The Gladiator

No matter how Abbaticchio blustered, Comrade Monte-fusco wouldn't change his grade. When the bell rang at the end of the shortened period, Abbaticchio stormed out of the classroom. Some of the things he said would have got him suspended, or maybe expelled, any other time. Students had some license on Judgment Day. The authorities knew the kind of pressure they were under. Did they have that much license? A

Now all I need is for him to get together with Maria Tenace, A

She sighed. All she could do was try not to draw attention to herself. Usually, that was easy for her. Now, when she needed it to be easy, it wasn't. How unfair was that?

She didn't quite get straight A's. Her dialectics teacher didn't believe in giving them. People said Karl Marx himself couldn't get an A in that class. People also said the teacher had given an A once, and the girl who got it fainted and (ell over and split her forehead open. A

Other than the dialectics class, she made a clean sweep. Even with a B+ there, her grades were plenty good enough for first honors again. She wondered how Gianfranco was doing. She hoped he'd held on to second honors. His folks would be on him something fierce if he didn't. She would be disappointed herself if he didn't, too. One corner of her mouth quirked up. That probably mattered more to him than all the yelling in the world from his parents would.

And what he thought about the things she did mattered to her, too. A year earlier, it wouldn't have. They'd just been a couple of people kind of stuck with each other because of their living arrangements. / didn't think I'd have a boyfriend a year younger than I am went through her mind.

She wondered how long he would stay her boyfriend. Till they stopped getting along, she supposed. Right now, everything seemed fine. Why borrow trouble?

Here he came. He was gri

"You'd better believe it!" he answered, and waved his report card like a flag. "I should have started busting my hump sooner. I might have got firsts like you… You did, right?"

"Si." She felt better about admitting it than she would have if he hadn't made seconds. It was easy this way. "Maybe you will be up there too next year."

"Hope so," Gianfranco said. "I think I can do it. Now the question is whether I'll kick myself in the rear and make myself do it."

"You did it over the last couple of grading periods this time," A

"If," he agreed. "Well, I'll give it my best shot and see what happens, that's all." He waved the report card again, and almost hit somebody in the face with it. "Now I want to go home and show this off."

"I don't blame you." A

When they got back to the apartment building, a truck was parked in front of it, two wheels on the street, the other two on the sidewalk. That was illegal, of course, but people did it all the time. What was more surprising was the word painted in big green letters on the truck's door: REPAIRS.

A

"Let's go look!" A

Sure enough, the elevator door was open. A

"Are you really going to fix it?" Gianfranco might have been an acolyte in church witnessing a miracle.

"Better believe it, kid." The man who'd come out of the elevator paused to light a cigar and puff smoke towards A

"How come nobody did, then?" A

He shrugged. "Beats me. Probably on account of nobody bothered to look and see how hard it'd be. Probably on account of nobody figured he'd make any money fixing it."

"But you will?" A

"I… sure will." Plainly, the repairman almost said something more pungent. "I wouldn't be here if there wasn't some loot in it for me and Giulio. Isn't that right, Giulio?" This time, he blew a noxious cloud toward the other workman.

"Isn't what right?" Giulio asked, looking up from whatever he was doing inside the elevator car.

"We wouldn't be doing this if they weren't paying us good money."

"What? You think I'm dumb or something? Of course not," Giulio said.

"You guys sound like capitalists," Gianfranco said.

He meant it as a compliment. A

"I du

"I wouldn't be allergic to riding the elevator instead of climbing stairs every time I need to go to the apartment," A

"Won't be long," said the man with the cigar-Rocco.

She and Gianfranco still had to climb the stairs now. The trudge seemed twice as long as usual because soon she wouldn't have to make it any more. Halfway up, Gianfranco said, "They really did sound like capitalists. They only seemed to care about making a profit for their work."

"Even if that is all they care about, you don't expect them to come right out and admit it, do you?" A

"I suppose." Gianfranco climbed a few more steps. Then he turned to her and said, "It shouldn't be like that, you know? It's not like that in the game. You want to make as much money as you can there."

"That's a game," A

With an impatient gesture, he showed he did. "I know, 1 know. Those guys down there didn't exactly deny they were doing it for the money."

"No, they didn't." A

The game. The game from another world. The game from a world where capitalism worked-by the things Eduardo said and by the things he had, it worked better than Communism did. The game from a world where Communism lay on-what was Marx's phrase?-the ash-heap of history, that was it. The game from a world with no Security Police. No wonder it made Gianfranco think dangerous thoughts. No wonder it made him think political thoughts, economic thoughts.

A

"What's fu