Jens Bjørneboe, Vinter i Bellapalma (Oslo: Cappelen Forlag, 1958). ©1958 by Cappelen Forlag A/S. Used by permission. English translation © 1997 by Esther Greenleaf Mürer.
As this excerpt opens, the town fathers have just met to consider how best to deal with the fishermen's demand that the town treasury be used to build a breakwater. Since custom dictates that the younger men must defer to the elders—mayor Lambo and police chief Agnolino, both octagenarians—the plan they come up with is half-baked, to say the least. Meanwhile the fishermen, led by Tomaso, are having their own caucus behind the closed doors of Alexi's trattoria.
Across the piazza, heading for Alexi's, there now came a company consisting of police chief Agnolino, mayor Lambo, monsignor Leone, and the two younger gentlemen, hotelkeeper Lippi and tourist chief Strozzi.
“There's no use trying to gain access to the fishermen's meeting,” squeaked Agnolino; “they're remarkably agitated.”
“All right!” said Leone, and looked darkly at the door to the trattoria. “I'll get the fishermen out.”
Agnolino jumped in:
“Stop, very best monsignore! They are extremely angry!”
Leone laid his heavy hand on the doorknob and opened it with no resistance from inside. He placed himself on the threshold and shouted into the smoky room:
“Signori pescatori! Will you do us the great favor of coming out onto the piazza? The mayor has an offer to make you!”
“Don't promise too much!” squeaked Agnolino.
“My good fishermen, be so obliging as to come out to us, so that we can discuss the town's problems under God's open sky!”
“An offer?” called Tomaso from inside.
“Yes, an offer, gentlemen. Come out and then you can hear it!”
“Very well, holy father!” said Tomaso, appearing in the doorway. He turned and shouted to the others:
“Come out, everybody! They want to make us an offer!”
“Will they offer us the town treasury?” shouted a fisherman who now appeared in the doorway.
“Probably. Everybody just come out!”
One by one the fishermen came out onto the square. They settled at tables, on steps, on boxes, on the big empty wine barrels beside the door. Many simply remained standing. Agnolino drew Lambo aside and squeaked feebly:
“Perhaps you want to read the riot act for them instead? I myself have got a terrible pain in my throat, best of all friends!”
“It's the police chief's duty,” replied Lambo, demurring.
“It's just as much the mayor's!”
“Well!” Tomaso's voice rang over the square. “We're ready to listen to your offer. Be quiet, everybody! We don't want them to trick us!”
He stepped aside and seated himself at the back against the wall of the trattoria, so that he had a view of the whole piazza. There was something about him I didn't like, a strange natural authority, and something crafty, carnivore-like in his eyes. I thought that the scirocco might have been too much for him. So many weeks without regular work, without fishing, and all the time this warm, dead wind from Africa. It was very warm on the piazza and I was damp under my collar and on my brow.
“We want the town treasury for our breakwater!” Timberio suddenly shrieked out over the assembly.
“Hush!” said Tomaso.
But more joined in, shouting:
“The town treasury! The town treasury!”
Tomaso rose:
“Yes, but shut your most miserable mouths! We'll get it! One way or another we'll get it!”
It grew quiet again. A dull, dark stillness, a silence which wasn't peace. Something gnashed its teeth and growled at the bottom of it, and I thought how impossible it was for a foreigner to comprehend what really dwelt in these people's souls. It was unknown, a white area on the map.
Agnolino and Lambo were standing just a couple of yards from our table, Leone a bit further away.
“Get out there in the square, best of all friends!” said Lambo, shoving Agnolino ahead of him. “Go out and talk to them! You have the gift for it, carissimo amico!”
Agnolino stood there groping in his pockets and finding nothing.
“I don't have the paper with the points! What was it we agreed on?”
“The railway,” sighed Lambo.
“And the airships, yes! Now I remember!”
“Materialism!” said Leone.
“But there was more!” quaved Agnolino desperately. “There was a lot more!”
The fishermen had been waiting for some time, and were getting restive again. You could hear shouts and shrieks. The people were growling.
“The railway, the airships and the very naughty materialism were the most important!” whispered Lambo. “That's enough! Just talk to them! Talk! Talk!”
“We want the treasury!” shouted a fisherman. And more joined him, menacingly: “Yes, the treasury! The treasury! Bring it here!”
Once again Tomaso brought his troops to order; he stood up:
“Of course we'll get the town treasury! Very best, most beloved colleagues and friends! But first, shut up!”
