“There’s only one thing to do,” he exclaimed. “I’ll have to go away.”
“Just forget about the whole thing,” his wife begged him, in an attempt to bring him back to reason. “Let them seize and sell whatever they like. There’s a curse on the whole business. We still have the old house and the old workshop. Let’s start all over again.”
“No!” Peppone shouted wildly. “I can’t go back to the old place. That would be too humiliating. I must go away, that’s all. You can say that I’ve gone to the mountains on account of my health, and meanwhile I’ll try to think up a solution. I can’t concentrate in these surroundings, and there’s no one to advise me. I’m not breaking off for good; I’ll leave everything as it is. If things continue to go badly, they’ll blame it on my poor health. But I can’t bear to take a step backward and give satisfaction to my enemies.”
“Whatever you say,” his wife conceded.
“I still have my lorry,” said Peppone. “That’s something. I don’t know where I’ll go, but you’ll be hearing from me. Don’t breathe a word to a soul, even if they kill you.”
At two o’clock in the morning, Peppone started up the lorry and drove away. No one actually saw him, but he was the subject, even at this late hour of many conversations.
“His creditors have jumped on him just because he’s sick,” some people were saying.
“That illness of his is just an excuse to cover up his crimes,” said others.
“He’s a coward.”
“Serves him right!”
“The main thing is for him to get well and come back to his job as mayor.”
“If he has any decency, he ought to resign.”
Peppone’s name was on hundreds of mouths, and all the while he was hurrying away in his old lorry, pursued by the “complex of bourgeois respectability”, whose influence is felt in every class, including the proletariat.
The days went by and after the news of the seizure came an announcement of a public auction of Peppone’s new tools and machinery.
“Lord,” said Don Camillo, pointing to the newspaper, “here’s proof that God does exist!”
“You’re telling Me!” Christ answered.
Don Camillo lowered his head. “Forgive my stupidity,” he murmured.
“The stupid things you say are entirely forgivable. I know how that tongue of yours is always getting you in trouble. But what worries Me is your way of thinking. God doesn’t care about seizures and auctions. Peppone’s bad luck has nothing to do with his demerits any more than a rascal’s rapid rise to riches has anything righteous about it.”
“Lord, he has blasphemed Your Name, and ought to be punished. All the decent people of the village are sure that it’s because he refused to have the house blessed that he ran into difficulty.”
Christ sighed. “And what would these decent people say if Peppone had prospered? That it was because he turned down the blessing?”
Don Camillo threw out his arms impatiently.
“Lord, I’m only telling you what I hear. People—”
“‘People?’ What does that mean? ‘People’ as a whole are never going to get into Heaven. God judges ‘people’ individually and not in the mass. There are no ‘group’ sins, but only personal ones, and there is no collective soul. Every man’s birth and death is a personal affair, and God gives each one of us separate consideration. It’s all wrong for a man to let his personal conscience be swallowed up by collective responsibility.”
Don Camillo lowered his head. “But, Lord, public opinion has some value….”
“I know that, Don Camillo. Public opinion nailed Me to the Cross.”
* * *
On the day of the public auction, a flock of vultures arrived from the city. They were so efficiently organized that for a mere pittance they divided up and carried away the worldly goods of Peppone. Don Camillo was somewhat depressed when he came back from the sale.
“What are people saying, Don Camillo?” Christ asked him. “Are they happy?”
“No,” Don Camillo answered; “they say it’s too bad that a man should be ruined because he’s ill and far away and can’t defend himself.”
“Be honest with me, Don Camillo, and tell me what people are actually saying.”
Don Camillo threw out his arms. “They’re saying that if God really existed, such things wouldn’t happen.”
Christ smiled.
“From the ‘Hosannas!’ of the acclaiming crowd to the same crowd’s cry of: ‘Crucify him!’ there isn’t so very far to go. Do you see that, now, Don Camillo?”
That same evening there was a stormy meeting of the village council. Spiletti, the only councillor belonging to the Opposition, raised the subject of the mayor.
