Belbo’s return to the bombardon

Jacopo Belbo’s return to the bombardon is the decisive reversal in his boyhood musical ambition. Having trained two unruly classmates well enough to earn a place on trumpet, he is asked to return to the low brass instrument so the band can keep time. He accepts out of gratitude to Don Tico; the boys never become dependable players, the promised return to trumpet never comes, and Belbo leaves music behind after the war. The episode makes a small, concrete pattern of his life: an opening toward recognition closes, and duty leaves him in the background.

From Misfits to Musicians

Belbo recounts how Annibale Cantalamessa and Pio Bo became his unlikely pupils. They were not merely poor musicians: they stole comic books and shell cases, mistreated his treasured books, and boasted about sexual exploits with inaccurate knowledge. Their declared politics—Cantalamessa a Communist, Bo a Fascist—did little to distinguish them in practice; both, Belbo says, would sell themselves to the enemy for a slingshot. He saw in these two troublemakers the recruits he needed to escape the bombardon section.

His campaign to win them over was calculated and sustained. He praised the band uniform, took them to public performances, and dangled the prospect of romantic success with the Daughters of Mary. Once they agreed, he spent his days in the theater teaching them with a long stick, rapping their knuckles when they missed a note. The bombardon required more than its three keys: its embouchure demanded control, and Belbo drilled the boys until he could present Don Tico with two players who were at least acceptable. Their progress gave Belbo the chance he wanted. Don Tico moved him to trumpet.

The Performance and the Reversal

The new assignment brought Belbo into view at a public performance. For the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, and the opening of the theatrical season with They Had to See Paris, he stood before the curtain and played the opening bars of “Good Start” in front of the authorities. The remembered moment carries a personal absence within its triumph: Cecilia, the girl whose presence mattered to him, was not there. Belbo does not know whether she was ill; he only knows she was missing.

Two days later, Don Tico summoned him with a different verdict. Cantalamessa and Bo had ruined the evening: they could not keep time, lost concentration when not playing, joked, and entered at the wrong moments. Don Tico explained that the bombardon was the band’s rhythmic conscience and the instrument to which the bandmaster listened first. If it followed the beat, the other instruments would follow. He asked Belbo to return, not because his trumpet playing had failed, but because the section needed someone capable of keeping the two boys together. The reversal turns his success into a responsibility: he must surrender the more visible instrument precisely because he has proved himself dependable.

A Sacrifice Without a Reward

Belbo accepts without protest. He owes Don Tico everything, and agrees to go back to the bombardon until the other two can play on their own. At the next holy-day performance, the trumpets rise to play “Good Start” before Cecilia, again in the front row. Belbo is elsewhere: among the bombardon players and in the darkness. The scene sharply separates the visible reward from the labor that makes it possible. Cecilia sees the trumpets; Belbo’s contribution is to steady the band from a position she may not notice.

The temporary sacrifice becomes permanent because Cantalamessa and Bo never learn to play independently. Don Tico’s promise that Belbo will return to trumpet therefore remains unfulfilled. The episode does not describe a dramatic protest or a final confrontation; its consequence is quieter and more complete. When the war ends, Belbo returns to the city, abandons music and the brass family, and never learns Cecilia’s last name. His brief elevation to trumpet ends not in a lasting musical career but in withdrawal from the whole world in which the ambition had formed.

The Memory in the Present

Belbo tells the story years later, while spending time with Lorenza and the others. His performance of the memory has its own theatrical timing: he raises his eyes to survey his listeners and calculates a pause, appearing for a moment as either bard or jester. Lorenza responds with tender jealousy, then comforts him by saying that he still has her. Belbo answers by recalling that she likes saxophones, kisses her hand, and turns back to the group’s work.

That change of register matters. The boyhood account is elegiac, but Belbo refuses to let it take over the evening: he insists that they are there to create a story of the future, not a remembrance of things past. The return to the bombardon thus functions both as a remembered disappointment and as a story Belbo can shape for an audience. Its central loss remains unresolved, but his ability to tell it—to control its pauses, draw a response, and then redirect attention—sets memory beside the present rather than allowing it to consume it.