Across the River and Into the Trees Read online

�No,� she said, not understanding the colloquialism, but understanding exactly what was meant, since it was she who had been doing the thinking. �Put your right hand in your pocket.�

  �Good,� the Colonel said. �I will.�

  He put his right hand in his pocket and felt what was there, first with the tips of his fingers, and then with the insides of his fingers, and then with the palm of his hand; his split hand.

  �I�m sorry,� she said. �And now we begin the good part of it again. We will dedicate ourselves to the cheese with happiness.�

  �Excellent,� the Colonel said. �I wonder what cheeses he has?�

  �Tell me about the last war,� the girl said. �Then we will ride in our gondola in the cold wind.�

  �It was not very interesting,� the Colonel said. �To us, of course, such things are always interesting. But there were only three, maybe four, phases that really interested me.�

  �Why?�

  �We were fighting a beaten enemy whose communications had been destroyed. We destroyed many divisions on paper, but they were ghost divisions. Not real ones. They had been destroyed by our tactical aviation before they ever got up. It was only really difficult in Normandy, due to the terrain, and when we made the break for Georgie Patton�s armour to go through and held it open on both sides.�

  �How do you make a break for armour to go through? Tell me, please.�

  �First you fight to take a town that controls all the main roads. Call the town St. Lo. Then you have to open up the roads by taking other towns and villages. The enemy has a main line of resistance, but he cannot bring up his divisions to counter-attack because the fighter-bombers catch them on the roads. Does this bore you? It bores the hell out of me.�

  �It does not bore me. I never heard it said understandably before.�

  �Thank you,� the Colonel said, �Are you sure you want more of the sad science?�

  �Please,� she said. �I love you, you know, and I would like to share it with you.�

  �Nobody shares this trade with anybody,� the Colonel told her. �I�m just telling you how it works. I can insert anecdotes to make it interesting, or plausible.�

  �Insert some, please.�

  �The taking of Paris was nothing,� the Colonel said. �It was only an emotional experience. Not a military operation. We killed a number of typists and the screen the Germans had left, as they always do, to cover their withdrawal. I suppose they figured they were not going to need a hell of a lot of office workers any more and they left them as soldiers.�

  �Was it not a great thing?�

  �The people of Leclerc, another jerk of the third or fourth water, whose death I celebrated with a magnum of Perrier-Jouet Brut 1942, shot a great number of rounds to make it seem important and because we had given them what they had to shoot with. But it was not important.�

  �Did you take part in it?�

  �Yes,� the Colonel said. �I think I could safely say, yes.�

  �Did you have no great impressions of it? After all, it was Paris and not everyone has taken it.�

  �The French, themselves, had taken it four days before. But the grand plan of what we called SHAEF, Supreme, get that word, Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, which included all the military politicians of the rear, and who wore a badge of shame in the form of a flaming something, while we wore a four-leafed clover as a designation, and for luck, had a master plan for the envelopment of the city. So we could not simply take it.

  �Also we had to wait for the possible arrival of General or Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery who was unable to close, even, the gap at Falaise and found the going rather sticky and could not quite get there on time.�

  �You must have missed him,� the girl said.

  �Oh, we did,� the Colonel said. �No end.�

  �But was there nothing noble or truly happy about it?�

  �Surely,� the Colonel told her. �We fought from Bas Meudon, and then the Porte de Saint Cloud, through streets I knew and loved and we had no deads and did as little damage as possible. At the Etoile I took Elsa Maxwell�s butler prisoner. It was a very complicated operation. He had been denounced as a Japanese sniper. A new thing. Several Parisians were alleged to have been killed by him. So we sent three men to the roof where he had taken refuge and he was an Indo-China boy.�

  �I begin to understand a little. But it is disheartening.�

  �It is always disheartening as hell. But you are not supposed to have a heart in this trade.�

  �But do you think it was the same in the time of the Grand Captains?�

  �I am quite sure it was worse.�

  �But you got your hand honorably?�

  �Yes. Very honorably. On a rocky, bare-assed hill.�

  �Please let me feel it,� she said.

