A Bell for Adano (23 page)

Spataforo moved slowly over to the stool beside the camera. He sat on it, being careful not to disturb the spider’s web.

“I have been in this business a long time,” Spataforo said. “Eighty years, ninety years, a hundred years, I don’t know how long. Manufacturing faces, so that people can stare at themselves. What do you think of that as a life’s work? Bah!”

The old man got down from the stool and went and stood in front of the Major. “What a facel” he said. “What an ugly thing a man isl”

Major Joppolo was not disproportionately fond of his face, but he did trim his mustache once every three days, he did pull the hairs out of his nose once every fortnight, he kept his hair cut regularly, he washed; he kept care of his face and, without being immodest, thought that it was not too bad. So when the old man called him ugly, the Major said: “Old man, if the idea is that you are to take my picture, do so and stop insulting me. I am a Major in the American Army. I was sent here by some people of this town. I suppose they sent me to have my picture taken. Please take it if you are going to.”

The old man said: “So you are an American. I did not know the Americans were so ugly. I thought they were taller and whiter.”

Slowly the old man went around behind his camera. He took a cloth which had once been black but now was grey with dust from the top of the camera, and he bent over and put the cloth over his head and the camera, and he peered into the camera.

His muffled voice came out from under the cloth. “Even upside down you are ugly. Usually I like faces much better upside down, but not yours. You are ugly right side up and upside down. Too puffy in the cheeks. The lips are too full. Nothing that can be repaired by turning you upside down.”

Finally the old man came out from under the cloth. He went around the spider web and sat on the stool again. He reached for the shutter bulb and sat there with it in his hand.

“See how the ugly young man tries to make himself beautiful for the photographl” he said. “Look at him lick his lips, so they will be moist and shinel Look at him try to make his eyes look bright by opening them a little wider than usual, so that they look like marbles to play withl Look at him fix his face in half a smile, which is frozen and falsel” The old man laughed a creaking, dusty laugh.

Major Joppolo did not dare speak his annoyance, for fear the old man would squeeze the shutter bulb, so he sat there getting redder and more and more frozen looking.

Spataforo said: “It is a funny thing: men are more vain than women. Women are said to look at themselves in mirrors all the time, and comb their hair, and paint themselves. But it is the men who are really vain. Look at you! Roosted Peacockl You think you are so handsome.”

At last the old man squeezed the bulb.

The Major was so relieved that he did not say any of the things he had thought a few seconds before. He just sat waiting for the old man to change the film and take another.

But the old man said: “What are you waiting for, ugly young man? Do you want to put half a dozen pictures of yourself on your mantelpiece?”

The Major said: “Photographers usually take two or three pictures, to be sure of getting one good one.” Spataforo said: “Not this photographer. After you have been in this hateful business for so many years you cannot count them, you do not have to practice on each sitter. No, that is all, thank the Lord in Heaven.” Major Joppolo did not waste any time in leaving. Back at the Palazzo, he met Bellanca the Mayor and D’Arpa the Vice Mayor in the upstairs hallway.

“I have been to see your friend at Number Twentythree, Via Favemi,” the Major said, and he was just able to smile.

Bellanca said: “Did he tell you that you are ugly?”

“He certainly did.”

D’Arpa made motions of cranking at the side of his head, and Bellanca said: “He tells everyone the same thing. He even tells the most beautiful girls in town, like Tomasino’s daughter Francesca, that they are ugly and vain. He is crazy.”

The Major transferred his annoyance from Spataforo to old Bellanca -for citing Francesca instead of Tina as an example of beauty. He said: “What in the world did you send me to the old crack-brain for? What do you want the picture for?”

“You will see,” old Bellanca said. “It will be the nicest picture you have ever seen.”

Bellanca looked at D’Arpa. D’Arpa looked at old Bellanca. The two of them laughed delightedly.

Chapter
27

TACTFULLY Major Joppolo left the project of the raising of the motor ship Anzio entirely in Lieutenant Livingston’s hands.