Resolutely Leone pushed the police chief out onto the square, where he stopped and made yet another effort to find his notes. Tomaso waved his hand a couple of times, and two fishermen rolled one of the wine barrels up to the speaker. Then they lifted him carefully onto it. He tottered, but remained standing.
“Don't forget materialism!” said Lambo, who had followed him: “That's the main thing.”
“Wait!” said Agnolino, looking down at the other in despair: “I've forgotten the riot act too!”
“Fire away, best, most magnificent friend!” said Lambo and withdrew. Agnolino looked around the hushed, expectant piazza. Then he cleared his throat a couple of times, and raised his feeble voice:
“Citizens of Bellapalma! My dear, grateful people! Already when the railway was brought in, I said ... I foresaw what it would bring! I believe today as always that we should never have brought in the railway!”
Murmurs of assent from the people. They nodded their agreement. Agnolino went on:
“It has brought with it, O my dear children of the town, a steadily expanding dissolution of all the good old ways. Children rebel against their parents, parents against grandparents, and ... and ... ”
“ ... grandparents against great-grandparents!” shouted a fisherman.
“Yes, yes,” continued Agnolino in a treble voice, “so it is. This is what has happened. It's highly disgusting to think what unnatural grandparents we have today! They rebel against everything and everybody!
“What then is more natural, my dear, grateful folk, than that the people too should rebel against the God-given authorities!?? People defy their superiors. What has been happening here in Bellapalma today? Rebellion, my children, rebellion! Way back when they brought in the railway I foresaw that it must come. I have always, always, always been against the railway. On this I shall never budge an inch. Alas yes! The time is past when people in Bellapalma lived God-fearing, unassuming, obedient lives, and the generations piously and quietly succeeded one another.”
He paused to draw breath, then continued with a steadily more shaky and squeaky voice:
“In the railway's footsteps followed a new and godless time—and selfishness, rebellion, defiance and disaster burst upon Bellapalma, upon our ancient, beloved town. Citizens! It is the Age we stand face to face with! The new age, when everything is trampled into ruins, when decency and obedience are at an end. And the old values ....”
“What's he talking about?” yelled a fisherman angrily. And he wasn't the only one who had grown impatient. You could hear unrest and conversation, muffled exclamations and snickers all across the square.
“When is he getting to the breakwater?” shouted another. And more joined in the cry: “We want the town treasury!”
Many others simply shouted: “The treasury! The treasury!”
“Hush!” yelled Tomaso. “Let him finish!”
“But the railway,” twittered Agnolino, “it thunders forth through the land with smoke and sparks, like—Oh! like the highly evil Devil himself! It scares people and pets up into trees, runs over our cats and seduces our youth! And in the railway's footsteps something else has made its highly devilish entry into Bellapalma! It is mat ... mat ... You know what I'm thinking of, Lambo! Say it!”
“Materialism!”
“Yes, exactly! Materialism has broken loose in Bellapalma! The train brought not only impudence and disobedience to our little town, but materialism as well. With the train came materialism and ...”
“The tourists!” shrieked an angry fisherman. And more joined in eagerly: “Yes, yes, they come by train! Many tourists come by train! Signor police chief is absolutely right!”
Agnolino continued:
“Exactly! The tourists and materialism. Materialism, this frightfully loathsome sickness which has come to our little town!”
Agitation and uncertainty reigned among the people, and several times the cry was heard:
“What is materialism? What kind of thing is that?”
There was general bewilderment, and they were all asking each other:
“What is materialism?”
Tomaso rose and demanded silence. Then he whispered:
“You ought to understand that! It is the sickness which Pasquale has caught from the tourists!”
“And a regular pig's sickness it is!” shrieked the old fisherman Giuseppe: “A pig's sickness, I say!”
“And the way it's been spread around!” yelled the red-haired Timberio.
Giuseppe got halfway to his ancient feet and said:
“It's quite right what our best of all police chiefs says; there was practically none of this sickness in the town before the tourists came!”
Not everyone had heard when Tomaso defined materialism for them, and the explanation was now whispered from head to head. All were agreed and indignant over the state of affairs. They supported Agnolino with heart and voice, and nodded to each other.
Agnolino went on:
“Hush! Let me speak, dear children! What we must do is drive materialism back out of our town! Out with this destructive sickness which is laying it waste! Away with it!”
