The Girl on the Via Flaminia Read Online Free Page B

you?” the girl said softly, looking across the table at her.
    â€œOf 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.
    â€œHow 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 . . .”
    â€œAnd your husband?” the girl asked.
    â€œMy 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.
    â€œDarling!” she said.
    She went to the table and kissed the blonde girl. “You’ve met Adele . . . ?”
    â€œYes,” Lisa said.
    â€œYou’ll like the room,” Nina said. “Won’t she like the room, Adele?”
    â€œI had Mimi clean it thoroughly,” Adele said. “The Americans like everything clean.”
    â€œYou’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.”
    â€œApartments are difficult because of the bombings,” Adele said. “Everybody thinks Rome is safe.”
    â€œYes,” the girl said. “The Pope protects us, doesn’t he?”
    â€œWell,” Adele said, “one must be grateful to the priests for something.”
    â€œIt’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?”
    â€œShe has a very pretty skin,” Adele said.
    â€œShe 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.”
    â€œA tragedy,” Adele said.
    â€œHe’ll die,” Nina said, “when it comes out black again . . .”
    â€œThen leave it red.”
    â€œAt five hundred lire a rinse?”
    â€œHe’s an American,” Adele said. “He can afford it.”
    â€œWon’t it be difficult,” Lisa asked, “your going to Florence now?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œIt’s forbidden for civilians to travel without a permit,” Lisa said. “But I suppose for a soldier . . .”
    â€œNot a soldier, cara,” Nina said. “An officer. In the American army there’s a great difference.”
    â€œEh. . .” Adele said. “Love, love!”
    â€œDon’t be silly, Adele,” Nina said. “They serve magnificent breakfasts, the Americans.”
    â€œWhile we have nothing,” Lisa said.
    â€œOne can always eat,” Nina said.
    â€œThey say,” Adele said, “the Americans eat four times a day.”
    â€œThey live well.”
    â€œWhat a country it must be, their America,” Adele