3

That night in bed when they were still awake she said in the dark, “We don’t always have to do the devil things either. Please know that.”

“I know.”

“I love it the way we were before and I’m always your girl. Don’t ever be lonely. You know that. I’m how you want but I’m how I want too and it isn’t as though it wasn’t for us both. You don’t have to talk. I’m only telling a story to put you to sleep because you’re my good lovely husband and my brother too. I love you and when we go to Africa I’ll be your African girl too.”

“Are we going to Africa?”

“Aren’t we? Don’t you remember? That was what it was about today. So we could go there or anywhere. Isn’t that where we’re going?”

“Why didn’t you say it?”

“I didn’t want to interfere. I said wherever you wanted. I’d go anywhere. But I thought that was where you wanted.”

“It’s too early to go to Africa now. It’s the big rains and afterwards the grass is too high and it’s very cold.”

“We could go to bed and keep warm and hear the rain on a tin roof.”

“No, it’s too early. The roads turn to mud and you can’t get around and everything is like a swamp and the grass gets so tall you can’t see.”

“Then where should we go?”

“We can go to Spain but Sevilla is over and so is San Isidro in Madrid and it’s early for there too. It’s too early for the Basque coast. It’s still cold and rainy. It rains everywhere there now.”

“Isn’t there a hot part where we could swim the way we do here?”

“You can’t swim in Spain the way we do here. You’d get arrested.”

“What a bore. Let’s wait to go there then because I want us to get darker.”

“Why do you want to be so dark?”

“I don’t know. Why do you want anything? Right now it’s the thing that I want most. That we don’t have I mean. Doesn’t it make you excited to have me getting so dark?”

“Uh-huh. I love it.”

“Did you think I could ever be this dark?”

“No, because you’re blond.”

“I can because I’m lion color and they can go dark. But I want every part of me dark and it’s getting that way and you’ll be darker than an Indian and that takes us further away from other people. You see why it’s important.”

“What will we be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just be us. Only changed. That’s maybe the best thing. And we will keep on won’t we?”

“Sure. We can go over by the Estérel and explore and find another place the way we found this one.”

“We can do that. There are lots of wild places and nobody is there is the summer. We could get a car and then we could go everywhere. Spain too when we want. Once we’re really dark it won’t be hard to keep unless we had to live in towns. We don’t want to be in towns in the summer.”

“How dark are you going to get?”

“As dark as I can. We’ll have to see. I wish I had some Indian blood. I’m going to be so dark you won’t be able to stand it. I can’t wait to go up on the beach tomorrow.”

She went to sleep that way with her head back and her chin up as though she were in the sun on the beach, breathing softly, and then she curled toward him on her side and the young man lay awake and thought about the day. It is very possible that I couldn’t get started, he thought, and it probably is sound to not think about it at all and just enjoy what we have. When I have to work I will. Nothing can stop that. The last book is good and I must make a better one now. This nonsense that we do is fun although I don’t know how much of it is nonsense and how much is serious. Drinking brandy at noon is no damn good and already the simple aperitifs mean nothing. That is not a good sign. She changes from a girl into a boy and back to a girl carelessly and happily. She sleeps easily and beautifully and you will sleep too because all you truly know is that you feel good. You did not sell anything for the money, he thought. Everything she said about the money was true. Actually it all was true. Everything was free for a time.

What was it that she had said about destruction? He could not remember that. She’d said it but he could not remember it.

Then he was tired of trying to remember and he looked at the girl and kissed her cheek very lightly and she did not wake. He loved her very much and everything about her and he went to sleep thinking about her cheek against his lips and how the next day they would both be darker from the sun and how dark can she become, he thought, and how dark will she ever really be?