Muffled exclamations: “Yes, yes, out with it!” And a few excited voices whispering: “You hear for yourselves that he says it's a sickness!”
Agnolino further:
“Today materialism encroaches everywhere! But we shall fight it!”
His voice grew steadily stronger from the support he felt around him. He shrieked, he howled, he rolled his eyes, became as high-flown and eloquent as a prince of the Church:
“Cross my heart, fellow citizens! Today it has encroached on us everywhere! We all of us have to some degree been touched by materialism!”
Tomaso thoughtfully:
“That's true! O madonna, the great majority in this town have had it at least once!”
An agitated fisherman stood up:
“All the waiters have materialism!” he yelled. The fishermen chimed in: “Yes, all of them! The waiters are a bunch of pigs!”
Agnolino with fervent rhetoric:
“Now materialism must be driven out again! We—your police chief, your mayor, your priest, hotelkeeper Lippi and tourist chief Strozzi—have discussed this today. And we have concluded that materialism among the fishermen must now be combatted with the very strongest measures!”
Enthusiastic voices: “Bravo! Bravo!”
A single voice: “Do we get free medicine?”
Agnolino: “And we must deal with it severely! We have found the root of evil, and we will press forward with vigor, now that we are resolved to fight it.”
He took a deep breath, turned toward Tomaso, pointed at him and threw himself on the offensive:
“We're especially grieved that you of all people have made yourself a carrier of the contagion! You, Tomaso, who used to be a good and unassuming man, you, you! You who were a good fisherman back then when all of you put out to sea every day! You who were—at one time—a good and diligent citizen of Bellapalma, son of good parents, of humble, upright, pious folk—you of all people have long since taken to spreading this around in our beloved, innocent little town!
“That it should be you who are spreading this among our fishermen, that is our greatest sorrow. Look at all those men sitting around you. To them you've brought the contagion! What would your mother have said if she had lived to see it!”
A shriek, a long, mad yowl welled up out of Tomaso. His face was like a tiger, one single wild, contorted grimace. And he got to his feet and pressed forward through the fishermen.
“That's a lie! That's the blackest lie from hell! O madonna, what a swine of a police chief! That's a very, very ugly lie! In the first place I'm not like that—it's the filthy and monstrously immoral waiters who are like that; and in the second place I haven't had materialism since 1951! And then I got it from a lady—yes, from an English lady who was here for two months and gave materialism to Paolo and Ignazio and Timberio and Caruso! That's a black, a most ugly lie what you're saying, you monstrously filthy toad of a police chief!”
Agnolino stayed on the barrel, swaying as in a strong wind, but he didn't give in. He pointed at Tomaso with his little brown finger and went on:
“You are the originator! You are the source of the contagion! Just don't attempt to deny it!”
New roars from Tomaso. He flailed about him and forced his way forward, he created an empty space around him, and with wild, bloodshot eyes he groped for Agnolino. But all was chaos, everybody was shrieking and swarming, and he didn't find him, for the police chief was no longer on the barrel. Up out of all the yells and shrieks on the square rose Tomaso's frenzied voice: “A lie! A lie! That's a black lie!”
The disorder was total, and the sea of people billowed like a real ocean around the table where we were sitting. Again we heard Tomaso's roar:
“And to say such a thing about me! When everybody knows what Pasquale and Augusto have been cooking up with their materialism!”
For a while it billowed back and forth, and gradually the storm abated. Tomaso was quiet, and I saw him lean feebly, almost exhausted, against the wall of the trattoria. He no longer looked normal, and was breathing heavily, with his whole chest and belly. Then Father Leone's splendid bass rang over the piazza. We looked up, and on Agnolino's abandoned wine barrel towered the prelate's beefy body.
“Hush!” he said; “silence!”
And you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone listened. And through the silence a fisherman said: “We want the town treasury to build the breakwater with!”
“That's right,” answered the man of God; “you shall have it!”
Father Leone's very first words already proclaimed the great evangelist and preacher. Oh, how we were convicted in our sin at the sight of him! A puritan majesty flamed up from the figure who stood on the wine barrel. The people waited obediently, expecting some terrible condition for getting the money. But it didn't come. Instead Leone continued:
“You shall get the money to build the breakwater! It is truly a very long time since I've heard anything which has pleased me so exceedingly much as the report that you want to get to work and build a harbor. I am wholeheartedly on your side in this question; you shall get the town treasury!”
