orange and a knife and wandered slowly into the garden, where she sat down, looking at the hills beyond with her back against her favorite tree.
It was here that the major found her half an hour later, and he stood there for a long moment, watching her as she peeled the orange carefully and then lay in the grass and looked up at the tree. He wasn't sure whether or not to approach her, but there was still something about her that intrigued him. There was a special aura of mystery that surrounded Marcella's hardworking young niece. He still seriously doubted the story that they were related, but her papers were in order, and whoever she was, she worked damn hard for them. What difference did it make who she was? But the strange thing was that it seemed to make a difference to him. He thought of her often as he had seen her on that first evening, standing in his office in the dark, leaning against the window, looking out at that willow tree.
He wandered slowly closer to where she lay and then sat down quietly beside her, looking down into her face as she looked up at the tree and the sky and then him. She gave a little start as she saw him and then she sat up quickly, smoothing her apron over her skirt and covering her thickly stockinged legs, before she allowed her eyes to meet his.
“You always seem to surprise me, Major.”
Again he noticed that her English was better than she usually let on and he suddenly found himself wanting to tell her that she always surprised him. But instead he only smiled, the thick blond hair brushed softly by the September breeze. “You're drawn to this tree, aren't you, Serena?”
She nodded with a childlike smile and offered him part of her orange. For her, it was an enormous step. After all, he was a soldier. And she had hated all soldiers for so long. But there was something about him that made her want to trust him. Maybe because he was Marcella's friend. His eyes were kind as he accepted half of the orange and began to peel off sections as he sat beside her. For a moment she looked very far away. “When I was a little girl, I lived in a house … where I could see a tree … just like this one … from my window. Sometimes I used to talk to it at night.” She blushed then, and felt silly, but he only looked amused, as his eyes took in the smoothness of her skin and the long lines of her legs spread out ahead of her on the grass.
“Do you talk to this one?”
“Sometimes,” she confessed.
“Is that what you were going to do in my office that night, when I surprised you?”
She shook her head slowly, looking suddenly sad. “No, I just wanted to see it. My window—” She seemed to pull herself back. “The window of my room looked out just as this one does.”
“And that room?” He looked at her gently. “Where is it?”
“Here in Rome.”
“Do you still visit it?” He didn't know why, but he wanted to know more about her.
She shrugged in answer. “Other people live in the house now.”
“And your parents, Serena? Where are they?” It was a dangerous question to ask people after a war and he knew it. She turned slowly with a strange look in her eyes.
“My family are dead, Major. All of them.” And then she remembered. “Except Marcella.”
“I'm sorry.” He hung his head and riffled the grass with his hand. He had lost no one in this war. And he knew that his family was grateful that they had not lost him. Friends of his had died, but no cousins, no brothers, no uncles, no distant relations. It was a war that had barely touched the world he had lived in. And one of these days he knew that he would be going home too. Not yet though. He was still enjoying his work in Rome.
An orderly had come then and interrupted them. There was a phone call from General Farnham and he had to come at once. He looked at Serena regretfully over his shoulder for a moment and then he hurried inside and she didn't see him again.
When she climbed between the cool sheets that night after bidding good night to Marcella, she found herself thinking of the interlude that afternoon in the garden,