”And you won’t write about this? Not even to please me?”
”No,” said the Colonel. ”Boys who were sensitive and cracked and kept all their valid first impressions of their day of battle, or their three days, or even their four, write books. They are good books but can be dull if you have been there. Then others write to profit quickly from the war they never fought in. The ones who ran back to tell the news. The news is hardly exact. But they ran quickly with it. Professional writers who had jobs that prevented them from fighting wrote of combat that they could not understand, as though they had been there. I do not know what category of sin that comes under.
”Also a nylon-smooth Captain of the Navy who could not command a cat-boat wrote about the intimate side of the truly Big Picture. Everybody will write their book sooner or later. We might even draw a good one. But I don’t write, Daughter.”
He motioned for the Gran Maestro to fill the glasses.
”Gran Maestro,” he said. ”Do you like to fight?”
”No.”
”But we fought?”
”Yes. Too much.”
”How is your health?”
”Wonderful except for the ulcers and a small cardiac condition.”
”No,” the Colonel said, and his heart rose and he felt it choke him. ”You only told me about the ulcers.”
”Well you know now,” the Gran Maestro said and did not finish the sentence and he smiled his best and clearest smile that came as solid as the sun rises.
”How many times?”
The Gran Maestro held up two fingers as a man might do giving odds where he had credit, and all the betting was on the nod.
”I’m ahead of you,” the Colonel said. ”But let’s not be macabre. Ask Donna Renata if she wishes more of this excellent wine.”
”You did not tell me there were more,” the girl said. ”You owe it to me to tell me.”
”There has been nothing since we were together last.”
”Do you think it breaks for me? If so, I would come and simply be with you and care for you.”
”It’s just a muscle,” the Colonel said. ”Only it is the main muscle. It works as perfectly as a Rolex Oyster Perpetual. The trouble is you cannot send it to the Rolex representative when it goes wrong. When it stops, you just do not know the time. You’re dead.”
”Don’t please talk about it.”
”You asked me,” the Colonel said.
”And that pitted man with the caricature face? He has no such thing?”
”Of course not,” the Colonel told her. ”If he is a mediocre writer he will live forever.”
”But you’re not a writer. How do you know this?”
”No,” the Colonel said. ”By the grace of God. But I’ve read several books. We have a lot of time to read when we are unmarried. Not as much as the merchant marine maybe. But plenty. I can tell one writer from another and I tell you that a mediocre writer has a long span of life. They ought to all draw longevity pay.”
”Could you tell me any anecdotes, and we stop talking about this, which is my true sorrow?”
”I can tell you hundreds of them. All true.”
”Tell me just one. Then we will finish this wine and then go in the gondola.”
”Do you think you will be warm enough?”
”Oh, I’m sure I will.”
”I don’t know what to tell you,” the Colonel said. ”Everything about war bores those who have not made it. Except the tales of the liars.”
”I would like to know about the taking of Paris.”
”Why? Because I told you that you looked like Marie Antoinette in the tumbril?”
”No. I was complimented by that and I know we are a little alike in profile. But I have never been in any tumbril, and I would like to hear about Paris. When you love someone and he is your hero, you like to hear about the places and the things.”
”Please turn your head,” the Colonel said, ”and I will tell you. Gran Maestro is there any more in that wretched bottle?”
”No,” the Gran Maestro answered.
”Then bring another.”
”I have one already iced.”
”Good. Serve it. Now, Daughter, we parted from the column of the General Leclerc at Clamart. They went to Montrouge and the Porte d’Orleans and we went directly to Bas Meudon and secured the bridge of the Porte de Saint Cloud. Is this too technical and does it bore you?”
”No.”
”It would be better with a map.”
”Go on.”
”We secured the bridge and established a bridge-head on the other side of the river and we threw the Germans, living and dead, who had defended the bridge, into the Seine River,” he stopped. ”It was a token defense of course. They should have blown it. We threw all these Germans into the River Seine. They were nearly all office workers, I believe.”
