Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [58]
Mayor Nasta walked up to one such knot. There were about ten people, and he found that they were discussing the war.
He waited for his chance, and said: “I got some news from the interior yesterday afternoon.”
Mercurio Salvatore the crier was so far gone in boldness that he said: “We have no desire for news from the one who is no longer Mayor.”
Mayor Nasta remembered the time when he would have put the crier in jail for a whole year for saying something like that, but now he said: “This news came from the son of your friend Afronti, the noisy cartman. The boy deserted on the first day of the invasion and he is now here. Perhaps you know him. He is an honest boy.”
The Mayor’s poison was beginning to take hold. “If that is the case,” said the lazy Fatta, who was to be found on this stretch of sidewalk every morning, “if that is the case, what did he say that was so interesting?”
“He said that our friends the Germans are mounting a counterattack.”
“There is nothing new in that,” said Father Pensovecchio. “They have counterattacked before. They counterattacked near Vicinamare and it did them no good. They were thrown back. They will be thrown back again.”
“Not this time,” said Mayor Nasta. “This time they will employ five fresh divisions. They have the crack 29th Panzers and the Pilsener Division. These are good troops. This time they will not be thrown back. They intend to push the Americans into the sea.”
The lazy Fatta, who had no sense about the news, said: “When will this attack come? I think I will go to the hills.”
Mayor Nasta looked very important, as he used to in the old days. “I should not tell you this,” he said, “but the attack will begin on the morning of the twenty-third, at four o’clock in the morning. You can expect the Americans to be pushed into the sea between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-eighth.”
The impressionable ones were beginning to believe him. Laura Sofia, the unmarried one, who stood about on this sidewalk in the belief that she might catch a husband that way, said: “The twenty-third, that is next Wednesday.”
But Mercurio Salvatore, who had been treated well by the Americans, refused to believe that they were leaving. “I do not believe it,” he said. “The Americans will stop the attack.” Even the crier was now willing to believe that there was going to be an attack. All he would not believe was that the Germans would succeed.
Mayor Nasta said: “The Americans will not stop it. The Americans may be friendly, but they are not good fighters.”
Margherita, the formidable wife of Craxi, said with a threatening look: “Liarl”
But Mayor Nasta said: “This is not my opinion. This is the opinion of the son of Afronti, the noisy cartman. You know the boy. You know that he is honest. He says that the Americans are timid in battle. He says that our own troops could even beat the Americans.”
Mercurio Salvatore, the crier, was reduced to saying: “I do not believe it.”
Mayor Nasta said: “It is true. This boy fought in Tunisia. He says that at the place called El Guettar the Americans did not press their attack, he says that they behaved like frightened men and were defeated. The British can fight, perhaps, but not the Americans.”
The formidable Margherita said: “It is a dirty lie,” but there was no anger in her voice, it was nearly drained of conviction.
This man Nasta was a very persuasive man. He had persuaded himself into office, and he had persuaded the people into fear of him, and now it was easy for him to persuade them to mistrust the Americans.
Mayor Nasta said: “The son of Afronti told me that in the interior the Americans behaved themselves very badly. They were generous to us along the coast because they had to have a beachhead, but in the interior they have been different. Negro troops have raped seven Italian girls. There has been much looting.”
The lazy Fatta said: “I hear that the Americans looted the beautiful house