Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [63]
The same morning that the crowd stood around Borth’s jeep in front of the Albergo dei Pescatori, another, smaller crowd stood on the Molo Ponente in the harbor and watched Lojacono work. He was painting new names and little figures on the bow surfaces of the fishing boats, and the crowd consisted of fishermen and their families.
Except for Lojacono’s work, the boats were all ready to go. Their seams were calked, and they were tight as wine-bottles. The barnacles and the whiskers were off, and the bottoms had been given a little lead paint. The rigging was smart, for Major Joppolo had persuaded the Navy to give the fishermen some bright cable and some unsoaked hemp rope.
The fishermen were impatient to have Lojacono finish.
“Lojacono is talented but slow,” said the fisherman named Agnello, on whose boat the painter was working just then.
The white haired painter said: “Would you rather have me quick and messy?”
One of Agnello’s three helpers, Merendino, said: “It will have to be proved that you are not messy before we answer that.”
Lojacono stopped working and looked at the fishermen standing there. He pointed at his work and said angrily: “Have you ever seen a porpoise less messy than that one?”
Agnello said: “The porpoise is not bad, but he will die of loneliness unless you hurry and give him some company. Porpoises like company, you know that, Lojacono. Have you ever seen a porpoise play alone?”
“He will have company,” Lojacono said impatiently. “The Mister Major is going to be riding on his back. If you would be silent, I could get on with my work.”
Merendino said: “Work then, old man, do not be so slow.”
The old man went back to his work. Tomasino, sitting with his head in his hands on the afterdeck of his boat, which was moored next to Agnello’s, said gloomily: “I cannot see the point of all this painting. It is frivolous. My boat has been named Tina since the girl was born. It will remain Tina. The leaves and the fruit which dangle from the name are good enough for me, even if they are not new. You would think that Christ had come again, with all this fresh paint.”
Agnello shouted to Tomasino: “What is the matter with you, sour one, do you have gas in your bowels this morning? Cheer up, we are going fishing again.”
“In the next century,” said Tomasino glumly, “after all this painting is finished.”
Lojacono stuck his head up over the side of Agnello’s boat and shouted: “Be quiet, Tomasino, you know that the only reason you are so impatient is that you like what I did twenty years ago and you have no desire for anything new.”
Tomasino said: “If I have to wait another day for the slow painter I will blot out the name Tina and the leaves and fruit with some lead paint I have, and I will go fishing alone in a nameless boat.”
Lojacono started painting the Mister Major, and the little crowd came in closer to see the details. He resolved a difficult point by making the Major’s hat rather big and by tilting it so that it covered most of his face. At least the hat was definitely American.
“His leg is too short. The leg of the Mister Major is longer,” Agnello said.
“I was about to say that the leg is too long,” Merendino said.
“In other words,” Lojacono said, “the leg is precisely right.”
“He does not have a hunch-back like that,” said Sconzo, another of Agnello’s helpers.
“He is bending forward because of the speed of the porpoise,” Lojacono said.
“The color of his skin is too white,” said the wife of Agnello. “His skin is more Italian-colored.”
“You are dull,” Lojacono said, “you do not see the symbolism of the white skin.”
This is what the criticism was always like. And this shows the purpose of the criticism: it was not so much that the people did not like what Lojacono was doing, as that they wanted to know exactly what was in