Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [62]
Borth said: “How can I shoot you from behind when I am in the front seat and you are in the back seat?” But Mayor Nasta was not pleading rationally. “I will tell you secrets,” he babbled. “D’Arpa the vice mayor is a traitorous man, he is not to be trusted, watch out for him, but please do not shoot me in the back. Tell me first if you are going to kill me, tell me, tell me, I must know. Bellanca the Notary is not on our side, and he is strong with the people, watch out for him. You see, I can give you names. Do not shoot me in the back.”
Borth knew that Mayor Nasta was dragging up accusations and suspicions out of the past, that he meant that these men were not to be trusted by the Fascists. His talk was crazy, for he was overcome with fear.
Therefore Borth gagged Mayor Nasta, and tied his hands behind his back, and let his milky eyes speak his terrors. At least his eyes were silent.
As the jeep passed the Cacopardo Sulphur Works on the way into town, Borth looked at his watch. It was just before twelve o’clock. Major Joppolo would be either at lunch or on his way there. So Borth told the driver to go to the Albergo dei Pescatori.
Since it was the noon hour, scores of people had drifted to the Doppo Lavoro clubs along the street near the Albergo dei Pescatori to listen to the radio and wait for lunch. When they saw Borth’s jeep, with a man tied up in the back seat, they clustered around, and called for their friends. And when they saw that Borth’s cargo was Mayor Nasta, and that after all these years the Mayor had a gag in his mouth, they cheered and laughed at the man.
These noises increased Mayor Nasta’s terrors, and he kept twisting and trying to look behind him.
Borth went into the restaurant and found Major Joppolo and brought him out.
Major Joppolo held up his hand to silence the crowd. “I want to speak to Nasta,” he said to Borth. “Can he hear me with that thing on his face?”
“Yeah,” Borth said; “you’ve got the rare pleasure of being able to speak to Nasta and he can’t talk back.” Major Joppolo said: “Nasta, you are a disgrace to your people. There is goodness in your people, but not in you, not a bit. The world has had enough of your kind of selfishness.”
It was one of Major Joppolo’s greatest attributes in his job that he could speak pompous sentences with a sincerity and passion so real that his Italian listeners were always moved by what he said. Now all the listeners except Nasta were moved by his words to shout: “Kill himl Kill himl Kill him!”
Here was one time when Major Joppolo’s sincerity and passion bounced back on him, because the people’s shouts frightened Mayor Nasta so badly that he fainted, and Major Joppolo was the first to see the ridiculousness of trying to spell-bind an unconscious man.
There was nothing left to say except one sentence to Borth: “Well have to send him to Africa.”
And to the music of Adano’s delighted cheers, Borth and his limp companion drove down the street.
Chapter 20
THERE was no better index to the state of mind of Adano than the activities of the painter Lojacono. If one had made a graph of the spirits of the town and then put beside it a graph of the number of commissions Lojacono received, the two would have exactly corresponded Whenever the town was optimistic, Lojacono worked. When the town was blue, Lojacono was idle.
Lojacono could paint anything. He could paint a house or he could paint a saint. He was the one who painted panels in the churches. He was the one who painted the fat and holy people on the fat Basile’s two-wheeled cart.
The white-haired Lojacono suffered when he painted. First he suffered the pangs of creation, then he suffered when the people of Adano criticized his work. His work was beautiful and everyone in the town loved it, but for some reason they always criticized it first.
Major Joppolo had not been in Adano very long