The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty [335]
Like a mind-reader, he turned brilliantly toward her; she thought he was going to answer with the number of birds, but when he spoke it was even more electrifying than an answer; it was a question.
"Ping-pong?"
She screamed and raced him to the table.
This must have been the very moment that Aldo Scampo himself gave something up. Until now he had not had more than a passing glance for the girls who went walking by in a row with their chocolate cigarettes in the air. Like Joe Monteoliveto before him, he had brooded over La Zingara, the popular passenger said to be an actress; there she was now, further down the rail, talking to an almost old man. As Aldo and Gabriella pounded past her, La Zingara—thin, but no one could say how young—leaned back into a life preserver as though it were a swing. Her lips, moving like a scissors, could be read: she was talking about the Jersey Highway.
While Aldo went begging the balls from the children, Gabriella seized her paddle and beat the table like an Indian drum. In a moment, many drew near.
Up to now, Gabriella's only partner had been a choice between a boy of nine, who had since broken his arm and would have to wear a sling to see the Pope, and the Polish-American fellow, who was engaged. Both, of course, had beaten her—but not as she would be beaten today! And her extra-long skirt, made by Mama in a nice strong red for the trip, rocked on her like a panoply as she readied herself for the opening ball, and missed it.
Everybody cheered. Even if she did not miss the ball, Gabriella was almost certain to fall down; finally, rushing in an ill-advised arc, she did collide with a priest, a large one, who was down from above to see how things in turistica were going. He rolled away in his skirts like a ball of yarn and had to be picked up by two of the three for the priesthood, while Gabriella clapped her hands to her ears and yelped like a puppy.
Everybody had begun to wonder if Gabriella could help screaming—especially now, after three days. It was true her screams were sometimes justified, out on a ship at sea, and always opportune—but there were also screams that seemed offered through the day for their own sake, endeavors of pure anguish or joy that youth and strength seemed able to put out faster than the steady, pounding quiet of the voyage could ever overtake and heal.
Only her long brows were calm in her face with its widened mouth, stretched eyes, and flying dark hair, in her whole contending body, as though some captive, that had never had news of the world, land or sea, would sometimes stand there and look out from that pure arch—but never to speak; that could not even be thought to hear.
The evening after her overthrow at ping-pong, the dining room saw Gabriella come to the door and for a breath pause there. There was an ineffable quality about Mrs. Serto's daughter now. An evening after a storm comes with such bright drops—so does a child whose tantrum is over, even the reason for it almost, if not quite, forgotten. Through large, oval eyes whose shine made them look over-forgiving, she regarded the dining room now. And as she came through the door, they saw appearing from behind her Aldo Scampo, almost luminous himself in a clean white shirt.
As she and Aldo started hand in hand across the room, there was a sudden "Tweeeeet!" Papa, an old man from the table farthest back in the corner, blew a tin whistle whenever he felt like it—his joke and his privilege. Immediately everybody laughed.
Was it on every boat that tried to cross the ocean that some old fellow and his ten-cent whistle alerted the whole assembly at life's most precious moments? Papa was an outrageous, halfway dirty, twice married old man in an olive-green sweater who at each meal fought for the whole carafe of wine for himself and then sent the waiter for another. On top of his long head rose a crest of grizzly hair. A fatherly mustache, well-stained, draped itself over the