Free The Girl on the Via Flaminia by Hayes Alfred

Pinturicchios. Have you been to the Pinturicchios, signorina?”
    â€œNo,” Lisa said. “I know very little about art.”
    â€œOh, it wasn’t the art,” the major said. “I was more astonished at the real gold and the jewels they used than at the paintings. Actual gold.” He spun a little in his comfortable chair. “So you like to work.”
    â€œYes,” Lisa said.
    â€œWell, one can always use another secretary. Are you married, signorina?”
    She hesitated; but why? Why should she hesitate?
    â€œNo,” she said.
    â€œGood,” the major said. “Marriage is such an inconvenience. One must always be home at a certain hour. But with no husband—one is independent. I prefer independence. Do you, signorina?”
    â€œYes,” Lisa said.
    â€œSo,” the major said. “Work. There are many girls who come into the hotel for work. Some of them type. Some take shorthand. Some lack those simple talents. Do you type, signorina?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOr take shorthand?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOh,” the major said. “Neither. Well. What can you do?”
    â€œPerhaps answer the telephone,” Lisa said. “Anything.”
    â€œAnything,” the major said. “That’s interesting.
    â€œWhat is the anything you would be willing to do?”
    She did not answer.
    â€œThere are few jobs, and many girls,” the major said. “They come in all day. Each is anxious. Well, one should take the most anxious, and the most independent, no?”
    She stood up, fingering her purse, and the major leaned back in the swivel chair.
    â€œWe are not that independent, are we, signorina?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell,” the major said. “Buon giorno.”
    â€œBuon giorno,” she said.
    Outside, the clerk, her countryman, avoided looking at her, and the sentries stamped, snapping their arms, as the revolving door turned.
    Che bestie! she thought: che bestie! And now the French were included.
    So that was no escape, and yet she could not accept the other thing: the waiting in the room for evening to come, in the room, and hearing him enter the house, hearing him say buona sera to Adele or to Mimi or to Ugo when he entered, bringing, as she knew he would, because that was his part of the arrangement and he kept to it scrupulously, the musette bag, and what was in the musette bag. And always, when he entered, the first few days, there was the formality of the greeting, and it was always the same, she sitting on the bed, pretending to read sometimes, or pretending to sew, and Robert blowing on his hands, saying how cold it was, and she would say yes, wasn’t it cold, and then he would say yes, certainly was cold.
    They went out the second evening because Robert wanted to, and sat in a little neighborhood café, and he drank vermouth, the ice floating in the glass, and she had a gelato, with a small flavored lozenge on top which dripped a fruit brandy down into the richness of the cream, and the night they went there was an incident at the bar. There were always incidents. At the bar, the night they were there, the second night they were together, there was a Negro soldier, drinking cognac, dressed in a thick parka, and she sat, listening to them, the Negro and the proprietor, talking. She watched the teeth of the Negro: how enormous they were, how white. And the voice: how differently they all spoke, in some the speech nasal and grating, in some the speech thick and rich, and the tongue and the teeth were used a great deal when they spoke. All the tables had been taken indoors during the winter, and the chestnut trees outside the café were stripped and bare. But in the summer the strolling musicians would come. It was the Negro talking that had made her think of the musicians in the summertime. Then as she watched she realized the Negro was selling, in his musical speech that made her think of the strolling