“By ‘the first one,’ you mean our ‘miracle’ bush?”
“Yes,” she said. “The second one was doing very well, it had at least nine seasons. But it got a bacterial blight, little cankers that killed the stems. It’s a plant disease that begins with a P — Phytophthora is what I think the nursery man said.”
“You’re telling me now about a second lilac bush,” General Weir said carefully, his arms stiff at his sides. “I believe what you are saying is that we are not looking at the first lilac bush, nor are we looking at the second...”
“That’s right, Scotty.”
“And the winter I brought my wife here, when Mark had to stay in school, was that the original tree we looked at? Which lilac were we toasting when we all got drunk and sentimental and you brought out champagne?”
“What year was that?”
“You know goddamn well what year it was, Marta, and don’t give me any more double-talk about genus and blight spots. What tree was it?”
“That lilac was the third.”
“And this?”
She sighed. “Last spring and summer the flowers weren’t right. They’re supposed to grow in panicles, you know, almost like bunches of grapes, but there were just a few scattered flowers, pinkish, not lilac, and a really bad smell. There were little white meshes on the leaves, like tent caterpillars and...”
“Then this is the fourth lilac bush, a complete imposter plant, I’ve been looking at like a damned fool? And you let me make that jackass speech about ‘our talisman’?”
She shrugged and looked away from him. “I would have waited for spring, but when I got your letter that you were coming, I called a nurseryman in Liege. They cut down the diseased tree and softened the ground with steam hoses and things and planted the new lilac. In fact, they had to put it six feet back so it wouldn’t get tangled up with the sick roots. You’d never have noticed the change, Scotty, if it had been taller. It wasn’t a matter of money, believe me. That was the biggest lilac bush they had in the nursery.”
Tarbert Weir let his breath out hoping the release of pressure would soften the anger that seemed to be swelling in his chest.
“I don’t think I did wrong, Scotty,” Marta said softly.
He wanted to reach out to touch her cheek, to reassure her, to remember her as a treasured friend, but he felt dread at the thought of flesh on flesh. What else, Weir wondered, had they all been lying about...
“Of course you didn’t do wrong, Marta. It is a strange kind of falsehood you’ve kept alive over the years, but I love you for it. It’s what a frightened eight-year-old girl would do. It must have meant so much to you, that miracle tree.”
“Yes, yes, dear Scotty,” she said softly. “It did, it meant so much to me. But you — wasn’t it just everything for you?”
Chapter Thirty-three
Greta stood at the stove, stirring a pan of cocoa. She wore a black crepe slip with thin gold-braid straps, gold mules, and her hair was piled high, tied back with a ribbon.
In the adjoining bedroom Duro Lasari stepped out of the shower, a towel around his waist. The bruises on his chest and groin had turned grayish yellow, the edges marked pink with signs of healing. The deep cut above his eye had healed but the hot shower had turned the welt an angry purple. A private’s uniform hung from a wall pole, a pair of regulation boots on the floor beneath. He would be making the return trip to Regensburg in a few hours; Strasser’s driver was coming by to take him to the bus depot. Strasser had made that decision in a drunken but defiant phone call to Pytor Vayetch last evening.
“I don’t care what you gentlemen got planned,” he’d said. “My orders come directly from Karl Malleck in Chicago, and he says no pussyfooting GI’s gonna be delivered back to his barracks by Porsche. He comes in by bus, he goes back by bus...”
Vayetch and Herr Rauch were scheduled to meet with Lasari at the apartment within the hour.
“You want some cocoa or anything, George?” Greta called out from the kitchen.
“No, I’m fine, Greta. That was a great farewell luncheon, by the way. Thanks.”
“You can’t leave without eating something more, George. The PX will be closed when you get to Regensburg. Too bad we don’t have jerky. You know what jerky is? Everybody on the ‘Bonanza’ show took beef jerky with them on trips, remember?”
Lasari put on his socks first, then pulled on khaki undershorts. “You don’t miss a thing, Greta,” he called out then turned as he heard the door pushed open.
Greta was smiling, almost shy. Lasari took a shirt off a hanger, put it on and began to button it.
“Why are you putting your shirt on?” she said. “I thought you were talking to me because you wanted me.” Her eyes clouded. “Ernie is always drunk and you act like I’m not here. You’re putting clothes on. I feel so useless.”
She came to stand close to him and raised one slim leg, running her fingers along the curve of the calf. “Did you ever notice I don’t shave my legs, George? I don’t have to. Blonde ladies are lucky about hair, a nice color. I’m that way all over.”
Lasari took his uniform trousers from the hanger, stepped into them and pulled the zipper into place. “Look Greta,” he said, “if this had happened at another time, if we’d met at a bar or a dance, and were both alone, I’d want to get to know you real well. I mean that. But you belong to Ernie Strasser.” As she began to frown, he held up a hand. “I don’t mean like his goddamn cat or dog, or his motorcycle. Not that. Strasser’s your guy, you’re his woman, and I think he feels for you.”
“Some boy friend,” she said morosely. “He can be sweet sometimes but he’s drinking like this because he’s a born coward. He was always afraid of Malleck and now it’s Eddie Neal and those other men.”
Lasari had taken his tunic jacket in his hand but made no move to put it on. “Here’s how I see it,” he said. “Strasser’s got some problems, sure, but he’s loyal and you’ve got to admire that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, Greta, I don’t know, but no matter how much I like you and want you, coming between two people who are together, that’s not my style. If you and I were alone here, if there was no Ernie Strasser, who knows what would happen? But this way, three people could get hurt.”
She was smiling again. “What you’re saying, George, is that if it weren’t for Ernie being my boy friend, you couldn’t control yourself, I wouldn’t be safe with you. Isn’t that what you’re saying? You’re crazy and sweet like Brett Maverick when you’re like this...” She stopped short, sniffing the air attentively.
“Damn! You’re right, Greta,” he said. “I smell it, too. You forgot that cocoa on the stove.”
When she left the room Lasari put on his tunic and walked quickly down the hall.
Lasari found Strasser sprawled in an armchair, breathing heavily and seemingly immobile, but with eyes open and wary. “Don’t think I’m drunk, Jackson,” he said. “I just want you off my ass and out of here.”
Sergeant Strasser had finished all the paperwork at his office yesterday, stamping, initialing and certifying the details of Private Jackson’s detached duty time on leave from the Lucky Thirteenth, specifying the assignment for Colonel Warneke in dog training. And he had cut orders for Jackson to rejoin the Lucky Thirteenth outside Kassel in two days.
Greta had prepared a lunch of fruit, headcheese, pumpernickel and canned white asparagus, but Strasser had pushed his half-filled plate away and finished off a bottle of white wine laced with Bols gin.