“I love you,” he said. “That’s what you can base on. I tell you truly.”
“It is Saturday,” she said. “And when is next Saturday?”
“Next Saturday is a movable feast, daughter. Find me a man who can tell me about next Saturday.”
“You could tell me if you would.”
“I’ll ask the Gran Maestro, maybe he knows. Gran Maestro when will next Saturday come?”
“À Paques ou à la Trinité,” the Gran Maestro said.
“Why don’t we have any smells from the kitchen to cheer us up?”
“Because the wind is from the wrong direction.”
Yes, the Colonel thought. The wind is from the wrong direction and how lucky I would have been to have had this girl instead of the woman that I pay alimony to, who could not even make a child. She hired out for that. But who should criticise whose tubes? I only criticize Goodrich or Firestone or General.
Keep it clean, he said to himself. And love your girl.
She was there beside him, wishing to be loved, if he had any love to give.
It came back, as it always had, when he saw her, and he said, “How are you with the crow wing hair and the breakheart face?”
“I’m fine.”
“Gran Maestro,” the Colonel said. “Produce a few smells or something from your off-stage kitchen, even if the wind is against us.”
