The Secret of Santa Vittoria Read Free Page A

Others say it happens because everyone is related to everyone else, that everyone shares the same blood and the same hearts and nerves and so what is experienced by one is felt by the next. Whatever it is, after the Pietrosantos went into the Piazza of the People it was soon thick with the others.
    They put Fabio up on the steps of Santa Maria. Pietro the Bull, the oldest and still the strongest of the Pietrosantos, hung Fabio’s bicycle from the statue of the turtle on the fountain so the beam of his bicycle lamp would shine on the young man. It threw Fabio’s shadow back onto the church façade and when he held up his hand before speaking the hand was twenty feet high on the stones.
    â€œA great thing has happened today,” Fabio called out. His voice is as thin as his body, but it is clear and it can be heard.
    â€œA great thing for us. A great thing for Italy.” The people leaned forward to hear Fabio, because good news is not a common commodity in this place.
    â€œBenito Mussolini, the tyrant, is dead,” he cried.
    There was no sound at all from the people. The face of Fabio showed that he was puzzled. He asked if they heard him and no one answered, but Fabio knew that they had heard.
    â€œThe Duce has been put to death this day,” he called.
    Still the silence, the only sound the water pouring from the fountain.
    â€œWhat is that to us?” someone shouted. “What are you trying to tell us?”
    â€œWhy did you get us out of bed?” they called. “Why did you ring the bell?”
    His face was anguished. It is a fine face, long and clean and narrow like the blade of a new ax, the eyes deep and dark like ripe olives, and his hair so dark that it seems blue at times. Fabio’s skin is white and fine, not the color of copper pots like most of the faces here.
    â€œWhat does it mean to us? ” the first man shouted again. He wanted an answer.
    â€œIt means freedom,” Fabio said, and he looked down.
    The people respect Fabio, but they were annoyed by what he had done. He went down the steps of the church and they cleared a path for him so that he could get his bicycle down from the Fountain of the Pissing Turtle.
    â€œYou’ve been away too long, Fabio,” a man said. “We don’t go to school here, Fabio. We work. We grow grapes, Fabio. You shouldn’t have waked up the people.”
    â€œExcuse me,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
    â€œIt’s the books,” a woman told him. “You’ve strained your mind.” Everyone nodded, because it is a known fact here that a few books are all right, like wine, but too much can be bad. Books break down brains.
    It was the cobbler Babbaluche who saved things, although it is usually his role to ruin them.
    â€œLeave the light there,” he ordered. He has a voice which sounds as if his throat was plated with brass; it is always irritating and it is always heard. He limped, because he is a cripple, to the steps of the church.
    â€œI’ll tell you what it means to you, you socks filled with shit,” Babbaluche began.
    There is no point in keeping it a secret. The cobbler is a man who is fascinated with excrement. Under the laws of Italy it is not allowed to put down on paper, even on paper that is not to be published, the things Babbaluche calls the people of Santa Vittoria. He compares our nastiness to that of a man who rises in the morning and finds that the shoe he has just put his foot in has been used the night before as a chamber pot. He can say these things because of something that happened to him years ago in front of all the people and which they allowed to happen. Babbaluche was a penance we had to bear.
    â€œHow many of you would like to sink your boot in Copa’s ass?” Babbaluche shouted.
    There was a cheer then. It was an ambition of everyone in the piazza.
    â€œAs of this morning you have that right.”
    He went through the