A Bell for Adano Read Free Page A

to Zito: “That is your reason for wanting us to have come sooner, is it?”
    Zito was careful. “Partly,” he said.
    Borth said: “Usher, if you were a good Fascist you would be able to tell me why there is a big blank space up there on the wall over which there used to hang a picture. It is easy to see by the square of dust that there was a rather large picture there.”
    Zito smiled and said: “The picture does not exist. It has been destroyed.”
    Borth said: “You are not hiding it in the basement? You are not afraid that the Americans will be driven out by your German allies and that your leader will return some day and see the square of dust on the wall and ask questions?”
    Zito said: “It is destroyed, I swear it. I cannot lie before the Mister Major.”
    Major Joppolo said: “Usher, what is that big picture over my desk?”
    This was where the little Zito told a beautiful lie. The picture was of a group of men in antique costume. One of them, by expression of face, position in the picture and by the accident of being the only one in the sunlight of all the men, was obviously their leader, and he was pointing out the side of the picture to the left.
    Zito thought quickly and said: “That, Mister Major, is Columbus discovering America.”
    Zito smiled because it was a beautiful lie. Major Joppolo did not discover for three weeks that the picture was really a scene from the Sicilian Vespers, that bloody revolt which the Sicilians mounted against a previous invader.
    Now Major Joppolo said in English more or less to himself: “It’s a nice picture, I wonder how old it is, maybe it’s by somebody famous.”
    The Major went to the desk, pulled out the highbacked chair and sat in it, carefully putting his feet on the scrollwork footstool.
    Borth said: “How does it feel, Duce?”
    The Major said: “There is so much to do, I hardly know where to begin.”
    Borth said: “I know what I must do. I’ve got to find the offices of the Fascist Party, to see if I can find more records. May I take the Mister Usher and look for the Fascso?”
    “Go ahead, Borth,” the Major said.
    When the two had left, Major Joppolo opened his brief case and took out some papers. He put them in a neat pile on the desk in front of him and began to read:
     
    “INSTRUCTIONS TO CIVIL AFFAIRS OFFICERS. First day: Enter the city with the first column. Cooperate with C.I.C. in placing guards and seizing records. Place all food warehouses, enemy food dumps, wholesale food concerns, and other major food stocks under guard. Secure an estimate from local food distributors of the number of days of food supplies which are on hand or available. Make a report through channels on food situation in your area. See that the following establishments are placed under guard or protection: foundries, machine shops, electrical works, chemical plants, flour mills, breweries, cement plants, refrigeration plants, ice plants, warehouses, olive oil refineries, sulphur refineries, tunny oil mills, soap manufacturing plants, and any other important establishments. Locate and make available to port authorities all known local pilots...”
     
    And the list went on and on. When he had read three pages, Major Joppolo looked at his wrist watch. It was eleven thirty. Almost half of this first day was gone. He took the sheets of instructions up from the desk and tore them in half, and tore the halves in quarters, and crumpled up the quarters and threw them into a cane wastebasket under the desk.
    Then he sat and stared out the nearest French door into the empty street for a long time. He looked tired and defeated.
    He stirred and reached into his brief case again and took out a small black loose leaf notebook. The pages were filled with notes on his Amgot school lectures: notes on civilian supply, on public safety, on public health, on finance, on agriculture, industry, utilities, transportation, and all the businesses of an invading authority. But he passed all