The Gladiator

"I'm glad it's over," A

"Want to go to a movie to celebrate finishing?" Gianfranco asked.

"We can do that," A

"Sure, but do you have five years to do it in?" he said. She laughed, for all the world as if he were kidding. He knew how hard she worked.

They left Hoxha Polytechnic behind for another school year. She would be a senior when they came back in six weeks. She would have to worry about the university and the rest of her life. Gianfranco wasn't ready for that yet. He wondered whether A

Maria Tenace came up to A

"I wasn't really worried about it," A

"You were wrong about The Gladiator," Maria continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" She lovingly sang the word. "And you're going to pay for it. Pay! Pay! Pay!" Then she waltzed off without giving A

"You sure know some nice people," Gianfranco remarked.

"Si. And I know Maria, too," A

That was fu

"I'm not even sure she can do that," A

"If we could all see ourselves the way other people do…" Gianfranco said.

"There's a poem about that in English." A

He stared. "How do you remember stuff like that?"

"I don't know. 1 just do." A

Gianfranco hadn't thought about it like that. "Most people don't, I bet," he said.

"That doesn't make it wrong if you do," A

When he said so, A

"I didn't say anything about what should happen," he answered. "T just said what would."

She looked at him as if he'd grown another head. "You know what?" she said. "You sound like my father. I never expected that."

"Neither did I!" Gianfranco exclaimed. Not only did he not expect it, he didn't much like it.

That must have shown on his face, because A

"I hope not!" Gianfranco said. "I mean, I like your father and everything, but I want to sound like me, not like him."

To his relief, A

He didn't have to cram any more. Neither did A

"The book was better," A

"I wonder if there's ever been a movie that was better than the book," Gianfranco said.

A

"Neither would I," Gianfranco said.

They stopped and had gelato to get the taste of The Crapes of Wrath out of their mouths. Then they went back to their building and trudged up the stairs to their apartments. "I do wish somebody would fix the elevator," A

"If somebody made money doing it-" But this time Gian-franco stopped before he really got going. He couldn't make himself believe anything like that would happen here, not any time soon.

"Well, it was nice even if the movie wasn't everything it might have been," A

Did she expect him to kiss her? The only way to find out was to try. When he put his arms around her, she didn't try to push him away. And when he kissed her, she kissed him back. That was all good. That was all wonderful, in fact.

"Good night," he said after reluctantly ending the kiss. "We'll have to do this again soon." Did he mean go out again or kiss some more? All of the above, probably.

"Sure. Why not?" A

Gianfranco didn't think his feet touched the floor once as he walked the handful of steps to his own apartment.

Monday after finals. Judgment Day, people called it, even if the Italian People's Republic officially looked down its nose at religion. A year's work, there in black and white. If you did well, you were glad to see it proved. If you didn't…

A

Into Russian she went. Because it was her first class, she got her report card there. Then she had to turn it in again so Comrade Montefusco could write her mark on it. Giving it to her with the grade already written in would have been more efficient. Teachers didn't do it that way. Why not? Because they didn't, as far as she could tell. Maybe there was some obscure rule against it. Maybe nobody in the bureaucracy cared about being efficient. She figured it was about fifty-fifty either way.

Back came the report card, this time with a grade. An A- she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't messed up the final, then. A few other people looked happy. A few looked disappointed or angry. Most seemed to have got about what they'd expected.

"Comrade!" A boy raised his hand.

"Si, Abbaticchio?" The teacher was always polite.

"Why did you give me a C? I need at least a B+ if I'm going to get into the university I want to go to."

"Well, Abbaticchio, maybe you should have thought more about that during the year, not when all the work is done and it's too late to change anything."

"But I need a B+!" The way Abbaticchio said it, someone-maybe God, maybe the General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party-had promised him the grade.

Comrade Montefusco shrugged. "I'm sorry. That's not what you earned."

"You mean you won't change it?" The boy sounded as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"I'm afraid so," the teacher answered.

Abbaticchio turned red. "You think you're sorry now? Wait till my father gets through with you! I'm not going to let some miserable flunky of a teacher mess with my life."

"I have had terrorist threats made against me before," Comrade Montefusco said calmly. "I am still here. I expect to be back after the summer break, too."

186 Harry Turtledove

"You don't know who my father is," Abbaticchio warned. "He took down The Gladiator, so he can sure take you out."

"What on earth is The Gladiator?" the Russian teacher said. "There haven't been any gladiators in Milan (or almost two thousand years."

The angry student rolled his eyes. Several others in the classroom whispered behind their hands. A