From the Fifteenth District Read Free Page A

small amber bottle of dark pills, which were said to be iron. Carmelanever tasted any, of course. For one thing, she mistrusted medicines; but the bottle remained among her belongings for many years, and had the rank of a personal possession.
    Another thing happened about that time: Mrs. Unwin paid Carmela the first installment of her wages.
    M rs. Unwin said that the doves in the Marchesa’s garden made more noise than was required of birds. By seven in the morning, the sky was heavy and held the afternoon’s thunder-shower. Carmela, rushing outside to bring in washing dried on the line, felt on her face a breeze that was like warm water. She moved through heat and housework that seemed like a long dream. Someone had placed an order with Mr. Unwin to have poems printed. Mrs. Unwin parted the curtains in her bedroom and in spite of her headaches, which nearly blinded her, stitched one hundred and fifty booklets by hand. One Friday, after shopping in the French market, Carmela went to see a marvel she had been told about – two rows of plane trees whose branches met to form a tunnel. The trunks of these trees turned out to be thick and awkward-looking; they blocked Carmela’s view of shops from one sidewalk to the next. Like, most trees, they simply stood in the way of anything interesting. She mentioned this to Mrs. Unwin, who walked to and fro in the kitchen, drinking out of a teacup, with a straw sun hat on her head.
    “Where there are no trees there are no nightingales,” said Mrs. Unwin. “When I am feeling well I like to hear them.”
    “What, those things that make a noise at night?”
    “Not noise but song,” said Mrs. Unwin, cradling her teacup.
    “Every creature has its moment,” said Carmela.
    “What a prim creature
you
are,” cried Mrs. Unwin, flinging her head back, showing her teeth. Carmela was glad she had made her laugh, but she resolved to be more careful than ever: this was as far as an exchange between them need ever go.
    B ecause of what Dr. Chaffee had said, the Unwins rented an apartment in a village away from the coast for the month of August. They squeezed into the car with the twins and Carmela and much luggage, drove past the road leading to the Nervia Valley, and climbed back into hills Carmela had never seen.
    “Weren’t you born around here,” said Mrs. Unwin, without desiring an answer.
    Carmela, who thought she knew all Mrs. Unwin’s voices now, did not reply, but Mr. Unwin said, “You know perfectly well it was that other road.” It seemed to matter to him that his wife should have made a mistake.
    The twins were shared by Mrs. Unwin and Carmela. Both of them wanted to sit on Carmela’s lap. Mrs. Unwin was not at all jealous; some serious matters she found extremely comic. The girls slept, and when they woke and began to fret, Mr. Unwin stopped the car so they could both be moved to the back with Carmela. There was scarcely room even for her, small though Dr. Chaffee had said she was, for the back was piled with bedsheets and blankets and even saucepans. After four hours they came to a village that had grass everywhere, and wooden houses that were painted a soft brown. Their summer flat was half a house, with a long carved balcony, and mats instead of carpets, and red curtains on brass rings. Itcontained an exciting smell of varnish and fresh soap. The Unwins piled all the luggage in a heap on the floor and unpacked nothing to start with but a kettle and teapot and three pottery mugs. Carmela heard Mr. Unwin talking to the owner of this house in his strange nasal Italian and mentioning her, Carmela, as “the young lady who would be in charge.” They drank tea meanwhile, Mrs. Unwin sitting on a bare mattress stuffed with horsehair, Carmela standing with her back to a wall. Mrs. Unwin talked to her as she had never done before and would never again. She still seemed to Carmela very large and ugly, but her face was smooth and she kept her voice low, and Carmela thought that