He met Paul a couple of times in Korea, and learned that Paul, who was on his second tour there, was carving out the kind of reputation which generally carried a professional officer through the remainder of his career. He was already a Major, although not yet twenty-four years of age.
For a while Dominic considered making a career of the military. Paul collected all kinds of information to prepare him for entry to West Point. But once Dominic returned to the United States and the army interfered with his amorous conquests by sending him here or there, as it is also in the nature of infantry to do, he turned thumbs down on the idea of soldiering any further.
When his tour with the army was completed, he went to college simply because he decided that that’s where all the good-looking girls were, and as Dominic had pretty much the same sort of intelligence as Vincent and Anthony, he was able to both graduate and break the hearts of two or three scores of coeds without the least effort. Maria shared all his conquests by insisting that he write her at least two letters a week and responding with five.
For the next thirteen years they were the two buddies of the family, Dominic writing only to Maria and she answering him with two and three letters to each of his. His letters came from Texas, Florida, Italy, France, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, and a dozen points between. Frequently, when he quit a town or a country, letters in poor English or in exquisite Spanish would arrive at the house from girls asking for his present whereabouts. When Maria wrote to Dominic, she spoke of what was in her heart, confiding most of her dreams to him. He wrote back with great tenderness and understanding and with advice that Maria always found to be exactly what she needed. In those thirteen years, Dominic made his way home less than half a dozen times, not telling tales that he had struck it rich, although he had done so on a few occasions and gambled it away or spent it on women as fast as he gained it, but just came home, kissed everybody, then slept around the clock for two or three days. Once recovered, he spent most of his waking hours drinking Ettore under the table and squiring Maria about, to the utter envy of her high school chums and later her college friends, who did everything but swoon in his presence to be noticed. Then one morning Maria would find a farewell note tacked to her door or pinned to her pillow, and she would moon about sadly until the mail brought a letter from Timbuktu or from a village in the jungle, and Dominic would tell her what had happened each day - within limits.
Dominic had never married. He knew perfectly well why he had never done so, and he was quite content with his status. Women were too important to him. He found each one to be a little different, each one taught him a little more, and he was too fond of learning to just stay put. He loved almost every woman he lived with, fully and without reservation, and he treated each one as if she were the only woman in the world. He never cheated, and each woman who lived with him knew it and loved him all the more for it. But all of them knew that he would get up some morning and start walking, and no matter whether they cried or begged or proved that their swelling bellies were due to loving him, he would keep right on walking.
When the taxi carrying Dominic drew up in front of the house, he shut out of his mind all of the miles he had traveled, all of the women he had known, all of the events he had experienced, and focused his thoughts only on the fact that he was here to bury a sister - and to kill a man.
The lights were still on in the house. As he slipped the key into the lock, the door opened and Rose came into his arms. When she took him inside, he saw Vincent, Michael, Anthony and Vito. They kissed each other and motioned for him to be quiet because Papa was asleep on a chair in the living room. But Ettore must have heard the low sounds or sensed that the brown one had returned, for he woke up. He and Dominic kissed as men of the blood will kiss, and when Ettore saw the tears in Dominic’s eyes, he held him closer than he had held any of his sons, for he saw there exactly what was in his heart.
“Mike,” called Ettore, when they drew apart. “Look him over.”
Michael examined the six stitches in Dominic’s brow, the black and blue cheek, the cuts in the lips. He shook his head, chuckling. “He’s all right, Papa. Just a few love taps.”
So Ettore poured seven glasses of the red table wine, passed them around, and raised his glass to Dominic
“It’s good to have you home, Dom.” And they drank.
Paul DiStephano stepped off the airplane at San Francisco International Airport and walked into the terminal. A young, well-dressed man was waiting for him.
“Colonel DiStephano?”
Paul stopped. “Yes.”
“I’m Donald Williams, one of Mr. Donini’s western representatives. His plane is here to fly you to Chicago. If I may have your baggage checks, I’ll see that everything is taken care of.”
Paul handed them over. “Thanks. When can we leave?”
“We should have your baggage through customs and permission to take off in half an hour to forty-five minutes. A vehicle will be waiting for you upon your arrival.”
Paul nodded, continued his clearances, then walked about the terminal building to stretch his legs. All this special attention was somewhat commonplace to him now, especially since the time he won his eagles as a full colonel, for it was written in his bearing, and his formal file in Washington, that he was the type material from which generals are selected, and being a bird colonel was analogous to that of a general in so far as people rushing about to do everything but wipe his nose. Paul didn’t even attempt to determine whether he liked or disliked people making a fuss over him. He had been waited upon and pampered since graduating from the Military Academy at West Point, and field officers in the infantry are generally too occupied with directing the destinies of men to be bothered with the day to day details handled so efficiently by their subordinates.
