The entry was dark, but after closing the front door behind our shoulders, we noticed, on the left, an open door, which filtered a weak light. After we had gone through a poorly illuminated and narrow corridor, we turned into a staircase. There was not any sign of life all around. At length we found, still on the left, an open door and we leaned out to see.
-« Come in, come in» - said a voice from behind a disclosed glasses’ door.
And before we could do or say anything, a thin face appeared on the threshold and in a firmer and louder tone repeated:
- «Come in, at last!» -.
He soon show us two chairs in front of his desk and started watching us with questioning expression.
I also observed him with attention and curiosity.
He was the thinnest person I had ever seen in my life. You could rather say that he was made but skin and bones. He had prominent cheekbones and also the jaws, the temples and the front were very protruding.
If some incredibly brisk and extraordinarily green eyes had not filled his eyes sockets, I might have also believed that he could really be made of skull and crossbones.
But skulls and crossbones, usually, do not speak . Furthermore he wore some suits which let him to look like a normal man.
- «I am Mr Winningoes. In what can I do for you?» –he said as soon as we had sat down.
-«We are looking for a job» - George immediately said after a brief pause.
-«What kind of job are you looking for?» – said the man on his way.
Despite of the appearances, his voice sounded like a perfect job’s agency employee.
- «Everything will be all right» - I dared, in my difficult English, staring at George to ask confirmation of the agreement we had hastily reached, not to speak at all of Mr Joking.
-«Ah!» - the man exclaimed - «Let’s see, then» -.
With the thin finger he started pointing up the lines of some sheets leaned on a skin braid on his front. He mumbled, rather than leaked without any sense and, from time to time, he fixed a careful look to one or the other of us and then, after shaking his head, he started over reading.
He had finally arrived to the last sheet, and rather seemed that the finger already slipped from the sheet to the braid, and from this to the green glass that covered the plan of the desk, when the old man pronounced with vivacity: -« Here you are!!” Two intelligent young people, good health, bachelors and prepared to travel around, we are looking for easy and pleasant job. Good conditions. No references are required».
How my goodness he could have read that whole notice on the bottom of that last page, I am not still able to explain ‘till today, but he seemed to read it and be sure of that as I am.
At the end of that reading he looked at us slightly smiling, yet not showing the teeth, that, perhaps he didn't even have on his mouth.
Of all the Job’s applications that my brain had grinded in those last weeks, this was indeed the strangest and most sensational.
- "No references are required!" -.
What a cheerful sound! At long I had found someone who did not give a damn of those stupid, absurd references. I also hated them before my arriving to London. And if I made a thought of how many jobs I had lately lost because of my lack of references, could easily got out of my mind! References! As if a man was not worth for what he is, being not able to show the world his real qualities. Nay! There must be somebody else, a master, a priest, a pimp to affirm that you are good, and you are worth and you are trustable.
- «Ah! No references!»– It played again, still in my radiant breast with enjoyment, while George had been silent thinking who knows what about!
-« No references» – he pronounced at last through strictly teeth, hissing the final syllables and twisting a few his mouth. -" What kind of job is related with?" – then he said choosing every single word and scrutinizing intensely the old agent.
- «It deals with an easy and well remunerated job» - the employee answered sustaining steadily George’s gaze - «and also... pleasant …I would say» -, he added, coughing with embarrassed smile, before pronouncing the adjective.
«Anyway, you need to know» – he said changing tone afterwards - "that there are some condition to be considered essential for getting the job. That’s why you will have to submit you to accurate medical visits. If they are all right, interposed with an enigmatic smile of agreement, an advance of 100 pounds will be given to you and on next Monday, you can start working. I will personally come to pick you up and explain your duties to you."
I little missed a cry of joy coming out of me. Even if of his discourse, I am sincere, I had not understood everything, I was certain that he had spoken of an advance of 100 pounds. I launched an excited look to George, but he didn't seem to share my enthusiasm.
Mr Winningoes certainly attended a sign of assent or denial from us. Since nobody of us spoke, he gave for understood that our consent had been reached.
-« Well»- he said lifting slowly off the chair -«we are going to start with the tests. Follow me, please.»
This way saying he had opened a door on his shoulders, whose handle was slightly visible on the wall. We advanced in a narrow and dark corridor where, hardly, we perceived the shape of the man walking in front of us.
- «As I have told you before» – I heard the man saying, - «we need to make some medical analysis. There will also be some arithmetic and bookkeeping tests. Please, don't be offended if they will be too easy. It is a pure formality. I am certain that your intelligence will plainly pulverize such simple tests »-.
How could he had been so sure, I was not able to understand at the time. I attributed those affirmations as others previously heard by that strange man, to the English odd, character.
In the dark of that endless corridor I continued attached to George’s forearm who tailed the strange man nearby.
The long corridor finally turned to end: we perceived, at first, a feeble light from the bottom which became increasing brighter, until we saw a door with the wood loom and a ruled rectangular crystal, shaping his centre. The door introduced us in a small room with the white walls: on the right there was a lacquered white metal bench, where our guide asked us, kindly, to sit down and attend. We saw him entering a door exactly outstanding on the front wall.
