Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [86]
Women far up the town heard the murmur of their approach and instinctively knew what it was. They shouted to other women. Those standing on the sidewalk in front of the Palazzo saw them turn into Via Umberto the First from Via Favemi, and instead of rushing down the street toward them, they clutched their emotional throats and ran off to find their friends to tell them of this wonderful thing: the boys of Adano were coming home!
And then the women who had heard the murmur and the women who had stood there and actually seen the approach, and also the women that these others had summoned, all ran back to the sidewalk in front of the Palazzo and watched.
War is awful for men but it is not too good for women. In their bedsheets these women had ached for their men. The nipples of their breasts had hurt from wanting them so badly. There had been days when certain of these women did not get letters from their men, and then, in talking with their friends, had found that those others did get letters, and those had been bad days. Some had had their small ones, just old enough to talk, slip up to them shyly with frightened eyes and say: “Papa: where is my little father?” and there had not been any answer except in the pit of the stomach.
The women who stood on the sidewalk in front of the Palazzo had lived in daily dread that their men might be hurt, or worse. Women who had argued with their men, and been impatient with them when they had them securely, forgot the arguments and thought only of the nice things, the being waked up in the middle of the night by a man crawling clumsily into bed, the loud laugh with the head thrown back, the smell of a certain smoke, the sound of a certain kind of wine clucking out of the bottle.
And so the women stood there on the sidewalk in front of the Palazzo with their hands at their throats, or reaching vaguely for loose wisps of hair.
The men walking up the street saw the women standing there. They did not break into a run. Their happiness was terrifying; they walked slowly toward their women.
When the men had reached a place about five hundred yards from the women, the crowd of women started moving forward, slowly at first, the feet just shuffling on the sidewalk, then stepping forward as necks craned and eyes darted, then walking to be closer, and finally running and shouting wordless sounds.
The men did not break into a run. The women ran toward the men. There was equal happiness on both sides, it just happened that most of the men knew their women would be there, whereas some of the women were not sure that their men would be there. That was the difference. That is why the women ran.
There were among those women some who knew that their men were dead. They were just running forward in order to share the incredible happiness, or even the doubt, of the other women. Doubt was better than what they had.
One of the women in the crowd was Tina. She had been expecting this thing ever since the Major had spoken to her about it, and she kept herself very available. She was one of the women who had been brought out by the mere murmur.
She was dressed in her nicest dress, a blue thing that the gay sister had sent from Rome. Her hair had been combed until it shone and its blondeness looked almost real.
She ran forward with the others. Her eyes explored the crowd of men half lovingly, half fearfully. She pushed at the women in front of her and struggled for a better view.
You can be sure that Major Joppolo was down in the street. He wanted to be there to savor the happiness in Adano. But he also shared the specific curiosity which drove Tina forward. He too wondered whether Giorgio was there.
At the first murmur of the crowd, which he had easily heard through the French doors of his office, he had run down into the street, and he had walked rapidly down it toward the group of men even before the women started moving. Therefore he had just about reached the prisoners when the women started running.
When the prisoners saw the Major, some