He found it difficult to concentrate on his sister, Maria. She was of the blood, so the thought of her having been murdered was enough to raise a lump of sorrow in his throat. But his initial cry of grief was now dulled by the professional army man’s ability to absorb the sadness of death and prepare to attend to the living. He had come these thousands of miles for more of a reason than paying his respects to a sister; he had come to search for the love of her which he knew was rooted deep inside but which had never flowered enough to have the same meaning as the agony of Dominic or the poignant heartbreak of Rose.
He loved her in a residual manner, since the times he had been exposed to her had been far too few and brief for him to be permanently affected by her character. His was an instinctive love, except for that one occasion three years ago when Maria told him she would be glad to watch over his daughter, Ingrid, if he wanted her to. Paul was on the verge of exploding when he abruptly realized that her comment had been prompted from the warmth of her heart rather than an attempt to pry. He had kissed her and gently declined her offer - or even to discuss it further.
The representative sent by Vito interrupted his reverie to say he could now board the airplane. Once inside, he was fully impressed by the luxuriousness of its interior, of the deep carpeting and large comfortable armchairs, of the uniformed co-pilot acting as steward, politely asking whether he would like to see a motion picture or hear music, pointing out a rack of the latest magazines standing to one side, offering choices from a menu that would have done justice to a one-star restaurant and drinks from an incredibly well-stocked bar.
When the airplane was off the ground, Paul settled for a scotch and soda, plugged in the earphones, tuned the selector knob to the music of Wagner, then leaned back contentedly. The overture of Tannhauser hit him like a blow in the face.
What would he be thinking if he were coming back to a funeral for Ingrid? He considered this without the least shred of superstition, for he was too logical and practical to hem and haw when it came to matters of life and death. In a sense Ingrid was Maria and Maria was Ingrid, both being his flesh and blood, whose lives he had touched fleetingly, but whom he could love only to a limited degree. He
lacked a true, fatherly feeling which could be used as a measure of sorrow at the thought of losing a child, or a sister who was not much older than his daughter. Perhaps he was unable to truly love. Kristine was beyond the pale of comparison due to the unique place she occupied within him.
Ingrid. She was nineteen years old now. He had last seen her a year and a half ago when she was sent by her mother to join him at St. Anton in Austria during the Christmas vacation. Kristine herself had managed to get down for a few days, and after the blinding experience of losing themselves completely in each other, they had turned their attention to Ingrid with the pride that lovers of long standing find in the child of this love.
Kristine was still the most beautiful woman in the world to Paul. A classical Nordic of thick blond hair worn braided and rolled at the back of her head, a long, firm body that was poised and elegant, crisp blue eyes, skin that gleamed with good health, deep breasts which grew sensually hard under his touch, hips that were invitingly large, a body that fit Paul’s to perfection. It was incredible that Baroness Kristine von Hohenstein was only three years away from being fifty, and Paul was fully aware that no other woman could ever affect him so strongly or make love to him so completely and overwhelmingly. His body grew taut and his loins ached at the mere thought of her.
Their daughter, Ingrid, was as beautiful a girl as her mother was a woman. A lot of Paul was evident there in the tawny hair, the straight, narrow DiStephano nose which avoided the slight upturn at its tip that her mother had, the brown eyes and golden skin to contrast with Kristine’s lighter color, and even a bit of Paul’s hard leanness.
“When she smiles,” Kristine explained over and over, “I see you so clearly that it is as if you are here with me.”
There was no shyness when Paul and his daughter met during his periodic visits to Europe. She knew well enough the circumstances of her birth, and loved Paul with the intensity of a teenager who had found her Prince Charming and was assured by the fact that he could never love another girl more than her. Paul loved her in return, to the limit of his capability for affection, because she was of the blood created from his seed planted in the only woman he ever loved without reservation.
Although he was a man of decision, he had asked himself countless times whether he had done right in the affair with Kristine. He did not even consider pointing the finger of reproach at anyone else, since it was not in his nature to lay the blame elsewhere when he himself had been free to make the final choice. But during the twenty years which had elapsed, he had kneeled in front of the altar of his faith many times when loneliness had become nigh unbearable and asked himself whether he should have taken her.
As the strains of Tannhauser filled his ears, the memory of the night they met flooded his mind, and he saw again the lobby of the makeshift opera building in Frankfurt in nineteen fifty when he was one of the army’s newest Second Lieutenants just out of West Point on duty nearby. He stood in the lobby during the intermission, trying to retain his loyalties to Puccini but aware that Wagner was actually the master and had struck a chord within him that was in mood with his martial air. During this contemplation, he glanced covertly at the Germans over twenty-five years of age. They would have been his enemies just a few short years ago. He was surprised to find them looking exactly like the men he knew in Chicago or New York, except that their hair was worn longer, their suits were much too large and rumpled, and they seemed entirely too explosive to be anything but violent people who needed to be bashed every so often to be kept in line.
