Garden of Eden (3 page)

"Would
you please just put your hand over it again."

He
did and he kissed her.

"Oh
you're sweet," she said. "And you do like it. I can feel and I can
tell. You don't have to love it. Just like it at first."

"I
like it," he said. "And you have such a beautifully shaped head that
it is very beautiful with the lovely bones of your face."

"Don't
you like it at the sides?" she asked. "It isn't faked or phony. It's
a true boy's haircut and not from any beauty shop."

"Who
cut it?"

"The
coiffeur at Aigues Mortes. The one who cut your hair a week ago. You told him
how you wanted yours cut then and I told him to cut mine just the same as
yours. He was very nice and wasn't at all surprised. He wasn't worried at all.
He said exactly like yours? And I said exactly. Doesn't it do anything to you,
David?"

"Yes,"
he said.

"Stupid
people will think it is strange. But we must be proud. I love to be
proud."

"So
do I," he said. "We'll start being proud now.

They
sat there in the cafe and watched the reflection of the setting sun over the
water and watched the dusk come to the town and they drank the fine l'eau.
People came by the cafe without being rude to see the girl because they had
been the only foreigners in the village and had been there now nearly three
weeks and she was a great beauty and they liked her. Then there had been the
big fish today and ordinarily there would have been much talk about that but
this other was a big thing in the village too. No decent girls had ever had
their hair cut short like that in this part of the country and even in Paris it
was rare and strange and could be beautiful or could be very bad. It could mean
too much or it could only mean showing the beautiful shape of a head that could
never be shown as well.

They
ate a steak for dinner, rare, with mashed potatoes and flageolets and a salad
and the girl asked if they might drink Tavel. "It is a great wine for
people that are in love," she said.

She
had always looked, he thought, exactly her age which was now twenty-one. He had
been very proud of her for that. But tonight she did not look it. The lines of
her cheekbones showed clear as he had never seen them before and she smiled and
her face was heartbreaking.

In
the room it was dark with only a little light from outside. It was cool now
with the breeze and the top sheet was gone from the bed.

"Dave,
you don't mind if we've gone to the devil, do you?"

"No,
girl," he said.

"Don't
call me girl."

"Where
I'm holding you you are a girl," he said. He held her tight around her
breasts and he opened and closed his fingers feeling her and the hard erect
freshness between his fingers.

"They're
just my dowry," she said. "The new is my surprise. Feel. No leave
them. They'll be there. Feel my cheeks and the back of my neck. Oh it feels so
wonderful and good and clean and new. Please love me David the way I am. Please
understand and love me."

He
had shut his eyes and he could feel the long light weight of her on him and her
breasts pressing against him and her lips on his. He lay there and felt
something and then her hand holding him and searching lower and he helped with
his hands and then lay back in the dark and did not think at all and only felt
the weight and the strangeness inside and she said, "Now you can't tell
who is who can you?"

"You
are changing," she said. "Oh you are. You are. Yes you are and you're
my girl Catherine. Will you change and be my girl and let me take you?"

"You're
Catherine."

"No.
I'm Peter. You're my wonderful Catherine. You're my beautiful lovely Catherine.
You were so good to change. Oh thank you, Catherine, so much. Please
understand. Please know and understand. I'm going to make love to you
forever."

At
the end they were both dead and empty but it was not over. They lay side by
side in the dark with their legs touching and her head was on his arm. The moon
had risen and there was a little more light in the room. She ran her hand
exploringly down over his belly without looking and said, "You don't think
I'm wicked?"

"Of
course not. But how long have you thought about that?" "Not all the
time. But quite a lot. You were so wonderful to let it happen." The young
man put his arms around the girl and held her very tight to him and felt her
lovely breasts against his chest and kissed her on her dear mouth. He held her
close and hard and inside himself he said goodbye and then goodbye and goodbye.
"Let's lie very still and quiet and hold each other and not think at
all," he said and his heart said goodbye Catherine good bye my lovely girl
goodbye and good luck and goodbye.

HE
STOOD UP and looked up and down the beach, corked the bottle of oil and put it
in a side pocket of the rucksack and then walked down to the sea feeling the
sand grow cool under his feet. He looked at the girl on her back on the sloping
beach, her eyes closed, her arms against her sides, and behind her the slanted
square of canvas and the first tufts of beach grass. She ought not to stay too
long in that position with the sun straight up and down on her, he thought.
Then he walked out and dove flat into the clear cold water and turned on his
back and swam backstroke out to sea watching the beach beyond the steady beat
of his legs and feet. He turned in the water and swam down to the bottom and
touched the coarse sand and felt the heavy ridges of it and then came up to the
surface and swam steadily in, seeing how slow he could keep the beat of his
crawl. He walked up to the girl and saw that she was asleep. He found his
wristwatch in the rucksack to check the time when he should wake her. There was
a cold bottle of white wine wrapped in a newspaper and with their towels around
it. He uncorked it without removing the paper or the towels and took a cool
draught from the awkward bundle. Then he sat down to watch the girl and to look
out to sea.

