Garden of Eden (23 page)

I
care, David thought. I saw him in the moonlight and he was alone but I had
Kibo. Kibo has me too. The bull wasn't doing anyone any harm and now we've
tracked him to where he came to see his dead friend and now we're going to kill
him. It's my fault. I betrayed him.

Now
Juma had worked out the trail and motioned to his father and they started on.

My
father doesn't need to kill elephants to live, David thought. Juma would not
have found him if I had not seen him. He had his chance at him and all he did
was wound him and kill his friend. Kibo and I found him and I never should have
told them and I should have kept him secret and had him always and let them
stay drunk with their bibis at the beer shamba. Juma was so drunk we could not
wake him. I'm going to keep everything a secret always. I'll never tell them
anything again. If they kill him Juma will drink his share of the ivory or just
buy himself another god damn wife. Why didn't you help the elephant when you
could? All you had to do was not go on the second day. No, that wouldn't have
stopped them. Juma would have gone on. You never should have told them. Never,
never tell them. Try and remember that. Never tell anyone anything ever. Never
tell anyone anything again.

His
father waited for him to come up and said very gently, "He rested here.
He's not travelling as he was. We'll be up on him anytime now."

"Fuck
elephant hunting," David had said very quietly.

"What's
that?" his father asked.

"Fuck
elephant hunting," David said softly.

"Be
careful you don't fuck it up," his father had said to him and looked at
him flatly.

That's
one thing, David had thought. He's not stupid. He knows all about it now and he
will never trust me again. That's good. I don't want him to because I'll never
ever tell him or anybody anything again never anything again. Never ever never.

That
was where he stopped in the hunt that morning. He knew he did not have it right
yet. He had not gotten the enormity of the skull as they had come onto it in
the forest nor the tunnels underneath it in the earth that the beetles had made
and that had been revealed like deserted galleries or catacombs when the
elephant had moved the skull. He had not made the great length of the whitened
bones nor how the elephant's tracks had moved around the scene of the killing
and how following them he had been able to see the elephant as he had moved and
then had been able to see what the elephant had seen. He had not gotten the
great width of the one elephant trail that was a perfect road through the
forest nor the worn smooth rubbing trees nor the way other trails intersected
so that they were like the map of the Metro in Paris. He had not made the light
in the forest where the trees came together at their tops and he had not
clarified certain things that he must make as they were then, not as he
recalled them now. The distances did not matter since all distances changed and
how you remembered them was how they were. But his change of feeling toward
Juma and toward his father and toward the elephant was complicated by the
exhaustion that had bred it. Tiredness brought the beginning of understanding.
The understanding was beginning and he was realizing it as he wrote. But the
dreadful true understanding was all to come and he must not show it by
arbitrary statements of rhetoric but by remembering the actual things that had
brought it. Tomorrow he would get the things right and then go on.

He
put the cahiers of manuscript away in the suitcase and locked it and came out
the door of his room and walked along the front of the hotel to where Marita
was reading.

"Do
you want breakfast?" she asked.

"I
think I'd like a drink."

"Let's
have it at the bar," she said. "It's cooler."

They
went in and sat down on stools and David poured from the Haig Pinch bottle into
a glass and filled it up with cold Perrier.

"What
became of Catherine?"

"She
left very happy and gay.

"And
how are you?"

"Happy
and shy and rather quiet."

"Too
shy for me to kiss you?"

They
held each other and he could feel himself start to be whole again. He had not
known just how greatly he had been divided and separated because once he
started to work he wrote from an inner core which could not be split nor even
marked nor scratched. He knew about this and it was his strength since all the
rest of him could be riven.

They
sat at the bar while the boy laid the table and the first coolness of fall was
in the breeze from the sea and then sitting at the table under the pines they
felt it again as they ate and drank.

"This
cool breeze comes all the way from Kurdistan," David said. "The
equinoctial storms will be coming soon."

"They
won't come today," the girl said. "We don't have to worry about them
today."

"There
hasn't been a blow of any kind since when we met in Cannes at the cafe."

"Can
you still remember things that long ago?"

"It
seems further away than the war."

"I
had the war the last three days," the girl said. "I just left it this
morning."

"I
never think about it," David said.

"Now
I've read it," Marita told him, "but I don't understand about you. You
never made clear what you believed."

He
filled her glass and then refilled his own.

"I
didn't know until afterwards," he said. "So I didn't try to act as
though I did. I suspended thinking about it while it was happening. I only felt
and saw and acted and thought tactically. That's why it's not a better book.
Because I wasn't more intelligent."