“For two months we’ve had no news of him. He’s lost all interest in the village and even in his own private affairs. Where is he, and what’s he doing? On behalf of a large number of my fellow-citizens, I demand a definite answer.”
Brusco, who was serving as deputy mayor, got up to reply.
“I shall give you a detailed answer tomorrow.”
“I’m not inquiring into any top secret, am I?” objected Spiletti. “I demand an answer right away. Where is the mayor?”
Brusco shrugged his shoulders.
“We don’t know,” he admitted.
There was a grumbling protest from all those present. The thing was simply incredible.
“Nobody knows the whereabouts of the mayor!” Spiletti shouted. “Then let’s put an ad in the paper: Reward to anyone who can find one Red mayor, two months missing.”
“It’s not so funny as all that,” said Brusco. “Not even his wife knows where he is.”
Just then a voice boomed out from the back of the room.
“I know,” said Don Camillo.
Everyone was silent, until Brusco spoke out: “If you know, tell us.”
“No,” said Don Camillo. “But I can bring him here tomorrow morning.”
* * *
In a gloomy section of the suburbs of Milan, Peppone was shovelling scrap iron and plaster from a recently demolished building into his lorry. When the noon whistle sounded, he threw down his shovel, took a sandwich and a copy of the Communist paper, Unity, out of the pocket of his jacket and went to sit down with his back against a fence, alongside his fellow-workers.
“Mr Mayor!”
The shrill voice of Spiletti brought him to his feet with a single bound.
“There aren’t any mayors around here,” he answered.
“And the trouble is we have no mayor in our village, either,” said Spiletti. “Can you tell me where to find one?”
“That’s none of my business,” said Peppone, sitting down on the ground.
“You look to me as if you’d recovered your health,” Spiletti insisted. “You must be well enough to send us a postcard.”
“You don’t catch me sending a postcard to you, you tool of the clergy! How happy I am not to have you on my mind!”
“That’s no way for a mayor to talk!” Spiletti protested.
“I’m speaking as a free man.”
“Well said!” said the other workers, who had left their lunch to gather around Peppone.
“If you want to be free, then resign from your position!” Spiletti shouted.
“Just to please you, eh?” grumbled the workers. “Hold on to it, Comrade!”
“Well, if you’re not resigning, we’d like at least to know your intentions.”
Peppone shrugged his shoulders.
“If you’d rather have fun in Milan than do the job to which you’ve been appointed, then you’ve simply got to give up the job.”
“We’ll take your job away, that’s what,” threatened the workers. But Peppone turned around.
“Easy, boys,” he said authoritatively. “This is a democratic country, and threats don’t go.”
Meanwhile Brusco, Bigio, and the rest of Peppone’s henchmen had appeared upon the scene and sat silently down
around him.
“Chief,” said Brusco sadly, “why did you desert us?”
“I’m not deserting anybody.”
“What are we to do about the new road? Here’s a letter from the Ministry of Public Works.”
And Brusco held out a sheet of paper, which Peppone proceeded to read.
“As long as there’s a certain crowd in the government, we’ll never get anywhere,” he observed.
“Never mind about the national administration!” Spiletti shouted. “It’s up to you to make a concrete proposal.”
“We made one, long ago,” Bigio put in.
“That was just propaganda!” Spiletti shouted. “There was nothing concrete about it.”
Smilzo had a word to put in at this point, and so did Peppone. Soon they were in the middle of a heated discussion. Amid the refuse from a demolished building in Milan, they held one of the most unusual village council meetings ever to be seen. When five o’clock came and they were still debating, the night watchman said he must close the gate and send them away. The whole council, including the Opposition, transferred the debate to Peppone’s lorry.
“Let’s go and find a quieter place,” said Peppone starting up the motor.
