The Girl on the Via Flaminia (2 page)

“Adele,” Nina said, “did she come?”

“Not yet,” the Signora Pulcini said.

“I'm all packed,” Nina said. She looked at her wristwatch. “Why doesn't she come?”

The American who limped deserted little Mimi. “Bella mia!” he said to the red-haired girl with the valise.

She slapped his reaching hand.

“Proibito,” she said.

“What's the valise for?” the soldier asked.

“Nina goes to Florence,” the Signora Pulcini said.

“To Florence?” the American said. “What's in Florence?”

“Love, caro mio,” Nina said. “Love, love, love.”

“Hell,” the American said, “in Rome there's love, love, love too.”

“She is engaged to an American,” Adele said. “A capitano. He takes her to Florence.”

“An officer?”

“The most beautiful officer,” Nina said.

“Beautiful,” the American said. “How the hell can he be beautiful and an officer?”

“He is not like you, lazzarone,” Nina said. She was very gay. She patted the silk down on her hips. “He is gentle . . . so polite! When he smiles, madonna, such teeth! Let me see your teeth.”

The soldier bared his teeth for her.

“With teeth like that you stay in Rome.”

“Let me take you to Florence,” the soldier said.

“We'll go live in a palazzo. I know a guy in Florence lives in a palazzo. We'll borrow the palazzo from him.”

“No,” Nina said. “My captain respects Italian girls.”

“Me, too,” the soldier said. “I respect Italian girls.”

“Sì. A letto.”

“What's a letto?”

“In bed.”

“Well,” the American said, “that's a great place to respect them, ain't it?”

“No, no!” Nina said. “You are pretty, but not like my babbee . . .”

“I'm as good as your babbee . . .”

“Impossible!”

“Try me,” the soldier said. “I'm terrific. Ain't I terrific, England?”

“Smashin',” the Englishman said.

“See that?” the soldier said. “I'm smashin'.”

“No, no!” Nina said, gayly.

“I busted an ankle in Velletri liberating Roma bella,” the soldier said, “and I'm seven thousand miles from Schenectady, and it's a cold night. Where's your gratitude?”

“Ah, babbee, I am so sorry for you,” Nina said, patting his cheek. “But you do not have teeth like my captain.”

She turned to the Signora Pulcini.

“Call me when Lisa comes,” she said.

She waved to the soldier. “Ciao,” she said, “poor babbee,” and she went out of the room.

When she was gone, the American looked unhappily at the sergeant. “Aw, they save it for the brass,” he said. He looked at Adele Pulcini. “Don't you know a girl, Mamma, who wants to have dinner with a sad soldato?”

“Always the girls,” the tall woman said.

“What else is there?” the soldier said. “I just want a place I can take her.”

“You have a girl home,” Mamma Pulcini said.

“That's Schenectady,” the soldier said.

“But you make trouble,” the woman said. “You Americans always make trouble.”

“I won't make no trouble, Mamma, honest to god,” the soldier said. “Why should I make trouble?”

The signora looked at him doubtfully. “You will be nice to the girl?”

“Sure!”

“It may not be possible . . .”

“Try,” the soldier said. “I got money. Look at the money I got.” He took a thick bunch of lire from his pocket. “What am I going to do with my goddam dough? Save it until I get back to Schenectady? Go on, Mamma. Call me a girl.”

“Va bene,” the tall woman said. “But it's only because I have pity for you.”

“Sure,” the soldier said.

“And remember—no trouble!”

“Honest to god!” the soldier said.

He was excited now. He followed the tall dark woman in the black dress to the telephone which stood on the bureau. He said to her, eagerly, “What is she, Mamma? A blonde? Does she talk English? What's her name?”

“Maria,” the signora said.

She dialed the phone.

“Pronto,” she said into the telephone. “Chi parla? Maria? Ciao, Maria.” She spoke for a while into the phone. “This,” she said to Maria, “is the Signora Pulcini. Sì. Come va?” There was, in her house, now, an American, who was lonely, and who wanted to make an appointment. Yes, for this evening, she said. Yes, un soldato americano. Yes, a little drunk, but not bad, not too bad, he had promised to make no trouble. She glanced at the soldier. His face had a muddy and excited look. She noticed the thickening effect the drinking of so much wine had given his face. She noticed how the hair was cut short like an athlete's.

She said to the listening soldier. “Where will you take her, she asks?”

“Any place she wants to go,” the soldier said eagerly. “Tell her a restaurant. Ask her if she likes spaghetti.”

“She prefers meat,” Adele said.

“All right, meat,” the soldier said. “She can have anything she wants.”

“Va bene,” the tall woman said into the phone. “Ciao, Maria.”

