Garden of Eden (8 page)

She
lay there a long time and he thought that she had gone to sleep. Then she moved
away very slowly lifting herself lightly on her elbows and said, "I have a
wonderful surprise for myself for tomorrow. I'm going to the Prado in the
morning and see all the pictures as a boy."

"I
give up," David said.

IN
THE MORNING he got up while she was still sleeping and went out into the bright
early morning freshness of the high plateau air. He walked in the street up the
hill to the Plaza Santa Ana and had breakfast at a cafe and read the local
papers. Catherine had wanted to be at the Prado at ten when it opened and
before he left he had set the alarm to wake her at nine. Outside on the street,
walking up the hill he had thought of her sleeping, the beautiful rumpled head
that looked like an ancient coin lying against the white sheet, the pillow
pushed away, the upper sheet showing the curves of her body. It lasted a month,
he thought, or almost. And the other time from le Grau du Roi to Hendaye was
two months. No, less, because she started thinking of it in Nimes. It wasn't
two months. We've been married three months and two weeks and I hope I make her
happy always but in this I do not think anybody can take care of anybody. It's
enough to stay in it. The difference is that she asked this time, he told
himself. She did ask.

When
he had read the papers and then paid for his breakfast and walked out into the
heat that had come back to the plateau when the wind had changed, he made his
way to the cool, formal, sad politeness of the bank, where he found mail that
had been forwarded from Paris. He opened and read mail while he waited through
the lengthy, many-windowed formalities of cashing a draft which had been sent
from his bank to this, their Madrid correspondent.

Finally
with the heavy notes buttoned into his jacket pocket he came out into the glare
again and stopped at the newsstand to buy the English and American papers that
had come in on the morning Sud Express. He bought some bullfight weeklies to
wrap the English language papers in and then walked down the Carrera San
Geronimo to the cool friendly morning gloom of the Buffet Italianos. There was
no one in the place yet and he remembered that he had made no rendezvous with
Catherine.

"What
will you drink?" the waiter asked him.

"Beer,"
he said.

"This
isn't a beer place."

"Don't
you have beer?"

"Yes.
But it's not a beer place."

"Up
yours," he said and re-rolled the papers and went out and walked across
the street and back on the other side to turn to the left into the Calle
Vittoria and on to the Cervezería Alvarez. He sat at a table under the awning
in the passageway and drank a big cold glass of the draft beer.

The
waiter was probably only making conversation, he thought, and what the man said
was quite true. It isn't a beer place. He was just being literal. He wasn't
being insolent. That was a very bad thing to say and he had no defense against
it. It was a shitty thing to do. He drank a second beer and called the waiter
to pay.

"Y
la Señora?" the waiter said.

"At
the Museo del Prado. I'm going to get her."

"Well,
until you get back," the waiter said.

He
walked back to the hotel by a downhill shortcut. The key was at the desk so he
rode up to their floor and left the papers and the mail on a table in the room
and locked most of the money in his suitcase. The room was made up and the
shutters were lowered against the heat so that the room was darkened. He washed
and then sorted through his mail and took four letters out and put them in his
hip pocket. He took the Paris editions of The New York Herald, the Chicago
Tribune and the London Daily Mail down with him to the bar of the hotel
stopping at the desk to leave the key and to ask the clerk to tell Madame, when
she came in, that he was in the bar.

He
sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a marismeño and opened and read his
letters while he ate the garlic-flavored olives from the saucer the bartender
had placed before him with his glass. One of the letters had two cuttings of
reviews of his novel from monthly magazines and he read them with no feeling that
they dealt with him or with anything that he had written.

He
put the cuttings back in the envelope. They had been understanding and
perceptive reviews but to him they had meant nothing. He read the letter from
the publisher with the same detachment. The book had sold well and they thought
that it might continue selling on into the fall although nobody could ever tell
about such things. Certainly, so far, it had received an extraordinarily fine
critical reception and the way would be open for his next book. It was a great
advantage that this was his second and not his first novel. It was tragic how
often first novels were the only good novels American writers had in them. But
this, his publisher went on, his second, validated all the promise his first had
shown. It was an unusual summer in New York, cold and wet. Oh Christ, David
thought, the hell with how it was in New York and the hell with that
thin-lipped bastard Coolidge fishing for trout in a high stiff collar in a fish
hatchery in the Black Hills we stole from the Sioux and the Cheyenne and bathtub-ginned-up
writers wondering if their baby does the Charleston. And the hell with the
promise he had validated. What promise to whom? To The Dial, to The Bookman, to
The New Republic? No, he had shown it. Let me show you my promise that I'm
going to validate it. What shit.

"Hello,
young man," said a voice. "What are you looking so indignant
about?"

"Hello,
Colonel," David said and felt suddenly happy. "What the hell are you
doing here?"

The
Colonel, who had deep blue eyes, sandy hair and a tanned face that looked as
though it had been carved out of flint by a tired sculptor who had broken his
chisel on it, picked up David's glass and tasted the marismeño.

"Bring
me a bottle of whatever this young man is drinking to that table," he said
to the bartender. "Bring a cold bottle. You don't need to ice it. Bring it
immediately."

"Yes
sir," said the bartender. "Very good sir."

"Come
along," the Colonel said to David, leading him to the table in the corner
of the room. "You're looking very well."

