Garden of Eden (10 page)

sale
and none for reviewers and then there'll never be clippings and you'll never be
self conscious and we'll always have it just for us."

David
Bourne woke when it was light and put on shorts and a shirt and went outside.
The breeze had died. The sea was calm and the day smelled of the dew and the
pines. He walked bare footed across the flagstones of the terrace to the room
at the far end of the long house and went in and sat down at the table where he
worked. The windows had been open overnight and the room was cool and full of
early morning promise.

He
was writing about the road from Madrid to Zaragossa and the rising and falling
of the road as they came at speed into the country of the red buttes and the
little car on the then dusty road picked up the Express train and Catherine
passed it gently car by car, the tender, and then the engineer and fireman, and
finally the nose of the engine, and then she shifted as the road switched left
and the train disappeared into a tunnel.

"I
had it," she had said. "But it went to ground. Tell me if I can get
it again."

He
had looked at the Michelin map and said, "Not for a while."

"I'll
let it go then and we'll see the country." As the road climbed there were
poplar trees along the river and the road climbed steeply and he felt the car
accept it and then Catherine shift again happily as it flattened the steep
grade.

Later,
when he heard her voice in the garden, he stopped writing. He locked the
suitcase with the cahiers of manuscript and went out locking the door after
him. The girl would use the pass key to clean the room.

Catherine
was sitting at breakfast on the terrace. There was a red-and-white checked
cloth on the table. She wore her old Grau du Roi striped shirt fresh-washed and
shrunk now and much faded, new gray flannel slacks, and espadrilles.
"Hello," she said. "I couldn't sleep late." "You look
lovely." "Thank you. I feel lovely." "Where did you get
those slacks?" "I had them made in Nice. By a good tailor. Are they
all right?" "They're very well cut. They just look new. Are you going
to wear them into town?" "Not town. Cannes in the off season.
Everybody will next year. People are wearing our shirts now. They're no good
with skirts. You don't mind do you?" "Not at all. They look right.
They just looked so well creased." After breakfast while David shaved and
showered and then pulled on a pair of old flannels and a fisherman's shirt and
found his espadrilles Catherine put on a blue linen shirt with an open collar
and a heavy white linen skirt. "We're better this way. Even if the slacks
are right for here they're too show-off for this morning. We'll save
them."

It
was very friendly and offhand at the coiffeur's but very professional. Monsieur
Jean, who was about David's age and looked more Italian than French, said,
"I will cut it as she asks. Do you agree, Monsieur?" "I don't
belong to the syndicate," David said. "I leave it to you two."
"Perhaps we should experiment on Monsieur," Monsieur Jean said.
"In case anything goes wrong. But Monsieur Jean began cutting Catherine's
hair very carefully and skillfully and David watched her dark serious face
above the smock that came close around her neck. She looked into the hand
mirror and watched the comb and scissors lifting and snipping. The man was
working like a sculptor, absorbed and serious. "I thought about it all
last night and this morning," the coiffeur said. "If you don't believe
that, Monsieur, I understand. But this is as important to me as your métier is
to you.

He
stepped back to look at the shape he was making. Then he snipped more rapidly
and finally turned the chair so the big mirror was reflected in the small one
Catherine held.

"Do
you want it cut that way above the ears?" she asked the coiffeur.

"As
you like. I can make it more degage if you wish. But it will be beautiful as is
if we are going to make it truly fair."

"I
want it fair," Catherine said.

He
smiled. "Madame and I have spoken of it. But I said it must be Monsieur's
decision."

"Monsieur
gave his decision," Catherine said.

"How
fair did Monsieur say he wished it to be?"

"As
fair as you can make it," she said.

"Don't
say that," Monsieur Jean said. "You must tell me."

"As
fair as my pearls," Catherine said. "You've seen them plenty of
times."

David
had come over and was watching Monsieur Jean stir a large glassful of the
shampoo with a wooden spoon. "I have the shampoos made up with castile
soap," the coiffeur said. "It's warm. Please come over here to the
basin. Sit forward," he said to Catherine, "and put this cloth across
your forehead."

"But
it isn't even really a boy's haircut," Catherine said. "I wanted it
the way we planned. Everything's going wrong.

"It
couldn't be more a boy's haircut. You must believe me.

He
was lathering her head now with the foamy thick shampoo with the acrid odor.

When
her head had been shampooed and rinsed again and again it looked to David as
though it had no color and the water tunnelled through it showing only a wet
paleness. The coiffeur put a towel over it and rubbed it softly. He was very
sure about it. "Don't be desperate, Madame," he said. "Why would
I do anything against your beauty?"

