U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [80]
-202-turn came round; and Sardinaglia had slapped the ordi-nanza's face and there'd been a row and as a result Sardi-naglia was confined to his quarters and the Americans would see what a circus it was. They al had to straighten their faces in a hurry because the colonel and the major and the two captains came jingling in at that moment. The ordinanza came and saluted, and said pronto
spaghetti in a cheerful tone, and everybody sat down. For a while the officers were quiet sucking in the long oily tomatocoated strings of spaghetti, the wine was passed around and the colonel had just cleared his throat to begin one of his funny stories that everybody had to laugh at, when from up above there came the tinkle of a mandolin. The colonel's face got red and he put a forkful of spaghetti in his mouth instead of saying anything. As it was Sunday the meal was unusual y long: at dessert the coffee macchina was awarded to Dick as a courtesy to gli americani and somebody produced a bottle of strega. The colonel told the ordinanza to tel the bel a ragazza to come and have a glass of strega with him; he looked pretty sour at the idea, Dick thought; but he went and got her. She turned out to be a handsome stout oliveskinned countrygirl. Her cheeks burning she went timidly up to the colonel and said, thank you very much but please she never drank strong drinks. The colonel grabbed her and made her sit on his knee and tried to make her drink his glass of strega, but she kept her handsome set of ivory teeth clenched and wouldn't drink it. It ended by several of the officers hold-ing her and tickling her and the colonel pouring the strega over her chin. Everybody roared with laughter except the ordinanza, who turned white as chalk, and Steve and Dick who didn't know where to look. While the senior officers were teasing and tickling her and running their hands into her blouse, the junior officers were holding her feet and running their hands up her legs. Final y the colonel got control of his laughter enough to say, "Basta, now she
-203-must give me a kiss." But the girl broke loose and ran out of the room.
"Go and bring her back," the colonel said to the ordi-nanza. After a moment the ordinanza came back and stood at attention and said he couldn't find her. "Good for him," whispered Steve to Dick. Dick noticed that the ordinanza's legs were trembling.
"You can't can't you?" roared the colonel, and gave the ordinanza a push; one of the lieutenants stuck his foot out and the ordinanza tripped over it and fel . Everybody laughed and the colonel gave him a kick; he had gotten to his hands and knees when the colonel gave him a kick in the seat of his pants that sent him flat to the floor again. The officers al roared, the Ordinanza crawled to the door with the colonel running after him giving him little kicks first on one side and then on the other, like a soccerplayer with a footbal . That put everybody in a good humor and they had another drink of strega al around. When they got outside Serrati, who'd been laughing with the rest, grabbed Dick's arm and hissed in his ear, "Bestie, . . . sono tutti bestie." When the other officers had gone, Serrati took them up to see Sardinaglia who was a tal longfaced young man who liked to cal himself a futurista. Serrati told him what had happened and said he was afraid the Americans had been disgusted. "A futurist must be disgusted at nothing except weakness and stupidity," said Sardinaglia sententiously. Then he told them he'd found out who the bel a ragazza was real y sleeping with . . . with the ordinanza. That he said disgusted him; it showed that women were al pigs. Then he said to sit down on his cot while he played them the march of the medical colonels. They declared it was fine. "A futurist must be strong and disgusted with noth-ing," he said, stil tril ing on the mandolin,
"that's why I admire the Germans and American mil ionaires." They al laughed. Dick and Steve went out to pick up some feriti to evacu--204-ate to the hospital. Behind the barn where they parked the cars, they found the ordinanza sitting on a stone with his head in his hands, tears had made long streaks on the dirt of his face. Steve went up to him and patted him on the back and gave him a package of Mecca cigarettes, that had been distributed to them by the Y.M.C.A. The ordinanza squeezed Steve's hand, looked as if he was going to kiss it. He said after the war he was going to America where people were civilized, not bestie like here. Dick asked him where the girl had gone.