A Bell for Adano (12 page)

Two guests had arrived before the Major, and their identity surprised him.

“Hi, Major,” said Captain Purvis, who looked as if he had been into a couple of bottles of wine, “Giuseppe told me the old fish-hound here had a couple of pretty daughters. I was getting kinda horny. Giuseppe here told me he’d fix me up. Good old Giuseppe.”

“Good night, a boss,” said Giuseppe. He was much embarrassed; he had had no idea that the Major would show up.

The Major was just as embarrassed as Giuseppe. He was thinking of those sentences from the Amgot notebook: “Don’t play favorites... Be careful about invitations…”

“Why, hello,” the Major said.

“Haven’t seen the quail yet,” Captain Purvis said. “The old lady’s out in the kitchen. She’s a honey. Taught her how to say `My God.’“

The Major sat down stiffly.

Captain Purvis said: “Say, I didn’t know you were an old hand around here, you dog. Why don’t you tell me about these good things? You old bastard, I thought you never did anything but work. Tell me, how are these chickens? Yum, I could go for a little breast of chicken right now.”

Major Joppolo said weakly: “I haven’t seen the girls, except one of them in church. This is my first time here.” Captain Purvis, who was unquestionably tipsy, said: “Hey, speaking of chickens, I heard one the other day. You remember where Hoover said once that he was going to fix it so there would be a chicken in every pot?

Well, I heard the other day that after the U.S. Army was around these Italian towns for a while there was going to be a pot on every chicken.”

The Captain roared with laughter. Giuseppe, although he had no idea what the point was, laughed politely. The Major was horrified. Tomasino sat in depressed silence, understanding nothing.

Tomasino’s wife came in from the kitchen with a platter of torrone and saved the day. She must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. When she put the candy down she raised her two arms, turned to the Major and shouted: “My Godl My Godl” She pronounced it as if it were spelled G-u-d, and all her fatness shook with laughing. Everyone else except Tomasino had to laugh at her.

Giuseppe jumped to his feet and introduced the Major to Tomasino’s wife. Her name was Rosa.

She said in her husky fat lady’s voice: “I am delighted to see you here, Mister Major. That wet stone” -she pointed at Tomasino - “almost refused to go and ask you. I am learning to speak English.” And she shouted again: “My Gud! My Gudl”

“No, fatso,” said Captain Purvis, “it’s Gawd, not Gud. Gawd, Gawd, Gawd.”

“Gud, Gud, Gud,” the old lady said, and heaved in ecstasy.

Captain Purvis said: “Goddamit, where are these pretty mackerel the old fish-hound is supposed to have? Say, Major, we got to make a deal here. Giuseppe here says he thinks I’d like the dark one best.”

Giuseppe put in a word for his loyalty: “I’m a save a blonde for you, boss.”

Major Joppolo really didn’t know what to say. Giuseppe said quickly to the fat Rosa, who was still laughing softly at her triumphs in English: “Where are the girls?”

The mother said: “If you think you can hurry two pretty girls trying to make themselves prettier, you’ll find them in the bedroom.”

Major Joppolo was alarmed to see Giuseppe get up and go into the bedroom. He wondered what kind of girls these were, anyhow.

But in a few moments Giuseppe came back, leading a girl by each hand. He had apparently explained the situation to the girls, because Tina went directly to Major Joppolo, shook his hand, and sat down beside him, and the dark one, Francesca, went straight to Captain Purvis, shook his hand, and sat down by him.

“Mmm,” said Captain Purvis, “not bad.” He felt secure in the certainty that the girls did not speak English. “How’d you like to go to bed, Toots?” he said. “Take it easy,” Major Joppolo said.

“You think I’m too previous?” Captain Purvis said. “Hell, why beat around the bush, Major?”

Tina said in Italian: “I heard you breathing in church last Sunday. You ought to take more exercise, Mister Major.”

Major Joppolo said: “I was late, I was very late. I got working on something, and I lost track of time. I had to run to church. It was very embarrassing.”

Tina said: “You had Father Pensovecchio worried. I could tell by the way he got mixed up in his service.’ Major Joppolo said: “Do you go to church every Sunday?”

Tina said: “Of course.”

Captain Purvis said: “Goddam you and your wop talk, Major. You’ll really make some time. All I can do is make eyes at this piece. “

Giuseppe said: “Capatain, Giuseppe’s a translate. You talk and Giuseppe’s a tell a Francesca what you say.” And so for a time Captain Purvis was engaged in conveying nonsense to Francesca by way of Giuseppe’s uncertain interpretation. The general idea of Captain Purvis’s remarks got across, however, for Francesca blushed more and more frequently.