This
sea was always colder than it looked, he thought. It did not really warm until
the middle of summer except on the shallow beaches. This beach dropped off
quite suddenly and the water had been sharply cold until the swimming warmed
him. He looked out at the sea and the high clouds and noticed how far the
fishing fleet was working to the westward. Then he looked at the girl sleeping
on the sand that was quite dry now and beginning to blow delicately with the
rising wind when his feet stirred.

During
the night he had felt her hands touching him. And when he woke it was in the
moonlight and she had made the dark magic of the change again and he did not
say no when she spoke to him and asked the questions and he felt the change so
that it hurt him all through and when it was finished after they were both
exhausted she was shaking and she whispered to him, "Now we have done it.
Now we really have done it."

Yes,
he thought. Now we have really done it. And when she went to sleep suddenly
like a tired young girl and lay beside him lovely in the moonlight that showed
the beautiful new strange line of her head as she slept on her side he leaned
over and said to her but not aloud, "I'm with you. No matter what else you
have in your head I'm with you and I love you."

In
the morning he had been very hungry for breakfast but he waited for her to
wake. He kissed her finally and she woke and smiled and got up sleepily and
washed in the big basin and slouched in front of the mirror of the armoire and
brushed her hair and looked at the mirror unsmiling and then smiled and touched
her cheeks with the tips of her fingers and pulled a striped shirt over her
head and then kissed him. She stood straight so her breasts pushed against his
chest and she said, "Don't worry, David. I'm your good girl come back
again.

But
he was very worried now and he thought what will become of us if things have
gone this wildly and this dangerously and this fast? What can there be that
will not burn out in a fire that rages like that? We were happy and I am sure
she was happy. But whoever knows? And who are you to judge and who participated
and who accepted the change and lived it? If that is what she wants who are you
not to wish her to have it? You're lucky to have a wife like her and a sin is
what you feel bad after and you don't feel bad. Not with the wine you don't
feel bad, he told himself, and what will you drink when the wine won't cover
for you?

He
took the bottle of oil out of the rucksack and put a little oil on the girl's
chin and on her cheeks and on her nose and found a blue faded patterned
handkerchief in the canvas pocket of the rucksack and laid it across her
breast.

"Must
I stop?" the girl asked. "I'm having the most wonderful dream."

"Finish
the dream," he said.

"Thank
you."

In
a few minutes she breathed very deeply and shook her head and sat up.

"Let's
go in now," she said.

They
went in together and swam out and then played under water like porpoises. When
they swam in they dried each other off with towels and he handed her the bottle
of wine that was still cool in the rolled newspaper and they each took a drink
and she looked at him and laughed.

"It's
nice to drink it for thirst," she said. "You don't really mind being
brothers do you?"

"No."
He touched her forehead and her nose and then her cheeks and chin with the oil
and then put it carefully above and behind her ears.

"I
want to get behind my ears and neck tanned and over my cheekbones. All the new
places."

"You're
awfully dark, brother," he said. "You don't know how dark."

"I
like it," the girl said. "But I want to be darker."

They
lay on the beach on the firm sand that was dry now but still cool after the
high tide had fallen. The young man put some oil on the palm of his hand and
spread it lightly with his fingers over the girl's thighs and they glowed warm
as the skin took the oil. He went on spreading it over her belly and breasts
and the girl said sleepily, "We don't look very much like brothers when
we're this way do we?"

"No."

"I'm
trying to be such a very good girl," she said. "Truly you don't have
to worry darling until night. We won't let the night things come in the
day."

At
the hotel the postman was having a drink while he waited for the girl to sign
for a large forwarding envelope heavy with enclosed letters from her bank in
Paris. There were three letters re-addressed from his bank, too. It was the
first mail since they had sent the hotel as a forwarding address. The young man
gave the postman five francs and asked him to have another glass of wine with
him at the zinc bar. The girl unhooked the key from the board and said,
"I'll go up to the room and get cleaned up and meet you at the cafe."

After
he finished his glass he said goodbye to the postman and walked down along the
canal to the cafe. It was good to sit in the shade after walking back
bareheaded in the sun from the far beach and it was pleasant and cool in the
cafe. He ordered a vermouth and soda and took out his pocket knife and slit
open his letters. All three envelopes were from his publishers and two of them
were fat with clippings and the proofs of advertisements. He glanced at the
clippings and then read the long letter. It was cheerful and guardedly
optimistic. It was too early to tell how the book would do but everything
looked good. Most of the reviews were excellent. Of course there were some. But
that was to be expected. Sentences had been underlined in the reviews that
would probably be used in the future advertisements. His publisher wished he could
say more about how the book would do but he never made predictions as to sales.
It was bad practice. The point was that the book could not have been better
received. The reception was sensational really. But he would see the clippings.
The first printing had been five thousand copies and on the strength of the
reviews a second printing had been ordered. The upcoming advertisements would
carry the phrase Now in Its Second Printing. His publisher hoped that he was as
happy as he deserved to be and taking the rest that he so richly deserved. He
sent his best greetings to his wife.