Read Online Page Turner Pa by David Leavitt - Free Book Online

little suits followed them everywhere, as if they were thieves. These women's shoes were not scuffed. There wasn't a wrinkle on them. Whereas Pamela, in her black slacks and wrinkled blouse, might as well have had a sign taped to her back that read " TOURIST ." Every shopkeeper addressed her automatically in English. No wonder the little gypsy girls in their filthy patterned skirts and shawls flocked to her in front of the Spanish Steps! When it happened, Paul was across the piazza, buying a newspaper. Suddenly a bevy, several pregnant, had surrounded Pamela. They thrust torn maps and dirty pieces of cardboard into her abdomen. At first she thought they were asking directions. "I don't speak Italian!" she told them, as quick hands slipped inside her purse. It was all rather dreamy. "Stop that!" she said, slapping them away. "Stop it! Paul!"
    He turned. "I'm coming!" he called. Then a tall man intervened, whacking at the girls with his umbrella. "
Andate vial
" he shouted, grabbing one by her ponytail. The girl howled, while her friends laughed, flurried, regathered like skittish birds a few feet off.
    "
Dai,
" the tall man said to the girl, who was trying to pull away from him.
    She spat.
    "
Dai,
" he repeated, his voice grim, yanking at her ponytail to hurt her.
    She thrashed. The other girls lingered on the periphery and shouted for him to leave her alone.
    "
Va be', va be'!
" the girl said finally, a bright red wallet dropping from her skirt.
    The tall man pushed her away, picked up the wallet, handed it to Pamela.
    "Everything in order?"
    "I think so."
    Rubbing the back of her head where he had hurt her, the girl hissed imprecations at him. In her strange language she vowed that he would suffer headache his whole life, that his first-born child would die, that he would lose every good thing he had.
    Then some
carabinieri
rode into the piazza on their horses. She hurried off.
    "Thank you so much." In unconscious sympathy with her attacker, Pamela touched the back of her head. "I can't tell you how grateful—" She stopped speaking. "But you're—"
    Across the fountain, Paul watched, his eyes narrow.
    "Have we met before?" Kennington asked. He asked the question of Pamela, but he was looking at Paul.
    Â 
    It really was a coincidence. That morning Kennington had just been coming out of the Caffè Greco, when he'd noticed Paul and his mother gazing into a shop window on the Via Condotti. Paul was wearing a neatly pressed white shirt and khaki trousers. His mother, who had a large quantity of dark blond hair, came up only to his shoulder.
    His first impulse was to run up and greet them. Then he thought better of it and, hurrying back into the caffè, watched them through the door. In front of the shop they were laughing ... at what? The designs? The prices? Or was it that nervous laughter, as he knew from experience, people so often emit upon being told something they think ugly is actually beautiful?
    Finally Paul's mother linked her arm through his, and they continued down the street.
    Like a spy, Kennington followed them.
    In the Piazza di Spagna, Paul went to a kiosk and bought a newspaper. It was then that the gypsy girls attacked his mother. Speaking to her had never been Kennington's intention; indeed, his intention had been simply to watch; to try to gauge, from the way they interacted, how much Paul might have told her. But then the mother was in trouble, and he had no choice but to intervene, his own mother having brought him up to be chivalrous to ladies. Pamela looked dazed, so he took them back to the Caffé Greco, where under a framed photograph of Buffalo Bill (he had customed there in 1903) they drank coffees, hers with a little grappa added. "I really can't thank you enough, Mr. Kennington," she said. "It all happened so quickly. One minute I was just standing there admiring the steps and the next those little fingers were everywhere. I mean, I assumed they were only asking directions!"
    "Never