“I talked to her this evening. It is a terrible story. It was not the earthquake that killed him. He was shot.”
“Why?”
“She does not wish everyone to know. You must say nothing of it.”
“Well?”
“It was during the first earthquake. After the great shocks were over they went back to their house from the fields in which they had taken refuge. The house was in ruins. There was part of one wall standing and he made a shelter against it with some boards. They found some food that had been in the house but the tanks had been broken and there was no water. He left her with the boy, their son, and went to look for water. Some friends who had a house near theirs were away in Istanbul. That house, too, had fallen, but he went among the ruins to find the water tanks. He found them and one of them had not been broken. He had nothing to take the water back in so he searched for a jug or a tin. He found a jug. It was of silver and had been partly crushed by the falling stones. After the earthquake, soldiers had been sent to patrol the streets to prevent looting, of which there was a great deal because valuable things were lying everywhere in the ruins. As he was standing there trying to straighten the jug, a soldier arrested him. Signora Beronelli knew nothing of this and when he did not come back she and her son went to look for him. But there was such chaos that she could do nothing. The next day she heard that he had been shot. Is that not a terrible tragedy?”
“Yes, it is a tragedy. Such things happen.”
“If the good God had killed him in the earthquake she could bear it more easily. But for him to be shot …! She is very brave. She does not blame the soldiers. With so much chaos they cannot be blamed. It was the Will of the good God.”
“He is a comedian. I have noticed it before.”
“Do not blaspheme.”
“It is you who blaspheme. You talk of the good God as if He were a waiter with a fly-swatter. He hits at the flies and kills some. But one escapes. Ah, le salaud! The waiter hits again and the fly is paste with the others. The good God is not like that. He does not make earthquakes and tragedies. He is of the mind.”