“There’s nothing here now?” Paul asked as he eyed a bare-bones playground in the middle of a small patch of grass.
“There’s a gym and a bowling alley over on Santo Stefano. But this will be better for dependents.”
We’d circled the compound and arrived back where we started, in front of an administrative building. “Bursar’s in here,” Tom said as he held open the door.
On a bulletin board in the hall were several notices typed up on blue paper. I peered at one and realized it was a job listing. The Supply Office was looking for a secretary, and for a second, my pulse quickened.Icouldbe a secretary. I scanned the qualifications—excellent organizational skills, strong command of spelling and grammar, ability to type eighty words a minute. I couldn’t type that fast, but only because I had never bothered to practice. I was about to say something to Paul when I read the last line of the job description and the wind went out of my sails.Preference will be given to applicants who speak Italian and English.
Tom had seen me reading the notice and circled back to peruse a few of the other ones. “You hoping to work while you’re here?”
Before I got a chance to say anything, Paul answered for me: “Probably not, right?”
I’d always had a job, even in high school, so hearing him say this surprised me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I might want to.”
“Well, this is the Personnel Office, if you decide to look for something,” said Tom. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They like to hire locals when they can.”
“Because they speak Italian?”
“That,” he said. “And I think they figure it’ll be harder to send us packing if we’re employing half the island.”
22.
TOM INTRODUCED US TO MARCELLOConte, who had recently been hired to run the Housing Support Office. He was Italian but spoke excellent English, and he was all apologies as he ushered us into his office, which consisted of a metal desk and a couple of folding chairs. “The housing situation here—as you have probably heard—it is not so good.”
“We know there’s no military housing,” Paul offered.
Marcello nodded. “Correct. We’re building some units, for officers, up at Trinità, but they won’t be ready in time to help you.”
Paul shifted in his seat.
“And it is a difficult time to find a rental.”
“Tom did say it’s a challenge, competing with the tourists,” said Paul.
“Are you interested in living in Palau or La Maddalena?” Marcello asked.
I had fallen in love with the island on that first ferry ride, and I glanced at Paul, trying to gauge his feelings. “La Maddalena, right?”
Marcello reached for a black three-ring binder. “It is just the two of you? No bambini?”
“Not yet,” said Paul with an embarrassed grin.
Marcello gave me an appraising look. “You’re not pregnant?”
It was a pretty personal question, but I came to understand what he was getting at. We’d qualify for a larger housing allowance, and thus better accommodations, if we had kids. I thought of the diaphragm I’d been fitted for before we left Charleston, shook my head, and said I wasn’t.
“Then you get about one hundred and fifty-seven thousand lire a month, which is about two hundred and forty dollars.” It sounded like a lot of money to me, but Marcello set us straight. “If you were in Sassari or Alghero, that much money would get you a palace. But not in La Maddalena.”
He spun the binder around on the desk so we could see it. “This apartment on Via Cala Chiesa, for example, rents for one hundred andtwenty-five thousand lire.” He pointed at a brief description of the property. “It’s thirty square meters.”
I was completely unfamiliar with the metric system, so there was little chance I was going to do the conversion in my head. “How big is that?”
“About double the size of this room.”
Paul and I looked around the office. “Okay, so maybe not that one,” Paul said.
