From the Fifteenth District Read Online Free PDF

now read in English and was adept at flickering her eyes over a letterleft loose without picking it up. As for the Unwins, they were as used to Carmela as to the carpet, whose tears must have seemed part of the original pattern by now. In November Miss Barnes sent Mrs. Unwin into a paroxysm of red-and-white coloration by accepting an invitation to lunch. Carmela rehearsed serving and clearing for two days. The meal went off without any major upset, though Carmela did stand staring when Miss Barnes suddenly began to scream, “Chicken! Chicken! How wonderful! Chicken!” Miss Barnes did not seem to know why she was saying this; she finally became conscious that her hands were in the air and brought them down. After that, Carmela thought of her as “Miss Chicken.” That day Carmela heard, from Miss Chicken, “Hitler will never make the Italians race-minded. They haven’t it in them.” Then, “Of course, Italian men are not to be taken seriously,” from Miss Lewis, fanning herself absently with her little beaded handbag, and smiling at some past secret experience. Still later, Carmela heard Miss Barnes saying firmly, “Charlotte is mistaken. Latins talk, but they would never hurt a fly.”
    Carmela also learned, that day, that the first sermon the new clergyman had preached was about chastity, the second on duty, the third on self-discipline. But the fourth sermon was on tolerance – “slippery ground,” in Mrs. Unwin’s opinion. And on the eleventh of November, at a special service sparsely attended, flag and all, by such members of the British Legion as had not fled, he had preached pacifism. Well – Italy was at peace, so it was all right. But there had been two policemen in mufti, posing as Anglican parishioners. Luckily they did not seem to understand any English.
    “The Padre was trying to make a fool of me with that sermon,” said Mrs. Unwin.
    “Why you, Ellen?” said her husband.
    “Because he knows my views,” said Mrs. Unwin. “I’ve had courage enough to voice them.”
    Miss Lewis looked as if she had better say nothing; then she decided to remark, in a distant, squeaky voice, “I don’t see why an agnostic ever goes to church at all.”
    “To see what he is up to,” said Mrs. Unwin.
    “Surely the police were there for that?”
    Mr. Unwin said he had refused to attend the Armistice Day service; the matter of flag dipping had never been settled.
    “I have written the Padre a letter,” said Mrs. Unwin. “What do we care about the Greek this and the Hebrew that? We are all living on dwindled incomes and wondering how to survive. Mussolini has brought order and peace to this country, whether Mr. Dunn likes it or not.”
    “Hear, hear,” said Miss Chicken. Mr. Unwin nodded in slow agreement. Miss Lewis looked into space and pursed her lips, like someone counting the chimes of a clock.
IV
    I n spite of the electricity rates, the kitchen light had to go on at four o’clock. Carmela, lifting her hand to the shelf of tea mugs, cast a shadow. At night she slept with her black cardigan round her legs. When she put a foot on the tiled floor she trembled with cold and with fear. She was afraid of the war and of the ghost of the uncle, which, encouraged by early darkness, could be seen in the garden again. Half the villas along the hill were shuttered. She looked at a faraway sea, lighted by a suntwice as far off as it had ever been before. The Marchesa was having a bomb shelter built in her garden. To make way for it, her rose garden had been torn out by the roots. So far only a muddy oblong shape, like the start of a large grave, could be seen from the Unwins’ kitchen. Progress on it was by inches only; the men could not work in the rain, and this was a wet winter. Mrs. Unwin, who had now instigated a lawsuit over the datura tree, as the unique cause of her uneven health, stood on her terrace and shouted remarks – threats, perhaps – to the workmen on the far side of the Marchesa’s hedge. She