III

While Thomas Hudson was asleep he dreamed that his son Tom was not dead and that the other boys were all right and that the war was over. He dreamed that Tom’s mother was sleeping with him and she was sleeping on top of him as she liked to do sometimes. He felt all of this and the tangibility of her legs against his legs and her body against his and her breasts against his chest and her mouth was playing against his mouth. Her hair hung down and lay heavy and silky on his eyes and on his cheeks and he turned his lips away from her searching ones and took the hair in his mouth and held it. Then with one hand he moistened the .357 Magnum and slipped it easily and sound asleep where it should be. Then he lay under her weight with her silken hair over his face like a curtain and moved slowly and rhythmically.

That was when Henry put the light blanket over him and Thomas Hudson said, asleep, “Thank you for being so moist and lovely and for pressing on me so hard. Thank you for coming back so quickly and for not being too thin.”

“The poor son of a bitch,” Henry said and covered him carefully. He went away carrying two wicker five-gallon demijohns on his shoulders.

“I thought you wanted me thin, Tom,” the woman said in the dream. “You said I felt like a young goat when I was thin and that nothing felt better than a young goat.”

“You,” he said. “Who’s going to make love to who?”

“Both of us,” she said. “Unless you want it differently.”

“You make love to me. I’m tired.”

“You’re just lazy. Let me take the pistol off and put it by your leg. The pistol’s in the way of everything.”

“Lay it by the bed,” he said. “And make everything the way it should be.”

Then it was all the way it should be and she said, “Should I be you or you be me?”

“You have first choice.”

“I’ll be you.”

“I can’t be you. But I can try.”

“It’s fun. You try it. Don’t try to save yourself at all. Try to lose everything and take everything too.”

“All right.”

“Are you doing it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s wonderful.”

“Do you know now what we have?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes I know. It’s easy to give up.”

“Will you give up everything? Are you glad I brought back the boys and that I come and be a devil in the night?”

“Yes. I’m glad of everything and will you swing your hair across my face and give me your mouth please and hold me so tight it kills me?”

“Of course. And you’ll do it for me?”

When he woke he touched the blanket and he did not know, for an instant, that it was a dream. Then he lay on his side and felt the pistol holster between his legs and how it was really and all the hollownesses in him were twice as hollow and there was a new one from the dream. He saw it was still light and he saw the dinghy carrying water to his ship and he saw the white pounding of the surf on the reef. He turned on his side and tucked the blanket around himself and slept on his arms. He was asleep when they came to wake him and he had not dreamed at all this time.