"I
am desperate and there isn't any beauty." He dried her head gently and
then kept the towel over her head and brought a hand blower and began to play
it through her hair as he combed it forward. "Now watch," he said. As
the air drove through her hair it was turning from damp drab to a silvery
northern shining fairness. As the wind of the blower moved through it they
watched it change. "You shouldn't have despaired," Monsieur Jean
said, not saying Madame and then remembering. "Madame wanted it fair?"
"It's better than the pearls," she said. "You're a great man and
I was terrible." Then he rubbed his hands together with something from a
jar. "I'll just touch it with this," he said. He smiled at Catherine
very happily and passed his hands lightly over her head. Catherine stood up and
looked at herself very seriously in the mirror. Her face had never been so dark
and her hair was like the bark of a young white birch tree. "I like it so
much," she said. "Too much." She looked in the mirror as though
she had never seen the girl she was looking at. "Now we must do
Monsieur," the coiffeur said. "Does Monsieur wish the cut? It's very
conservative but it's also sportif." "The cut," David said.
"I don't think I've had a haircut in a month." "Please make it
the same as mine," Catherine said. "But shorter," David said. "No.
Please just the same. When it was cut David stood up and ran his hand over his
head. It felt cool and comfortable. "Aren't you going to let him lighten
it?"

"No.
We've had enough miracles for one day." "Just a little?"

David
looked at Catherine and then at his own face in the mirror. His was as brown as
hers and it was her haircut. "You really want it that much?"
"Yes I do, David. Truly. Just to try it a little bit. Please." He
looked once more in the mirror and walked over then and sat down. The coiffeur
looked at Catherine. "Go ahead and do it," she said.

THE
PATRON WAS SITTING at one of his tables on the terrace of the long house with a
bottle of wine, a glass and an empty coffee cup reading the Eclaireur de Nice
when the blue car came up in a rush on the gravel and Catherine and David got
out and came walking down the flagstones to the terrace. He had not expected
them back so soon and he was nearly asleep but he stood up and said the first
thing that came in his head as they were opposite him.

"Madame
et Monsieur ont fait décolorer les cheveux. C'est bien."

"Merci
Monsieur. On le fait toujours dans le mois d'août."

"C'est
bien. C'est trés bien."

'That's
nice," said Catherine to David. "We're good clients. What the good
client does is tres bien. You're trés bien. My God you are."

In
their room a good sailing breeze was blowing in from the sea and the room was
cold.

"I
love that blue shirt," David said. "Stand there like that in it.

"It's
the color of the car," she said. "Would it look nicer without a
skirt?"

"Everything
on you looks nicer without a skirt," he said. "I'm going out and see
that old goat and be an even better client."

He
came back with a bucket of ice and a bottle of the champagne that the
proprietor had ordered for them and that they had drunk so seldom and he held
two glasses on a small tray in his other hand.

"This
ought to be fair warning for them," he said.

"We
didn't need it," Catherine said.

"We
can just try it. It won't take fifteen minutes to cool."

"Don't
tease. Please come to bed and let me see you and feel you.

She
was taking his shirt up over his head and he stood up and helped her.

After
she was asleep David got up and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He
picked up a brush and brushed his hair. There was no other way to brush it but
the way it had been cut. It would disarrange and muss but it had to fall that
way and the color was the same as Catherine's. He went to the door and looked
at her on the bed. Then he came back and picked up her big hand mirror.

"So
that's how it is," he said to himself. "You've done that to your hair
and had it cut the same as your girl's and how do you feel?" He asked the
mirror. "How do you feel? Say it.

"You
like it," he said.

He
looked at the mirror and it was someone else he saw but it was less strange
now.

"All
right. You like it," he said. "Now go through with the rest of it
whatever it is and don't ever say anyone tempted you or that anyone bitched
you."

He
looked at the face that was no longer strange to him at all but was his face
now and said, "You like it. Remember that. Keep that straight. You know
exactly how you look now and how you are.

Of
course he did not know exactly how he was. But he made an effort aided by what
he had seen in the mirror.

They
ate dinner on the terrace in front of the long house that night and were very
excited and quiet and enjoyed looking at each other in the shaded light on the
table. After dinner Catherine said to the boy who had brought their coffee,
"Find the pail for the champagne in our room and ice a new bottle
please."

"Do
we want another?" David asked.

"I
think so. Don't you?"

"Sure."

"You
don't have to."

"Do
you want a fine?"

"No.
I'd rather drink the wine. Do you have to work tomorrow?"

"We'll
see.

"Please
work if you feel like it."

"And
tonight?"

"We'll
see about tonight. It's been such an arduous day."

In
the night it was very dark and the wind had risen and they could hear it in the
pines.

"David?"

"Yes."

"How
are you girl?"