She hung up.

“Is it all fixed?” the soldier asked. “Did you fix it for me, Mamma?”

They are so young, Adele thought, and they are so eager for the girls.

“Sì,” she said. “I will give you the address. On the Viale Angelico. You know where?”

“I'll find it,” the soldier said.

“You go across the bridge and follow the Lungotevere,” Adele said.

“I'll find it all right, I'll find it,” the soldier said.

She wrote out the address for him on the back of an old envelope. The wind blew against the window panes and shook the wooden shutters.

The English sergeant emptied his glass of wine. There was a sour and puckered taste in his mouth. Back in his barracks he had nailed a picture of his wife to the wall above his bed. He would look at the picture and say, “Well, neither of us are a ravin' beauty,” and then he would think of the incredible length of time he had not seen London. The beds in the barracks were two-bunk affairs, of wood, and there were no mattresses. There were seven other sergeants in the small room with him. The other ranks slept in a big common loft on beds which were made of wooden slats and wire. Because he was a sergeant, he had a double bunk and he slept in a room that housed only seven other sergeants. The officer he drove for slept in a big hotel on the Via Veneto. The English sergeant stood up.

“Time I went too,” he said.

“Grazie, Mamma,” the American said. He held the envelope with Maria's address. He was very pleased with the address. He was anxious now to find the house on the Viale Angelico.

“Go out through the back,” the Signora Pulcini said, somewhat glad they were going. “I do not want you seen leaving the house. Come, I'll open the gate.”

They went together to the French door in the rear of the dining room. The Englishman humped his shoulders into the warmth of his overcoat. “In the House o' Commons,” he muttered, “she stood up, her ladyship . . .”

They went out into the darkness and the cold.

The room was quiet.

 

 

 

 

T
he doorbell rang. There was the sound of the door being opened, and of Mimi's voice asking a question, then Mimi came into the dining room, and a girl was with her. “Sit down, signora,” Mimi said. “I will call Nina.”

“Grazie,” the girl said.

When Mimi had gone, the girl looked about the room. She was a pretty girl, rather tall, with good shoulders, and soft blonde hair. She wore a raincoat, a gray wool skirt, a wool sweater and, because of the cold, thick white ski stockings and walking shoes with tasseled laces. She sat in the room, looking at the mahogany table on which the wine still stood where the English sergeant had left it, the radio, the lithograph of the pierced and bleeding heart. The look she gave the objects in the room was that of someone who did not like what she saw and yet was curious about the very objects that she disapproved of. From the garden, bringing a blast of coldness with her, Adele Pulcini opened the French door and entered the room. She saw the girl in the raincoat sitting there.

“Buona sera,” Adele said. “Che brutto tempo fuori. What ugly weather. Even the winters are worse.” She looked inquiringly at the girl.

“I am Lisa Costa,” the girl said.

The Signora Pulcini smiled. “But of course,” she said. “We were expecting you. Does Nina know you are here?”

“The little girl went to call her,” Lisa said.

Adele went to the door.

“Nina!” she called into the hallway. “The Signora Lisa is here.”

From her room, Nina answered: “I am coming . . . in a minute . . .”

Adele turned. “And your husband,” she said, “he is with you?”

The girl looked up quickly.

“My . . . ?”

“The American,” Adele said. “Your husband. He is with you?”

“No,” the girl said. “He is not with me right now.”

“Eh, you girls,” Adele said, lighting a cigarette. “All of you marrying Americans. Suddenly, all the women in Rome love Americans. But . . . it's smart . . .”

“Smart?” the girl said.

“Yes,” Adele said, smiling, for it was a kind of understanding between all the women of Europe now, the thing about Americans. “Escape, my dear. Escape! What's left of Europe? A memory. If I were twenty, I'd do exactly what you've done.”

“Would you?” the girl said softly, looking across the table at her.

“Of course!” Adele said. “If I were twenty, of course. He will take you to America when the war's over. Go! Escape, my dear. Out of this misery. Out of this darkness. Europe is finished. It will never be again what it was.”

She tapped the cigarette lightly into the tray on the dining-room table.

“How ugly life is now,” she said, thinking of the wind blowing, the blackness of the streets between the cold houses. She herself would survive, of course; she had always survived; she was all leather and insomnia. But the others, they were weaker, they could not tolerate the difficulties, they were not hard enough, there was not enough leather and iron in them. “This house,” she said. “At night the soldiers come—they are lonesome, they come to sit at Mamma Pulcini's. They drink, I cook an egg if they're hungry, they listen to the music from the radio. It pleases them to be inside a house, and the egg I cook tastes better than the eggs of the army, and they enjoy eating it on a dining-room table even though they have to pay for it, and the egg may not be as fresh. One has only to be a little careful of the carabinieri . . .”