In the meanwhile Major Joppolo was able to talk with Tina, interrupted only once in a while by bursts of “My Gud!” from the mother and gales of laughter all around the room, except from Tomasino, who stared moodily at the floor.

The Major said: “Do you always go to the Church of San Angelo?”

This time it was Tina who blushed. “No,” she said. “Giuseppe told me you were going to be there. I wanted to see what the American Major was like. Most Sundays I go to the Church of the Benedettini.”

Major Joppolo said: “What did you think of the American Major?”

Tina said: “He breathes very loudly, like the leaky bellows of the pipe organ at the Benedettini.”

The Major laughed.

“Have a piece of torrone,” Tina said. “I made it.”

One could not very well turn down an invitation put just that way, so the Major took a big piece. The candy was passed all around the room, and for a time all conversation stopped. Nothing could be heard except the crunching of nuts between teeth and the smacking sound of boiled sugar coming unstuck from teeth. During this time of chewing, Major Joppolo couldn’t help thinking how strange it was to build a whole evening around the eating of torrone, but that seemed to be the program.

When he dared, Major Joppolo said “Good.” Captain Purvis could afford to be more honest in English: “Christ,” he said, “what did we come to, a glue factory?”

“Another piece,” Tina said to the Major cordially.

“In a few minutes,” the Major said.

“We must have some wine,” the fat and happy Rosa said. “Go out in the kitchen, fool,” she said to Tomasino, “and get a bottle of Marsala.”

Wine on top of torrone, and probably mixed right up with it. Major Joppolo could think of nothing less tempting, but Captain Purvis, hearing the word vino, shouted: “Vino, hurray for vino.” Then he said very seriously, as if pulling himself together: “Jesus, if I have much more of this stuff, I’m going to have to lay one of these girls. If I have to stay in this town much longer, IT take on the fat one, even if she is the mother.”

Major Joppolo stood up and said: “Purvis, either you shut your big trap or I’ll throw you out of here.” Captain Purvis said: “Aw come on, Major, don’t be a spoil sport. You know you feel the same way, if you were just honest enough to say so. “

“Shut up, Purvisl” The Major’s eyes blazed. “That’s an order. Now you behave yourself.”

Captain Purvis stood up and saluted with a wavering dignity.

Tomasino came back with the wine, and Captain Purvis saluted the bottle, bending slightly at the waist and aiming the breakaway of the salute straight at the bottle.

Rosa, sensing that something was wrong, shouted desperately: “My Gud! My Gud!” But nobody laughed. Tina jumped up and said: “Let’s dance,” and she ran over to the radio and turned on Radio Moscow. “Moscow always has the best music,” she said.

Francesca, with Major Joppolo’s help, carried the table from the middle of the room to the end away from the radio. Captain Purvis rushed over to Rosa, held out his arms, and said: “Okay, fatso, let’s dance.”

Rosa understood from his gestures what he meant, and she stood up laughing. The tipsy Captain and his huge partner careened around the room. After a couple of turns Rosa collapsed into a chair, gasping and shouting her English vocabulary.

Then Captain Purvis danced with Francesca, and Major Joppolo with Tina. They stamped and laughed and talked above the music until Tomasino said glumly: “You are making too much noise. You will wake the girls.”

Tina ran over and toned the radio down a little. “The girls?” the Major said.

Tina blushed. She said: “My sister’s daughters.” “Francesca’s?”

“Oh, no, of my sister who is in Rome.”

Major Joppolo did not think to ask why the daughters were in Adano and the mother in Rome; or why Tina blushed; or why she did not seem very anxious to talk any more about the sleeping girls.

“Let’s dance some more,” she said.

So they danced until they were both sweating in the midsummer heat.

It was Tina who said: “Some fresh air, Mister Major?” He said: “That would be a good idea.”

Tina said: “We can go right out here.”

She slipped out through wooden shutter doors onto a narrow balcony over the dark street, and the Major followed her. Behind him he could hear Captain Purvis saying to Giuseppe: “There goes that bastard out to make some time with his wop talk. How the hell can I make love when I have to keep you hanging around, Giuseppe?”

Tina closed the shutter doors behind the Major.

