The Gladiator

She tried to imagine the Communist Party giving up power after it lost. She couldn't do it. Holding on to power was what the Communist Party was all about. It said it held on for the sake of the workers and peasants. They weren't the ones who benefited, though. The apparatchiks were.

Eduardo pulled out his pocket computer and called up a map of Rimini. A green dot of light blinked on and off close to the square with the Roman triumphal arch. He pointed. "There's the Avenue of the Glorious Workers' Revolution, and there's number 27." His tone took all the glory away from the name of the street.

A

"Well, I hope so, anyhow," Eduardo said. "I'11 find out in the morning."

"What will you do if it turns out to be no good?" Dr. Crosetti asked. It wasn't quite How long will you stay with us then?-but it was pretty close.

Eduardo understood that. With a sigh, he said, "I'll look for a job, and I'll look for an apartment. I don't know what else I can do in that case. I just have to try to fit in till my people come back to this alternate-if they ever do."

He would be exiled like no one else. To leave your country behind was bad enough. How much worse would it be to lose your whole world?

"I'm afraid that's a good answer," A

"It's not quite like that." Eduardo was doing his best to stay polite, only his best wasn't as good as it might have been. If he'd left the quite out, things would have been better. It said he thought living in this Italy was nearly as bad as living among savages would have been. Maybe he had his reasons for feeling that way. The computer that fit in the palm of his hand argued that he did. It irked A

And when had Eduardo every irked her before? She didn't feel anything about him that should have made Gianfranco jealous. She might have, though, had Eduardo shown any sign of interest in her. She knew she was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt in just about everything.

Or she had been, anyway. Now? Long ago, some American had written, Fish and visitors smell in three days. Eduardo had been as close to a perfect guest as anyone could be. But his welcome was, if not wearing out, at least fraying at the edges. If the repairmen were just repairmen, it was time for him to strike out on his own.

"I hope everything goes the way you want it to," A

"Thanks," Eduardo said. "Me, too. It's about my last chance, isn't it?"

Maybe he'd hoped one of the Crosettis would tell him no. But none of them said a word.

Rimini in August hardly seemed like an Italian city. Most of the people on the streets didn't look like Italians. They didn't dress like Italians. They didn't sound like Italians, either. Taverns advertised beer and aquavit, not wine and grappa. Restaurants had strange signs in their windows.

"What's gravlax?" Gianfranco asked Eduardo.

"Smoked salmon," Eduardo answered. "It's pretty good, actually."

"What language is it in?" Gianfranco wondered.

"Swedish, I think, but don't hold me to it," Eduardo said. "Ah, good-there's the arch."

"Si," Gianfranco said. The Roman monument reminded him he was still in his own country. They wouldn't have anything like that in Hamburg or Copenhagen or Stockholm. Sure enough, several blond tourists were taking pictures of the arch. Gianfranco wondered if it commemorated a victory over their ancestors.

Getting across the square wasn't easy or safe. Cars packed it, all of them going wherever they pleased. They ignored the shouts and whistles of the policemen who tried to tell them what to do. Men and women on bicycles and on foot threaded their way among the cars. You needed nerve to cross the square on foot. Drivers blew horns and stuck their heads out the window to yell at anyone who dared get in their way. Gianfranco had no idea why hundreds of people weren't mashed flat every day. But they didn't seem to be.

And if you hung back, you'd never get across. Eduardo started for the far side with as much confidence-and attitude-as anyone who'd grown up here. Gianfranco stuck close to him and hoped for the best.

Some drivers leaned on their horns whether they needed to or not. That made Gianfranco's ears ring. Eduardo knew what to do about it. He got alongside one of them and yelled, "Beeeep!" right into the open window as loud as he could.

The man in the car almost jumped out of his skin. "You nuts or something?" he shouted at Eduardo.

"I don't think so," Eduardo said. "Are you?" And he walked away, Gianfranco in his wake. The driver, stuck in traffic, stared after them with eyes bugging out of his head.

"That was wonderful," Gianfranco said.

"Some people think they can act like idiots just because they're behind the wheel," Eduardo said. "Or maybe he's a jerk all the time."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Gianfranco said.

"Neither would I. Some people are, that's all." Eduardo shrugged. "You do your best to get along with them. You try not to let them do too much damage to you. Not much else you can do. If you scream at them all the time, they win, because they've turned you into a jerk."

"I never thought of it like that." Gianfranco knew more jerks at school than he wished he did. "Makes pretty good sense."

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." That sounded like a joke, but Eduardo didn't seem to be kidding. He stopped short to keep an Opel from ru

"He's got a car. We don't. He thinks that makes him the boss," Gianfranco said.

"Well, if he hits us, he's right," Eduardo said. "Oh, they'd throw him in jail, but how much good does that do me if I'm in the hospital?"

"Not enough," Gianfranco said.

"Looks the same way to me."

They made it to the far side of the square without getting maimed. Gianfranco sighed with relief. The streets on the far side were crowded, but at least he and Eduardo had a sidewalk to use again. Cars hardly ever came up onto it with more than two wheels, which gave the two of them a fighting chance to dodge.

"Here's the Avenue of the Glorious Workers' Revolution," Gianfranco said.

"Sure looks glorious, doesn't it?" Eduardo could pack more bite into a handful of words than anyone else Gianfranco knew-except maybe A

The avenue looked anything but. Most of the buildings along it were a couple of hundred years old, dating from the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century. Some of them might not have been painted in all that time. The sidewalk had cracks. The street had potholes. Big lumps of asphalt repaired some of them. Those stuck up like cobblestones, and were almost as hard on cars as the more numerous holes nobody'd bothered to fix.

"You said it was number 27?" Gianfranco asked.

"That's right." Eduardo nodded. "Now I have to hope everybody in the place isn't on holiday, even if it is legit. It's August, after all."

"What do you do if everybody is?" That hadn't occurred to Gianfranco.

"What can I do? I pound my head against the door," Eduardo answered. "Then I come back here when vacation time is over. But I hope I don't have to. Stuff breaks down in August, too. They ought to keep somebody around… I hope."

"Me, too," Gianfranco said. They went past 164, 161, 158, 153… Most of the businesses were dark. Eduardo muttered under his breath.

He started muttering again a little farther along. This time, Gianfranco could make out the words: "Getting close." And so they were. They walked by 47, 39, 38, 36…

"Look!" Gianfranco pointed at the grimy little sign ahead. BY THE ARCH REPAIRS, it said, and then, in smaller letters, ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT OUR SPECIALTY.