»Then I suppose I should go home.»
»Yes,» the Colonel said. »That is the logical supposition.»
»That is an awful way to say a sad thing. Can’t we even pretend some things?»
»No. I’ll take you home and you sleep good and well and tomorrow we will meet where and when you say.»
»May I call the Gritti?»
»Of course. I’ll always be awake. Will you call when you are awake?»
»Yes. But why do you always wake so early?»
»It is a business habit.»
»Oh, I wish you were not in that business, and that you were not going to die.»
»So do I,» said the Colonel. »But I’m getting out of the business.»
»Yes,» she said, sleepily and comfortably. »Then we go to Rome and get the clothes.»
»And live happily ever after.»
»Please don’t,» she said. »Please, please, don’t. You know I made the resolution not to cry.»
»You’re crying now,» the Colonel said. »What the hell have you got to lose on that resolution?»
»Take me home please.»
»That’s what I was doing in the first place,» the Colonel told her.
»Be kind once first.»
»I will,» the Colonel said.
After they, or the Colonel, rather, had paid the gondoliere who was unknowing, yet knowing all, solid, sound, respectful and trustworthy, they walked into the Piazzetta and then across the great, cold, wind-swept square that was hard and old under their feet. They walked holding close and hard in their sorrow and their happiness.
»This is the place where the German shot the pigeons,» the girl said.
»We probably killed him,» the Colonel said. »Or his brother. Maybe we hanged him. I wouldn’t know. I’m not in C.I.D.»
»Do you love me still on these water-worn, cold and old stones?»
»Yes. I’d like to spread a bed roll here and prove it.»
»That would be more barbarous than the pigeon shooter.»
»I’m barbarous,» the Colonel said.
»Not always.»
»Thank you for the not always.»
»We turn here.»
»I think I know that. When are they going to tear that damned Cinema Palace down and put up a real cathedral? That’s what T5 Jackson wants.»
»When some one brings Saint Mark back another time under a load of pork from Alexandria.»
»That was a Torcello boy.»
»You’re a Torcello boy.»
»Yes. I’m a Basso Piave boy and a Grappa boy straight here from Pertica. I’m a Pasubio boy, too, if you know what that means. It was worse just to live there than to fight anywhere else. In the platoon they used to share anyone’s gonochochi brought from Schio and carried in a matchbox. They used to share this just so they could leave because it was intolerable.»
»But you stayed.»
»Sure,» the Colonel said. »I’m always the last man to leave the party, fiesta I mean, not as in political party. The truly unpopular guest.»
»Should we go?»
»I thought you had made up your mind.»
»I had. But when you said it about unpopular guest it was unmade.»
»Keep it made up.»
»I can hold a decision.»
»I know. You can hold any damn thing. But, Daughter, sometimes you don’t just hold. That is for stupids. Sometimes you have to switch fast.»
»I’ll switch if you like.»
»No. I think the decision was sound.»
»But won’t it be an awfully long time until morning?»
»That all depends on whether one has luck or not.»
»I should sleep well.»
»Yes,» the Colonel said. »At your age if you can’t sleep they ought to take you out and hang you.»
»Oh please.»
»Sorry,» he said. »I meant shoot you.»
»We are nearly home and you could be kind now if you wanted.»
»I’m so kind I stink. Let somebody else be kind.»
They were in front of the palace now and there it was; the palace. There was nothing to do now but pull the bell cord, or enter with the key. I’ve been lost in this place, the Colonel thought, and I was never lost in my life.
»Please kiss me good-night, kindly.»
The Colonel did and loved her so he could not bear it.
She opened the door with the key, which was in her bag. Then she was gone and the Colonel was alone, with the worn pavement, the wind, which still held in the north, and the shadows from where a light went on. He walked home.
Only tourists and lovers take gondolas, he thought. Except to cross the canal in the places where there are no bridges. I ought to go to Harry’s, probably, or some damn place. But I think I’ll go home.