There was no telling how it happened, perhaps because none of them knew the layout of the city too well but soon the lorry was rolling down the highway. Peppone bent with clenched teeth and tense muscles over the wheel. There was something on his mind, which for a long time he had been unable to say. All at once he threw on the brakes. One of those cursed hitch-hikers was standing practically in front of the truck and signalling that he wanted a lift in the same direction. He had a cake and a toy balloon in one hand and a priest’s hat on his head. Smilzo got down from the seat beside Peppone and went to sit in the back of the truck, along with the rest of the village council. Don Camillo climbed up to take his place, and Peppone started off with a jolt like that of a tank.
“Do certain people always have to be hanging around?” he grumbled.
The lorry was travelling like a racing car, and the roar coming out of the engine was like the orchestra of Toscanini. All of a sudden, over the crest of the river embankment, they saw the church tower.
“Ah!” Peppone exclaimed ruefully.
“‘Ah’ doesn’t make the first two letters of ‘happy’,” observed Don Camillo.
“Yes, it does, even if the letters aren’t in the right order,” said a voice that only Don Camillo could hear.
A Ball Bounces Back
WHEN women go in for politics they’re worse than the most rabid of the men. The men throw their weight around for the sake of “the cause”, whereas the women direct all their wiles towards the discomfiture of the enemy. The same difference as there is between defending one’s country and going to war in order to kill as many people as possible on the other side.
Jo del Magro was up to her ears in politics, and because of her fiery temperament she did not only her share but that of her husband as well. He died, poor fellow, leaving her with a three-year-old son, but her grief for his loss must have been to some degree compensated by the fact that she ignored the priest and carried him to the grave to the muted notes of the Red anthem.
Jo was good-looking enough, in her way, and could perfectly well have found a second husband to look after her. But she clung obstinately to her hard lot, feeding upon it the embitterment which held the place of faith in her heart. She supported herself by heavy farm work—sowing, reaping, threshing and wine-pressing—in the summer, and in the winter by making reed baskets which she peddled about the country. She worked fiercely, as if weariness were an end in itself and her only satisfaction. And even the boldest men took care not to bother her, because she was not only strong-armed, but had a vocabulary coarse enough to put theirs to shame.
The little boy grew like a weed. When he wasn’t left alone in their isolated shack but was allowed to trail after his mother, she set him down in the farmyard where she was working and told him to shut up and “keep out of her hair”. When he was five years old he could throw stones as well as a boy of ten and destroy a laden fruit-tree in less than half an hour. He nosed about like a hunting-dog among the chicken coops, leaving a mess of broken eggs behind him; he strewed bits of glass on the roads and perpetrated other tricks of the same kind. His only distinction lay in the fact that he was a lone wolf and preferred to operate on his own rather than to run with the pack. When two gangs of boys were engaged in battle he hid behind a bush or tree and threw stones indiscriminately at both factions. He was anti-social by nature and had an extraordinary ability to disappear from the scene of his misdemeanours. The evening of the grape-gathering festival he let the air out of the tyres of some fifty bicycles and threw the valve caps away. No one could lay hands on him, but everyone was saying:
“It must be that confounded little Magrino!”
A few days later some well-meaning ladies went to call on his mother and tactfully intimated that instead of letting him run wild she should turn him over, during her working hours, to the day nursery. Jo grew red in the face and shouted that rather than give her son over to a priestly institution she’d leave him with certain women whose reputation they knew all too well.
“Tell Don Gumshoe Camillo to look after his own business!” she said, adding a volley of oaths which caused the well-meaning ladies to pull up their skirts and run. Their leader reported the upshot of their visit to Don Camillo, concluding:
“Father, I can’t repeat the name that unfortunate creature fastened upon you!”
“I know it already,” he answered gloomily.
* * *
The weather was fine and the children of Don Camillo’s day nursery were out on the playing field most of the afternoon. The swings and see-saws had been restored to good order and even the grumpiest children were all smiles. Don Camillo lay in a deck chair, smoking his cigar and enjoying the warm sun, when he had a sudden feeling that something was wrong.
