The Little Hotel by Christina Stead

six or seven the children were asked to name the different kinds of pigs and one child got up to say, My father says that Mussolini is the biggest of the pigs. The Fascists visited his house and the parents were taken away and never seen again. That is why he is like this. I did not belong to the party for years. I kept on asking to come back to Switzerland to work and at last someone said to me, “Join the Fascists and you will get your permit easily.” I held out and did not believe it. In the end I joined the Fascists and three months later I got my permit. That is the way Gennaro was brought up—anxious and ignorant; but he is very good.’
    However, she talked to him about Emma and he forgave his wife.
    When Clara’s day off came, she said she was sick and stayed in bed. Mrs Trollope sent up a bottle of vermouth, Clara’s favourite drink. The next day Clara was quite yellow and suffering from pains in the stomach. I told Mrs Trollope Clara was suffering from a guilty conscience and greed; she had probably hoped to marry Gennaro herself. Mrs Trollope sighed and said:
    ‘Oh, poor Clara: jealousy and loneliness are cruel diseases, it is a sickness. When I am passing the church I shall go in and pray for Clara, for I know what loneliness is. Do you know what she told me, she said, “I am glad to be sick in bed, it makes me forget my old age when I will be chucked out on the street. There’s nothing ahead and no one is going to take care of me.” And she laughed, she didn’t cry.’
    The next Thursday, Clara and I went out on an expedition right after dinner, leaving Luisa to baby-sit. Clara and I were hurrying along, giggling, for we were on a secret mission. We met Mrs Trollope walking out by herself. Madame Blaise never went out in the evening for fear of catching cold. We explained where we were going, to the Zig-Zag night-club to look at the photographs of the artistes posted outside. I told Mrs Trollope that when business was quiet Roger was out in town a good deal at night. My best friend Julie, the one who was trying to have an affair with Roger, had been in the day before, smoking, talking and trying to upset me. She said she really was my friend, and to give proof of it she would now tell me that Roger was disgracing himself by going out with a strip-tease dancer who wore a leopard skin and was now at the Zig-Zag Club. While she was telling me this, she was taking powder from my box, shaking my puff in the air, telling me my make-up was of the wrong colour; and she turned and noticed a new photograph of Olivier.
    ‘Since when did Olivier have a twisted nose? Did he fall? He used to be so sweet. He is getting more and more like your family.’
    I said his nose didn’t change: he was probably trying to imitate a rabbit. But I couldn’t see anything myself.
    ‘Because her nose is out of joint with jealousy,’ said Clara.
    Mrs Trollope said: ‘Come, Selda, we’ll all go along and look at the photographs. I don’t believe it for a minute.’
    Then we all three went off laughing. Mrs Trollope said we would have a drink somewhere and amuse ourselves, ‘and you will show your friend Julie that you have plenty of friends.’
    Clara was wearing the new cream-coloured suit given to her by Mrs Trollope. It fitted her wonderfully; she turned round and round under the street lamp lifting her coat-tails like a duck to show the fit. Mrs Trollope said:
    ‘Let’s have a good time; we won’t worry about anything or anyone.’
    I had left orders with the porter to shut the hotel doors at ten o’clock sharp. The Mayor of B. had been away since early morning, to sell tickets in his lottery. The day before he had spread out all his clothes and all his possessions on the floor and furniture in the two rooms and had pinned numbers to them. He gave duplicate numbers to all the servants and to Roger, Olivier and me. He said he was having a lottery and whoever got the right numbers would get prizes. He had even pinned