Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [74]
For this reason it made him uneasy, one morning, to have the usher Zito come to him and say that all the officials of the town wished to have a conference with him some time that morning. He wondered if they wanted to express their displeasure at something he had done.
He said: “Right now, Zito, if they can all come in now.
So in a few minutes they began coming in. As usual Bellanca the Mayor came in first, and it seemed to the Major that the old man’s eyes, which were sad from his years of conflict with bad men, were even sadder than usual. D’Arpa the vice mayor came next, walking fast and somehow low, like a weasel, and his little animal eyes looked sad to the Major too. The Major scanned each face as it approached him: the face of Tagliavia the Maresciallo of Finance, looking prosperous but worried, the Major thought; of Panteleone, the Municipal Secretary, looking unctuous but perhaps a little less unctuous than usual, the Major thought; of the pearshaped volunteer health officer, Signora Carmelina Spinnato, too efficient and fat to have any expression with meaning in it; of Rotondo, the lieutenant of Carabinieri, blank as a wall; and of Saitta, the man concerned with cleaning up the town, himself the cleanest man in town, a face scrubbed with pumice until it shined but even in its cleanliness a little sadder than usual, the Major imagined. The face of Gargano the Two-Hands especially concerned Major Joppolo, for he knew that he might have offended the Chief of Carabinieri in the trial of Errante. And indeed, Gargano did seem to look a little severe.
Honest old Bellanca was spokesman for. the group. He said: “We have something to ask of you, Mister Major: ‘
“I’ll try to oblige you,” Major Joppolo said. “You may not like it,” the old man said.
Major Joppolo said: “Is there something I have done you wish me to correct?”
Gargano the Two-Hands pointed both forefingers at the Major and said: “It is something you have not done.” The others laughed at that remark, and Major Joppolo became more uneasy than ever.
“Something I have forgotten to do?” he asked.
“No,” said Tagliavia, the prosperous-looking Maresciallo of Finance, hooking his thumbs in his waistcoat, “you did not forget to do it because you did not know you were supposed to do it. It is something you did not think of doing, and we are very angry with you for not having thought of it.”
The others all laughed again, and Major Joppolo began to suspect that they were in a rather gay mood, and that they had put on the glum faces to fool him. But he did not show his suspicion.
He said: “Tell me what it is. I am sorry to have made you angry.
Signora Carmelina Spinnato bounced over to his desk and looked gravely at his profile, and then bounced around front and set up a frame with her thumbs and forefingers and looked through it at his full face. “Which do you think it should be?” she asked the others. “From the side or from the front?” Major Joppolo had never imagined that Signora Carmelina Spinnato could be playful, but she looked as if she were trying to be now, bouncing around with that look of mock gravity on her face.
“From the back!” shrilled D’Arpa the vice mayor. All laughed again.
Major Joppolo said: “Stop laughing at me. You can laugh at me behind my back, but this is my office, not here.”
Old Bellanca said: “We are not laughing at you. This is something which is important for Adano.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
“You will forgive me,” old Bellanca said, “for giving you orders, Mister Major, but you are to go to the house at Number Twenty-three, Via Favemi, and there you are to climb to the second floor and ask for a man named Spataforo. He will tell you what to do.”
“He certainly will,” Gargano said, and all of them laughed.
“You will find this man Spataforo somewhat opinionated,” old Bellanca said.
“Some people call him rude,” Signora Carmelina Spinnato said, and all laughed.
“You must not mind him,” old Bellanca said. “Just do as he tells you.”
The Major said: “I do not like all this mystery, but I’ll