Traitors to All Read Online Free PDF Page A

and repulsive. He motioned her towards the surgery. The case mustbe a little heavy, to judge both by the look of it – it was rather like an instrument case, with metal straps – and by the way she was holding it. ‘Take a seat.’ They were clever: they had sent the girl here instead of coming to fetch him, as he had been told they would. Had he been told the truth about anything?
    Before sitting, she put the case down in a corner, then took off her dress coat. Under it she was wearing a red slip and sheer black stockings. She picked up her handbag, sat down, looked in her handbag for her cigarettes and lit one. They were Parisiennes. ‘Would you like one?’ She held out the packet.
    ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking one: he liked Parisiennes, and it might mean that the girl spent time in Switzerland or France.
    ‘Is there anyone else here?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes, a friend of mine.’ You had to be open with these people, he couldn’t exactly hide Mascaranti in a wardrobe as if this was a bedroom farce. ‘Why?’
    ‘Don’t lose your temper, I was only asking.’ She was sitting back, comfortable and composed, in the little armchair. ‘It’s quite hot, isn’t it, even with the windows open?’
    From the extremely modest glass cabinet he took the instruments he needed, in order to sterilise them. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, but he didn’t feel the heat the way she did. But heat is a subjective sensation. ‘Yes, it’s starting to get hot.’
    ‘Sometimes, though, I feel cold, even in July.’
    ‘I’ll be right back.’ Carrying the instruments in a glass bowl, he went into the kitchen, and without looking at Mascaranti, found a cooking pot in the dresser, filled it with water, threw the instruments into it and switched on the gas.This was his first return to the sacred mission of medicine. The last act he had performed as a doctor had been to kill an old woman who was sick with cancer – you call it euthanasia but you end up in prison all the same – and now once again he was doing a bit of social work, restoring her virginity to a healthy young woman who had absentmindedly lost it.
    ‘How’s it going?’ Mascaranti asked.
    Only when he had lit the gas did he look at him, and reply, ‘Fine.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Did you check downstairs?’ He went to the window which looked out on the courtyard, but withdrew almost immediately: in the courtyards of large cities, the spring air is filled with the smell of stones and rubbish and cooking, which is not very inviting, especially at night.
    Mascaranti said yes, he had checked, he had the two-way radio in his pocket, he was really happy about that: this was life, this was work, being able to talk to Sergeant Morini, who was in the Via Pascoli with his squad, simply by taking the two-way radio from his pocket.
    ‘Call me when it boils, but don’t come in,’ he said to Mascaranti, and went back to the surgery and the virgin. She was still smoking, she had lit another cigarette.
    ‘I was almost falling asleep in this heat.’
    ‘Would you mind getting on the couch?’
    ‘All right. Can I smoke?’
    He nodded, and stood watching her, without turning away, as she took off her suspender belt and slip. ‘Go on.’ She put the suspender belt and slip on the little table. From the cabinet he took a pair of rubber gloves and a little bottle of Citrosil, and poured the alcohol on his gloved hands.
    ‘Will it take long?’ she asked. ‘Silvano told me it doesn’t take long.’
    ‘
I’m
the doctor,’ he replied, moving the lamp in order to get more light.
    ‘You lose your temper easily, I like men who lose their tempers easily.’
    She was certainly friendly, with that tinge of outer Milanese dialect in the way she spoke. He began to examine her. It wasn’t easy to see properly, this wasn’t exactly a big operating room, he didn’t have the facilities, he didn’t even have a white coat, a white coat makes an