Bell for Adano, A - John Hersey [87]
Here was the final crazy touch of war. Men who for months had been chosen and trained and ordered to commit the worst of all crimes, murder, were now showering their affection on the very kind of man they had been out to kill.
The women came close. Some had recognized their men, and were screaming the names with trembling voices.
Now at last the men broke into a run. They had only about ten paces to go.
The two crowds mingled.
It was a crazy sight at first. The couples who had found each other embraced each other. Some laughed and some cried, some whispered and some screamed, some pounded and some caressed.
Some of the women with dead husbands embraced the first men they reached, just to taste a little of this sensation that they had wanted so much. But the men rejected them and went looking for their own.
You could begin to see the ones who were not going to find their men at all. They darted faster and faster from couple to couple, repeating the name, asking, looking two and three times at faces already seen just to make sure. The faces of these women went paler and paler and finally they began to cry. Curiously most of these women did not scream, but cried silently; the tears just coursed down their empty faces.
Tina did not have to dart from couple to couple. Major Joppolo happened to be standing close beside her when she found out.
A young man left his woman. He went over to Tina and stood before her and shook his head. That was all he had to do, Tina knew.
Major Joppolo forgot all the injunctions about behavior in public which he had put down in Notes from Joppolo to Joppolo. He stepped forward and took Tina’s hand. Her hand was cold and loose in his, and she did not seem to realize that he was there.
“What happened?” Tina asked the young man.
He said: “I will tell you later, Tina. Please not just at this moment.”
Major Joppolo said to the young man: “We will have lunch together, at the Albergo dei Pescatori.”
The young man did not question Major Joppolo with his eyes at all. He said: “Bring Tina at twelve o’clock. I will tell her everything then.” He kissed Tina on the. cheek.
The kiss made Tina start crying. She buried her face in her hands and shook silently.
The crowd did not break up for a long time. The men stood right there in the street and told many of their experiences. Couples melted into quartets and quartets into laughing circles, and the women who did not find their men went off alone. Fathers held sons in their arms for the first time. A few men hurried off with their women in a desire to become fathers as quickly as possible. Idlers and curious men who had stayed behind began to mix with the crowd. Laura Sofia the maiden lady circulated in the crowd, hoping that the hunger induced in men by war might be in her favor, but she had no luck.
Major Joppolo did not hurry Tina. He let her cry until the tears were all gone and her sobs grew dry and awful. He touched her all the time, with a hand on her shoulder or the back of a hand against her bare arm, just to let her know that someone was there.
Finally the Major took Tina home. A little before twelve he went back to get her. By that time she was all right. Her eyes were red, but she was in control of herself.
They went to the Albergo dei Pescatori. Giorgio’s friend, whose name was Nicolo, was already there with his girl. Nicolo had changed into civilian clothes. A few minutes after Tina and the Major joined Nicolo and his girl, Captain Purvis came in. Since he and the Major usually had lunch together, it was quite natural that he should join the group, though the Major regretted it later.
For a time they ate silently. Tina asked Nicolo how things had been and Nicolo said they had not been bad, and Captain Purvis asked the Major where he had been hiding this new quail and he tried to flirt ûwhi t her a little, and the Major made some polite advances to Nicolo to try to cover