The playing field bordered, on the river side, on a field of alfalfa, from which it was separated by a galvanized wire fence. Now Don Camillo was struck by an unaccustomed ripple in the alfalfa, and his sportsman’s instinct told him that it was neither a dog nor a chicken. He did not move, but half closed his eyes in order to observe without being detected. Slowly something rose out of the grass and Don Camillo felt Magrino’s eyes converging upon him. He held his breath while Magrino, feeling sure that he was not watched, transferred his gaze to another objective. He was following the children’s game and such was his curiosity that at one point he forgot himself and raised his whole head above the alfalfa. No one noticed, and of this Don Camillo was glad. All of a sudden his head disappeared. A big ball, with which some of the bigger boys were playing, had been kicked over the fence and they called out to ask Don Camillo if they could go and get it. The priest pretended to wake up with a start.
“Is the ball out of bounds again?” he shouted. “I’ve told you to be more careful. That grass can’t be trodden down. No more ball-playing today. You can go and get the ball tomorrow, and meanwhile let me sleep!”
The boys grumbled a bit; then they found another ball and played with that, while Don Camillo pretended to be sleeping. Actually, he was more alert than ever. Ten minutes later the alfalfa stirred again, but this time the line of rippling moved farther and farther away. Magrino was leaving, but he was following an odd course, which for the moment led him to the centre of the alfalfa field.
“He must be cutting across diagonally,” thought Don Camillo, “in order to emerge along the hedge parallel to the canal.”
Instead, Magrino stopped short and made an abrupt turn to the left. Obviously he had found the ball, picked it up and now was carrying it away.
“Rascal,” muttered Don Camillo. “You’ve pulled off the trick handsomely. But when you reach the row of trees at the end of the alfalfa you’ll have to show yourself!”
But Magrino knew better. When he was out of the tall grass he slid on h
is stomach until he came to a ditch which ran at right angles to the trees and afforded him perfect cover.
“Lord,” Don Camillo murmured, “how can a five-year-old boy have learned to be so tricky?”
“Don Camillo,” the Lord answered, “how do fish learn to swim? By instinct, of course.”
“Instinct?” Don Camillo exclaimed gloomily. “Are men instinctively evil?”
Don Camillo bought the boys another ball and made no mention of the escapade of Magrino. He hoped that the stolen ball would act like bait and bring Magrino back later. Every day he scanned the field of alfalfa, but there was no ripple. Then someone told him that Magrino was ill and confined to the house. As a matter of fact, Magrino had come down with a fever the night after he had taken the ball. The ditch was full of water, and in crawling through it he was chilled to the bone. Then, before going into the shack he had buried the ball in a hole. His mother came home late, and found him shivering all over. At first it seemed like nothing at all, at least nothing that couldn’t be cured with a few pills and a hot-water bottle. Then things took a turn for the worse and one evening he became half delirious. He muttered something over and over, and finally Jo understood him to mention a big rubber ball.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Hurry up and get well, and I’ll buy a ball for you.”
Magrino quieted down, but the next night, when his fever rose again, he resumed his insistence upon the ball.
“Take it easy!” said Jo. “I told you I’d get it as soon as you’re well.”
“No … no…”
“Do you want me to get one right away?”
“No … no… The ball…”
Evidently he couldn’t take his mind off it. But the doctor said there was no use looking for a meaning in the ravings of a delirious child. And so, on the third night, Jo simply answered:
“All right…. Whatever you say….”
He raved until one o’clock when the fever went down sufficiently for him to sleep. Then, at last, the exhausted Jo was able to go to bed.
The next morning at five o’clock Don Camillo stood shaving in front of the mirror hanging from the sash bolt of his window. It was a clear, cool day, and he took his time, looking out over the fields to the row of poplars along the river bank and beyond them the gleaming river. Directly below him lay the playing field, empty and silent at this hour, but soon to be overrun by the day nursery. He smiled to himself at the thought of all the freshly washed little faces.
Don Camillo’s Dilemma Page 15