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The circle is broken - a Don Camillo story (for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
camillofan)
By Giovanni Guareschi
Spocchia the hardliner, the one who was keeping his lads ready for the second wave, the one who, where the Marxist-Leninist faith was concerned, had the nerve to correct Peppone himself, was, when unarmed, barber and tailor in Molinetto. There were ugly stories told about him, and he was rumoured to have put more than a few people away. Only proletarians patronized his shop, and the one time when a gentleman of the city, guest of someone or other, had stumbled there, Spocchia had winked at the proletarians waiting for their turn, got the unfortunate man to sit down, and started shaving him. When half-way through, he had put his razor down.
"You can get the priest to shave the rest," he had said, while his gang laughed themselves stupid.
Spocchia seethed with hatred for Don Camillo, because he felt certain that when Peppone did not do this or that, or left it half-way through, it was the priest's fault. For a long time now, he had been heard saying how he'd love to give Don Camillo a shave. Time and time again, when he was shaving one of his people and the razor had reached the throat, he would sigh: "If you were Don Camillo, I would not give a penny for your hide!"
And so it happened, say it and repeat it, that one late Saturday afternoon, with the shop full of people, the door opened, and Don Camillo was there.
There stood Peppone, Brusco, Bigio, Smilzo, Lungo, Fulmine, and some eight or ten more of the gang. Don Camillo had a good two fingers' depth of wiry black beard. He took off his hat, hanged it on a nail, then sat on the only chair still free.
"Evening," he said in a relaxed manner. "I was told that you were eager to shave me. So here I am."
Everyone looked at him in astonishment, and Spocchia did not answer, clenched his teeth, and went on shaving Redskin.
Don Camillo lit a half of a Tuscan cigar and started looking around. Apart from a portrait of Lenin, there was also one of Stalin, one of Garibaldi, one of Mazzini and one of Karl Marx.
"What with beards and mustaches, you've got plenty of work there!" he broke out. "Lovely customers, too, international. Good sound money."
He pretended to notice Peppone only then. "Oh, I beg your pardon, I hadn't noticed you. Good evening, Mr.Mayor."
"...evenin'..."
Peppone sunk himself into a newspaper, but once Don Camillo had got started, he could be more unstoppable than Fulmine. "Well," he sighed, "lots of water under the bridge, eh? Lots! You remember, Spocchia, when you were an altar boy in church every Sunday?"
"Juvenile follies," sneered Spocchia. "If I'm not mistaken, you haven't seen me there for a good little while. A matter of ten or twelve years."
"I thought I'd seen you a matter of a few evenings ago, actually."
"Don Camillo, you are wrong."
"That's as may be. It was dark, and I may indeed have been wrong. Anyway, there is no doubt that you wished to see your old parish priest again. I've lost count of the times that people told me you'd give goodness knows what to be able to shave me. You won't deny that, I hope?"
"Indeed I won't," said Spocchia darkly, caressing his open palm with the blade of his razor.
"And I have been told, too, that you'd give goodness knows what to make me a suit."
"A fir-wood suit with tin lining," muttered Spocchia. "And quite gladly too."
"That's understood, my son," smiled back Don Camillo. "But when a man wants to cut someone a fir-wood suit, he must take his measurements with great care."
The work for Pellerossa was done. Spocchia put down his razor and turned to stare at Don Camillo. "Reverend," he said grimly, "what did you come here for?"
Don Camillo got up and sat down on the work-chair, which was now free.
"I have come here to be shaved by you."
Spocchia went even paler than he already was. Then he placed the towel around Don Camillo's neck and started lathering up his face. Then he started working with the razor.
Silence fell; the razor was singing out, and everyone's breathing was shallow.
The razor came and went and came again, over the cheeks, under the nose, over the chin. It was an iron wire beard, and the razor sang out like a grass mower in the dead silence.
Now the blade moves back and forth under Don Camillo's chin. Now it travels repeatedly over the throat. It rests, cutting out a small knot of hairs on the Adam's apple.
Finishing touches. Rock alum. Disinfectant spray. Talcum powder.
Smilzo, who had spetn the time sitting motionless on a back-to-front chair and biting its back with his teeth, let go, lifted his head, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Peppone politely spat out the front page of L'Unita', the Communist newspaper, which he had been chewing without realizing it.
"Beautiful work, Spocchia," broke out Don Camillo as he got up. "You are a master. Never met a lighter hand. For the fir suit's third fitting, any time that suits you."
He put some money in his hand, took his hat, which Smilzo was offering, said good evening to the whole gang, and, just as he was about to leave, pointed at the portrait of the mustached tovarisch. "Shorten his mustache a tiny bit," he advised. "He'll look better that way."
As soon as he had got back home, Don Camillo reported to the crucified Christ. When he was done, the Christ looked unconvinced.
"Don Camillo, was it really necessary to provoke that man?"
