Across the River and Into the Trees (10 page)

“I think, perhaps, you exaggerate. I don’t believe you made many wrong decisions.”

“Not many,” the Colonel said. “But enough. Three is plenty in my trade, and I made all three.”

“I’d like to know about them.”

“They’d bore you,” the Colonel told her. “They beat the hell out of me to remember them. So what would they do to some outsider?”

“Am I an outsider?”

“No. You’re my true love. My last and only and true love.”

“Did you make them early or late? The decisions.”

“I made them early. In the middle. And late.”

“Wouldn’t you tell me about them? I would like to have a share in your sad trade.”

“The hell with them,” the Colonel said. “They were made and they’ve all been paid for. Only you can’t pay for that.”

“Can you tell me about that and why?”

“No,” the Colonel said. And that was the end of that.

“Then let’s have fun.”

“Let’s,” the Colonel said. “With our one and only life.”

“Maybe there are others. Other lives.”

“I don’t think so,” the Colonel said. “Turn your head sideways, beauty.”

“Like this?”

“Like that,” the Colonel said. “Exactly like that.”

So, the Colonel thought, here we come into the last round and I do not know even the number of the round. I have loved but three women and have lost them thrice.

You lose them the same way you lose a battalion; by errors of judgment; orders that are impossible to fulfill, and through impossible conditions. Also through brutality.

I have lost three battalions in my life and three women and now I have a fourth, and loveliest, and where the hell does it end?

You tell me, General, and, incidentally, while we are discussing the matter, and it is a frank discussion of the situation and in no sense a Council of War, as you have so often pointed out to me General: GENERAL WHERE IS YOUR CAVALRY?

I have thought so, he said to himself. The Commanding Officer does not know where his cavalry is, and his cavalry are not completely accurate as to their situation, nor their mission, and they will, some of them,
enough
, muck off as cavalry have always mucked off in all the wars since they, the Cavalry, had the big horses.

“Beauty,” he said, “
Ma tr
è
s ch
è
re et bien aim
é
e
. I am very dull and I am sorry.”

“You are never dull, to me, and I love you and I only wish we could be cheerful tonight.”

“We damn well will be,” said the Colonel. “Do you know anything particular we should be cheerful about?”

“We might be cheerful about us, and about the town. You’ve often been very cheerful.”

“Yes,” the Colonel agreed. “I have been.”

“Don’t you think we could do it once more?”

“Sure. Of course. Why not?”

“Do you see the boy with the wave in his hair, that is natural, and he only pushes it a little, skillfully, to be more handsome?”

“I see him,” the Colonel said.

“He is a very good painter, but he has false teeth in front because he was a little bit
p
é
d
é
raste
once and other
p
é
d
é
rastes
attacked him one night on the Lido when there was a full moon.”

“How old are you?”

“I will be nineteen.”

“How do you know this?”

“I know it from the Gondoliere. This boy is a very good painter, for now. There aren’t any really good painters now. But with false teeth, now, in his twenty-fifth year, what a thing.”

“I love you very truly,” the Colonel said.

“I love you very truly, too. Whatever that means in American. I also love you in Italian, against all my judgment and all of my wishes.”

“We shouldn’t wish for too God-damn much,” the Colonel said. “Because we are always liable to get it.”

“I agree,” she said. “But I would like to get what I wish for now.”

Neither of them said anything and then the girl said, “That boy, he is a man now, of course, and goes with very many women to hide what he is, painted my portrait once. You can have it if you like.”

“Thank you,” the Colonel said. “I would love it.”

“It is very romantic. My hair is twice as long as it has ever been and I look as though I were rising from the sea without the head wet. Actually, you rise from the sea with the hair very flat and coming to points at the end. It is almost the look of a very nearly dead rat. But Daddy paid him adequately for the portrait, and, while it is not truly me, it is the way you like to think of me.”

“I think of you when you come from the sea too.”

“Of course. Very ugly. But you might like to have this portrait for a souvenir.”

