Garden of Eden (6 page)

After
he had taken a shower and brushed his teeth and shaved, he was hungry for
breakfast but he pulled on a pair of shorts and a sweater and found his
notebook and pencils and the sharpener and sat at the table by the window that
looked out over the estuary of the river to Spain. He started to write and he
forgot about Catherine and what he saw from the window and the writing went by
itself as it did with him when he was lucky. He wrote it exactly and the
sinister part only showed as the light feathering of a smooth swell on a calm
day marking the reef beneath.

When
he had worked for a time, he looked at Catherine, still sleeping, her lips smiling
now and the rectangle of sunlight from the open window falling across the brown
of her body and lighting her dark face and tawny head against the rumpled white
of the sheet and the unused pillow. It's too late to get breakfast now, he
thought. I'll leave a note and go down to the cafe and get a café creme and
something. But while he was putting his work away Catherine woke and came over
to him as he was closing the suitcase and put her arms around him and kissed
him on the back of his neck and said, "I'm your lazy naked wife."

"What
did you wake up for?"

"I
don't know. But tell me where you're going and I'll be there in five
minutes."

"I'm
going to the cafe to get some breakfast."

"Go
ahead and I'll join you. You worked didn't you?"

"Sure."

"Weren't
you wonderful to after yesterday and everything. I'm so proud. Kiss me and look
at us in the mirror on the bath room door."

He
kissed her and they looked into the full length mirror.

"It's
so nice not to feel overdressed," she said. "You be good and don't
get in any trouble on your way to the cafe. Order me an oeuf au jambon too.
Don't wait for me. I'm sorry I made you wait so long for breakfast."

At
the cafe he found the morning paper and the Paris papers of the day before and
had his coffee and milk and the Bayonne ham with a big beautifully fresh egg
that he ground coarse pepper over sparsely and spread a little mustard on
before he broke the yolk. When Catherine had not come and her egg was in danger
of getting cold he ate it too, swabbing the flat dish clean with a piece of the
fresh baked bread.

"Here
comes Madame," the waiter said. "I'll bring another plat for
her."

She
had put on a skirt and cashmere sweater and pearls and the toweled her head but
combed it damp and straight and wet and the tawny color of her hair did not
show to make the contrast with her incredibly darkened face. "It's such a
beautiful day," she said. "I'm sorry to be late."

"Where
are you dressed for?"

"Biarritz.
I thought I'd drive in. Do you want to come?"

"You
want to go alone."

"Yes,"
she said. "But you're welcome."

As
he stood she said, "I'm going to bring you back a surprise."

"No,
don't."

"Yes.
And you'll like it."

"Let
me go along and keep you from doing anything crazy.

'No.
It's better if I do it alone. I'll be back in the afternoon. And don't wait for
lunch."

David
read the papers and then walked out through the town looking for chalets that
might be for rent or for a part of town that might be good to live in and found
the newly built up area pleasant but dull. He loved the view across the bay and
the estuary to the Spanish side and the old gray stone of Fuenterrabiá and
shining white of the houses that spread out from it and the brown mountains
with the blue shadows. He wondered why the storm had gone so quickly and
thought it must have been only the northern edge of a storm that came in across
the Bay of Biscay. Biscay was Vizcaya but that was the Basque province further
down the coast well beyond San Sebastian. The mountains that he saw beyond the
roofs of the border town of Irun were in Guipuzcoa and beyond them would be
Navarra and Navarra was Navarre. And what are we doing here, he thought, and
what am I doing walking through a beach resort town looking at newly planted
magnolias and bloody mimosas and watching for to-rent signs on phony Basque
villas? You didn't work hard enough this morning to make your brain that stupid
or are you just hung over from yesterday? You didn't work at all really.

And
you better soon because everything's going too fast and you're going with it
and you'll be through before ever you know it. Maybe you're through now. All
right. Don't start. At least you remember that much. And he walked on through
the town, his vision sharpened by spleen and tempered by the ash beauty of the
day.

The
breeze from the sea was blowing through the room and he was reading with his
shoulders and the small of his back against two pillows and another folded
behind his head. He was sleepy after lunch but he felt hollow with waiting for
her and he read and waited. Then he heard the door open and she came in and for
an instant he did not know her. She stood there with her hands below her
breasts on the cashmere sweater and breathing as though she had been running.

"Oh,
no," she said. "No."

Then
she was on the bed pushing her head against him saying, "No. No. Please
David. Don't you at all?"

He
held her head close against his chest and felt it smooth close clipped and
coarsely silky and she pushed it hard against him again and again.

'What
did you do, Devil?"

