to you about the letter; I should never have said it. There’s nothing to be done, really… I’ve passed the point of no return.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Comrade,” said Don Camillo. “God still has an outpost in Prague: He’s better organized than you may think. Meanwhile I’ll see to it that your father and mother listen to your broadcasts, not on account of what you say, but simply in order to hear your voice.”

  Comassi got up.

  “God!” he said. “Who could have imagined that someone would speak to me of God in a place like this?”

  “God has outposts everywhere, Comrade,” said Don Camillo, “even in Moscow. God’s organization is very old, but it’s still working.”

  Comrade Nadia’s Coffee

  “Comrade, I’m in trouble,” said Scamoggia.

  “Everyone has to stew in his own juice,” replied Don Camillo.

  “It’s not my own trouble,” Scamoggia explained; “it’s somebody else’s. Only it’s been passed on to me and my duty is to pass it on to my immediate superior. Then you’ll report it to the chief and he’ll report it to the echelon above him. Isn’t that the correct official procedure?”

  Don Camillo, wearied by the Babylonian tumult of the lobby, had gone upstairs and thrown himself down on his bed.

  “If it’s an official matter, yes,” he said, pulling himself into an upright position. “Sit down and tell me more about it.”

  Scamoggia shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’ll give you the story,” he said. “and you can decide for yourself how official it is. Do you know Comrade Gibetti?”

  “Of course,” said Don Camillo.

  Actually he knew only what he had read in Peppone’s files. Gibetti was a Tuscan, forty years old, an electrical engineer, an active Partisan, well grounded in Party ideology. He had had no occasion to size the fellow up at first hand, because, like the Sicilian Li Friddi and the Sardinian Curullu, Gibetti was close-mouthed and never revealed what he was thinking.

  “I like him,” said Scamoggia. “He’s tough, like myself. And as a Partisan he risked his life without flinching.”

  “I know that,” said Don Camillo.

  “Did you know that during the war he fought here in Russia, somewhere near Stalino?”

  “In view of his subsequent Partisan record, that’s not to be counted against him.”

  “I agree, Comrade; it shouldn’t matter, but in his case it does.”

  “Why so?”

  “During the war he was only twenty-three years old. In spite of instructions he had an urge to fraternize with the enemy. And when the enemy happens to be a stunning seventeen-year old girl, you can see that the fraternizing might go too far. It did, but then came the retreat, and it was all over.”

  Don Camillo threw out his arms.

  “It’s not a pretty story,” he said, “but in war such things are bound to happen. In every country there are girls who got themselves into trouble with foreign soldiers.”

  “Yes,” admitted Scamoggia, “but it’s unusual to find a soldier who goes on thinking of an enemy girl for seventeen years after the war is over. And that’s Gibetti’s story.” He puffed at his cigarette and then went on: “He told me all about it. Originally he wanted to take the girl home. He dressed her up in an army uniform and with the help of his comrades started to carry out this plan. Then his unit was encircled by the Russians and because he was afraid she might be shot he sent her away. He gave her all the tins of rations that he could get out of his friends and told her to hide out in an abandoned isba, where he promised to pick her up again if they escaped from the Russians’ clutches. ‘But if we’re killed or captured,’ he said, ‘wait until it’s all over and then go home. You can say that the Italians carried you away’.

  “The battle lasted three days, and at the end the Russians had to beat a retreat for fear of being encircled in their turn. Gibetti returned to the isba, but she was no longer there. He went back to Italy with the thought of her still haunting his mind. After the armistice he took to the mountains as a Partisan, but he still hadn’t forgotten her. At the end of the war he joined the Party, but even that was no help to him in retracing the girl. All he could do was send letters to her by any Party comrade who went to Russia. Either the letters never got mailed or else they didn’t reach their destination; in any case he had no reply. Finally, seventeen years later, he found a chance to come to Russia himself, and at this particularly favourable time when the tension between the two countries is relaxed.

  “On our original programme we were to visit Stalino, and the girl supposedly lives close by. But there has been a change of plans, and he doesn’t know what to do. That’s why he told me the story. ‘You’re on good terms with Comrade Nadia Petrovna,’ he said. ‘See if you can’t do something for me. I’m willing to stay here, if necessary; I’d do anything to find that girl’.

  “I told him to leave it to me and trust my discretion. Then I went to Comrade Nadia. She’s a wom
an with a head on her shoulders and the first thing she said was that she must look into the girl’s present situation. I gave her the name and address and she wrote to a friend of hers who holds down an important post in Stalino.”

  Scamoggia paused and took a typewritten sheet from his pocket.

  “Here’s the reply,” he said.

  Don Camillo turned the paper over in his hands.

  “This doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I don’t know Russian.”

  “Here’s Comrade Nadia’s Italian translation,” said Scamoggia, handing him another sheet of paper.

  The letter was brief. It said that a Soviet mechanized unit had found the girl, clad in an Italian army coat, at an isba near the enemy lines. She claimed that the Italians had brought her there after they had withdrawn from the village of K., against her will, but that she had finally escaped them. She was taken back to K., handed over to the village authorities, accused of collaboration with the enemy and executed on the spot.

  “But I can’t tell this to Gibetti,” Scamoggia concluded. “If you think he ought to be told, go ahead and tell him. If you don’t, remember that he’s dead set on staying here because he thinks he can find her. It’s too much for me, and I’m washing my hands of it.”

  And he strode out of the room leaving Don Camillo alone. The Soviet Union has more than its share of devils and one of them began tugging Don Camillo’s cassock, the cassock which he still wore in spirit beneath his disguise. The devil whispered: “Go ahead, Don Camillo! Here’s your chance to sink Gibetti!” But Don Camillo booted him away. A moment later Peppone came through the door and Don Camillo grabbed his arm.

  “After all, you do outrank me,” he said, shoving the papers into his hand. “I’m putting this little affair right in your lap.”

  Then since the papers alone were not sufficient to make his point he proceeded to furnish a full explanation. Peppone turned around to lock the door and then gave vent to his feelings.

  “The élite!” he shouted. “Ten hand-picked men! And what do we see? Rondella made trouble from the start and had to be sent home. Scamoggia came with bottles of perfume in his pocket and the idea of playing Don Juan, and Capece went and set himself up as his rival. Bacciga’s purpose was to deal on the black market, Tavan’s to light a candle on his brother’s grave. Peratto said he was going to take pictures for the Party paper and on the side he’s selling others to the capitalist press—he thinks he’s put it over on me but I know perfectly well what he’s up to. And now Gibetti, who seemed to be beyond reproach, is contributing to the confusion! Is it possible that not a single man came to see the Soviet Union? Has every one of them got some personal motive up his sleeve?”