The Lieutenant made fine headway. By the twentyfirst, he had acquired the use of the floating drydock. By the twenty-fourth, the Anzio was up. By the twentyseventh, gangs were ready to go to work unloading her.

At ten forty-five on the morning of the twenty-seventh the foreman had just finished making his speech of instructions to the workmen. There were about forty men. Some of them were good men and some were not so good. Things were going so busily in Adano that the labor supply was getting pretty low. Some of the men in these gangs were from out of town, and even the lazy Fatta was here, at work for the first time in years.

When the foreman finished his speech, he told the men that there would be a wait of about fifteen minutes before the donkey engines had enough steam to start hoisting the cargo.

Among the laborers there was one stranger to Adano who seemed above the average. He was a handsome man, and he did not have the pouches under his eyes which are usual among heavy lifters. He spoke good city Italian, too. He had a likable smile, and persuasive ways.

When the foreman was finished speaking, the stranger engaged four men in conversation. One of the four was the lazy Fatta.

“Did you hear the news?” the stranger said. “News about what?” one of the four said.

“About the German counterattack. I am uneasy this morning, because of what I heard.”

“What did you hear?” one of the four said.

“This sounds like the real thing. It started on the twenty-third, and it’s apparently reaching its peak this morning. The Germans are trying to throw the Americans into the sea.”

Fatta was not too lazy to wish to seem impressive. “Oh, I heard about that,” he said.

One of the others from Adano, who knew that Fatta. never knew anything, turned on him and said: “Where did you hear that, lazy Fatta?”

Fatta said: “Let me think. Oh yes, it was Mayor Nasta, before he was sent away. He said that the Germans would begin their attack on the twenty-third and that they planned to throw the Americans in the sea between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-eighth.”

One of the Adano men said: “Mayor Nasta was a liar. The Americans sent him to Africa.”

The stranger said: “Maybe the Americans sent him away because they knew that what he said was true, and they didn’t want him spreading fear in the town.”

Fatta, who was too lazy to think it through, said: “Yes, that may be so.”

But one of the others said: “How would the Americans know of the German plans?”

The stranger said: “They have spies. They have agents.”

Fatta said impressively: “It is possible. I heard about the attack several days ago.”

The stranger said: “You said between the twenty-fifth and the twenty-eighth? Today is the twenty-seventh. That checks with my information. Today is the big day, I guess.”

One of the men of Adano said: “What do you think will happen?”

The stranger said: “Well, that’s what makes me uneasy. I’d rather not talk about it.”

One of the men said: “Why not?” Another said: “Tell us.”

The stranger said: “No, it would not be fair to you, or to the Americans either. I would rather be uneasy by myself.” This stranger was a clever man, as you can see.

One of the men said: “We are uneasy now. Fatta has made us that way, and so have you. We would rather be uneasy about something specific. Tell us what you have heard.”

“No,” the stranger said, “it is too terrible.” The men insisted: “Tell us, tell us.”

The stranger, who was clever, and who had spotted the lazy Fatta as a fool and a potential rumor-monger, said: “Well, I will tell this man” - indicating Fatta - “Since he had heard the news previously.”

He took Fatta aside. The others saw the man whisper to Fatta, and they saw Fatta’s face go pale. Then they saw the stranger leave Fatta and move off into the crowd of workmen.

Fatta came over to them directly. He blurted out at once: “The Germans are going to put on an attack on the harbor of Adano at eleven o’clock - poison gas. It will come from a single plane.”

In a very few moments the crowd of men had begun to stir uneasily, and the rumor moved among them like a vapor: “Poison gas at eleven o’clock,... Gas at eleven... Gas, eleven, a plane... Gas, eleven... Gas... Gas... Gas...”

By two minutes before eleven, the simple Italian workmen were full of fear. At that time the foreman shouted out that all should be ready to go to work at short notice: the donkey engines were warmed up: the men should split into gangs as instructed.

The men divided themselves, and whenever two who had not been talking together met, one would say: “Have you heard... ?” and the other would nod.

Eleven o’clock passed. At three minutes after eleven, just as the men were moving toward the Anzio, to take their various stations, the drone of a plane could be heard.