”Go on.”
”The next morning, we were informed that the Germans had strong points at various places, and artillery on Mount Valérien, and that tanks were roaming the streets. A portion of this was true. We were also requested not to enter too rapidly as the General Leclerc was to take the city. I complied with this request and entered as slowly as I could.”
”How do you do that?”
”You hold up your attack two hours and you drink champagne whenever it is offered to you by patriots, collaborators or enthusiasts.”
”But was there nothing wonderful nor great, the way it is in books?”
”Of course. There was the city itself. The people were very happy. Old general officers were walking about in their moth-balled uniforms. We were very happy, too, not to have to fight.”
”Did you not have to fight at all?”
”Only three times. Then not seriously.”
”But was that all you had to fight to take such a city?”
”Daughter, we fought twelve times from Rambouillet to enter the city. But only two of them were worth describing as fights. Those at Toussus le Noble and at LeBuc. The rest was the necessary garnishing of a dish. I really did not need to fight at all except at those two places.”
”Tell me some true things about fighting.”
”Tell me you love me.”
”I love you,” the girl said. ”You can publish it in the Gazzettino if you like. I love your hard, flat body and your strange eyes that frighten me when they become wicked. I love your hand and all your other wounded places.”
”I better try to tell you something pretty good,” the Colonel said. ”First I can tell you that I love you Period.”
”Why don’t you buy some good glass?” the girl asked, suddenly. ”We could go to Murano together.”
”I don’t know anything about glass.”
”I could teach you. It would be fun.”
”We lead too nomadic a life for good glass.”
”But when you retire and live here.”
”We’ll get some then.”
”I wish that that was now.”
”So do I, except that I go duck shooting tomorrow and that tonight is tonight.”
”Can I come duck shooting?”
”Only if Alvarito asks you.”
”I can make him ask me.”
”I doubt that.”
”It isn’t polite to doubt what your Daughter says when she is old enough not to lie.”
”All right, Daughter. I withdraw the doubt.”
”Thank you. For that I will not go and be a nuisance. I will stay in Venice and go to Mass with Mother and my aunt and my great-aunt and visit my poors. I am an only child so I have many duties.”
”I always wondered what you did.”
”That’s what I do. Also, I’ll have my maid wash my head and give me a manicure and a pedicure.”
”You can’t do that because the shoot is on Sunday.”
”Then I’ll do that on Monday. On Sunday, I will read all the illustrated papers including the outrageous ones.”
”Maybe they’ll have pictures of Miss Bergman. Do you still want to be like her?”
”Not any more,” the girl said. ”I want to be like me only much, much better and I want to have you love me.”
”Also,” she said suddenly and unmaskingly, ”I want to be like you. Can I be like you a little while tonight?”
”Of course,” the Colonel said. ”In what town are we anyway?”
”Venice,” she said. ”The best town, I think.”
”I quite agree. And thank you for not asking me for more war episodes.”
”Oh you are going to have to tell them to me later.”
”Have to?” the Colonel said and the cruelty and resolution showed in his strange eyes as clearly as when the hooded muzzle of the gun of a tank swings toward you.
”Did you say have to, Daughter?”
”I said it. But I did not mean it in that way. Or, if I did wrong, I am sorry. I meant will you please tell me more true episodes later? And explain me the things I do not understand?”
”You can use have to if you want, Daughter. The hell with it.”
He smiled and his eyes were as kind as they ever were, which was not too kind, as he knew. But there was nothing now that he could do about it except to try to be kind to his last and true and only love.
”I don’t really mind, Daughter. Please believe me. I know about command and, at your age, I used to take considerable pleasure in exercising it.”
”But I don’t want to command,” the girl said. In spite of her resolution not to cry, her eyes were wet. ”I wish to serve you.”
”I know. But you wish to command, too. There’s nothing wrong in that. All
