over.
“Of course,” I heard myself saying. “Of course, I’m a nuclear weapons expert.”
Not only am I scared of big strong men, I’m scared of mean little women. It’s just little skinny men and nice big women that I get along with. People like Roth and Giulia. I was sorry to see this woman here at all. “What’s your name?” I demanded with a trace of reckless insolence.
“ Beatrice .” She used an Italian accent on it. Bay-ah-tree-chay. “I am the pistil of the Green Deathflower. You will be our thorn.”
“The thorn of plenty,” Roth put in, managing to speak a clean, German-American English. He had laid down his gun somewhere. Perhaps Giulia had taken it into the little apartment, now closed.
Glancing over at Peter, Beatrice smiled for the first time.
“Thor’n likely.”
“Thorn-Burger Deluxe.”
“Thornium-233.”
These were strange people. But suddenly I felt relaxed enough to smile too.
“What is this Green Death stuff anyway? What are your goals?”
“The human race is a blight. A cancer-virus eating at Mother Earth. We want to blow it all away. Radiation therapy.”
“People are part of Nature, too,” I objected. “Some say the best part.”
“Even in Antarctica they can smell our stink,” Peter intoned. “The great oceans are polluted. And on the land the deserts grow. Every day another species becomes extinct. Human civilization must be stopped before all is lost.”
“It’s going to take more than one bomb to bring down a global civilization,” I said noncommittally. If Roth and Beatrice had seemed friendly a minute ago, they were all business now.
“You leave that to us,” Beatrice snapped. “You just build us our bomb. Show him, Peter.”
Roth started to steer me into the huge workshop off the little office, the room with machinery in it.
“Wait,” Beatrice cried. “Keep a gun on him, Peter.”
“ Ja, ja .” He walked over to the little apartment door and opened it. The smell of frying meat came out. My head swam with sudden hunger.
“Could I…could I have some food before starting on your bomb?” Food and drink and a wash and a piss and a rest…I needed them all. “I feel very weak.”
Beatrice gestured with her machine gun. “OK. Go on in there and eat. I’ll keep you covered.”
It was a pleasant lunch. Giulia had fried some veal scaloppini in a little Marsala. She and Peter and I had them with mounds of al dente spaghetti loaded with butter and Parmesan. There was some rough red Valpolicella wine, and I drank as much as they would give me…which wasn’t as much as I would have liked. By the time we got to the coffee, Beatrice had relaxed enough to sit down and join us.
Over the coffee, the four of us began to chat. We started with neutral topics: world travel, European trains, the sights in Rome, my research work. From my research I got onto my recent history: how I had lost my job in America but gotten a grant to study in Heidelberg. Before long I was even talking about my childhood as a smart, lonely kid in Kentucky.
Having to hear someone else’s life-story makes people want to tell their own. Before long we had a regular encounter group going. Giulia get out the Valpolicella, and over the next couple of hours the three Green Death terrorists told me about their lives, and about how they’d come to Rome.
CHAPTER FIVE
Three Statements and a Mental Movie
The Story of Giulia Verdi
“I grew up on a farm near Verona. My father raised plum tomatoes for canned paste, and grapes for cheap wine. The soil was dry and rocky. There was always sun, and the leaves were covered with fine white dust. The vines could find their own water deep underground, but the tomato fields needed constant watering. When the sprinklers were on, I loved to run down between the dripping rows of tomato plants, smelling the acrid leaves and the settling dust.
“My twin brother Ugo was always with me. In the spring we would help Papa’s men graft the new
“Of course,” I heard myself saying. “Of course, I’m a nuclear weapons expert.”
Not only am I scared of big strong men, I’m scared of mean little women. It’s just little skinny men and nice big women that I get along with. People like Roth and Giulia. I was sorry to see this woman here at all. “What’s your name?” I demanded with a trace of reckless insolence.
“ Beatrice .” She used an Italian accent on it. Bay-ah-tree-chay. “I am the pistil of the Green Deathflower. You will be our thorn.”
“The thorn of plenty,” Roth put in, managing to speak a clean, German-American English. He had laid down his gun somewhere. Perhaps Giulia had taken it into the little apartment, now closed.
Glancing over at Peter, Beatrice smiled for the first time.
“Thor’n likely.”
“Thorn-Burger Deluxe.”
“Thornium-233.”
These were strange people. But suddenly I felt relaxed enough to smile too.
“What is this Green Death stuff anyway? What are your goals?”
“The human race is a blight. A cancer-virus eating at Mother Earth. We want to blow it all away. Radiation therapy.”
“People are part of Nature, too,” I objected. “Some say the best part.”
“Even in Antarctica they can smell our stink,” Peter intoned. “The great oceans are polluted. And on the land the deserts grow. Every day another species becomes extinct. Human civilization must be stopped before all is lost.”
“It’s going to take more than one bomb to bring down a global civilization,” I said noncommittally. If Roth and Beatrice had seemed friendly a minute ago, they were all business now.
“You leave that to us,” Beatrice snapped. “You just build us our bomb. Show him, Peter.”
Roth started to steer me into the huge workshop off the little office, the room with machinery in it.
“Wait,” Beatrice cried. “Keep a gun on him, Peter.”
“ Ja, ja .” He walked over to the little apartment door and opened it. The smell of frying meat came out. My head swam with sudden hunger.
“Could I…could I have some food before starting on your bomb?” Food and drink and a wash and a piss and a rest…I needed them all. “I feel very weak.”
Beatrice gestured with her machine gun. “OK. Go on in there and eat. I’ll keep you covered.”
It was a pleasant lunch. Giulia had fried some veal scaloppini in a little Marsala. She and Peter and I had them with mounds of al dente spaghetti loaded with butter and Parmesan. There was some rough red Valpolicella wine, and I drank as much as they would give me…which wasn’t as much as I would have liked. By the time we got to the coffee, Beatrice had relaxed enough to sit down and join us.
Over the coffee, the four of us began to chat. We started with neutral topics: world travel, European trains, the sights in Rome, my research work. From my research I got onto my recent history: how I had lost my job in America but gotten a grant to study in Heidelberg. Before long I was even talking about my childhood as a smart, lonely kid in Kentucky.
Having to hear someone else’s life-story makes people want to tell their own. Before long we had a regular encounter group going. Giulia get out the Valpolicella, and over the next couple of hours the three Green Death terrorists told me about their lives, and about how they’d come to Rome.
CHAPTER FIVE
Three Statements and a Mental Movie
The Story of Giulia Verdi
“I grew up on a farm near Verona. My father raised plum tomatoes for canned paste, and grapes for cheap wine. The soil was dry and rocky. There was always sun, and the leaves were covered with fine white dust. The vines could find their own water deep underground, but the tomato fields needed constant watering. When the sprinklers were on, I loved to run down between the dripping rows of tomato plants, smelling the acrid leaves and the settling dust.
“My twin brother Ugo was always with me. In the spring we would help Papa’s men graft the new
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