We looked around: the walls of the room were bare. Only a crucifix decorated the opposite wall of our sits and, under of it, a small reliquary, also in metal, of the same white lacquered couch’s color with five or six full ledges of vials, bottles and boxes of medicines. The furniture was completed by two chairs, and a long and low small table that was in front, the one and the other always of lacquered metal.
On the right side of the bench, there was a short door of small dimensions, with a red cross and the write W.C. in black characters.
When the door opened again on the right after a short time, with our big surprise appeared, pushing a mobile cart, a very elegant nurse. Her white-celestial uniform bandaged her body putting in beautiful evidence the abundant breast, the narrow sides and the strong buttocks. She had a beautiful wide face with rosy cheeks, dark and great eyes, fleshy lips and an aquiline but well proportionate nose. The chestnut hair were wound in a white cuff.
- «Hello» - She did us entering, with a smile on the white and strong teeth «My name is Miss Goodhealth. Doctor Winningoes will be here in a minute».
She did not waste a single minute, as while pronouncing her last words had in fact already taken in her hands a syringe.
After screwing and cleaning skillfully the needle, she deposed it in a special nickel’s container on the mobile cart she had pushing entering in the room. Following she repeated the same operation with another syringe and, sitting gracefully in front of us, in a sweet whisper, we were informed of her duty to proceed on collecting a small champion of our blood.
She took with delicacy George’s left hand and, unsheathing with ability his arm ‘till the biceps, after tightening its superior part with a haemostatic drawstring, she inserted with definite precision the needle in his vein. In a eye’s move the piston moved backwards showing the flow of the dense red liquid.
- «Thanks» –burst with emphasis the nurse while she was extracting the needle pressing contemporarily with an alcohol-soaked bit of cotton the right point where it had punctured.
George followed the woman’s rapid gestures with apprehension and distrust.
-" It’s your turn, now, young fellow" -she resolved turning at me. She skillfully moved on her side the small table and she repeated the operation with the same precision and with unchanged delicacy.
Once the woman was gone out, we stayed alone for a weary of time and, when the door was reopened, it was Mr Winningoes to appear us. He wore, with elegance and naturalness, a white medical uniform with long sleeves.
-« Is everything all right? »- he happily apostrophized us, always with an enigmatic smile by his closed lips. He held on his hands a great bunch of sheets and delivered a bundle of them to each one of us.
Without attending any answer to the preceding question, he said then: -« Compile them for me, please» -.
He handed to us some pens and, after greeting, disappeared through the same way had come, not without first remembering us we had to fill with urine the small containers of glass that the nurse had left on the small table. The papers to be filled were concerned with personal data: our dobs, place of birth, main studies, actual residence, previous jobs, civil status; different questions concerned our personal health and the illnesses also suffered by our parents and narrow relatives.
Certain terms were totally unknown , but nevertheless we answered with a "no" to all the questions concerning the illnesses we had previously suffered and also by our narrow relatives, which was for how much it concerned me, the plain true . Some other sheets contained, instead, simple exercises of transformation from English measures into metric-decimal measures.
It was for instance asked, to transform, into meters and centimeters, yards and feet; Kilos and grams, into ounces and pounds; liters into pints and so away enumerating.
It was not even difficult to resolve some problems that would also have been of easy solution for a little boy of normal intelligence of our middle schools. George was coming out of the service, with his vial of heat liquid smoking in his hand, when Mr. Winningoes reappeared silent. My friend seemed embarrassed to be caught with his urine in the hands.
-« Lay it on the table» - the man told him in nonchalant tone. - « you have compiled them all?» - he continued in the same tone looking at the sheets we had placed on the table after filling them.
- «I ‘m really satisfied of you! Very satisfied» - he added while examining the sheets. His bare little eyes shone slightly, betraying an internal emotion never noticed before then.
After inserting the sheets in the capable pockets of the white uniform he asked us to follow him.
He drove us with rapid footstep, back through the long corridor and finally we reemerged in the office of the agency.
-« Take a sit, please» – he said bending on the drawers, after he had taken a sit at the desk.
Soon after he delivered to both of us, one envelope of beige color.
-« Here there are 100 pounds for your trouble of today. If definitive analyses will confirm the first picked data, we will sign the contract and will fix the correct remuneration for your performances. Now please excuse me: I have to conclude the preparations for Monday. I will accompany you through the staircases -.»
While he was leading through the staircases I stroke a furtive look in the envelope. The effigy of the Queen of England Elizabeth the Second, printed on five 20 pounds notes, smiled at me more times in the faint light. That man was beginning to become nice at me. He accompanied us until the threshold and followed us out, after opening the front door.
Out, the sky was still covered with dark clouds. The poster of the agency was still beating, nervously, on the wood of the front door and the wind seemed to pull it away out of the door. Our mysterious friend provided by his own hand to detach it and putting it under his arm he said:
- «It ‘s not useful anymore. Everything is ready for Monday. Everything is ready, now» - .
I seemed to perceive a twinkling of folly in his eyes, while pronouncing those mysterious words. But it was only an almost imperceptible flicker.
- «Don’t take much this week end. If everything goes well, I will pass to pick you up, at 7,oo o’clock! Good-bye to Monday -»
And so saying he disappeared behind the heavy front door he closed quickly on his shoulders.
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