Chapter Sixteen

He woke when it was barely just light enough to see the pine trunks and he left the bed, careful not to wake Catherine, found his shorts and went, the soles of his feet wet from the dew on the stones, along the length of the hotel to the door of his work room. As he opened the door he felt, again, the touch of the air from the sea that promised how the day would be.

When he sat down the sun was not yet up and he felt that he had made up some of the time that was lost in the story. But as he reread his careful legible hand and the words took him away and into the other country, he lost that advantage and was faced with the same problem and when the sun rose out of the sea it had, for him, risen long before and he was well into the crossing of the gray, dried, bitter lakes his boots now white with crusted alkalis. He felt the weight of the sun on his head and his neck and his back. His shirt was wet and he felt the sweat go down his back and between his thighs. When he stood straight up and rested, breathing slowly, and his shirt hung away from his shoulders, he could feel it dry in the sun and see the white patches that the salts of his body made in the drying. He could feel and see himself standing there and knew there was nothing to do except go on.

At half past ten he had crossed the lakes and was well beyond them. By then he had reached the river and the great grove of fig trees where they would make their camp. The bark of the trunks was green and yellow and the branches were heavy. Baboons had been eating the wild figs and there were baboon droppings and broken figs on the ground. The smell was foul.

But the half past ten was on the watch on his wrist as he looked at it in the room where he sat at a table feeling the breeze from the sea now and the real time was evening and he was sitting against the yellow gray base of a tree with a glass of whiskey and water in his hand and the rolled figs swept away watching the porters butchering out the Kongoni he had shot in the first grassy swale they passed before they came to the river.

I’ll leave them with meat, he thought and so it is a happy camp tonight no matter what comes after. So he put his pencils and the notebooks away and locked the suitcase and went out the door and walked on the stones, dry and warm now, to the hotel patio.

The girl was sitting at one of the tables reading a book. She wore a striped fisherman’s shirt and tennis skirt and espadrilles and when she saw him she looked up and David thought she was going to blush but she seemed to check it and said, “Good morning, David. Did you work well?”

“Yes, beauty,” he said.

She stood up then and kissed him good morning and said, “I’m very happy then. Catherine went in to Cannes. She said to tell you I was to take you swimming.”

“Didn’t she want you to go in town with her?”

“No. She wanted me to stay. She said you got up terribly early to work and maybe you’d be lonely when you finished. Can I order some breakfast? You shouldn’t always not eat breakfast.”

The girl went into the kitchen and she came out with oeufs au plat avec jambon and English mustard and Sovora.

“Was it difficult today?” she asked him.

“No,” he said. “It’s always difficult but it’s easy too. It went very well.”

“I wish I could help.”

“Nobody can help,” he said.

“But I can help in other things can’t I?”

He started to say there are no other things but he did not say it and instead he said, “You have and you do.”

He wiped the last of the egg and mustard up from the shallow dish with a small piece of bread and then drank some tea. “How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Very well,” the girl said. “I hope that’s not disloyal.”

“No. That’s intelligent.”

“Can we stop being so polite?” the girl asked. “Everything was so simple and fine until now.”

“Yes, let’s stop. Let’s stop even the ‘I can’t David’ nonsense,” he said.

“All right,” she said and stood up. “If you want to go swimming I’ll be in my room.”

He stood up. “Please don’t go,” he said. “I’ve stopped being a shit.”

“Don’t stop for me,” she said. “Oh David how could we ever get in a thing like this? Poor David. What women do to you.” She was stroking his head and smiling at him. “I’ll get the swimming things if you want to swim.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll go get my espadrilles.”

They lay on the sand where David had spread the beach robes and the towels in the shade of a red rock and the girl said, “You go in and swim and then I will.”

He lifted very slowly and gently up out and away from her and then waded out from the beach and dove under where the water was cold and swam deep. When he came up he swam out against the chop of the breeze and then swam in to where the girl was waiting for him standing up to her waist in the water her black head sleek and wet, her light brown body dripping. He held her tight and the waves washed against them.

They kissed and she said, “Everything of ours washed into the ocean.”

“We have to get back.”

“Let’s go under once together holding tight.”

Back at the hotel Catherine had not arrived and after they had taken showers and changed David and Marita sat at the bar with two martinis. They looked at each other in the mirror. They watched each other very carefully and then David passed his finger under his nose while he looked at her and she blushed.

“I want to have more things like that,” she said. “Things that only we have so I won’t be jealous.”

“I wouldn’t put out too many anchors,” he said. “You might foul the cables.”

“No. I’ll find things to do that will hold you.”

“That’s a good practical Heiress,” he said.

“I wish I could change that name. Don’t you?”

“Names go to the bone,” he said.

