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the bottom of the cup. Gina would be arranging the accounts book,
the pencils, the stools, the cushion on her chair, the telephone in front
of her. Gina drank coffee at work, as everyone did , although it was im–
possible to buy coffee anywhere. No sooner had she arrived than Gina
would disappear behind the office window and return with a freshly
filled cup in one hand and her greenish orange dark-red blouse in the
other, having forgotten that she was still wearing only a bra. She bent
over the books, arranged the pencils, and only after some time pulled the
blouse over her shoulders . It was the moment at which she blushed
briefly, provocatively.
"Has the professor really not come yet?" the little mouse of an em–
ployee would, as usual, be asking as she did up the last button on her
blouse. But no one would answer: the good-for-nothings had already
donned their blase masks. Gina, the comrades had decided, should be
seen and not heard. Let the little gypsy girl remember her place!
In vain did she try to ingratiate herself by sharing their hostility to
the buffoon . "Hasn't the professor come in yet?" But their sullen indif–
ference did not allow for such complicity. "Hold your tongue over
there. Leave him be - the loony's got his reasons." But if she forgot to
point out that he was late, then it would be they who had a go. "Ah
ha, our little wanderer is in for some big trouble! He can forget all his
connections, all his bird talk, all his airs and graces. That won't do him
any good. They're going to start checking up on him - his relatives
abroad, his bourgeois family background, not to mention the windbag's
own present life. As for his morals, we know enough about our col–
league's little foibles. We know about acts punished by law. By the law,
no less!" That was Titi, of course, starchy and oblique, with his delicate
silver glasses and bony face, now thrilling to the subject. Corkscrew Titi ,
as he was called - but in the end less dangerous than the taciturn and
seemingly tolerant Gica "Fatso" Teodorescu . Both passed with their
noses in the air around pretty little Gina. Not because they disliked her
or had some particular grudge. No, just out of the petty malice of peo–
ple in a cage . "Watch out: call me when the ones in room 218 come
down. Keep 33 reserved for me until three o'clock. No one goes into
105, not even for cleaning. When Olimpia comes with the coffee bags
and the cartons of Kents, put everything to one side. You don't ask
anything, and you don't pay a cent. I'm at the head office from ten to
eleven. If anyone asks, I'm in a meeting. Unless it's Comrade Pastrama -
in which case let me know at this number." The day at work: adapting
to necessity; the torments, the humiliation, and above all the equivoca–
tion. A cheerful and ugly equivocation, so you can swallow the shit and
forget who's watching your digestion - and your mask of contentment,
