The Girl on the Via Flaminia Page 2

  “Eighteen,” the English sergeant said. “Me missus is twice eighteen.”

  “France, that would have been for me,” the American said.

  “Oh,” the sergeant said, “Rome ain’t bad.”

  “Rome’s a city,” the American said. “Cities are different. But you take the rest of the country. Mountains!”

  “Well, it’s a pretty country, except for the flies.”

  “Listen, sarge,” the American said. “Know what they can do with Europe? All of it? Fold it three ways and ram it. Listen. I walked up here from Anzio. Then at Velletri I fell off a cliff. In the dark! Fell off a cliff and bust my ankle.”

  He pulled up the leg of his trousers.

  “Feel that,” he said to the Englishman. “Feel that ankle.”

  Solicitously, the Englishman touched the stockinged bone.

  “Here?” he asked.

  “Right there,” the soldier said. “Feel it?”

  “Bit o’ somethin’ stickin’ out,” the Englishman said.

  “That’s where it’s bust,” the soldier said. “Off a goddam cliff in Velletri in the dark. But nobody believes me. Everybody thinks I’m trying to goof off from my outfit. Could I go back to my outfit with an ankle bust like that?”

  He looked at the sergeant unhappily. The sergeant poured a glass of wine.

  “I saw a chap once had his whole foot smashed,” the sergeant said. “Bloody gun fell on him.”

  The Signora Adele Pulcini came into the dining room. She was a tall woman, with gray hair, in her fifties, and her face was sharp and dark. She was dressed in black, and a cigarette was in the corner of her mouth. At night she lay in bed, with the electric light on, smoking cigarettes and coughing. She looked at the two soldiers in the room, and she said to the American, “Imbecille! How many times have I told you not to shout? Twice last week the carabinieri came in . . .”

  “Come here, Mamma,” the American said to the Signora Pulcini. “Feel this ankle.”

  “Ankle?” the tall hard-faced woman said. “What ankle?”

  “Feel it,” the American said.

  The Signora Pulcini accommodatingly felt his ankle.

  “So?” she said.

  “Busted,” the soldier said. “Off a cliff in Velletri. That’s what I got liberating your goddam city.”

  “Peccato,” the woman said.

  “Could I march with an ankle like that, busted?” the soldier said. “Could I, Mamma?”

  “Of course not,” the Signora Pulcini said, knowing that one must always agree with the soldiers who came to drink in her dining room on those nights when the city was dark and cold and lonely. “You are a very brave soldier.”

  “I’d have gone back to my outfit,” the American said. “It wasn’t I didn’t want to. I came up with them from Oran. I went through Venafro with them. We hit the beach together. But the medics reassigned me. They could see I couldn’t do the walking anymore.”

  “Of course,” Adele Pulcini said, seeing how agitated he was, and how inside him something hurt, and knowing that the soldiers could be ugly and dangerous when the things inside them began to hurt. “Now sit down,” she said. “Mimi will bring the wine.”

  She, too, went to the door and called, but not loudly, “Mimi!”

  From the kitchen a girl’s voice, very light and quick, answered, “Sì, signora?”

  “Fai presto,” the tall woman in black said.

  “Sì, signora,” the girl’s voice replied. “Vengo subito.’’

  Adele Pulcini turned to her two soldiers. “In this house,” she said, smiling, “we are all heroes.”

  “Bloody heroes,” the English sergeant said.

  Mimi entered the dining room, carrying a bottle of wine. It was a red wine made in the hills. The wine sparkled in the light. Mimi was sixteen. She enjoyed the soldiers, and she respected and was somewhat afraid of the Signora Pulcini. It was not that the signora was not kind. She was kind, but the kindness had a harsh quality, and Mimi would be frightened hearing the signora cough at night in the bedroom. The cough was frightening because the electricity would be on in the bedroom, and the signora would be lying in bed, fully clothed, in her black dress, smoking and coughing. It was impossible to know what the signora thought when she lay like that in bed with all the bedroom lights on.

  When the American who limped saw Mimi he put his two hands over his heart like an opera singer, and said, “Bella mia.”

  Little Mimi giggled.

  She said to the Signora Pulcini, in her own language, “Is he crazy?”

  “Sì,” Adele said. “A little. Put down the bottle.”

  “Sì, signora,” Mimi said, setting the bottle of wine on the dining room table.

  “What did she say?” the American asked.

  “She asked if you are crazy,” Adele answered.

  “We’re all crazy, honey,” the American who limped said. “The crazy Americans.”

  Mimi giggled at the soldier.

  “That is true,” she said to Adele.

  “Yes,” Adele said, “that is absolutely true.”

  “Come on, bella mia,” the American said to the little girl. “We dance. American tip-top ballerino.”

  “Have I permission?” Mimi asked.

  “Sì,” the Signora Pulcini said. “Dance with him. He is drunk.”

  “Who’s ubriaco?” the American said. “I ain’t ubriaco.”

  “Hokay,” Mimi said in English. “I danze.”

  They danced. The radio played, the wind blew against the wooden shutters, the Englishman poured himself another glass of wine, and the tall woman in the corner of whose eyes there were so many dark wrinkles smiled a little thinly as she watched her maid dance with the drunken and clumsy soldier.

  The Englishman tasted the wine.

  “Scum o’ the earth she called us,” he said, “her ladyship. Right in the House o’ Commons.”

  He should have gone absent up into the bloody hills with the partigianos. It was almost Christmas and it was a good thing his missus wasn’t in London. From London, now the air raids were over, there were reports of the big buzz bombs, and that was worse, his missus wrote, than the raids.

  Another girl came into the dining room. She was very red- haired, and very trim, and she wore high-heeled shoes. In the wintertime hardly any of the women of the city, even when they could afford it, wore high-heeled shoes. In America, of course, the women wore them, and in Paris. Nina wore them, too. They had been bought for her in a smart shop by an American captain. She had been very grateful to the captain the night the shoes were purchased. Now, with the shoes, she wore a bright tight silk print dress, with a red leather belt around her small waist, and she was carrying a valise. She put the valise down on the floor. The silk dress fell away from her breasts.

  “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 smil
es, 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.

  2.

  The 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?”