Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [66]
After the trucks, his mind focused for a few moments on the figure of Gargano, Chief of the Carabinieri, who was directing traffic about half way down the Via Umberto the First. Errante said to himself: “Even if Gargano can talk three times as fast as anyone else - once with his mouth, once with his left hand, and once with his right - I do not like him.”
Errante’s mind did not dwell on the distasteful subject of Gargano for long, because Errante’s ear transmitted to Errante’s mind the sound of many children shouting: “Caramelle! Caramelle!” Errante liked children even more than he liked Swimming War.
Errante’s slow mind swung his eyes around to the direction of the sound. He saw the children on the sidewalk, and his mind concentrated on the pleasing sight.
His mind noted that there were approximately fifty children running up and down the sidewalk, that about six or seven leaders, somewhat older and taller than the average, were always out in front, that the others tagged willingly behind, and that all of them, from the rich little great-grandson of old Cacopardo all bright in blue, to the numerous beggar children in brown tatters - all of them laughed with a tinkling laughter and shouted for caramels as if they really expected to be rolling them on their tongues in no time at all.
What the mind of Errante did not note was that his new mule, either following an accidental whim or fascinated, like its master, by the children, had turned at right angles to the street and had stopped walking.
Swimming War was coming up the street. Gargano the Two-Hands had a vigilant eye out for traffic on the street. The new mule of Errante stood stock-still right across the road. And Errante stared at the children, thinking only of them and not noticing that anything was wrong.
“How nice it would be to be a child!” Errante’s onetrack mind thought. “Look at the fat little son of the fat Craxi! Look at the thin son of stupid Erba! See how Erba’s ragged child holds the hand of the rich little sulphur boy in blue! Noisy old Afronti was shouting to me the other day about democracy. He said my mind was slow. He said I would never understand. I wish he were here now. Here are the true democrats of the world. Childhood is the real democracy!”
It gave Errante a great sense of importance to be thinking thoughts like these.
All of a sudden a terrible confusion burst in on his thoughts.
Errante’s slow eyes saw only a flash of uniform. The uniform hurled itself at the head of his mule, wrenching the head to one side. The mule reared and screamed.
That scream did something to Errante’s mind. He saw a vision of his other, beloved mule dead beside the road. That awful thing would not happen again while Errante survived to prevent it.
He leaped from his cart. He saw the blur of a uniform running at his mule’s head again. He charged at the uniform. Where a head should be at the top of the blur he struck with the heel of his hand. He hit something and heard an angry roar.
The roar, he realized in a few moments, came from Gargano the Two-Hands. It said: “Imbecile! Pile of turdl Get out of the road, can’t you see the trucks coming? Don’t you know that blocking traffic is sabotage? Don’t you know that you can be shot for blocking traffic?”
Errante’s one-track mind played him a funny trick now. It stopped in the middle of its fury to think: “Look at Two-Hands! Trying to talk and catch my mule at the same time. He has to use his hands to catch my mule, and he has to use his hands to talk. He cannot do either.”
But when Gargano gave off trying to talk and concentrated on the mule, Errante’s mind went back to its business. He threw himself at Gargano again. He struck another blow with the heel of his