Now the rejoicing broke loose. The fishermen stood and shrieked, shouted, threw hats and loose objects into the air: “Monsignor is on our side! Hurrah! Hurrah! He is truly an extremely good person! Bravo! Bravo! He's on our side!” And much else.
Leone, continuing: “This very day, this evening you shall get the treasury, if you wish!”
New rejoicing, new shouts: “O madonna, no, not this evening! That is too much! That is too wild! Bravo! Bravo! Tomorrow is soon enough!”
Thus did the people rejoice.
On the other hand the flame of enthusiasm was weak in Agnolino and Lambo, who, together with Lippi and Strozzi, were standing beside our table.
“Now surely he's going too far!” said Lambo cautiously.
“Imagine, without consulting the temporal authorities!” police chief Agnolino whispered back, his white moustache aquiver.
“He's speaking with forked tongue!” Lippi whispered to them.
A tiger's roar from Tomaso filled the square: “Hush! Absolute silence! If anyone disturbs monsignor in his most excellent speech, then I'll knock him as flat as a very little, terribly repulsive louse! Only monsignor is to speak! No one must interrupt him!”
“Yes, quiet!” called several fishermen.
“Long,” continued Leone, “long have I yearned to hear such a resolution from you fishermen. For I will no longer conceal the fact, no, I will no longer keep it a secret that I have looked with the very deepest sorrow on developments in Bellapalma in recent years. O buonissimi pescatori! The very, very deepest sorrow!”
Voices from the people: “Yes! Hear! Hear! He's right! Monsignor is grieved!” Etc.
Leone: “The tourist trade has brought a false and harmful prosperity to us all. A highly false wealth! Who can't eat his fill in Bellapalma today? Who can't dress well? You walk on the beach and on the square in fine clothes, watch television in the bars and drink espresso and anisette all day long! All are well-fed! All have clothes!”
Voices: “Yes, that's right! All have money and food!”
“But what has the town not paid for this affluence? For this world's glittering gold and false jewels! Ha! What price haven't we paid? Have you really done honest work for this wealth? No!
“You have bought it at a terrible price!”
A hush in the crowd.
Leone: “Do you maybe go out and fish anymore? As good as never! Only once in a while when you get too bored with playing cards at Alexi's or sitting on the beach. In the summer you sit on the beach and rent out your boats to the swimming guests, and pose for photographs—or row the tourists around—and for this you earn more money than you could earn by honest fishing. Is this a life for sons of the sea? For the trueborn fishermen of Bellapalma? Oh, no, no! It is a lazy man's life which demoralizes! Which destroys.”
Scattered shouts: “Yes, that's true! He's right!”
“And I know of things which are worse! I have heard that many of the fishermen reap material benefits from certain foreign ladies who come here! That many receive the support of ladies from many lands!”
“Yes,” said a fisherman happily, “many of these foreign ladies are extremely nice. They buy us fishing nets and tackle.”
“I have heard,” said Father Leone, “that many fishermen maintain connections with up to several nice ladies at once. Is this true, Tomaso?”
Tomaso looked down and to the side.
“Very best, carissimo monsignore! The kind ladies come from the countries by the northern seas, and the men in those lands have exceedingly thin and bad blood. Those men have blood which is no warmer than the water in the North Sea. Many of these ladies have made us gifts of fishing nets and tackle and other things which fishermen may need. And holy father, it goes without saying that the more ladies you receive support from, the more money you make in the course of a year.”
“Does this apply to you too, Tomaso?”
“Oh, holy father, must I answer this exceedingly difficult question?”
“How many ladies do you receive support money from?”
“O signor! From four ladies, one from Holland, one from England and ....”
“Thank you, Tomaso. That is sufficient. Such things are a shame!”
“But what are we to do, father?”
“You shall fish,” said Leone forcefully, “fish! Now things are going to be different, once you get the breakwater and the harbor!”
“Won't the ladies come anymore then?” called a young fishermen.
Leone, enthusiastically: “No, then there will be an end to the lusts of the flesh! How many of you have the kind of female contributors that signor Tomaso has? The kind that buy nets and tackle? Stand up, all those who have generous acquaintances!”
Amid muttering and stifled protests the fishermen stood up. It took some time, and gradually one man became the object of the whole piazza's attention. All thoughts were directed to one single man. People craned their necks, shoved others aside, stood on tiptoe to see. It was old man Vittorio, who had remained seated.
