children, they looked vulnerable to the slightest gust of wind. Then with a sound akin to music and almost beautiful, a bus horn’s two fat honking notes floated up from the valley; this and then a church bell far off behind me in the scrubby wilderness made me aware again of how unnaturally silent it was here at the entrance to the town. I trudged off through the dark mildewed archway in search of a telephone, troubled once more, and despairing, and conscious at my sleeve of the quick futile clutch of a hand, of the carabiniere in the shadows who whispered to me frantically, much too late: “Signore, aspen’! C’è il film!”
I must have only half-heard the cop. At any rate, it pains me still to describe what happened as I strode unheeding past his groping hands, out of the moldering archway, and into the glare of Sambuco’s piazza. Submerged in my worries, I must have been so absorbed that I did not notice the fidget and buzz of industry around the cafe table I blundered into, where sat a man and a woman chattering busily. Here, suddenly and fuzzily bewildered, I tapped the shoulder of a scowling waiter hovering near, my lips parted on the first breath of a question: Cameriere, per favore, c’è un telefo …
From behind me, I heard someone roar: “Cut! Cut! Jesus Christ, cut!”
I turned to find myself exposed to a battery of cameras and arc lights and reflectors, and now to the pop-eyed rage of a roly-poly little man in Bermuda shorts bearing down upon me, his lips curled around the butt of a cigar.
“Hey, paesan!” he yelled. “Vamoose! Get the hell out of here! Umberto, tell this guy to get out of here! He just killed a hundred feet of film! Vamoose out of here, paesan’!”
I felt a multitude of eyes upon me—from the mob of townspeople I saw gathered behind ropes gazing on, from the movie folk clustered beneath the lights, especially from the two people at the table I had blundered into. One of them was Carleton Burns, who returned my gaze with his world-famous look of bored, functional disgust. No one laughed. It was like dwelling in an extremely bad dream. For a moment, in the same way that di Lieto’s old grandmother had scared me, I felt the queasy visceral terror of a small boy caught at some lurid trespass, and I went weak, cold, and limp and I sensed the blood of pure humiliation knocking at my temples, but then suddenly something in me—perhaps it was the heat, or simply this final embarrassment, or the fact that now, after suffering such conquest all day at the hands of Italy, it was my own countryman, a waddling small blob of one but nevertheless a countryman, who was abusing me—anyway, something within me popped like a valve, and I began to boil over.
“Umberto!” he shouted at me, though not to me. “Tell that carbinary to keep these people away! Tell this guy to get the hell out of here. Vam—”
“Vamoose yourself, you miserable jerk!” I howled. “Don’t talk to me like that! Do I look like an Italian? I’ve got as much right to this square as you do! Who do you think you are, ordering me around—” In the wilting heat minute orange globes of hysteria exploded before my eyes and I heard my voice bubble up and upward, precariously pitched and rabid but somehow, I knew, almighty, for as I kept shouting at the little man I saw him stop dead in his tracks, cigar butt wagging uncertainly like a semaphore, and with eyes bulging goiterously in indecision and I suspect disbelief. Of the two final things I remember saying, the first—“You can’t push Italians around!”—seemed as I spoke unscientific and hollow, but a mawkish sense of triumph, the first of the day, swept over me as I yelled, “I’m a tired, weary man!” and on that note turned on my heels and stalked shuddering like a beleaguered and temperamental actor off what, it suddenly occurred to me, was a set.
I might have walked out of the square, down the mountainside and back to Rome, so sore and consuming
I must have only half-heard the cop. At any rate, it pains me still to describe what happened as I strode unheeding past his groping hands, out of the moldering archway, and into the glare of Sambuco’s piazza. Submerged in my worries, I must have been so absorbed that I did not notice the fidget and buzz of industry around the cafe table I blundered into, where sat a man and a woman chattering busily. Here, suddenly and fuzzily bewildered, I tapped the shoulder of a scowling waiter hovering near, my lips parted on the first breath of a question: Cameriere, per favore, c’è un telefo …
From behind me, I heard someone roar: “Cut! Cut! Jesus Christ, cut!”
I turned to find myself exposed to a battery of cameras and arc lights and reflectors, and now to the pop-eyed rage of a roly-poly little man in Bermuda shorts bearing down upon me, his lips curled around the butt of a cigar.
“Hey, paesan!” he yelled. “Vamoose! Get the hell out of here! Umberto, tell this guy to get out of here! He just killed a hundred feet of film! Vamoose out of here, paesan’!”
I felt a multitude of eyes upon me—from the mob of townspeople I saw gathered behind ropes gazing on, from the movie folk clustered beneath the lights, especially from the two people at the table I had blundered into. One of them was Carleton Burns, who returned my gaze with his world-famous look of bored, functional disgust. No one laughed. It was like dwelling in an extremely bad dream. For a moment, in the same way that di Lieto’s old grandmother had scared me, I felt the queasy visceral terror of a small boy caught at some lurid trespass, and I went weak, cold, and limp and I sensed the blood of pure humiliation knocking at my temples, but then suddenly something in me—perhaps it was the heat, or simply this final embarrassment, or the fact that now, after suffering such conquest all day at the hands of Italy, it was my own countryman, a waddling small blob of one but nevertheless a countryman, who was abusing me—anyway, something within me popped like a valve, and I began to boil over.
“Umberto!” he shouted at me, though not to me. “Tell that carbinary to keep these people away! Tell this guy to get the hell out of here. Vam—”
“Vamoose yourself, you miserable jerk!” I howled. “Don’t talk to me like that! Do I look like an Italian? I’ve got as much right to this square as you do! Who do you think you are, ordering me around—” In the wilting heat minute orange globes of hysteria exploded before my eyes and I heard my voice bubble up and upward, precariously pitched and rabid but somehow, I knew, almighty, for as I kept shouting at the little man I saw him stop dead in his tracks, cigar butt wagging uncertainly like a semaphore, and with eyes bulging goiterously in indecision and I suspect disbelief. Of the two final things I remember saying, the first—“You can’t push Italians around!”—seemed as I spoke unscientific and hollow, but a mawkish sense of triumph, the first of the day, swept over me as I yelled, “I’m a tired, weary man!” and on that note turned on my heels and stalked shuddering like a beleaguered and temperamental actor off what, it suddenly occurred to me, was a set.
I might have walked out of the square, down the mountainside and back to Rome, so sore and consuming
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