»Can’t I drink the Vesuvius wine with my mixed grill?» the girl asked.
»Renata, daughter,» the Colonel said. »Of course. You can do anything.»
»I like to drink the same wines as you if I drink wine.»
»Good white wine is good with a mixed grill, at your age,» the Colonel told her.
»I wish there was not such a difference in ages.»
»I like it very much,» the Colonel said. »Except,» he added. Then he did not continue and said, »Let’s be fraîche et rose comme au jour de bataille.»
»Who said that?»
»I haven’t the slightest idea. I picked it up when I took a course at the Collége des Maréchaux, A rather pretentious title. But I graduated. What I know best I learned from the krauts, studying them and opposing them. They are the best soldiers. But they always over-reach.»
»Let’s be like you said, and please tell me that you love me.»
»I love you,» he said. »That’s what you can base on. I tell you truly.»
»It is Saturday,» she said. »And when is next Saturday?»
»Next Saturday is a movable feast, daughter. Find me a man who can tell me about next Saturday.»
»You could tell me if you would.»
»I’ll ask the Gran Maestro, maybe he knows. Gran Maestro when will next Saturday come?»
»A Paques ou à la Trinité,» the Gran Maestro said.
»Why don’t we have any smells from the kitchen to cheer us up?»
»Because the wind is from the wrong direction.»
Yes, the Colonel thought. The wind is from the wrong direction and how lucky I would have been to have had this girl instead of the woman that I pay alimony to, who could not even make a child. She hired out for that. But who should criticise whose tubes? I only criticize Goodrich or Firestone or General.
Keep it clean, he said to himself. And love your girl.
She was there beside him, wishing to be loved, if he had any love to give.
It came back, as it always had, when he saw her, and he said, »How are you with the crow wing hair and the breakheart face?»
»I’m fine.»
»Gran Maestro,» the Colonel said. »Produce a few smells or something from your off-stage kitchen, even if the wind is against us.»
CHAPTER 39
THE hall porter had telephoned, under the direction of the concierge, and it was the same motor boat that they had ridden in before.
T5 Jackson was in the boat with the luggage, and the portrait, which had been well and sturdily wrapped. It was still blowing hard.
The Colonel had paid his bill and made the proper tips. The people of the hotel had put the luggage and the picture in the boat, and seen that Jackson was seated properly. Then they had retired.
»Well, daughter,» the Colonel said.
»Can’t I ride with you to the garage?»
»It would be just as bad at the garage.»
»Please let me ride to the garage.»
»All right,» the Colonel said. »It’s your show, really. Get in.»
They did not talk at all, and the wind was a stern wind so that, with what speed the old calamity of a motor made, there seemed almost to be no wind at all.
At the landing place, where Jackson was handing the luggage to a porter, and looking after the portrait himself, the Colonel said, »Do you want to say good-bye here?»
»Do I have to?»
»No.»
»May I come up to the bar in the garage while they are getting the car down?»
»That will be worse.»
»I do not care.»
»Get that stuff up to the garage, and have somebody look after it until you get the car down,» the Colonel said to Jackson. »Check on my guns and pack this stuff in a way to give the maximum space in the rear seat.»
»Yes, sir,» Jackson said.
»Am I going then?» the girl asked.
»No,» the Colonel told her.
»Why can’t I go?»
»You know very well. You weren’t invited.»
»Please don’t be bad.»
»Christ, Daughter, if you knew how hard I am trying not to be. It’s easy if you’re bad. Let’s pay this good man off, and go over and sit on the bench there under the tree.»
He paid the owner of the motor boat, and told him that he had not forgotten about the jeep engine. He also told him not to count on it, but that there was a good chance that he could get it.
»It will be a used engine. But it will be better than that coffee pot you have in there now.»
They went up the worn stone steps and walked across the gravel and sat on a bench under the trees.
The trees were black and moved in the wind, and there were no leaves on them. The leaves had fallen early, that year, and been swept up long ago.
A man came over to offer postcards for sale and the Colonel told him, »Run along, son. We don’t need you now.»
