A week of ceaseless rain, this followed by baking heat, and all at once it was spring, and the chirping insects trilled in the valley. Lucy and Klara lay in the tall grasses above the village. He was leaning back on his elbows, a sleepy expression on his face. Klara was curled at his side, watching the daffodils bowing to the ground when a bee would light upon them. She put her hand on Lucy’s bare stomach and he looked down at her.
“Have you ever done that with anyone else?” he asked.
She nodded. “Have you?”
He nodded. Stroking her hair, he asked her what to do about Adolphus.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Do you want me to fight him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She wasn’t certain how to put it. “It would be unwise.”
“You think he would win, you mean?”
She touched his face. “Yes.”
“I suppose he would, after all.”
“You mustn’t ever try.”
“I don’t know that I’ll have a choice, when he comes back.”
She shook her head. “I’ll speak with him. He’ll be hurt. But he’s not a bad man.”
Lucy thought of it. “What does he want, exactly?” he said.
“To be a hero,” Klara said. “That’s actually all.”
“And what are you meant to do?”
“I believe I’m meant to coo.”
Lucy laughed. He said, “I feel I could fight him, though, do you know? I’d only have to think of you two, together, like this.”
Klara sat up, startled. “Adolphus and I . . . It never came to that. And I’m not sorry, either.”
Lucy experienced a great relief, this followed by a greater curiosity, which he wished to ignore, but could not, and so did not. “Who was it, then, if not Adolphus?”
“It was only once,” said Klara. “And it didn’t mean anything.” She lay back down. “I’ll tell you about it, if you really want to know.”
“I really want to know.”
“All right, then.”