Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [28]
“You’d better come, he’s going to call on old Tomasino, who hates authority,” they shouted.
“The mountain is going to Mohammed,” they shouted. And the crowd grew.
Giuseppe led the Major, and therefore the crowd, down to the harbor and past the stone pier, past the sulphur loading jetties, past the patent slips, past the Molo Martino to the Molo di Ponente, where the fishing boats were tied up.
The Major sensed that he was going to have a tough time with old Tomasino, so he said to Giuseppe: “Interpreter, unless you keep this crowd well back, you will lose your job.”
It was therefore with considerable enthusiasm that Giuseppe ran back to the crowd, holding up his hands and shouting: “Stop, do not move forward, you are ordered to stop!”
“By whom?” people in the crowd shouted. “By the man who is favored just because he can speak two languages?” The crowd had come quite a distance for its show, and it was not to be denied now.
“Please stop,” Giuseppe said. “If you do not stop, Ribaudo Giuseppe will lose his job.”
“What is an interpreter to us,” people said, “when we have a chance to see something new in Adano?... This has never happened before... What is the unemployment of one man?” And they kept moving forward.
Giuseppe shouted: “The Major will be very angry if you do not stop right here.” And then he added softly: “Let us make a deal. If you stop, I will listen to the con. versation, and I will tell you what is said.”
On this basis the crowd was willing to stop.
By this time, Major Joppolo had come to the boat of old Tomasino. He recognized the boat not only by the fact that there was a morose-looking man sitting on the after-deck, but also by the illuminated inscription, with its letters trailing off into leaves and fruits, just under the eye-piece of the bow: Tina.
The Major jumped up onto the bow.
“All right, man of authority,” said the morose man, “arrest me.”
“I haven’t come to arrest you, Tomasino,” the Major said.
Giuseppe came running up to listen. He stayed on the mole, so that he could commute easily between actors and audience.
“Why are you wearing your pistol?” the morose man said. “Shoot me, go ahead, shoot me.”
“I always wear my pistol, Tomasino,” the Major said. “You have come to arrest me because I refused to go and see the American Major,” the morose man said. “That is not true,” the Major said.
“Then why have you brought this informer, Ribaudo Giuseppe, who asked me to go see the American Major, and to whom I refused?”
“I am the American Major, Tomasino
Tomasino did not bat an eye. “Why have you brought this crowd, if you were not planning to arrest me?”
“I didn’t bring it, Tomasino, it just came. I don’t want the crowd any more than you do. I just want to talk with you about fishing.”
“I do not believe it,” the morose man said. “All men of authority are alike. You came to arrest me, or perhaps to shoot me.”
“I beg you to believe me,” the Major said.
Giuseppe whistled to himself and ran back to the crowd. “It is amazing,” he said impressively. “The Maor said to Tomasino: `I beg you to believe me.”‘
“‘Beg,’“ said the people in the front of the crowd. “Amazing.”
“There has never been such a begging,” others said. “The Mister Major is willing to be a beggar to this Tomasino. “
“What did he say?” shouted people in the back of the crowd.
“He said: `I beg you, Tomasino,”‘ shouted people in the front of the crowd.
“Amazing,” shouted the ones in back. Giuseppe ran back out onto the mole.
The Major was saying: “It is this, Tomasino: I want you and the others to start fishing again.”
“Why?” said the morose Tomasino. “So we can line the pockets of the authorities?”
“No, Tomasino, so that you can line the stomachs of the people of Adano.”
“Hah,” said Tomasino bitterly, “a benevolent man of authority.”
“Tomasino, you don’t understand. The Americans are different from the Fascists.”
“Hah,” said Tomasino. “I have heard that before. The Mayor Crapa said he was going to be different from the Mayor Martoglio, and the Mayor Nasta after him said he was going to be different from the Mayor