This plane was the regular courier, which was due to pass over Adano each morning at eleven o’clock - as any enemy agent could easily ascertain, and as any Italian laborer could easily forget. It was a few minutes late this morning.

As the plane flew over Adano harbor, keeping about a thousand feet above the barrage balloons, all the workmen beside the Anzio looked up at it. The stranger strolled over to Fatta and murmured: “That is it.”

Fatta passed the word along. The crowd literally seemed to shudder.

Some asked each other: “What shall we do?”

Others said: “The harbor is the target. We are right in the middle of the target.”

Others said: “Does gas drop in bombs? Or does it just spray on us?”

The stranger, who had apparently had some experience in this kind of thing, waited for the exact moment when fear reached a kind of climax among the men. Then he threw up his arms and screamed: “I can smell it. Oh Christ Jesus, I can smell it.”

And he turned and ran toward the town.

The panic of the workmen was immediate. They all ran. The lazy Fatta ran for the first time since 1932, when his wife Carmelina implored him for the love of God to run for the midwife.

Someone screamed: “Into the waterl Save yourselves!” And about eight men jumped into the sea. Two of them could not swim and had to be rescued.

The lazy Fatta found himself running beside a strong young man named Zingone.

“What shall we do?” Zingone said fearfully.

The lazy Fatta said: “Let us not run quite so fast. We must save our strength, we might have to run a long way.”

So they slowed down a little.

“What do you think we ought to do?” Zingone asked again.

Fatta saw someone up ahead who had covered his face with his handkerchief, so he said: `Tut your handkerchief over your face. That will keep the gas out.”

So both of them clapped handkerchiefs over their faces.

“Did you smell it?” Zingone asked through his handkerchief.

“Oh, yes,” Fatta said importantly, “I smelled it plainly.”

“What did it smell like?” Zingone asked as they ran. “It smelled a little like the smoke from the Cacopardo Sulphur refinery.”

Zingone was silent for about thirty feet, then he said: “Are you sure it wasn’t smoke from the Cacopardo Sulphur refinery?”

“It was poison gas,” Fatta gasped.

Fatta was gasping from running, but Zingone, who was in good condition and not yet gasping, thought he was choking from the gas.

“Are you all right?” he asked Fatta.

Fatta said: “I think we should not run quite so fast. I understand that gas affect’s one’s endurance. Let us save our strength.”

So they slowed down to a trot.

Their route took them past Fatta’s house. Carmelina his wife had been attracted out of doors by the sound of the first fleet-footed workmen running past. She had shouted to later ones to ask what the trouble was. They had shouted back through their handkerchiefs about the gas. But Carmelina was a skeptic, and she did not believe what they said - until something changed her mind.

“Mary Mother of Jesusl” she exclaimed. “Can my eyes deceive me or is that my husband running?”

It was indeed Fatta, trotting heavily toward her beside Zingone.

“Something terrible has made him run,” she said to herself. “Perhaps it is true about the gas.”

When Fatta came alongside she moved out into the street and with an easy lope, trotted alongside him. “What terrible thing is making you run?”

“Gas,” he said between heavy breaths. “Poison. Germans.”

Zingone, who was not winded at all, explained to her: “We were attacked as we worked in the harbor. Some of the men could smell it. It smelled like sulphur smoke. I think it may have been sulphur smoke.”

Carmelina said: “Who said it was gas?”

Zingone said: “A stranger. He repeated the story of the German counterattack.”

Carmelina said: “You’d better not run so fast, Fatta, you will explode.”

Fatta was in truth turning purple, and he gladly slowed down a little more.

Carmelina said: “I do not believe there was any gas.” But at this time several things happened to make her begin to believe it. For one thing, they came on a knot of people around a man who was lying in the street and vomiting. This man was a certain Buttafuoco, who was sick from having drunk a bottle of wine before going to work. But when he was able to say a word between retches, he groaned: “Gas, the gas.”

The knot of people evaporated, and they all started running. The sight of the first gas casualty had everyone terrified.