CHAPTER 15
IT WAS really home, if a hotel room can be so described. His pajamas were laid on the bed. There was a bottle of Valpolicella by the reading light, and by the bed a bottle of mineral water, in an ice bucket with a glass beside it on the silver tray. The portrait had been de-framed and was placed on two chairs where he could see it from the bed.
The Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune lay on the bed beside his three pillows. He used three pillows, as Arnaldo knew, and his extra bottle of medicine, not the one that he carried in his pocket, was beside the reading light. The inner doors of the armoire, the mirrored ones, were opened in such a way, that he could see the portrait from the side. His scuffed slippers were by the bed.
I’ll buy it, the Colonel said, to himself, since there was no one else there except the portrait.
He opened the Valpolicella which had been uncorked, and then re-corked, carefully, precisely, and lovingly, and poured himself a glass into the glass which was much better than any hotel should use which was faced with breakage.
»Here’s to you, Daughter,» he said. »You beauty and lovely. Do you know, that, among other things, you smell good always? You smell wonderfully even in a high wind or under a blanket or kissing goodnight. You know almost no one does, and you don’t use scent.»
She looked at him from the portrait and said nothing.
»The hell with it,» he said. »I’m not going to talk to a picture.»
What do you think went wrong tonight? he thought.
Me, I guess. Well I will try to be a good boy tomorrow all day; starting at first light.
»Daughter,» he said, and he was talking to her, and not to a picture now. »Please know I love you and that I wish to be delicate and good. And please stay with me always now.»
The picture was the same.
The Colonel took out the emeralds from his pocket, and looked at them, feeling them slide, cold and yet warm, as they take warmth, and as all good stones have warmth, from his bad hand into his good hand.
I should have put these in an envelope and locked them up, he thought. But what the effing security is there better than I can give them? I have to get these back to you fast, Daughter.
It was fun, though. And they’re not worth more than a quarter of a million. What I would make in four hundred years. Have to check that figure.
He put the stones in the pocket of his pajamas and put a handkerchief over them. Then he buttoned the pocket. The first sound thing you learn, he thought, is to have flaps and buttons on all your pockets. I imagine that I learned it too early.
The stones felt good. They were hard and warm against his flat, hard, old, and warm chest, and he noted how the wind was blowing, looked at the portrait, poured another glass of Valpolicella and then started to read the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune.
I ought to take the pills, he thought. But the hell with the pills.
Then he took them just the same, and went on reading the New York Herald. He was reading Red Smith, and he liked him very much.
CHAPTER 16
THE Colonel woke before daylight and checked that there was no one sleeping with him.
The wind was still blowing hard and he went to the open windows to check the weather. There was no light as yet in the east across the Grand Canal, but his eyes could see how rough the water was. Be a hell of a tide today, he thought. Probably flood the square. That’s always fun. Except for the pigeons.
He went to the bathroom, taking the Herald Tribune and Red Smith with him, as well as a glass of Valpolicella. Damn I’ll be glad when the Gran Maestro gets those big fiascos, he thought. This wine gets awfully dreggy at the end.
He sat there, with his newspaper, thinking of the things of that day.
There would be the telephone call. But it might be very late because she would be sleeping late. The young sleep late, he thought, and the beautiful sleep half again as late. She certainly would not call early, and the shops did not open until nine or a little later.
Hell, he thought, I have these damned stones. How could anyone do a thing like that?
You know how, he said to himself, reading the ads in the back of the paper. You’ve put it on the line enough times. It isn’t crazy or morbid. She just wanted to put it on the line. It was a good thing it was me, he thought.
That is the only good thing about being me, he considered. Well I’m me, God-damn it. For better or for much worse. How would you like to sit on the can as you have sat almost every morning of your damned life with this in your pocket?
He was addressing no one, except, perhaps, posterity.
How many mornings have you sat in the row with all the others? That’s the worst of it. That and shaving. Or you go off to