“And your husband?” the girl asked.

“My husband? Now and then he works—at the National Bank of Labor . . . I have a son, too—” she shook her head. “So—one lives . . .”

Nina came into the dining room.

“Darling!” she said.

She went to the table and kissed the blonde girl. “You've met Adele . . . ?”

“Yes,” Lisa said.

“You'll like the room,” Nina said. “Won't she like the room, Adele?”

“I had Mimi clean it thoroughly,” Adele said. “The Americans like everything clean.”

“You'll like it, you'll be very comfortable,” Nina said. “You were lucky I met you and I'm going to Florence. Try finding an apartment in the city now.”

“Apartments are difficult because of the bombings,” Adele said. “Everybody thinks Rome is safe.”

“Yes,” the girl said. “The Pope protects us, doesn't he?”

“Well,” Adele said, “one must be grateful to the priests for something.”

“It's all settled about the room,” Nina said. “You'll be very happy, darling, and I'll say addio Roma!” She looked at her friend. “ Let me see you.” She held up Lisa's chin. “Isn't she beautiful, Adele?”

“She has a very pretty skin,” Adele said.

“She has wonderful shoulders,” Nina said. “You should see her naked. Her shoulders are wonderful. But her hair is what I envy most. Wait until my captain discovers mine isn't really this color.”

“A tragedy,” Adele said.

“He'll die,” Nina said, “when it comes out black again . . .”

“Then leave it red.”

“At five hundred lire a rinse?”

“He's an American,” Adele said. “He can afford it.”

“Won't it be difficult,” Lisa asked, “your going to Florence now?”

“Why?”

“It's forbidden for civilians to travel without a permit,” Lisa said. “But I suppose for a soldier . . .”

“Not a soldier, cara,” Nina said. “An officer. In the American army there's a great difference.”

“Eh. . .” Adele said. “Love, love!”

“Don't be silly, Adele,” Nina said. “They serve magnificent breakfasts, the Americans.”

“While we have nothing,” Lisa said.

“One can always eat,” Nina said.

“They say,” Adele said, “the Americans eat four times a day.”

“They live well.”

“What a country it must be, their America,” Adele said.

“An Italian discovered it,” Lisa said.

“And the English stole it,” Adele said.

“What hasn't the Italian lost?” Nina said.

“I was telling the Signora Lisa how lucky she is,” Adele said, looking at the girl with her hard black eyes. “After the war she will be able to go to America.”

“Of course,” Nina said, quickly. “That's the advantage of having wonderful shoulders.”

“Where were you married, my dear?” Adele asked. “In Rome?”

“In Napoli,” Nina said.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Lisa said, pausing. “In Napoli.”

“Bella Napoli,” Adele said. “Is it as destroyed as they say?”

“Terribly.”

“Once upon a time,” Adele said, “how they sang!”

“Well,” Nina said, “they don't sing now.”

“Yes,” Adele said, thinking of the lost songs.

“Povera Italia . . .”

“Poveri noi,” Lisa said.

“Adele,” Nina said. “Go make a cup of coffee. I must have a cup of coffee before I go.”

“Real coffee?” Lisa said.

“From Nina's captain,” Adele replied.

“Oh.”

“What will we do when she goes?” Adele said, standing up. “My husband without his coffee!”

“Lisa's Roberto will bring you American coffee,” Nina said.

“Is his name Roberto?”

“Sì.”

The girl looked up questioningly at Nina. “Without his coffee my husband's lost,” Adele said. She went out of the room. Outside, in the darkness, the trolleys were stalled in their barns, and on the Corso, in the shadow of the galleria, where the newspaper stand was, boarded up, there were sinister figures, indistinct and muffled. The police patrolled the boulevards in small squads of three, with slung carbines, and there were lights in the lower rooms of the questura where the detectives played cards. In the dining room here, in the flat on the Via Flaminia, Nina now turned to the girl who sat, her hands in the pockets of her raincoat. “I'm exhausted,” Nina said. “Such a day. Such excitement.”

The blonde girl's voice was very low.

“When will he come?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Your Roberto,” she said.

“Mine?” Nina said. “Yours, dear.”

“When will he come?” Lisa said.

On the hills above the city the trees were thinned out of the forests because the Germans had cut so much firewood during the occupation, and in the nursery, which had once been the villa of the dictator, the orphaned children slept, in their uniform nightgowns, in a long room with many mirrors. The mirrors had once witnessed other sleepers.