  �Just be careful around the center,� the Colonel said. �It�s split there and it still cracks open.�

  �You ought to write,� the girl said. �I mean it truly. So someone would know about such things.�

  �No,� the Colonel disagreed, �I have not the talent for it and I know too much. Almost any liar writes more convincingly than a man who was there.�

  �But other soldiers wrote.�

  �Yes. Maurice de Saxe. Frederick the Great. Mr. T�sun Su.�

  �But soldiers of our time.�

  �You use the word our with facility. I like it though.�

  �But didn�t many modern soldiers write?�

  �Many. But did you ever read them?�

  �No. I have read mostly the classics and I read the illustrated papers for the scandals. Also, I read your letters.�

  �Burn them,� the Colonel said. �They are worthless.�

  �Please. Don�t be rough.�

  �I won�t. What can I tell you that won�t bore you?�

  �Tell me about when you were a General.�

  �Oh, that,� he said and motioned to the Gran Maestro to bring Champagne. It was Roederer Brut �42 and he loved it.

  �When you are a general you live in a trailer and your Chief of Staff lives in a trailer, and you have bourbon whisky when other people do not have it. Your G�s live in the C.P. I�d tell you what G�s are, but it would bore you. I�d tell you about G1, G2, G3, G4, G5 and on the other side there is always Kraut-6. But it would bore you. On the other hand, you have a map covered with plastic material, and on this you have three regiments composed of three battalions each. It is all marked in colored pencil.

  �You have boundary lines so that when the battalions cross their boundaries they will not then fight each other. Each battalion is composed of five companies. All should be good, but some are good, and some are not so good. Also you have divisional artillery and a battalion of tanks and many spare parts. You live by co-ordinates.�

  He paused while the Gran Maestro poured the Roederer Brut �42.

  �From Corps,� he translated, unlovingly, cuerpo d�Armata, �they tell you what you must do, and then you decide how to do it. You dictate the orders or, most often, you give them by telephone. You ream out people you respect, to make them do what you know is fairly impossible, but is ordered. Also, you have to think hard, stay awake late and get up early.�

  �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 on
e. 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 Val�rien, 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 people such as us have it.�

  �Thank you for the such as us.�

  �It wasn�t hard to say,� the Colonel said. �Daughter,� he added.

  Just then the concierge came to the table and said, �Excuse me, my Colonel. There is a man outside, I believe he is a servant of yours, my Lady, with quite a large package which he says is for the Colonel. Should I keep it in the storeroom or have it sent to your room?�

  �To my room,� the Colonel said

  �Please,� the girl said. �Can�t we look at it here? We don�t care about anyone here, do we?�

  �Have it unwrapped and brought in here.�

  �Very good.�

  �Later, you may have it taken with great care to my room and have it wrapped, solidly, for transport at noon tomorrow.�

  �Very good, my Colonel.�

  �Are you excited to see it?� the girl asked.

  �Very,� said the Colonel. �Gran Maestro some more of that Roederer, please, and please place a chair in such a position that we may view a portrait. We are devotees of the pictorial arts.�

  �There�s no more Roederer cold,� the Gran Maestro said. �But if you would like some Perrier-Jouet��

  �Bring it,� the Colonel said and added, �Please.�

  �I don�t talk like Georgie Patton,� the Colonel told her. �I don�t have to. And besides he�s dead.�

  �Poor man.�

  �Yes, Poor man all his life. Although quite rich in money and with a lot of armour.�

  �Do you have anything against armour?�

  �Yes. Most of the people inside of it. It makes men into bullies which is the first step toward cowardice; true cowardice I mean. Perhaps it is a little complicated by claustrophobia.�

  Then he looked at her and smiled and regretted taking her beyond her depth, as you might take a new swimmer on a shallow, shelving beach, into too deep water; and he sought to reassure her.

  �You forgive me, Daughter. Much of what I say is unjust. But it is truer than the things that you will read in Generals� memoirs. After a man gets one star, or more, the truth becomes as difficult for him to attain as the Holy Grail was in our ancestors� time.�

  �But you were a general officer.�

  �Not for too damn long,� the Colonel said. �Now Captains,� the General said, �they know the exact truth and they can mostly tell it to you. If they can�t, you reclassify them.�

  �Would you reclassify me if I lied?�

  �It would depend on what you lied about.�

  �I�m not going to lie about anything. I don�t want to be reclassified. It sounds horrible.�

  �It is,� the Colonel said. �And you send them back to have it done to them with eleven different copies of why it should be done, every one of which you sign.�

  �Did you reclassify many?�

  �Plenty.�

  The concierge came into the room with the portrait, carrying it in its big frame, much as a ship moves when she is carrying too much sail.