The next day, Mark took Lucilla into a tent with a table setting. There were knives, fork, spoons, tea cups, wine glasses, drinking glasses, napkins for wiping the mouth, soup bowls, pitchers of tea or water and just about anything one would find in a wealthy home or in a plush restaurant.
"How can I eat with these utensils. They are more like a surgeon would carry in his bag or an ancient healer. To me they are pure torture!"
"Lucy, you have to learn to eat European style, and you need to be good at it."
"Mark, Europeans--Gauls, Britons, Germans, even those from Spain--are nothing but barbarians!"
"That is the way they eat in Paris."
"Paris? PARIS?" Lucilla then turned her head and spit. "You mean that settlement of mud huts along the Seine River? There is nothing civilized about Paris!"
"Things have changed, Lucy."
With that Lucilla threw a cup at Mark. It hit him in the head, and shattered on the floor. Over the next two days, Mark had Lucilla follow his lead. A server would bring in a salad to into the tent and set it before them. Lucilla would take care to watch Mark as he picked up his fork with his left hand. That is because Europeans, not Americans, would cut with their right hands and eat with their left.
Mark was long skilled at the change although he grew up eating with his right hand.
Next was a soup, which was eaten with care. Now and then Mark would stop and put the napkin to wipe his mouth. Then he would finish the soup.
After the main course, which required several days of work before Lucilla mastered rules of food ettiquette.
"Okay, tomorrow you will accompany me to an Italian restaurant to make sure you pass the test."
"Mark, you mean that I have to eat my way out of this part of my training?"
"I suppose you could look at it that way. but this is only the beginnning."
"You cannot go into a restaurant with that gown on. People will wonder about you." Mark's countenance changed. "I am sending over clothes for you in the morning. They will be clothes like and Italian woman would wear nowadays."
The next morning Mark came by--only to find Lucilla struggling with a modern print dress. She had a matching hat. After she put it on, her chest sagged.
"You did not put your bra on." Mark pointed to the white bra that still sat on the corner of the chair.
"Okay, go out of the tent, and I will put in on."
When Lucilla called to Mark, he returned. There stood Lucilla with the top of her dress around her waist. She was holding the bra up. Then she smiled as she allowed it to drop to the floor.
There she stood before Mark, smiling with her full, lovely breasts exposed.
"Haven't you seen a lovely woman like me before?" She was revelling in the pleasure of Mark's awkwardness.
"Not since my wife."
"But my body is here and now for you. Your wife is of little consequence. After all, she is not here."
"My wife died years ago in childbirth." Mark turned away, hurt by this unthinking woman.
Lucilla regretted everything. "Oh, Mark, I am so sorry. I know what it is to lose a loved one."
Still hurt, Mark nevertheless said, "Lucy, what is said is said. I loved her, and maybe never will be happy with another woman again. After I lost her, I buried myself in my work. Before the war I was a professor of ancient languages and culture. I specialized in Latin and Greek. That is why they assigned me to you."
"Again, I am sorry."
"Higher command thinks you have the potential to be of help to our war effort. Perhaps it is your apparent skill with languages. They took me, a non-agressive Italian American and made a commando out of me." Looking at Lucilla, he said, "I know more ways to kill a man than one of your gladiators in the arena."
Mark's countenance was forgiving as he looked once more at Lucilla. " 'War is hell,' General Sherman once said. You and I are paired together into one of the most hair-brained military missions ever thought up by a command. How we are going to see this through to the end, I do not know."
Lucilla said, "Forgive me for trying to seduce you, shall we go to an eating place?"
Lucilla had a problem walking in her high heels. Her stockings drooped so low that some women almost laughed. Mark entered the restaurant first, as was local Italian custom. Then he instructed Lucilla to wait for him to push her chair up under her before sitting down.
Then Mark picked up the menu and read it to Lucilla. "What do you want, Lucy?"
Lucilla smiled and said, "What is the pork with pasta like?"
"Delicious."
"Are you a slave?" Lucilla asked the woman who brought the food.
"Slavery has been illegal for the past two hundred years in most places in the world, Lucy."
Lucilla took care to watch Mark as he followed European protocol in eating. After a few trips to a restaurant here and there, she got the hang of it.
After a few days, Lucilla was able to dress in such a way that her clothes would not hang in her original unkempt manner.
"One more thing, Lucy. I do not know why I thought of it before. The next day, a hairdresser showed up at Lucilla's tent. In a couple of days she had trained her to prepare her hair like most any modern Italian woman."
"With time Lucy looked quite stunning."
"Now it's time to take you to an American Service Club. There you will meet American military personnel. You need to listen to music and how we entertainment. Maybe even dance."
"The only dancing I have seen was during feasts. Most fun was the Feast of Baccus. That is when my husband would allow me to sleep with another man and he with another woman. That was most invigorating," Lucilla said with a nostalgic smile.
Mark leaned forward. "Nowadays few people go in for such sexual variety that you once enjoyed, Lucy."
At the club, Mark ordered beer for Lucilla and himself.
"This is a bit like the Egyptian beer I used to drink."
"Lucy, most of the beer here comes to us from the Germans." Mark took a sip. Lucilla drank it down. They sat down and listened to someone playing the piano while some other joined in singing the songs of the day.
Bless 'em all, Bless 'em all, The long and the short and the tall.
Bless all those sergeants and WO1's, Bless all those Corporals and their bleedin' sons.
Cos we're saying goodbye to 'em all, And back to their Billets they crawl,
You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up lads bless 'em all!"
Lucilla continued to drink beer while she joined in singing to the piano. Mark's brief concern over Lucilla's drinking abated because something else more important was happening. Lucilla joined in on the singing of American tunes. Many of the soldiers and service women thought that Lucilla was a Greek because her otherwise good use of Italian came with a heavy accent.
We're Little Black Sheep Who have Lost Our Way and Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me.
After two hours, Mark picked up Lucilla, who was so drunk that she could walk with great difficulty.
"Oh, Mark, I haven't had this much fun since my first orgy. Oh, how I really took on the lovers there!"
Mark looked at the other service personnel there and made light of what she said. "My lovely but drunk friend is merely repeating a few lines she learned in a play about Ancient Rome."
Mark picked up Lucilla and carried her on his shoulder back to her tent. Then he plopped her in bed and removed her clothes, covering her as she lay in her bra and underwear, so that her clothes would not be wrinkled.
"Come on, Mark, your Lucy hasn't had a man in a long time. Don't you want me tonight?"