The Gladiator

No matter how hard he stared, The Gladiator stayed dark and quiet. Plenty of people walked past Gianfranco, but nobody paid too much attention to him. Under the roof of the Galleria del Popolo, you didn't have to go anywhere fast-or at all. You could amble along, or you could just stand still.

A couple of minutes later, Carlo came up to him. "What are you doing hanging around out here?" the other gamer asked. "Why aren't you in there playing?"

"Because it's closed," Gianfranco answered mournfully.

"What? You're crazy. The Gladiator's never closed this time of day." Carlo walked over to the shop and tried the latch. It didn't open, of course. He looked very surprised and very foolish.

"You were saying?" Gianfranco rubbed it in.

"Why are they closed? Do you know? Is somebody sick? Is somebody short of money? Can we do anything to help?" Carlo could spit questions faster than Gianfranco could possibly hope to answer them.

But he did have an answer: "I think they're in trouble."

"Of course, they're in trouble. If they weren't in trouble, ragazzo, the place would be open," Carlo said. "But what kind?"

"You call me kid again and you'll be in trouble," Gian-franco growled. "And I know what kind of trouble they're in and you don't, so don't you think maybe you ought to keep your big mouth shut and your ears open?"

He didn't impress Carlo. He might have known he wouldn't. "So what kind of trouble are they in, if you're so smart?" the university student asked.

"Political trouble," Gianfranco said softly.

He wondered if he would have to spell that out for Carlo, but he didn't. The other gamer got it right away. "What happened?" he demanded. "Did some jerk decide he wanted to be a capitalist for real and not just on the game board?"

"Not here. Down in Rome. Guys who play at a place called The Conductor's Cap," Gianfranco answered.

"Ah, si. I've heard of it," Carlo said.

Gianfranco hadn't, not till A

"That's not good," Carlo said. "You think the Security Police are going to come after us?"

"I don't know." Gianfranco shrugged. "I don't know what we can do about it if they decide to, either. Do you?"

"Not much you can do," Carlo said gloomily. "You can't even disappear. They'll run you down and catch you. But we haven't done anything wrong."

"No, of course not." Gianfranco would have said the same thing even if he had done something. He didn't think Carlo was an informer, but you never knew. He did add, "Will they care, though?"

"Not likely!" Carlo said. That was true, but it also left him vulnerable to Gianfranco. Even if some things were true, you weren't supposed to say them out loud. Carlo went on, "Where are we going to play now?"

There was an important question! "Well, I've got my own copy of Rails across Europe," Gianfranco said.

"Sure. Me, too. But so what?" Carlo said. "How many people do you know who play? I mean, know away from The Gladiator?"

"A couple," Gianfranco answered. "Guys who go to my school. Even one teacher."

"Same here," Carlo said. "1 know a couple, maybe three, at the university. We can still play, but it won't be the same-not even close. All the tournaments, the fools at the next table going nuts when something exciting happens in their game… Won't be the same, trying to have a game in your kitchen."

"Tell me about it!" Gianfranco said. "We share ours with another family."

"Who doesn't? I can't wait to get my own apartment-but even then, I'll be sharing the kitchen and the bathroom." Carlo sighed. "What can you do? That's how they build 'em. That's how they've built 'em for the last hundred years and then some."

Ever since Italy went Communist, probably, Gianfranco thought. Maybe it had to do with keeping people in groups, not letting them be individuals. Or maybe it wasn't that complicated. Maybe the Italians just started imitating the Russians, who'd been building apartments that way ever since the glorious October Revolution.

"You're right. It won't be the same. Better than nothing, though." Gianfranco knew he sounded like someone whistling in the dark. He felt that way. He'd just had a big chunk of his life yanked out by the roots.

"Maybe the people from The Gladiator will turn up somewhere else. We can hope, anyhow." Carlo sounded like someone whistling in the dark.

Another gamer strolled up then, and looked horrified to discover The Gladiator was closed and dark. He and Gian-franco and Carlo went through a conversation a lot like the one Gianfranco and Carlo had just had. Then they all went away unhappy.

A

"Remember what you told me about The Conductor's Cap?" he said. "Well, The Gladiator is closed, too."

"Oh. Well, I'm sorry, but I can't say I'm too surprised," A

"I don't know!" he burst out, fiercely enough to startle her. "I'll probably go out of my mind."

"Is it really as bad as that?" A

"No. It's worse." Gianfranco couldn't have sounded any sadder if he tried for a year. If he was acting, he should have gone out for drama, because he would have grabbed leading roles with the greatest of ease. "How would you like it if somebody took away your favorite thing in all the world?"

"Not very much, I'm sure," A

"Si, but it won't be the same." Gianfranco explained why not. He brought everything out so pat, it was as if he'd said it before. "No tournaments or anything like that. I'll be lucky to get a game in every once in a while." He stopped-something new seemed to have occurred to him. "You wouldn't be interested in learning to play, would you? We could have games easier than people who don't live here could come over. It's a good game. It really is. You'd like it, I think."

He was pathetically eager to have her want to play. No- she changed her mind. He was pathetically eager to have anybody to play against, and she seemed handy. She almost told him no, which was her first impulse. Then she remembered all the things her folks said about the need to get along with the Mazzillis. Gianfranco would be very unhappy if she turned him down… and Rails across Europe had looked interesting.

"I suppose we could try," she said slowly. "I'm not going to let it get in the way of my schoolwork, though-and you shouldn't, either." He couldn't afford that as well as she could. His grades were weaker. He had to know it, so she didn't bother spelling it out for him.

The way his face lit up when she said yes convinced her she'd done the right thing. It was almost like feeding a stray puppy you found in the street. "Grazie!" he said, and then, "Do you want to start now?"

"Well…" Again, she almost said no. She didn't quite. "We won't be able to play very long, because I have to help get supper ready-and I do need to study this Russian, and some other stuff, too."

He hardly heard her-she could tell. "I'll be right back," he said, and dashed from the common kitchen into the Mazzil-lis' rooms. Maybe he paused to say hello to his mother and father. Then again, maybe he didn't. He sure reappeared in nothing flat, the box with the game in it clutched firmly in his hands. He sat down across the table from A

"What do I have to do?" she asked, thinking, It has to be better than Russian.