She
raised her head and looked at him and her lips pressed against his and she
moved them from side to side and moved on the bed so her body was pressed
against his.

"Now
I can tell," she said. "I'm so glad. It was such a big chance. I'm
your new girl now so we'd better find out."

"Let
me see.

"I'll
show you but let me go a minute."

She
came back and stood by the bed with the sun on her through the window. She had
dropped the skirt and was bare foot wearing only the sweater and the pearls.
"Take a good look," she said. "Because this is how I am."

He
took a good look at the long dark legs the straight standing body the dark face
and the sculptured tawny head and she looked at him and said, "Thank you.

"How
did you do it?"

"Can
I tell you in bed?"

"If
you tell me in a hurry."

"No.
Not in a hurry. Let me tell. First I had the idea on the road somewhere after
Aix en Provence. At Nimes when we were walking in the garden I think. But I
didn't know how it would work or how to tell them how to do it. Then I thought
it out and yesterday I decided."

David
stroked his hand over her head from her neck over the top of her head to her
forehead.

"Let
me tell," she said. "I knew they must have good coiffeurs in Biarritz
because of the English. So when I got there I went to the best place and I told
the coiffeur that I wanted it all brushed forward and he brushed it and it came
down to my nose and I could hardly see through it and I said I wanted it cut
like a boy when he would first go to public school. He asked me what school so
I said Eton or Winchester because they were the only schools I could remember
except Rugby and I didn't want Rugby certainly. He said which. So I said Eton
but forward all the way. So after he was finished and I looked like the most
attractive girl who ever went to Eton I just had him keep on shortening it
until Eton was all gone and then I had him keep on shortening it. Then he said
very severely that is not an Eton crop, Mademoiselle. And I said I didn't want
an Eton crop, Monsieur. That was the only way I knew how to explain what I
wanted and it is Madame not Mademoiselle. So then I had him shorten it some
more and then I kept him shortening it and it is either wonderful or terrible.
You don't mind it on my forehead? When it was Eton it fell in my eye.

"It's
wonderful."

"It's
awfully classic," she said. "But it feels like an animal. Feel
it."

He
felt it.

"Don't
worry about it being too classic," she said. "My mouth balances it.
Now can we make love?"

She
bent her head forward and he pulled the sweater over her head and down off her
arms and bent over her neck to unhook the safety clasp.

"No
leave them."

She
lay back on the bed her brown legs tight together and her head against the flat
sheet the pearls slanted away from the dark rise of her breasts. Her eyes were
shut and her arms were by her sides. She was a new girl and he saw her mouth
was changed too. She was breathing very carefully and she said, "You do
everything. From the beginning. From the very beginning."

"Is
this the beginning?"

"Oh
yes. And don't wait too long. No don't wait—"

In
the night she lay curled around him with her head below his chest and stroked
it softly across him from one flank to another and then came up to put her lips
on his and put her arms around him and said, "You're so lovely and loyal
when you are asleep and you didn't wake and didn't wake. I thought you wouldn't
and it was lovely. You were so loyal to me. Did you think it was a dream? Don't
wake. I'm going to sleep but if I don't I'll be a wild girl. She stays awake
and takes care of you. You sleep and know I'm here. Please sleep."

In
the morning when he woke there was the lovely body that he knew close against
him and he looked and saw the waxed-wood dark shoulders and neck and the fair
tawny head close and smooth lying as a small animal and he shifted down in the
bed and turned toward her and kissed her forehead with her hair under his lips
and then her eyes and then gently, her mouth.

"I'm
asleep."

"So
was I."

"I
know. Feel how strange. All night it was wonderful how strange.

"Not
strange.

"Say
so if you want. Oh we fit so wonderfully. Can we both go to sleep?"

"Do
you want to be asleep?"

"Us
both asleep." "I'll try."

"Are
you asleep?" "No."

"Please
try."

"I'm
trying."

"Shut
your eyes then. How can you sleep if you won't shut your eyes?"

"I
like to see you in the morning all new and strange."

"Was
I good to invent it?"

"Don't
talk."

"It's
the only way to slow things. I have already. Couldn't you tell? Of course you
could. Couldn't you tell now and now and now like our hearts beating together
it is the same I know it's only that that counts but we don't count it's so
lovely and so good so good and lovely—"

She
came back to the big room and went to the mirror and sat and brushed her hair
looking at herself critically.

"Let's
have breakfast in bed," she said. "And can we have champagne if it's
not wicked? In the brut they have Lanson and Perrier-Jouet of the good. May I
ring?"

"Yes,"
he said and went under the shower. Before he put it on full force he could hear
her voice on the telephone.