"I think so," said Don Camillo.
................................................................
When Don Camillo had left the shop, Spocchia went on shaving beard after beard. Finally, left alone with Peppone, he locked the door and took his apron off.
"See? It's starting," he said, lighting a cigarette.
"I don't get it," muttered Peppone.
"Peppone, I'm in no mood for jokes. It's clear enough: he was out to make trouble. Maybe, while he was here, there were Carabinieri outside. Maybe they still are there."
Peppone threw back his hat. "Talk sense, Spocchia. I can't understand what you're talking about."
Spocchia extinguished his cigarette, crushed it into a ball and threw it into a corner. "They must have suspected me and been following me. Or maybe they were there to look over the priest or something, or just there by chance, God knows. Thing is, the other night they shot at me with a machine gun. I had to run away and left the bike in a ditch, and the next day the bike wasn't there."
Peppone's face did not alter. "So it was you who shot at Don Camillo?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"You've been an idiot, Spocchia."
"The only thing wrong was to miss him. I was really a fool the first time. When I shot Pizzi, only the boy saw me. His wife could not see me, she was too far forwards, but the kid saw me fair and square. His eyes met mine. If only I'd put a bullet in him too, it would all have been over. I've been an idiot. He must've told his mother, but she will keep her trap shut: I let her have a very clear anonymous letter. The kid spoke with the priest, and I've had my eye on them a lot. And sure enough the priest published his filthy rag and blew the suicide theory out of the water and got everyone talking."
Peppone was pale with fury. He seized the lapels of Spocchia's suit and shook him hard. "You moron, why did you shoot? Who gave you any orders?"
"I was hiding behind the window that looks on the fields; when I saw Pizzi pointing his gun at you, I shot to defend you."
"I didn't need no goddamn defending from anyone, let alone you! My orders were to use weapons only if I said so!"
"What's done is done. And that's also settled an old score of mine with that sod. Now it's a matter of getting me out of a jam. If Don Camillo came here tonight and spoke as he spoke, in front of everyone, he must have felt safe: he's arranged it with the Carabinieri sergeant, I'll bet. Start trouble, make it a personal issue where the Party has no business. But this is Party business, it has to be."
Peppone stared at him in brooding rage. "Party business? Your own stupid mess and it is Party business?"
"Peppone, you were leading the squad, it was your truck, you went into the kitchen, Pizzi's wife and son saw you clearly. And you're the mayor and the cell leader; you were in charge, and you represent the Party."
Spocchia was violently excited, and Peppone tried to calm him down. "Wait a minute, let's not let our imaginations run away with us. Maybe Don Camillo simply came to show off. Or maybe he suspects you, but he has no evidence and is trying to wear your nerve down. If they had anything like real evidence, they'd have nabbed you already. In the end, only the kid saw you, and his word is only worth as much as yours."
Spocchia was sweating. "Nobody saw me," he burst out, "nobody except that damned brat!"
"One witness is worth nothing. You just have to say that while I was going alone - and that is true - to have my talk with Pizzi, you stayed on the truck with the others. There was twenty-five of us; why should anyone charge you rather than anyone else?"
"That kid saw me."
"One is worth nothing."
"There is that bicycle."
"Bicycles don't talk. You just keep calm. We'll talk again tomorrow."
.............................................................................
It was midnight and the full moon shone over the snow; you could see as easy as daylight. A man was walking, seeking the thin shade of the hedges. When he reached the yard of the Pizzi farmhouse, he moved cautiously towards the door and tried to open it. Then he tried to open every window on the ground floor. Then he seized a stepladder and rested it against the wall to climb.
He made some noise, because he slipped on the frozen snow. A window opened, and someone cried out: "Who's there?"
Then the man let go of the ladder and started shooting madly at all the windows with a machine-gun, screaming out: "Curse you! I'll kill every filthy last one of you!"
The two mouths of a hunting rifle poked out of a ground-floor window; both barrels spoke at once, at five paces, and the man lay dead on the snow.
People came, and Peppone with them. Pizzi's son stood there, still with the rifle in his hand, for it had been he who had shot. When the Carabinieri sergeant came, he said: "That is Spocchia, the man who shot my father. I saw him when he shot him." And now he was dead, it turned out that Pizzi's wife had seen him too; she showed the anonymous letter. Then there was a labourer who had been coming in late from the fields and had stopped a second. Then other people.
Meanwhile, the man who had found Spocchia's bicycle in the ditch was rubbing his hands, because nobody could now say that it was not his.
Peppone wrote some twenty different "explanations," tore them all up and spat on the pile of paper, and then shouted: "If you die, you've paid, and the account is settled!"
Don Camillo ended the matter with seventeen words: "It is war that has ruined our youth. We should not speak of culprits, but of victims." Nobody mentioned the matter again, but everyone kept smiling at everyone else, because the circle of fear had been broken.
