This was a comparatively safe place, I’m really not lying, not me nor anybody else. You can’t fool those that were in Hurtgen, and if you lied they would know it the minute you opened your mouth, Colonel or no Colonel.
We met a truck at this place and slowed up, and he had the usual gray face and he said, »Sir, there is a dead GI in the middle of the road up ahead, and every time any vehicle goes through they have to run over him, and I’m afraid it is making a bad impression on the troops.»
»We’ll get him off the road.»
So we got him off the road.
And I can remember just how he felt, lifting him, and how he had been flattened and the strangeness of his flatness.
Then there was one other thing, I remember. We had put an awful lot of white phosphorus on the town before we got in for good, or whatever you would call it. That was the first time I ever saw a German dog eating a roasted German kraut. Later on I saw a cat working on him too. It was a hungry cat, quite nice looking, basically. You wouldn’t think a good German cat would eat a good German soldier, would you Daughter? Or a good German dog eat a good German soldier’s ass which had been roasted by white phosphorus.
How many could you tell like that? Plenty, and what good would they do? You could tell a thousand and they would not prevent war. People would say we are not fighting the krauts and besides the cat did not eat me nor my brother Gordon, because he was in the Pacific. Maybe land crabs ate Gordon. Or maybe he just deliquesced.
In Hurtgen they just froze up hard; and it was so cold they froze up with ruddy faces. Very strange. They all were gray and yellow like wax-works, in the summer. But once the winter really came they had ruddy faces.
Real soldiers never tell any one what their own dead looked like, he told the portrait. And I’m through with this whole subject. And what about that company dead up the draw? What about them, professional soldier?
They’re dead, he said. And I can hang and rattle.
Now who would join me in a glass of Valpolicella? What time do you think I should wake your opposite number, you girl? We have to get to that jewelry place. And I look forward to making jokes and to talking of the most cheerful things.
What’s cheerful, portrait? You ought to know. You’re smarter than I am, although you haven’t been around as much.
All right, canvas girl, the Colonel told her, not saying it aloud, we’ll drop the whole thing and in eleven minutes I will wake the live girl up, and we will go out on the town, and be cheerful and leave you here to be wrapped.
I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just joking roughly. I don’t wish to be rude ever because I will be living with you from now on. I hope, he added, and drank a glass of the wine.
CHAPTER 36
IT was a sharp, cold bright day, and they stood outside the window of the jeweler’s shop and studied the two small negro heads and torsos that were carved in ebony and adorned with studded jewels. One was as good as the other, the Colonel thought.
»Which do you like the best, Daughter?»
»I think the one on the right. Don’t you think he has the nicer face?»
»They both have nice faces. But I think I would rather have him attend you if it was the old days.»
»Good. We’ll take him. Let’s go in and see them. I must ask the price.»
»I will go in.»
»No, let me ask the price. They will charge me less than they would charge you. After all you are a rich American.»
»Et toi, Rimbaud?»
»You’d make an awfully funny Verlaine,» the girl told him. »We’ll be some other famous characters.»
»Go on in, Majesty, and we’ll buy the god damn jewel.»
»You wouldn’t make a very good Louis Sixteenth either.»
»I’d get up in that tumbril with you and still be able to spit.»
»Let’s forget all the tumbrils and everyone’s sorrows, and buy the small object and then we can walk to Cipriani’s and be famous people.»
Inside the shop they looked at the two heads and she asked the price, and then, there was some very rapid talk and the price was much lower. But still it was more money than the Colonel had.
»I’ll go to Cipriani’s and get some money.»
»No,» the girl said. Then to the clerk, »Put it in a box and send it to Cipriani’s and say the Colonel said to pay for it and hold it for him.»
»Please,» the clerk said. »Exactly as you say.»
They went out into the street and the sunlight and the unremitting wind.
»By the way,» the Colonel said. »Your stones are in the safe at the Gritti in your name.»
»Your stones.»
»No,» he told her, not rough, but to make her understand truly. »There are some things that a person cannot do. You know about that. You cannot marry me and I understand that, although I do not approve it.»
»Very well,» the girl said. »I understand. But would you take one for a lucky stone?»
»No. I couldn’t. They are too valuable.»
»But the portrait has value.»
»That is different.»
»Yes,» she agreed. »I suppose so. I think I begin to understand.»
»I would accept a horse from you, if I was poor and young, and riding very well. But I could not take a motor-car.»
»I understand it now very well. Where can we go now, at this minute, where you can kiss me?»
»In this side alley, if you know no one who lives in it.»
»I don’t care who lives in it. I want to feel you hold me tight and kiss me.»
They turned into the side street and walked toward its blind end.
»Oh, Richard,» she said. »Oh, my dear.»
»I love you.»
»Please love me.»
»I do.»
The wind had blown her hair up and around his neck and he kissed her once more with it beating silkily against both his cheeks.
Then she broke away, suddenly, and hard, and looked at him, and said, »I suppose we had better go to Harry’s.»
»I suppose so. Do you want to play historical personages?»
»Yes,» she said. »Let us play that you are you and I am me.»
»Let’s play,» the Colonel said.
CHAPTER 37
THERE was no one in Harry’s except some early morning drinkers that the Colonel did not know, and two men that were doing business at the back of the bar.
There were hours at Harry’s when it filled with the people that you knew, with the same rushing regularity as the tide coming in at Mont St. Michel. Except, the Colonel thought, the hours of the tides change each day with the moon, and the hours at Harry’s are as the Greenwich Meridian, or the standard meter in Paris, or the good opinion the French military hold of themselves.
»Do you know any of these morning drinkers?» he asked the girl.
»No. I am not a morning drinker so I have never met them.»
»They will be swept out when the tide comes in.»
»No. They will leave, just as it comes, of their own accord.»
»Do you mind being here out of season?»
»Did you think I was a snob because I come from an old family? We’re the ones who are not snobs. The snobs are what you call jerks, and the people with all the new money. Did you ever see so much new money?»
»Yes,» the Colonel said. »I saw it in Kansas City when I used to come in from Ft. Riley to play polo at the Country Club.»
»Was it as bad as here?»
»No, it was quite pleasant. I liked it and that part of Kansas City is very beautiful.»
»Is it really? I wish that we could go there. Do they have the camps there too? The ones that we are going to stay at?»
»Surely. But we’ll stay at the Muehlebach hotel which has the biggest beds in the world and we’ll pretend that we are oil millionaires.»
»Where will we leave the Cadillac?»
»Is it a Cadillac now?»
»Yes. Unless you want to take the big Buick Road-master, with the Dynaflow drive. I’ve driven it all over Europe. It was in that last Vogue you sent me.»
»We’d probably better just use one at a time,» the Colonel said. »Whichever one we decide to use we will park in the garage alongside the Muehlebach.»
»Is the Muehlebach very splendid?»
»Wonderful. You’ll love it. When we leave town we’ll drive north to St. Joe and have a drink in the bar at the Roubidoux, maybe two drinks, and then we will cross the river and go west. You can drive, and we can spell each other.»
»What is that?»
»Take turns driving.»
»I’m driving now.»
»Let’s skip the dull part and get to Chimney Rock and go on to Scott’s Bluff and Torrington and after that you will begin to see it.»
»I have the road maps and the guides and that man who says where to eat, and the A.A.A. guide to the camps and the hotels.»
»Do you work on this much?»
»I work at it in the evenings, with the things you sent me. What kind of a license will we have?»
»Missouri. We’ll buy