“Then let’s really change mine,” she said. “Would you mind terribly?”

“No. . . . Haya.”

“Say it again please.”

“Haya.”

“Is it good?”

“Very good. It’s a small name between us. For nobody else ever.”

“What does Haya mean?”

“The one who blushes. The modest one.”

He held her close and tight and she settled against him and her head was on his shoulder.

“Kiss me just once,” she said.

Catherine came into the big room dishevelled, excited and full of accomplishment and gaiety.

“You did take him swimming,” she said. “You both do look handsome enough, though still wet from the shower. Let me look at you.”

“Let me look at you,” the girl said. “What did you do to your hair?”

“It’s cendre,” Catherine said. “Do you like it? It’s a rinse that Jean’s experimenting with.”

“It’s beautiful,” the girl said.

Catherine’s hair was strange and exalting against her dark face. She picked up Marita’s drink and sipping it watched herself in the mirror and said, “Did you have fun swimming?”

“We both had a good swim,” the girl said. “But not as long as yesterday.”

“This is such a good drink, David,” Catherine said. “What makes your martinis better than anyone else’s?”

“Gin,” David said.

“Will you make me one please?”

“You don’t want one now, Devil. We’re going to have lunch.”

“Yes I do,” she said. ‘‘I’m going to sleep after lunch. You didn’t have to go through all the bleaching and re-bleaching and all of it. It’s exhausting.”

“What color is your hair really now?” David asked.

“It’s almost like white,” she said. “You’d like it. But I want to keep this so we see how it lasts.”

“How white is it?” David asked.

“About like the soap suds,” she said. “Do you remember?”

That evening Catherine was completely different from the way she had been at mid-day. She was sitting at the bar when they drove up from swimming. The girl had stopped off at her room and when David came into the big main room he said, “What have you done to yourself now, Devil?”

“I shampooed all that nonsense out,” she said. “It made gray stains on the pillow.”

She looked very striking, her hair a very light almost toneless silver that made her face darker than it had ever looked.

“You’re too damned beautiful,” he said. “But I wish they’d never touched your hair.”

“It’s too late for that now. Can I tell you something else?”

“Sure.”

“Tomorrow I’m not going to have drinks and I’m going to study Spanish and read again and stop thinking only about myself.”

“My God,” David said. “You had a big day. Here, let me get a drink and go in and change.”

“I’ll be here,” Catherine said. “Put on your dark blue shirt will you? The one I got you like the one of mine?”

David took his time in the shower and changing and when he came back the two girls were together at the bar and he wished he could have a painting of them.

“I told Heiress everything about my new leaf,” Catherine said.

“The one I just turned over and how I want you to love her too and you can marry her too if she’ll have you.”

“We could in Africa if I was registered Mohammedan. You’re allowed three wives.”

“I think it would be much nicer if we were all married,” Catherine said. “Then no one could criticize us. Will you really marry him, Heiress?”

“Yes,” the girl said.

“I’m so pleased,” Catherine said. “Everything I worried about is so simple now.”

“Would you really?” David asked the dark girl.

“Yes,” she said. “Ask me.”

David looked at her. She was very serious and excited. He thought of her face with her eyes closed against the sun and her black head against the whiteness of the towel robe on the yellow sand as it had been when they had made love at last. “I’ll ask you,” he said. “But not in any damned bar.”

“This isn’t any damned bar,” Catherine said. “This is our own special bar and we bought the mirror. I wish we could marry you tonight.”

“Don’t talk balls,” David said.

“I’m not,” said Catherine. “I really mean it. Truly.”

“Do you want a drink?” David asked.

“No,” Catherine said. “I want to get it said right first. Look at me and see.” The girl was looking down and David looked at Catherine. “I thought it all out this afternoon,” she said. “I really did. Didn’t I tell you, Marita?”

“She did,” the girl said.

David saw that she was serious about this and that they had reached some understanding that he did not know about.

“I’m still your wife,” Catherine said. “We’ll start with that. I want Marita to be your wife too to help me out and then she inherits from me.”

“Why does she have to inherit?”

“People make their wills,” she said. “And this is more important than a will.”

“What about you?” David asked the girl.

“I want to do it if you want me to.”

“Good,” he said. “Do you mind if I have a drink?”

“You have one please,” Catherine said. “You see I’m not going to have you ruined if I’m crazy and I won’t be able to decide. I’m not going to be shut up either. I decided that too. She loves you and you love her a little. I can tell. You’d never find anybody else like her and I don’t want you to go to some damn bitch or be lonely.”

“Come on and cheer up,” David said. “You’re healthy as a goat.”

“Well, we’re going to do it,” Catherine said. “We’ll work out everything.”