Spocchia the hardliner, the one who was keeping his lads ready for the second wave, the one who, where the Marxist-Leninist faith was concerned, had the nerve to correct Peppone himself, was, when unarmed, barber and tailor in Molinetto. There were ugly stories told about him, and he was rumoured to have put more than a few people away. Only proletarians patronized his shop, and the one time when a gentleman of the city, guest of someone or other, had stumbled there, Spocchia had winked at the proletarians waiting for their turn, got the unfortunate man to sit down, and started shaving him. When half-way through, he had put his razor down.
"You can get the priest to shave the rest," he had said, while his gang laughed themselves stupid.
Spocchia seethed with hatred for Don Camillo, because he felt certain that when Peppone did not do this or that, or left it half-way through, it was the priest's fault. For a long time now, he had been heard saying how he'd love to give Don Camillo a shave. Time and time again, when he was shaving one of his people and the razor had reached the throat, he would sigh: "If you were Don Camillo, I would not give a penny for your hide!"
And so it happened, say it and repeat it, that one late Saturday afternoon, with the shop full of people, the door opened, and Don Camillo was there.
There stood Peppone, Brusco, Bigio, Smilzo, Lungo, Fulmine, and some eight or ten more of the gang. Don Camillo had a good two fingers' depth of wiry black beard. He took off his hat, hanged it on a nail, then sat on the only chair still free.
"Evening," he said in a relaxed manner. "I was told that you were eager to shave me. So here I am."
Everyone looked at him in astonishment, and Spocchia did not answer, clenched his teeth, and went on shaving Redskin.
Don Camillo lit a half of a Tuscan cigar and started looking around. Apart from a portrait of Lenin, there was also one of Stalin, one of Garibaldi, one of Mazzini and one of Karl Marx.
"What with beards and mustaches, you've got plenty of work there!" he broke out. "Lovely customers, too, international. Good sound money."
He pretended to notice Peppone only then. "Oh, I beg your pardon, I hadn't noticed you. Good evening, Mr.Mayor."
"...evenin'..."
Peppone sunk himself into a newspaper, but once Don Camillo had got started, he could be more unstoppable than Fulmine. "Well," he sighed, "lots of water under the bridge, eh? Lots! You remember, Spocchia, when you were an altar boy in church every Sunday?"
"Juvenile follies," sneered Spocchia. "If I'm not mistaken, you haven't seen me there for a good little while. A matter of ten or twelve years."
"I thought I'd seen you a matter of a few evenings ago, actually."
"Don Camillo, you are wrong."
"That's as may be. It was dark, and I may indeed have been wrong. Anyway, there is no doubt that you wished to see your old parish priest again. I've lost count of the times that people told me you'd give goodness knows what to be able to shave me. You won't deny that, I hope?"
"Indeed I won't," said Spocchia darkly, caressing his open palm with the blade of his razor.
"And I have been told, too, that you'd give goodness knows what to make me a suit."
"A fir-wood suit with tin lining," muttered Spocchia. "And quite gladly too."
"That's understood, my son," smiled back Don Camillo. "But when a man wants to cut someone a fir-wood suit, he must take his measurements with great care."
The work for Pellerossa was done. Spocchia put down his razor and turned to stare at Don Camillo. "Reverend," he said grimly, "what did you come here for?"
Don Camillo got up and sat down on the work-chair, which was now free.
"I have come here to be shaved by you."
Spocchia went even paler than he already was. Then he placed the towel around Don Camillo's neck and started lathering up his face. Then he started working with the razor.
Silence fell; the razor was singing out, and everyone's breathing was shallow.
The razor came and went and came again, over the cheeks, under the nose, over the chin. It was an iron wire beard, and the razor sang out like a grass mower in the dead silence.
Now the blade moves back and forth under Don Camillo's chin. Now it travels repeatedly over the throat. It rests, cutting out a small knot of hairs on the Adam's apple.
Finishing touches. Rock alum. Disinfectant spray. Talcum powder.
Smilzo, who had spetn the time sitting motionless on a back-to-front chair and biting its back with his teeth, let go, lifted his head, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Peppone politely spat out the front page of L'Unita', the Communist newspaper, which he had been chewing without realizing it.
"Beautiful work, Spocchia," broke out Don Camillo as he got up. "You are a master. Never met a lighter hand. For the fir suit's third fitting, any time that suits you."
He put some money in his hand, took his hat, which Smilzo was offering, said good evening to the whole gang, and, just as he was about to leave, pointed at the portrait of the mustached tovarisch. "Shorten his mustache a tiny bit," he advised. "He'll look better that way."
As soon as he had got back home, Don Camillo reported to the crucified Christ. When he was done, the Christ looked unconvinced.
"Don Camillo, was it really necessary to provoke that man?"
"I think so," said Don Camillo.
