The Girl on the Via Flaminia Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    â€œAn Italian discovered it,” Lisa said.
    â€œAnd the English stole it,” Adele said.
    â€œWhat hasn’t the Italian lost?” Nina said.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œOf course,” Nina said, quickly. “That’s the advantage of having wonderful shoulders.”
    â€œWhere were you married, my dear?” Adele asked. “In Rome?”
    â€œIn Napoli,” Nina said.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYes,” Lisa said, pausing. “In Napoli.”
    â€œBella Napoli,” Adele said. “Is it as destroyed as they say?”
    â€œTerribly.”
    â€œOnce upon a time,” Adele said, “how they sang!”
    â€œWell,” Nina said, “they don’t sing now.”
    â€œYes,” Adele said, thinking of the lost songs.
    â€œPovera Italia . . .”
    â€œPoveri noi,” Lisa said.
    â€œAdele,” Nina said. “Go make a cup of coffee. I must have a cup of coffee before I go.”
    â€œReal coffee?” Lisa said.
    â€œFrom Nina’s captain,” Adele replied.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œWhat will we do when she goes?” Adele said, standing up. “My husband without his coffee!”
    â€œLisa’s Roberto will bring you American coffee,” Nina said.
    â€œIs his name Roberto?”
    â€œSì.”
    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.
    â€œWhen will he come?” she asked.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYour Roberto,” she said.
    â€œMine?” Nina said. “Yours, dear.”
    â€œWhen 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.”
    â€œAnd when you spoke to him?” the girl asked.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œRoberto.”
    Nina shrugged. “He was happy you had agreed. Why shouldn’t he be? Look how pretty his girl will be . . .”
    â€œPretty,” the girl said.
    â€œBut you are pretty,” Nina said, admiring her.
    â€œYes, and this is pretty too,” Lisa said. “To wait, like this, in a strange house for a man I’ve never seen.”
    â€œWhy do you have to see him? If