“Shame on you!” cried Leone harshly; “is Vittorio the only pious person among you?”
Timberio, the red-haired giant, seized the floor:
“Holy father, O reverendissimo monsignore! Our colleague Vittorio, the grandissimo pescator, is an exceedingly aged gentleman! He will be eighty-seven years old in the month of April! May he live many, many more years among us!”
Many: “Yes, monsignore! That is our heartfelt wish!”
“Hush!” roared Leone. “Hush! Most people have their full powers even at that age, and misuse them dreadfully!”
The people chimed in, and one heard the name of police chief Agnolino mentioned repeatedly.
“Hush!” said Leone. “Now sit down, my children!”
They sat down, relieved that the interrogation was over. Leone again took the floor:
“But now there will be an end to this! And I've rejoiced inwardly that the decision to build the breakwater comes from you, my good fishermen! You shall once more become honest seamen, practice your holy, simple fisherman's work again, just as your fathers did before you!
“Nothing in recent years has pleased me so much as that you have now made this decision—to go back to your true work again! You shall regain your old dignity and pride. You shall brave all kinds of weather! When the breakwater goes up, then you can put out to sea every single day, in any weather, and live off the hard and worthy toil of your own hands!”
Timberio now swallowed all shame and posed his question as he stood up:
“Very best monsignore, must we also fish when it's raining?”
Leone: “Naturally! After all, you're fishermen! Of course you must also go fishing in rainy weather. That's when the fish bite best! Oh, they have a hearty appetito when it's raining!”
Another fisherman said: “But there are exceedingly few fish in the sea!”
“My children!” said Leone, “then you must venture further out on the ocean. You must find the fish where they are! Seek them out, find their secret hiding places, catch them from a hundred fathoms deep! Oh, you shall become true fishermen again! When the breakwater comes, you'll have a really good harbor here. It will never again be impossible to get your boats through the surf, you will no longer need to drag them up on the beach to protect them from the ocean's raging waves! In the future you will fish both day and night, in storm and rain, in the treacherous mezzogiorno and scirocco, as well as in the cold maestrale! In all kinds of weather!”
“Do we have to go out in a high wind too?” called a fisherman.
“Of course! That's what they did in the old days!”
“But that's dangerous! It's exceedingly dangerous!”
“Everything is in God's hands! Trust in Him, just as your ancestors did!”
“Monsignore! Must we also go out in the biting west wind?”
“Yes, signor pescatore! Far out on the ocean! Far, far out!”
A whispering voice: “I don't want to do that!”
Others: “Me neither! Not on my life!”
“Hush!” shrieked Leone, waxing wroth: “What kind of effeminate nonsense is that? If the community builds the breakwater for you, then of course you will please fish! You will go out! Out with you! You shall become regular, honest fishermen again! Oh, the town will again be extremely proud of its sons! Now there will be an end to French and English and Dutch and Danish ladies—now there will be work done here!”
“Why can't the nice ladies come?” called someone.
“Oh, children!” said Leone with a happy sigh from his huge chest. “If you knew how I'm gladdened by the thought of your returning to your forefathers' stern and harsh life, a life without idleness and sloth and tips!”
Another voice: “Won't the very kind ladies come in the spring?”
Leone: “No, never again! Praise be! When the breakwater is built, then there will no longer be any bathing beach, no naked legs and backs, the tourists will be gone for good, the hotels and restaurants will close, and everything will be like it was in the old days. Of course there'll be no more ladies. Life will be harsh and poor, the waiters too will have to become fishermen if they want to live in this town—and you must all revert to the life of your forefathers. You shall fish! In poverty and struggle—but in virtue. Yes, in virtue and poverty!”
“But there are so few fish in the sea!”
“So find them, I said! You must be on the sea day and night, in rain and wind and cold, in storm and in waves; then the catch will surely get better! Far, far out on the sea, where the best and fattest fish dwell in their caves on the ocean floor! If you don't find fish by the coast, where you yourselves have helped kill them off with dynamite, then look for them in the ocean!”
A heavy, painful silence settled over the piazza. Heads sank, light went out of eyes, the happy smiles vanished. A lone voice sounded:
“Not on my life will I go out so far! It's against progress!”
“Listen!” said Leone sternly. “This is serious. We're beginning another life in Bellapalma from this hour. You can, as I said already, get the town treasury today. You've already made your choice. Tomorrow begins the building of the harbor!”