................................................................
When Don Camillo had left the shop, Spocchia went on shaving beard after beard. Finally, left alone with Peppone, he locked the door and took his apron off.
"See? It's starting," he said, lighting a cigarette.
"I don't get it," muttered Peppone.
"Peppone, I'm in no mood for jokes. It's clear enough: he was out to make trouble. Maybe, while he was here, there were Carabinieri outside. Maybe they still are there."
Peppone threw back his hat. "Talk sense, Spocchia. I can't understand what you're talking about."
Spocchia extinguished his cigarette, crushed it into a ball and threw it into a corner. "They must have suspected me and been following me. Or maybe they were there to look over the priest or something, or just there by chance, God knows. Thing is, the other night they shot at me with a machine gun. I had to run away and left the bike in a ditch, and the next day the bike wasn't there."
Peppone's face did not alter. "So it was you who shot at Don Camillo?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"You've been an idiot, Spocchia."
"The only thing wrong was to miss him. I was really a fool the first time. When I shot Pizzi, only the boy saw me. His wife could not see me, she was too far forwards, but the kid saw me fair and square. His eyes met mine. If only I'd put a bullet in him too, it would all have been over. I've been an idiot. He must've told his mother, but she will keep her trap shut: I let her have a very clear anonymous letter. The kid spoke with the priest, and I've had my eye on them a lot. And sure enough the priest published his filthy rag and blew the suicide theory out of the water and got everyone talking."
Peppone was pale with fury. He seized the lapels of Spocchia's suit and shook him hard. "You moron, why did you shoot? Who gave you any orders?"
"I was hiding behind the window that looks on the fields; when I saw Pizzi pointing his gun at you, I shot to defend you."
"I didn't need no goddamn defending from anyone, let alone you! My orders were to use weapons only if I said so!"
"What's done is done. And that's also settled an old score of mine with that sod. Now it's a matter of getting me out of a jam. If Don Camillo came here tonight and spoke as he spoke, in front of everyone, he must have felt safe: he's arranged it with the Carabinieri sergeant, I'll bet. Start trouble, make it a personal issue where the Party has no business. But this is Party business, it has to be."
Peppone stared at him in brooding rage. "Party business? Your own stupid mess and it is Party business?"
"Peppone, you were leading the squad, it was your truck, you went into the kitchen, Pizzi's wife and son saw you clearly. And you're the mayor and the cell leader; you were in charge, and you represent the Party."
Spocchia was violently excited, and Peppone tried to calm him down. "Wait a minute, let's not let our imaginations run away with us. Maybe Don Camillo simply came to show off. Or maybe he suspects you, but he has no evidence and is trying to wear your nerve down. If they had anything like real evidence, they'd have nabbed you already. In the end, only the kid saw you, and his word is only worth as much as yours."
Spocchia was sweating. "Nobody saw me," he burst out, "nobody except that damned brat!"
"One witness is worth nothing. You just have to say that while I was going alone - and that is true - to have my talk with Pizzi, you stayed on the truck with the others. There was twenty-five of us; why should anyone charge you rather than anyone else?"
"That kid saw me."
"One is worth nothing."
"There is that bicycle."
"Bicycles don't talk. You just keep calm. We'll talk again tomorrow."
.............................................................................
It was midnight and the full moon shone over the snow; you could see as easy as daylight. A man was walking, seeking the thin shade of the hedges. When he reached the yard of the Pizzi farmhouse, he moved cautiously towards the door and tried to open it. Then he tried to open every window on the ground floor. Then he seized a stepladder and rested it against the wall to climb.
He made some noise, because he slipped on the frozen snow. A window opened, and someone cried out: "Who's there?"
Then the man let go of the ladder and started shooting madly at all the windows with a machine-gun, screaming out: "Curse you! I'll kill every filthy last one of you!"
The two mouths of a hunting rifle poked out of a ground-floor window; both barrels spoke at once, at five paces, and the man lay dead on the snow.
People came, and Peppone with them. Pizzi's son stood there, still with the rifle in his hand, for it had been he who had shot. When the Carabinieri sergeant came, he said: "That is Spocchia, the man who shot my father. I saw him when he shot him." And now he was dead, it turned out that Pizzi's wife had seen him too; she showed the anonymous letter. Then there was a labourer who had been coming in late from the fields and had stopped a second. Then other people.
Meanwhile, the man who had found Spocchia's bicycle in the ditch was rubbing his hands, because nobody could now say that it was not his.
Peppone wrote some twenty different "explanations," tore them all up and spat on the pile of paper, and then shouted: "If you die, you've paid, and the account is settled!"
Don Camillo ended the matter with seventeen words: "It is war that has ruined our youth. We should not speak of culprits, but of victims." Nobody mentioned the matter again, but everyone kept smiling at everyone else, because the circle of fear had been broken.