The girl was crying, finally, although she had made the decision never to cry.
»Look, Daughter,» the Colonel said. »There isn’t anything to say. They didn’t install shock-absorbers in this vehicle we ride in now.»
»I’ve stopped,» she said. »I’m not an hysterical.»
»I wouldn’t say you were. I’d say you were the loveliest and most beautiful girl that ever lived. Any time. Any place. Anywhere.»
»If it were true, what difference would it make?»
»You have me there,» the Colonel said. »But it is true.»
»So now what?»
»So now we stand up and kiss each other and say good-bye.»
»What’s that?»
»I don’t know,» the Colonel said. »I guess that is one of the things everybody has to figure out for themselves.»
»I’ll try to figure it.»
»Just take it as easy as you can, Daughter.»
»Yes,» the girl said. »In the vehicle without the shock-absorbers.»
»You were tumbril bait from the start.»
»Can’t you do anything kindly?»
»I guess not. But I’ve tried.»
»Please keep on trying. That’s all the hope we have.»
»I’ll keep on trying.»
So they held each other close and kissed each other hard and true, and the Colonel took the girl across the stretch of gravel and down the stone steps.
»You ought to take a good one. Not that old displaced engine boat.»
»I’d rather take the displaced engine boat if you don’t mind.»
»Mind?» the Colonel said. »Not me. I only give orders and obey orders. I don’t mind. Good-bye, my dear, lovely, beautiful.»
»Good-bye,» she said.
CHAPTER 40
HE was in the sunken oak hogshead that they used in the Veneto for blinds. A blind is any artifice you use to hide the shooter from that which he is attempting to shoot, which, in this case, were ducks.
It had been a good trip out with the boys, once they had met in the garage, and a good evening with excellent food cooked on the old open-hearth kitchen. Three shooters rode in the rear seat, on the way to the shooting place. Those who did not lie had permitted themselves a certain amount of exaggeration and the liars had never been in fuller flower.
A liar, in full flower, the Colonel had thought, is as beautiful as cherry trees, or apple trees when they are in blossom. Who should ever discourage a liar, he thought, unless he is giving you co-ordinates?
The Colonel had collected liars all his life, as some men gather postage-stamps. He did not classify them, except at the moment, nor treasure them truly. He just enjoyed, completely, hearing them lie at the moment, unless, of course, something concerned with duty was involved. Last night there had been a fair amount of good lying after the grappa had been passed around, and the Colonel had enjoyed it.
There had been smoke in the room from the open charcoal fire; no, there were logs, he thought. Anyway a liar lies best when there is a little smoke or when the sun has set.
He had come close to lying twice himself, and had held it up, and merely exaggerated. I hope anyway, he thought.
Now here was the frozen lagoon to ruin everything. But it was not ruined.
A pair of pin-tails came, suddenly, from nowhere, slanting down fast in a dive no airplane ever made, and the Colonel heard their feathered trajectory and swung and killed the drake. He lay on the ice, hitting it as solid as a duck can hit ice, and, before he was down, the Colonel had killed his mate, who was climbing, long-necked and fast.
She fell alongside the drake.
So it is murder, the Colonel thought. And what isn’t nowadays? But, boy, you can still shoot.
Boy, hell, he thought. You beat-up old bastard. But look at them come now.
They were widgeon, and they came in a whisp that coagulated and then stretched to nothing. Then they coagulated again and the treacherous duck on the ice started to talk to them.
Let them turn once more, the Colonel said to himself. Keep your head down, and do not move even your eyes.
They are going to come in.
They came in well, with treachery speaking to them.
Their wings were suddenly set to alight, as when you lower the flaps. Then they saw it was ice and they rose, climbing.
The shooter, who was not a Colonel now, nor anything but a gun handler, rose in the wooden barrel and got two. They hit the ice almost as solidly as the big ducks.
Two is enough from one family, the Colonel said. Or was it one tribe?
The Colonel heard a shot behind him, where he knew there was no other blind, and turned his head to look across the frozen lagoon to the far, sedge-lined shore.
That does it, he thought.
A bunch of mallards, that had
