I sat back and stared at what I’d written. By then it wasn’t news to me that the Communist Party wanted us off the island. But the charges they had leveled against us—that the subs were a source of pollution and even peril—were ones that I hadn’t seen so clearly articulated before. I wanted to know more.
“Any questions?” Angela asked, and it took me a minute to realize it was noon, and we were being dismissed for the day.
Before I could reconsider, I shot my hand up into the air.
“Yes?”
“Are the locals in support of us being here?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh,” I said, trying to keep my tone light, “the protests, mainly.”
Laura was looking at the flyer, so I shut my handbook, trapping it within its pages.
Angela indicated that we should pack up and said that the car was no doubt waiting downstairs for those who were catching the twelve-thirty ferry. “I would urge all of you to ignore these protests,” she said as everyone stood to go. “They are a distraction, nothing more. None of the instigators even live on the island.”
This was the second time I had heard that assertion, and I wanted to ask how Angela could be so sure, but she was about as approachable as a snapping turtle, so I closed my mouth and waited for Laura and Siobhan to gather their things, then followed them toward the stairs.
“Mrs. Archer,” Angela said as we were filing past her, “a word?”
“Sure,” I said, then nodded to Laura and Siobhan to go on without me.
Angela waited until they were out of earshot. “Next time you need a piece of PCI propaganda translated,” she said with a curt smile, “all you have to do is ask.”
41.
“HEY!” SOMEONE SHOUTEDas I stepped out of the office building and into the sunshine, still shaken from my run-in with Angela.
I turned to find Laura leaning against a Renault that clearly didn’t belong to her.
“Oh, hi,” I said, surprised she’d stuck around. “You didn’t have to wait.”
“I most definitely did,” she said with an almost giddy smile. “What happened in there?”
We began walking, slowly, in the direction of the Piazza Comando, and I repeated what Angela had said to me.
“She did not say that!”
I nodded. “She did.”
“What’d you say?”
“Nothing. I mean, I apologized. Told her I didn’t mean anything by it. That I’d just wanted to know what was going on.”
“Yeah, okay. What’d she say to that?”
“Just that she’d see me tomorrow.”
“Ugh.”
“It’s bad, right?”
We were passing the compound, and Laura waved to Hollingsworth, who was working the gate. Then she turned her attention back to me. “Yeah, that’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“What do I do?”
“I think you have to act like nothing happened. Go in there tomorrow and kill her with kindness.”
