“Yes. I know. He is a good friend of mine.”
“Do you think your compatriot has looked him up in Baedeker?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the Colonel said. “Gran Maestro,” he asked, “did my illustrious compatriot look up the Barone in Baedeker?”
“Truly, my Colonel. I have not seen him pull his Baedeker during the meal.”
“Give him full marks,” the Colonel said. “Now look. I believe that the Valpolicella is better when it is newer. It is not a grand vin and bottling it and putting years on it only adds sediment. Do you agree?”
“I agree.”
“Then what should we do?”
“My Colonel, you know that in a Great Hotel, wine must cost money. You cannot get Pinard at the Ritz. But I suggest that we get several fiascos of the good. You can say they come from the Contessa Renata’s estates and are a gift. Then I will have them decanted for you. This way, we will have better wine and make an impressive saving. I will explain it to the manager if you like. He is a very good man.”
“Explain it to him,” the Colonel said. “He’s not a man who drinks labels either.”
“Agreed.”
“In the meantime you might as well drink this. It is, very good, you know.”
“It is,” the Colonel said. “But it isn’t Chambertin.”
“What did we use to drink?”
“Anything,” the Colonel said. “But now I seek perfection. Or, rather, not absolute perfection, but perfection for my money.”
“I seek it, too,” the Gran Maestro said. “But rather vainly.”
“What do you want for the end of the meal?”
“Cheese,” the Colonel said. “What do you want, Daughter?”
The girl had been quiet and a little withdrawn, since she had seen Alvarito. Something was going on in her mind, and it was an excellent mind. But, momentarily, she was not with them.
“Cheese,” she said. “Please.”
“What cheese?”
“Bring them all and we’ll look at them,” the Colonel said.
The Gran Maestro left and the Colonel said, “What’s the matter, Daughter?”
“Nothing. Never anything. Always nothing.”
“You might as well pull out of it. We haven’t time for such luxuries.”
“No. I agree. We will devote ourselves to the cheese.”
“Do I have to take it like a corn cob?”
“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.”