Nina looked at her. “I telephoned,” she said. “Dio! To telephone an American! First one answers: who do I want? I say il sergente Roberto. Roberto? What Roberto? They never heard of a Roberto in their company. Oh, he says, the one who answers—Bob! Sì, Bob! Well, he says, this one on the telephone, how about me, babbee, instead of Bob? Finally he goes. Va bene. Another one comes to the telephone. Again who do I want. Again the Roberto, again the Bob. Then he says: 'allo, 'allo, who is speaking? Nina. Nina! this one shouts, on the telephone. How's the old tomato? Che pomodoro? Who has a tomato? But that is how one telephones an American.”

“And when you spoke to him?” the girl asked.

“Who?”

“Roberto.”

Nina shrugged. “He was happy you had agreed. Why shouldn't he be? Look how pretty his girl will be . . .”

“Pretty,” the girl said.

“But you are pretty,” Nina said, admiring her.

“Yes, and this is pretty too,” Lisa said. “To wait, like this, in a strange house for a man I've never seen.”

“Why do you have to see him? If he's nice, he's nice, sight unseen.” She looked at the girl again. There was a sound of the wind in the garden. Wine lay in the bottom of the glass on the table. “Listen to me, cara,” Nina said. She put her ringed hands on the girl's shoulders. She could feel the strong bones under the raincoat and under the sweater. “Roberto's a good boy. He's intelligent, he's not bad looking, he's not an animal like some of the others. For three weeks he's bothered me to introduce him to a nice girl. Have you eaten today?”

“It's not important,” Lisa said.

“Have you paid your rent?”

The girl was silent.

“So. At least with Roberto you'll eat, and you'll have somewhere to live. I've told Adele you are married to him. I've explained to Roberto how it will be—that you're not a street girl, and that the arrangement will be a permanent one. He's anxious, too. The army's a cold place, and you're pretty.”

“But I can't,” the girl said, twisting away.

“You can't what?”

“I can't make love to a stranger.”

Nina looked at her. The light lay softly on the blonde hair, and she thought how soft the hair looked, how soft the skin was. “One learns,” she said.

“Oh, Nina . . .”

“What do you want me to say? One learns. One learns everything. Wars are all the same. The men become thieves, and the women—” She shrugged her narrow expressive shoulders. “And it's the same everywhere.”

“Not in America,” the girl said.

“In America, too, if they had gone through what we've gone through. No,” she said, “one doesn't live as one likes to, but as one must. Go through the city. On the Corso, on the Via Veneto, on all the bridges—it's the same. Everywhere the soldiers and the women. Why? Because there is nothing else, cara mia, except to drink and to make love and to survive. And our men? Poof! Their guts are gone. Let them whimper and shout-the cigarettes they smoke, and the coffee they drink, we buy them.”

“I'm not one of the women who stand on the bridges,” the girl said.

“Did I say you were?” Nina said. “We are all unlucky in the same way. We were born, and born women, and in Europe, during the wars. Ah, Lisa, it's all the same I tell you—for you or the contessa, in her elegant apartment, sleeping with some English colonel or some American brigadier! What do you think the contessa calls it? It's an arrangement—it's love . . . but she, too, needs sugar and coffee when she wakes up in a cold room. Everything now is such an arrangement. Besides, who will it harm? Adele will have her rent—and if you won't be happier, at least you won't be hungrier . . .”

“But what will I say to him?” the girl said.

“Madonna!” Nina said.

“I've never gone with a soldier,” the girl said.

“Ask him how's his old tomato,” Nina said. “Dio, you've talked to a man before.”

“Not one of the Americans.”

“They speak exactly the same language.”

“Yes,” Lisa said. “The liberators.”

Nina gestured. “We lost the war, my dear.”

“Only the war?” the girl said.

“Oh, you make me sick!”

“Yes,” the girl said, staring at the wine glass on the table, “he'll feed me because he's won the war, and that's part of the arrangement, and then after he's fed me we'll go to bed, because that's part of the arrangement, too.” She turned her head slowly, as though she were trapped in the room. “But why should I be better or different than the others standing on the bridges waiting for their soldiers? I'll have my American. Everybody has one now.”

“No,” Nina said, “you'll jump in the Tiber.”

“Why not?”

“So they'll fish out another fool.”

“There will be one less in the world.”

“I ought to let you!”

“It's not important either way,” the girl said.

“Except,” Nina said angrily, leaning toward her, “I went through all the trouble of getting you a nice one.”

The girl's face was averted. “You take him,” she said. “You like Americans.”

“Like them?” Nina laughed. “Some I could spit on. You should see their officers as I've seen them . . . what animals! Screaming in the hotel corridors, and such jokes! To them it's a wonderful joke to hang toilet paper from a chandelier!”