Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [139]
“As head of the tax office, Uncle Carlo was a local bigwig, and as a mutilated veteran and cavalier of the Crown of Italy, he was naturally on the side of the government, which happened to be the Fascist dictatorship. Was Uncle Carlo a Fascist?
“In those days, Fascism had given veterans status, had rewarded them with decorations and promotions; so let’s say Uncle Carlo was moderately Fascist. Fascist enough to earn the hatred of Adeline Canepa, who was ardently anti-Fascist, for obvious reasons. Canepa had to go to Uncle Carlo every year to make his income declaration. He would arrive in the office with a bold expression of complicity, having tried to corrupt Aunt Caterina with a few dozen eggs. And he would find himself up against Uncle Carlo, who, being a hero, was not only incorruptible, but also knew better than anyone how much Canepa had stolen from him in the course of the year, and who wouldn’t forgive him one cent. Adeline Canepa, considering himself a victim of the dictatorship, began spreading slanderous rumors about Uncle Carlo. One lived on the ground floor, the other on the floor above; they met every morning and night, but no longer exchanged greetings. Communication was maintained through Aunt Caterina and, after our arrival, through my mother—to whom Adeline Canepa expressed much sympathy and understanding, since she was the sister-in-law of a monster. My uncle, in his gray double-breasted suit and bowler, would come home every evening at six with his copy of La Stampa still to be read. He walked erect, like an Alpine soldier, his gray eye on the peak to be stormed. He passed by Adelino Canepa, who at that hour was enjoying the cool air on a bench in the garden, and it was as if my uncle did not see him. Then he would encounter Si-gnora Canepa at the downstairs door and ceremoniously doff his hat. And so it went, every evening, year after year.”
It was eight o’clock; Lorenza wasn’t coming, as she had promised. Belbo was on his fifth martini.
“Then came 1943. One morning Uncle Carlo came into our room, waked me with a kiss, and said, ‘My boy, you want to hear the biggest news of the year? They’ve kicked out Mussolini.’ I never figured out whether or not Uncle Carlo suffered over it. He was a citizen of total integrity and a servant of the state. If he did suffer, he said nothing about it, and he went on running the tax office for the Badoglio government. Then came September 8, and the area in which we lived fell under the control of the Fascists’ Social Republic, and Uncle Carlo again adjusted. He collected taxes for the Social Republic.
“Adeline Canepa, meanwhile, boasted of his contacts with the partisan groups forming in the mountains, and he promised vengeance, the making of examples. We kids didn’t yet know who the partisans were. There were great tales about them, but so far nobody had seen them. There was talk about a Badoglian leader known as Mongo—a nickname, naturally, as was the custom then; many said he had taken it from Flash Gordon. Mongo was a former Carabinieri sergeant major who had lost a leg in the first fighting against the Fascists and the SS and now commanded all the brigades in the hills around ***.
“And then came the disaster: one day the partisans showed up in town. They had descended from the hills, they were running wild in the streets, still without uniforms, just blue kerchiefs, and firing rounds into the air to make their presence known. The news spread; all the people