The Gladiator

Walking to school Monday morning, A

He blinked. He thought it over. She watched him doing it. "Well, I'm not sure," he said at last, quite seriously.

She eyed him, exasperated and curious at the same time. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He looked around to make sure nobody was paying any special attention to him. In the Italian People's Republic, that kind of glance was automatic for anyone older than seven or so. A

"Sure it would," A

He said something rude-rude enough to startle her. Then he turned red and said, "Scusi. But I'm serious. I really am."

"That's nice," A

"By myself? Nothing," Gianfranco said. "But if all the people united…"

"The Security Police would throw everybody into camps." A

He shook his head. "They couldn't do it to everybody, not all at once. There aren't enough camps for that. Not enough Security Policemen, either."

"Well, in that case the Russians would say we're trying to overthrow Socialism, and they'd invade," A

"But what if the Russian people united, too?" Gianfranco said.

A

"I was thinking about… freedom," Gianfranco said. "That gets you drunk like too much vino, but you don't come down again afterwards."

"I guess not, to look at you," A

"I'll try," Gianfranco said.

A car went two wheels up on the sidewalk in front of them to let somebody off. It still blocked traffic. All the drivers behind the offender leaned on their horns. Some of them yelled at him, too. He ignored them. A

"Well, what if I was?" Gianfranco said. "He likes to talk, you know."

He does not! But the hot retort never came out. If A

"Oh, stuff," Gianfranco answered vaguely. A

"I should hope not!" A

"Wouldn't be surprised." Gianfranco took a deep breath. He seemed to look every which way but right at her. "Maybe we could go to a movie or something one of these days before too long."

"Maybe we could," A

Gianfranco lit up like a neon sign. He hopped in the air. He seemed so happy, A

"All right," A

Would he have blamed Eduardo if A

What would 1 have done if Eduardo asked me? she wondered. After a moment, she shrugged. She didn't know, and she didn't seem likely to find out, either. Eduardo made a point- even stretched a point-of being a gentleman. And he was playing the role of her cousin.

Was that just as well, or was it a shame?

Before she could come close to finding an answer, they got to Hoxha Polytechnic. Then she had to worry about Russian prepositions instead. At least with Russian prepositions, you knew when you were right and when you were wrong. This other stuff? It wasn't nearlv so obvious.

Gianfranco wanted to use the bathroom mirror to comb his hair. He'd already used it twice, but that didn't matter to him. He wanted to look perfect, or as close to perfect as he could. He was unhappily aware of the distance between the one and the other.

He couldn't use the bathroom right now because A

"Is it? I guess so." To Gianfranco, A

But when she came out, she looked nicer. Gianfranco couldn't have said how, but she did. He ducked in there, ran the comb through his hair again, and wished he wouldn't have picked this exact moment to get a zit on his chin. He couldn't do much about that, though.

He stuck the comb in his pocket and went out again. "Shall we go?" he said, trying to sound like someone who did this all the time.

"Sure." A

"Have fun, you two." Eduardo sounded as if he meant it. Gianfranco hoped he did.

"Grazie, Cousin Silvio," A

She and Gianfranco walked down the stairs together. He wondered if his feet were touching the ground. When they got to the bottom, A

"If somebody could make a nice profit fixing elevators, it would have been fixed a long time ago," Gianfranco said.

She looked at him as if he'd just told a dirty joke. His ears got hot. Profit was evil-everybody learned that in school. But then she sighed. She looked around to make sure no one could overhear, then said, "Cousin Silvio tells me the same thing. It still feels wrong, though-know what I mean?"

"Si," he answered. "But what we've got doesn't work the way it's supposed to. If it did, the elevator would run. So shouldn't we think differently?"

"I don't know if we should think that different," A

"Why not?" he asked.

She gave a perfectly practical answer: "Because we'll get in trouble with the Security Police if we make too much noise about profit. Look what happened to The Gladiator."

"Somebody ought to do something about the Security Police," Gianfranco said. "They just hold us back."

A