“Your lovely mother would not mind?”

“Mummy would not mind. She would be glad to be rid of it, I think. We have better pictures in the house.”

“I love you and your mother both very much.”

“I must tell her,” the girl said.

“Do you think that pock-marked jerk is really a writer?”

“Yes. If Ettore says so. He loves to joke but he does not lie. Richard, what is a jerk? Tell me truly.”

“It is a little rough to state. But I think it means a man who has never worked at his trade (
oficio
) truly, and is presumptuous in some annoying way.”

“I must learn to use the term properly.”

“Don’t use it,” the Colonel said.

Then the Colonel asked, “When do I get the portrait?”

“Tonight if you wish it. I’ll have someone wrap it and send it from the house. Where will you hang it?”

“In my quarters.”

“And no one will come in and make remarks and speak badly of me?”

“No. They damn well will not. Also I’ll tell them it is a portrait of my daughter.”

“Did you ever have a daughter?”

“No. I always wanted one.”

“I can be your daughter as well as everything else.”

“That would be incest.”

“I don’t think that would be so terrible in a city as old as this and that has seen what this city has seen.”

“Listen, Daughter.”

“Good,” she said. “That was fine. I liked it.”

“All right,” the Colonel said and his voice was thickened a little. “I liked it, too.”

“Do you see now why I love you when I know better than to do it?”

“Look, Daughter. Where should we dine?”

“Wherever you like.”

“Would you eat at the Gritti?”

“Of course.”

“Then call the house and ask for permission.”

“No. I decided not to ask permission but to send word where I was dining. So they would not worry.”

“But do you really prefer the Gritti?”

“I do. Because it is a lovely restaurant and it is where you live and anyone can look at us that wants to.”

“When did you get like that?”

“I have always been like that. I have never cared what anyone thought, ever. Nor have I ever done anything that I was ashamed of except tell lies when I was a little girl and be unkind to people.”

“I wish we could be married and have five sons,” the Colonel said.

“So do I,” the girl said. “And send them to the five corners of the world.”

“Are there five corners to the world?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It sounded as though there were when I said it. And now we are having fun again, aren’t we?”

“Yes, Daughter,” the Colonel said.

“Say it again. Just as you said it.”

“Yes, Daughter.”

“Oh,” she said. “People must be very complicated. Please may I take your hand?”

“It’s so damned ugly and I dislike looking at it.”

“You don’t know about your hand.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” he said. “I’d say you were wrong, Daughter.”

“Maybe I am wrong. But we’re having fun again and whatever the bad thing was is gone now.”

“It’s gone the way the mist is burned off the hollows in broken ground when the sun comes out,” the Colonel said. “And you’re the sun.”

“I want to be the moon, too.”

“You are,” the Colonel told her. “Also any particular planet that you wish to be and I will give you an accurate location of the planet. Christ, Daughter, you can be a God-damn constellation if you like. Only that’s an airplane.”

“I’ll be the moon. She has many troubles too.”

“Yes. Her sorrows come regularly. But she always fills before she wanes.”

“She looks so sad to me sometimes across the Canal that I cannot stand it.”

“She’s been around a long time,” the Colonel said.

“Do you think we should have one more Montgomery?” the girl asked and the Colonel noticed that the British were gone.

He had been noticing nothing but her lovely face. I’ll get killed sometime that way, he thought. On the other hand it is a form of concentration, I suppose. But it is damned careless.

“Yes,” he said. “Why not?”

“They make me feel very good,” the girl said. “They have a certain effect on me, too, the way Cipriani makes them.”

“Cipriani is very intelligent.”

“He’s more than that. He’s able.”

“Some day he’ll own all Venice.”

“Not quite all,” the Colonel disagreed. “He’ll never own you.”

“No,” she said. “Nor will anyone else unless you want me.”

“I want you Daughter. But I don’t want to own you.”

“I know it,” the girl said. “And that’s one more reason why I love you.”

