Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [56]
Here are four examples that Major Joppolo dug up, which show exactly how the black market and inflation grew up:
He traced the black market in wine to the house of Carmelina, wife of the lazy Fatta. The very first person who bought wine from Carmelina, on the very first night of the invasion, was Corporal Chuck Schultz. Carmelina’s story to the Major was that the Corporal had just handed her a dollar and walked away. Schultz’s story was that the Italian lady had haggled and shouted and threatened to call the police. In any case, Schultz paid a dollar. The regular price for that grade of wine before the invasion had been twenty lire, or twenty cents.
Four soldiers sauntered into a barber shop one morning, and made motions with their fingers around their skulls that indicated they wanted haircuts. None of them could speak Italian, so they based their payment on what the), had last paid for haircuts in the States. Each plunked down a fifty cent piece and said: “Keep the change, Joe.” The regular price for haircuts had been three lire, or three cents. Shaves had cost two lire. Here in one morning’s work, the barber had made two hundred lire. He retired to a life of leisure, and refused to cut any hair for three weeks, till his money gave out.
The black market in prostitution was serious. Demand was naturally high, with a newly arrived Army. Supply was rather low, what with the timid girls who had run into the hills. Now their standard price before the invasion had been, believe it or not, five lire, or five American cents. In making their propositions in the early days, American soldiers who could not speak Italian had used what they thought to be international sign language: they had raised two fingers, representing an offer of two bucks. There was some confusion at first, when the girls thought they meant two lire, or two cents, and for a time they refused to do business. But later they caught on: two hundred lire a piece. Business flourished then and so did the black market.
The welfare of the town was really threatened by the black market in food. Peasants, instead of bringing their grapes and melons and fresh vegetables into the town market, would go to the various bivouac areas and hang around the edges until they could catch a straggler. Then, in the heat of the day, they would tempt the Americans with cool-looking fruits, and would sell them for anywhere from ten to twenty times the proper prices. It got so bad that city people would buy what little fruit did reach the town market, and would take it out into the country to sell it to the foolhardy Americans.
To stop, or at least to curb, the black market, Major Joppolo did three things: he put the town out of bounds to American soldiers, who from then on could enter only on business; he had the Carabiniers stop all foodstuffs from leaving the town; and he fined anyone caught selling over-price or under-measure three thousand lire - a lifetime’s savings for a poor Italian peasant
Chapter 18
SERGEANT TRAPANI’S having addressed the purple slip reporting the countermand order on the carts to the wrong person did not help much. As soon as the wrong person opened up the envelope and read the slip, he forwarded it to the right person.
The right person was Lt. Col. W. W. Norris, G-One Officer of the 49th Division. The wrong person put the purple slip on his desk. Col. Norris, who was burdened down with much too much paper work, did not even read it all the way through. He just read the first part, about General Marvin’s issuing the order that carts should be stopped on the outskirts of