"It
is a very good book. The flying parts are wonderful and the feeling for the
other people and for the planes themselves."

"I'm
good on other people and on technical and tactical things," David said.
"I don't mean to talk wet or to brag. But, Marita, nobody knows about
himself when he is really involved. Yourself isn't worth considering. It would
be shameful at the time."

"But
afterwards you know."

"Sure.
Sometimes."

"Can
I read the narrative?"

David
poured wine in the glasses again.

"How
much did she tell you?"

"She
said she told me everything. She tells things very well you know."

"I'd
rather you didn't read it," David said. "All it would do is make
trouble. I didn't know there would be you when I wrote it and I can't help her
telling you things but I don't have to have you read about them too."

"Then
I mustn't read it?"

"I
wish you wouldn't. I don't want to give you orders."

"Then
I have to tell you," the girl said.

"She
let you read it?"

"Yes.
She said I should."

"God
damn her."

"She
didn't do it to do wrong. It was when she was so worried."

"So
you read it all?"

"Yes.
It's wonderful. It's so much better than the last book and now the stories are
so much better than it or than anything."

"What
about the Madrid part?" He looked at her and she looked up at him and then
moistened her lips and did not look away and she said very carefully, "I
knew all about that because I'm just the way you are.

When
they were lying together Marita said, "You don't think about her when you
make love to me?"

"No,
stupid."

"You
don't want me to do her things? Because I know them all and I can do
them."

"Stop
talking and just feel."

"I
can do them better than she can."

"Stop
talking."

"Don't
think you have to—"

"Don't
talk."

"But
you don't have to—"

"No
one has to but we are—"

They
lay holding each other close and hard and then gently finally and Marita said,
"I have to go away but I'll be back. Please sleep for me."

She
kissed him and when she came back he was asleep. He had meant to wait for her
but he had fallen asleep while he waited. She lay down by him and kissed him
and when he did not wake she lay by him very quietly and tried to sleep too.
But she was not sleepy and she kissed him very softly again and then commenced
to play with him very gently while she pushed her breasts against him. He
stirred in his sleep and she lay now with her head down below his chest and
played softly and searchingly making small intimacies and discoveries.

It
was a long cool afternoon and David slept and when he woke Marita was gone and
he heard the two girls' voices on the terrace. He dressed and unbolted the door
to his working room and then came out from the door of that room onto the
flagstones. There was no one on the terrace except the waiter who was taking in
the tea things and he found the girls in the bar.

THE
TWO GIRLS were both sitting at the bar with a bottle of Perrier-Jouet in a
bucket with ice and they both looked fresh and lovely. "It's just like
meeting an ex-husband," Catherine said. "It makes me feel very
sophisticated." She had never looked gayer or more lovely. "I must
say it agrees with you." She looked at David in mock appraisal. "Do
you think he's all right?" Marita said. She looked at David and blushed.
"And well you might blush," Catherine said. "Look at her, David."
"She looks very well," David said. "So do you." "She
looks about sixteen," Catherine said. "She said she told you about
reading the narrative. "I think you should have asked me," David
said. "I know I should," Catherine said. "But I started to read it
for myself and then it was so interesting I thought Heiress ought to read it
too.

"I'd
have said no."

"But
the point is," Catherine said, "if he ever says no about anything,
Marita, just keep right on. It doesn't mean a thing." "I don't
believe it," Marita said. She smiled at David. "That's because he
hasn't written the narrative up to date. When he does you'll find out."
"I'm through with the narrative," David said. "That's
dirty," Catherine said. "That was my present and our project."
"You must write it, David," the girl said. "You will won't
you?" "She wants to be in it, David," Catherine said. "And
it will be so much better when you have a dark girl too." David poured
himself a glass of the champagne. He saw Marita look at him, a warning, and he
said to Catherine, "I'll go on with it when I finish the stories. What did
you do with your day?" "I had a fine day. I made decisions and
planned things." "Oh God," David said. "They're all
straightforward plans," Catherine said. "You don't have to groan about
them. You've been doing just whatever you wanted to do all day and I was
pleased. But I have a right to make a few plans." "What sort of
plans?" David asked. His voice sounded very flat. "First we have to
start seeing about getting the book out. I'm going to have to have the
manuscript typed up to where it is now and see about getting illustrations. I
have to see the artists and make the arrangements." "You've had a
very busy day," David said. "You know, don't you, that you don't get
manuscripts typed until whoever writes them has gone over them and has them
ready for typing?" "That isn't necessary because I only need a rough
draft to show the artists." "I see. And if I don't want it copied
yet?" "Don't you want it brought out? I do. And someone has to get
started on something practical."