Siglinde came out of the water last. She was swimming in a wide circle with long lazy strokes and the luminescence of the sea floated in fine phosphorescent streaks along her body.
She and Dan and Willi Mohr were bathing farthest out by the lighthouse, where the breakwater ended in a circular pierhead made of concrete and large, crudely cut blocks of stone. Santiago and Ramon, who had swimming trunks, were a few yards farther in. To appear without a bathing-costume was a punishable pleasure and the risk of being caught not worth taking.
The night was thick and black and inpenetrable, but every sixteenth second the light from the lighthouse swung round over their heads. Each time it brought with it a pale uncertain light, weak and nebulous, but still sufficiently strong that one could make out objects round about.
They had left their clothes on the parapet.
Dan Pedersen had climbed up on to the parapet and all that could be seen was the glowing tip of his cigarette.
Willi Mohr was standing right up by the edge of the pier, looking at the distant lights of the puerto.
They enjoyed the pleasant coolness as the air slowly dried their skins.
There was no sign of Siglinde, except the thin pale green tracks in the darkness showing that she had swum towards the shore.
Soon afterwards the water could be heard pouring off her body.
‘Help her up, will you,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘The stones are hellish sharp down there.’
When Willi Mohr heard Siglinde trying to find a foothold on the rocks, he took a step down the stone stairway and put out a hand in the dark.
She found it at once, and her hand was cold and wet and firm. He pulled her slowly until she had her balance and he felt very clearly the well-trained elasticity in her body as she thrust off with her foot and swung herself up on to the flat stones.
Willi Mohr could not see her, but he knew she was standing just beside him on the stairway.
At that moment the light from the lighthouse cut through the darkness above and for one or two seconds he saw her in the light of its trailing reflection.
She was standing with her feet apart, her toes turned slightly inwards, her arms hanging loosely, and she was holding her head to one side to shake the water from her ears and to get the short blond wisps of hair away from her forehead. Her shoulders and breasts and forearms were covered with circular drops of water, which looked so firm and definitively shaped that one ought to be able to pick them off one by one without breaking them and collect them in one’s hand like small glass pearls. Her nipples were large and stiff and the skin in the finely-drawn circles round them was wrinkled and contracted. Lower down the water ran down her hips and in two clear channels from the soft hollow above her navel, down over her curved stomach and was then caught up in the curly patch of hair growing up from her loins. The hair was black and thick and glittered with thousands of small drops of water.
She was standing so close that Willi Mohr saw all this very clearly, but he had no time to notice her face.
He tried to avoid being influenced by the functional beauty in her body. For the first time since they had met, it occurred to him that she was beautiful.
And this was a completely objective observation. He thought.
Then the light had gone and he heard someone draw in his breath just behind him.
Dan Pedersen was still sitting on the concrete wall, his cigarette glowing in the darkness.
Willi Mohr heard Siglinde moving, listlessly and roughly. Then she walked swiftly past him and over towards the parapet.
When the lighthouse beam swung round the next time, she had already put on her dress and was smoothing it down over her wet body. She had evidently not bothered to put on her underclothes.
Willi Mohr thought he saw someone standing a few yards away.
‘The patrol is coming this way now,’ said Santiago, from out of the darkness.
His voice was calm and ordinary.
‘Yes,’ said Siglinde. ‘Get dressed you lot, please.’
‘God, how you do nag,’ said Dan.
He jumped down and began to pull on his trousers.
‘I could stay here for hours,’ he said to Willi Mohr, who was standing nearest to him. ‘Good idea, this bathe.’
‘Very,’ said Willi Mohr.
They had driven as far as they could and the camioneta was standing on the tarmacadam slope just beside the irregular pile of rough blocks of stone which constituted the foundations of the breakwater. As they climbed over the stones, two civil guards came up from behind the truck and shone their torches on them. They saluted Siglinde and nodded to Dan Pedersen and Willi Mohr. Then they took Santiago and Ramon to one side, made them raise their hands above their heads and searched them, idiotically thoroughly and lengthily.
Finally they switched off their torches and disappeared into the darkness.
‘What were they looking for?’ said Dan Pedersen.
Santiago grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Don’t know,’ he said.
‘I’d never put up with that,’ said Dan.