The Gladiator

"The government tolerates the Church. Why wouldn't it put up with something like this?" A

"It tolerates the Church because the Church has been around for almost 2,100 years. The Church is big and powerful, even if it doesn't have any divisions. The Russians let religion breathe, and they don't usually put up with anything." Her father looked unhappy. "A shop that's been open two years at the most just doesn't have that kind of clout. If this Eduardo can't see that, he needs to get his eyes examined."

"Do you suppose somebody's going to start a company or sell stock or exploit his workers because of The Gladiator?" A

"With the laws the way they are now, I'm not sure you could start a company. I'm pretty sure you can't sell stock," her father answered. "You'd have to be crazy to try, wouldn't you? Who'd want to stick his neck out that way?"

"What am 1 supposed to tell the League?" That was An-narita's real worry.

"Well, it depends," her father said. "Do you want to get these people in trouble? If you do, I bet you can."

"But I don't, not really. Most of them are like Gianfranco- a bunch of guys who don't get out much sitting around rolling dice and talking," A

She thought he would say nothing could. Instead, he looked thoughtful. "Well, 1 don't know," he said. "When the Bolsheviks started out, they were just a bunch of guys who didn't get out much sitting around drinking coffee and talking. And look what happened on account of that."

"You think a revolution-I mean, a counterrevolution- could start at The Gladiator?" If A

"Stranger things have happened," Dr. Crosetti said.

"Is that so? Name two," she told him.

He laughed again, and wagged a finger at her. He always said that when somebody claimed something stranger had happened. A

"When I was little, you'd say you would sell me to the gypsies," she said. "Is that out?"

"I'm afraid so," her father answered. "If I tried it now, they'd really buy you, and that wouldn't be good."

Gypsies still did odd jobs in the countryside, and sometimes in the city. When they saw a chance, they ran con games or just stole. Not even more than a hundred years of Party rule had turned them into good collectivized citizens. A

"Who's on the committee with you?" her father asked. "Will anybody else go to see The Gladiator in person?"

"Ludovico Pagliarone and Maria Tenace," A

"Will they listen to you because you were on the spot?"

"Maybe Ludovico will. Maria…" A

"More Communist than Stalin," her father murmured.

"What?" For a second, A

Dr. Crosetti explained: "Back in the old days, they would say, 'More Catholic than the Pope,' or sometimes, 'More royal than the king.' They used to say that in France a lot. Only one king there, not a lot of them the way there were in Italy before unification. But we still need a phrase like that for somebody who goes along with authority because it is authority."

"Where did you find these things?" A

"And so? Who doesn't?" Her father held up a hand before she could answer. "I'll tell you who-people like your Maria, that's who. They go through life with blinkers on, the way carriage horses used to."

"You have to be careful when you come out with things like that," A

"Well, of course!" her father said. "That's part of growing up, learning how to be careful. I don't think you're going to inform on me."

"I should hope not!" A

"Good," her father said now, as if he hadn't expected anything else-and no doubt he hadn't. "You can talk to Ludovico, then. Maybe between the two of you, you'll outyell this other girl, and nothing will happen. Sometimes what doesn't happen is as important as what does, you know?"

A

Gianfranco opened his algebra book with all the enthusiasm of someone answering the midnight knock on the door that had to be the Security Police. As far as he was concerned, their jails and cellars held no terrors worse than the problems at the end of each chapter.

He groaned when he got a look at these. They'd driven him crazy in middle school. Here they were again, harder and more complicated than ever. Train A leaves so much time and so many kilometers behind Train B. It travels so many kilometers an hour faster than Train B, though. At what time will it catch up? Or sometimes, how far will each train go before A catches B?

They weren't always trains. Sometimes they were planes or cars or ships. But they were trains in the first question.

And, because they were trains, Gianfranco's panic dissolved like morning mist under the sun. This was a problem right out of Rails across Europe. There, it involved squares on the board and dice rolls instead of kilometers and hours, but so what? He figured those things out while he was playing. Why couldn't he do it for schoolwork?

Because it's no fun when it's schoolwork, he thought. How could it not be fun, though, if it had to do with trains? He tried the problem and got an answer that seemed reasonable. On to the next.

The next problem had to do with cars. When Gianfranco first looked at it, it made no more sense than A

There was a difference, though, between being reasonable and being right. He took the problems to his father, who was smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. "Can you check these for me?" he asked.

"T don't know. What are you doing?" his father asked. Gianfranco explained. His father sucked in smoke. The coal on the cigarette glowed red. People said you were healthier if you quit smoking, but nobody ever told you how. His father shook his head and spread his hands. "Sorry, ragazzo. I remember going down the drain on these myself. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, maybe you're crazy. I can't tell you one way or the other. I wish I could."

"I'll find out in class tomorrow." Gianfranco didn't look forward to that. But he still thought he had a chance of being right, and that didn't happen every day in algebra. "Let me go back and do some more."

"Sure, go ahead. Pick up as much of that stuff as you can- it won't hurt you," his father said indulgently. "But you can do all right without it, too. Look at me." He stubbed out the cigarette, then thumped his chest with his right fist.