“Let’s get Ettore and have him call up your house. You can tell them about the portrait.”

“You are quite correct. If you want the portrait tonight, I must speak to the butler to have it wrapped and sent. I will also ask to speak to Mummy and tell her where we are dining and, if you like, I will ask her permission.”

“No,” the Colonel said. “Ettore, two Montgomerys, super Montgomerys, with garlic olives, not the big ones, and please call the home of this lady and let her know when you have completed the communication. And all of this as rapidly as possible.”

“Yes, my Colonel.”

“Now, Daughter, let us resume the having of the fun.”

“It was resumed when you spoke,” she said.

THEY were walking, now, along the right side of the street that led to the Gritti. The wind was at their backs and it blew the girl’s hair forward. The wind parted her hair in the back and blew it forward about her face. They were looking in the shop windows and the girl stopped in front of the lighted window of a jewelry shop.

There were many good pieces of old jewelry in the window and they stood and looked at them and pointed out the best ones to each other, unclasping their hands to do so.

“Is there anything you really want? I could get it in the morning. Cipriani would loan me the money.”

“No,” she said. “I do not want anything but I notice that you never give me presents.”

“You are much richer than I am. I bring you small things from the PX and I buy you drinks and meals.”

“And take me in gondolas and to lovely places in the country.”

“I never thought you wanted presents of hard stones.”

“I don’t. It is just the thought of giving and then one looks at them and thinks about them when they are worn.”

“I’m learning,” the Colonel said. “But what could I buy you on Army pay that would be like your square emeralds?”

“But don’t you see. I inherited them. They came from my grandmother, and she had them from her mother who had them from her mother. Do you think it is the same to wear stones that come from dead people?”

“I never thought about it.”

“You can have them if you like, if you like stones. To me they are only something to wear like a dress from Paris. You don’t like to wear your dress uniform, do you?”

“No.”

“You don’t like to carry a sword, do you?”

“No, repeat, no.”

“You are not that kind of a soldier and I am not that sort of girl. But sometime give me something lasting that I can wear and be happy each time I wear it.”

“I see,” the Colonel said. “And I will.”

“You learn fast about things you do not know,” the girl said. “And you make lovely quick decisions. I would like you to have the emeralds and you could keep them in your pocket like a lucky piece, and feel them if you were lonely.”

“I don’t put my hands much in my pockets when I’m working. I usually twirl a stick, or something, or point things out with a pencil.”

“But you could put your hand in your pocket only once in a long time and feel them.”

“I’m not lonely when I’m working. I have to think too hard to ever be lonely.”

“But you are not working now.”

“No. Only preparing the best way to be over-run.”

“I’m going to give them to you anyway. I’m quite sure Mummy will understand. Also I won’t need to tell her for quite a long time. She keeps no check on my things. I’m sure my maid would never tell her.”

“I don’t think I should take them.”

“You should, please, to give me pleasure.”

“I’m not sure it’s honorable.”

“That is like not being sure whether you are a virgin. What you do to give pleasure to another whom you love is most honorable.”

“All right,” the Colonel said. “I will take them for better or for worse.”

“Now you say thank you,” the girl said and slipped them into his pocket as quickly and ably as a jewel thief might. “I brought them with me because I have been thinking and deciding about this all week.”

“I thought you thought about my hand.”

“Don’t be surly, Richard. And
you
should never be stupid. It is your hand you touch them with. Didn’t you think of that?”

“No. And I was stupid. What would you like from that window?”

“I would like that small Negro with the ebony face and the turban made of chip diamonds with the small ruby on the crown of the turban. I should wear it as a pin. Everyone wore them in the old days in this city and the faces were those of their confidential servants. I have coveted this for a long time, but I wanted you to give it to me.”

“I’ll send it in the morning.”

“No. Give it to me when we have lunch before you go.”

“Right,” the Colonel said.

“Now we must walk or we will be too late for dinner.”