Then he saw Kristine and his heart skipped a beat. She was accompanied by an older woman, her tall figure in a green, evening gown, her hair piled high on her head, set off by a tiara of rhinestones and long forest-green emeralds dangling from her ears, with a huge matching emerald ring on her finger. He stared at the utterly fascinating movements of her hips as she walked - no, glided, would be more appropriate, for she was a superb horsewoman above all, and her body swayed with the deft rhythm of all expert riders. As she passed, two American officers standing to one side gave low whistles and one of them remarked loud enough for those nearby, including Kristine, to hear, “Will you look at that fantastic ass!” Paul turned to them with a fury boiling up inside that he never knew was possible and snapped, “Keep your filthy mouths shut!” The Captain and First Lieutenant looked at the gold bars on Paul’s shoulders and bristled with the intent of cutting him down to size. Then they came under the glare of Paul’s furious black eyes and decided that rank might be no deterrent whatsoever if that fierce-looking man exploded, so they wisely moved off. Paul turned back to watch the woman who had won his heart in an instant. She had continued on to the refreshment counter, had ordered a champagne, then had glanced at him and raised her glass in a half salute before occupying herself totally with the older woman.
He did not return to his seat after the intermission, for he feared she might leave early. Instead, like the resourceful person he was, he stepped outside to hire a taxi for the evening. Ordering it to remain poised at the curb, he walked back inside, secured his cap from the checkroom, then took up a position near the doors. When the performance was over, Paul watched her walk out of the building and step into a chauffeur-driven Mercedes. He leaped into the waiting taxi, shouting at the driver in his broken German to follow that car and not to lose it on penalty of a fractured skull. The driver had entered into the spirit of the chase by remaining almost bumper to bumper with it until the sleek, black Mercedes deposited the two women at the exclusive Frankfurter Hof Hotel. Paul obtained her name and room number from an alert desk clerk only minutes after passing over a sum of money, then registered himself at the hotel with the peace of mind of a soldier knowing it was Saturday night and he was not required back on duty until Monday morning.
He took no chances that she might leave later that evening by occupying a seat near the elevators. When he concluded that she had gone to bed, he turned in also. At the crack of dawn he was up, had rented shaving gear from a bellboy, made his toilet, then went back on duty at the elevators. He prayed that she would not take breakfast in her room. At eight, his vigil was rewarded by seeing her step out of the elevator without the older woman and walk into the dining room. Paul gave her only ten seconds to be seated before striding up to her table, bowing, and saying breathlessly,
“Madam, if you don’t allow me to join you for breakfast, I shall step outside and throw myself under the wheels of the first car that comes by.”
Suddenly, the awful thought struck him that she might not understand English and his reserve immediately melted away. He blushed and his eyes darted about the room looking for a vacant table to which he could rush to hide his mortification.
As she told him months later, “I looked up and saw this utterly beautiful savage who had championed me at the opera, and who was evidently so much younger than I that I didn’t know whether to laugh or to scold him.”
Instead she smiled, and Paul sat down at once.
They had time for only a few words before she drank her coffee, nodded her head politely, then left the table. He followed her chauffeured Mercedes by taxi to a small village in the Taunus Mountains nearby and saw the huge estate where she lived with her husband, a man twenty-five years older than she, who had recently been released from prison as a high ranking Nazi party member. He also saw the number of servants who tended the house and grounds, but none of these things seemed important enough to his love-smitten brain to keep her out of his reach. Every moment he was free from duty, he raced a car he had purchased from a fellow officer to the village in the Taunus Mountains and mooned about in the local Gasthaus, waiting for a glimpse of her. Now and then she emerged from her estate to be driven to Frankfurt or Wiesbaden to shop. Paul followed, but made no attempt to approach her.
It became the talk of the village, and once the townspeople decided that they liked this audacious American, who learned their language in no time at all, they joined the conspiracy, gossiping about the Baron an
d his wife, of him being a pompous ass who didn’t know his elbow from his rump, of Kristine having married him when she was only eighteen or nineteen years old, and that she didn’t seem a bad sort of person except for keeping to herself pretty much, since there were no children to occupy her time.
The regular customers of a Gasthaus situated directly across from the entrance to her estate went even so far as to call about for him when she started out, contacting the various Gasthaüser and Weinstuben until they located him, where he was usually challenging everyone to a chug-a-lug.
Upon hearing the magic words, and followed by a rousing cheer from his drinking companions, he would race out to his car and take off after her with a great squeal of tires. The conspiracy even extended to a servant in the mansion, who tipped off a friend in the nearby Gasthaus when she made plans to go shopping or riding.
For nearly two months Paul just watched her from a distance, making no attempt to force himself on her, nor getting so far underfoot as to be tripped over, and it is quite likely that he would still be following her about with his usual tenacity if one day she had not ridden her handsome, long-legged brown mare towards where he was seated in his car by the side of the road. He got out promptly, a sudden intuition springing up inside him that things had come to a head, and she did not disappoint him.
She stopped her mare just a few feet away and flicked her riding crop against her boot as she gazed long and hard at Paul. “How much longer do you intend to pursue me?” she finally asked in her precise, but accented English.
I Contadini (The Peasants) Page 6