The two stood against the cool iron of the balcony railing and looked up at the sharp stars. Tina said: “Do you like it here?”

Major Joppolo said: “I’ve never been so happy in my life.”

“That seems strange,” Tina said, “when you’re so far from home.”

“I’m not so far from home, in a way. Florence is almost a home to me. My father and mother were from a little town near Florence.”

“Where are you from, in America I mean?” “The Bronx, Tina.”

“Where is that, the Bronx?” “New York.”

“The Bronx is part of New York City?”

“Sometimes I think New York City is part of the Bronx.”

“Oh, I should love to go there. Is the Bronx beautiful? Is it beautiful for Florentines in the Bronx? How would it be for someone from Adano?”

“For my Florentine parents, I think it is beautiful, yes, it is beautiful. In Italy they were just poor peasants, and you know it is not very beautiful for most of the peasants here. There my father is a waiter. He has a very good job, in the University Club, it is a very nice atmosphere, all the chairs are leather like in the Palazzo and the walls are all panelled. My mother has a washing machine. Father has a car. It is very beautiful for them, I think. For me, it was not always so beautiful.”

“Why not, Mister Major?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. You see, I grew up in America. I could see that the Bronx was not the most beautiful place in America. I always wanted a little more than we had. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”

“No,” said Tina, “you don’t have to explain. I know what it is to be restless. That’s why my hair is blonde, I guess.”

Major Joppolo had made up his mind that Tina’s hair was dyed. But he didn’t expect her to talk about it. Tina sensed his embarrassment. “Oh, my hair is not natural, Mister Major. I dyed it because I was not satisfied. My dark hair was my Bronx. Every one had dark hair. I wanted something different.”

“I thought at first perhaps you were from Northern Italy,” the Major said politely.

Tina laughed. “Tell me some more about yourself,” she said.

“There’s not much to tell,” he said.

“Did you go to one of those American colleges? I’ve seen them in the movies at Vicinamare.”

“No, not exactly. I went to school until I was sixteen. Then I lied about my age, I said I was eighteen so that I could get a driver’s license and take a job. I worked as a truck driver until I was twenty, then I had an accident, from lifting things which were too heavy.”

“What kind of an accident, Mister Major?”

“It was a rupture. After the accident I had no job for two months. It is not very exciting to be unemployed in the United States. Finally I got a job as a clerk in a grocery store at twelve dollars a week.”

“How much is that?”

“Twelve hundred lira.”

“Twelve hundred lira! You must have been rich.”

“No, Tina, twelve hundred lira is all right for Adano -”

“All rightl I should say it is all right. Six hundred is high pay. My father used to think six hundred was a very good week - and he hasn’t been out for a long time,” she added sadly.

“But that’s not so much in the States.” “You mean everyone is rich in the Bronx?”

“No, I wouldn’t say so, Tina. It’s just that our standard of living is higher than yours.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, that’s hard to explain, too. It’s just that everyone has a little more than they have here. They mostly have automobiles, in peacetime, that is. The food is a little better, everyone gets orange juice and milk and things like that. They get paid a little more. They have to pay more for what they get, though.”

“In other words, it’s just what I said. Everyone is rich in the Bronx.”

“Well, have it your own way. Anyhow, I think fate has had a lot to do with my life, because one night a friend of mine told me that they were about to have examinations for jobs in the City Government.”

“The City of the Bronx?”

“No, Tina, New York City. He told me I ought to take them. I said I hadn’t had enough education, but he said I ought to go ahead and try. So I did and I came out number 177 out of 1,100. That made me feel pretty good, as if I knew something after all. They gave me a job as a clerk in the Department of Taxation and Finance

“Did this make you rich again?”

“No, being a tax collector did not make you rich in New York. I was earning twenty dollars a week. That’s two thousand lira.”

“Two thousand, richer than ever.”

“I did all right, too, only then they elected a man named LaGuardia, and since he was a different party from the previous man, a lot of people got thrown out, and I was one. I borrowed some money from my motherin-law -”

“Your mother-in-law? Were you married?”

‘Yes, Tina, I’ll tell you about that some time. I borrowed this money and bought a grocery store in the Bronx, and it was all mine. Only then about two years later things went badly, we had hard times, and I had to sell out before it was too late. I went back to the City to see if they’d have me back, because they had sent me a couple of notices while I had the grocery store, saying they wanted me. They said: ‘Why didn’t you answer the notices?’ I said: `I never got them, I must have been in Florida when you sent them to me.’“