"So
are you."

Colonel
John Boyle was wearing a dark blue suit of a cloth that looked stiff but cool
and a blue shirt and black tie. "I'm always well," he said. "Do
you want a job?"

"No,"
said David.

"Just
like that. Don't even ask what it is," His voice sounded as though he had
hawked it up out of a dusty throat.

The
wine came and the waiter filled two glasses and put down saucers of the garlic
olives and of hazelnuts.

"No
anchovies?" the Colonel asked. "What sort of a fonda is this?"

The
bartender smiled and went for the anchovies.

"Excellent
wine," the Colonel said. "First rate. I always hoped your taste would
improve. Now why don't you want a job? You've just finished a book."

"I'm
on my honeymoon." "Silly expression," the Colonel said. "I
never liked it. It sounds sticky. Why didn't you say you've just been married?
It makes no difference. You'd be worthless in any event." 'What was the
job?" "No use talking about it now. Who did you marry? Anyone I
know?" "Catherine Hill." "Knew her father. Very odd type.
Killed himself in a car. His wife too."

"I
never knew them." "You never knew him?" "No."
"Strange. But perfectly understandable. He's no loss to you as a
father-in-law. The mother was very lonely they say. Stupid way for grown up
people to be killed. Where did you meet this girl?" "In Paris."
"She has a silly uncle who lives there. He's really worthless. Do you know
him?" "I've seen him at the races." "At Longchamps and
Auteuil. How could you help it?" "I didn't marry her family."
"Of course not. But you always do. Dead or alive." "Not the
uncles and aunts." "Well anyway, have fun. You know, I liked the
book. Has it done well?" "It's done pretty well." "It moved
me very deeply," the Colonel said. "You're a deceptive son of a
bitch."

"So
are you, John." "I hope so," the Colonel said. David saw
Catherine at the door and stood up. She came over to them and David said,
"This is Colonel Boyle." "How do you do, my dear?"

Catherine
looked at him and smiled and sat down at the table. David watched her and it
seemed as though she were holding her breath. "Are you tired?" David
asked. "I think so." "Have a glass of this," the Colonel
said. "Would it be all right if I had an absinthe?" "Of
course," David said. "I'll have one too." "Not for
me," the Colonel said to the bartender. "This bottle's lost its
freshness. Put it back to chill and bring me a glass from a cold bottle."
"Do you like the real Pernod?" he asked Catherine. "Yes,"
she said. "I'm shy with people and it helps." "It's an excellent
drink," he said. "I'd join you but I have work I must do after
lunch." "I'm sorry I forgot to make a rendezvous," David said.
"This is very nice." "I stopped by for the mail at the bank.
There's quite a lot for you. I left it in the room." "I don't care
about it," she said. "I saw you in the Prado looking at the
Grecos," the Colonel said. "I saw you too," she said. "Do
you always look at pictures as though you owned them and were deciding how to
have them re-hung properly?" "Probably," the Colonel said.
"Do you always look at them as though you were the young chief of a
warrior tribe who had gotten loose from his councillors and was looking at that
marble of Leda and the Swan?" Catherine blushed under her dark tan and
looked at David and then at the Colonel. "I like you," she said.
"Tell me some more. "I like you," he said. "And I envy
David. Is he everything you want?" "Don't you know?" "'To
me the visible world is visible,'" the Colonel said. "Now go on and
take another sip of that wormwood-tasting truth serum." "I don't need
it now. "Aren't you shy now? Drink it anyway. It's good for you. You're
the darkest white girl I've ever seen. Your father was very dark though."
"I must have his skin. My mother was very fair." "I never knew
her." "Did you know my father well?" "Quite well."
"How was he?" "He was a very difficult and charming man. Are you
really shy?" "Truly. Ask David." "You get over it awfully quickly."
"You rode over it. How was my father?" "He was the shyest man I
ever knew and he could be the most charming." "Did he have to use
Pernod too?" "He used everything." "Do I remind you of
him?" "Not at all." "That's good. Does David?"
"Not in the least." "That's even better. How did you know I was
a boy in the Prado?" 'Why shouldn't you be?" "I only started it
again last evening. I was a girl for almost a month. Ask David." "You
don't need to say ask David. What are you right now?" "A boy if it's
all right with you." "It's fine with me. But you're not."

"I
just wanted to say it," she said. "Now that I said it I don't have to
be it. But it was wonderful in the Prado. That was why I wanted to tell David
about it." "You'll have plenty of time to tell David."
"Yes," she said. "We have time for things." "Tell me
where you got so dark," the Colonel said. "Do you know how dark you
are?" "That was from le Grau du Roi and then not far from la Napoule.
There was a cove there with a trail that went down to it through the pines. You
couldn't see it from the road." "How long did it take to get so
dark?" "About three months." "And what are you going to do
with it?" "Wear it," she said. "It's very becoming in
bed." "I shouldn't think you'd want to waste it in town."
"'The Prado isn't wasting. I don't really wear it. It's me. I really am
this dark. The sun just develops it. I wish I was darker." "You
probably will be then," the Colonel said. "Do you have other things
like that to look forward to?" "Just every day," Catherine said.
"I look forward to every day." "And has today been a good
one?" "Yes. You know it has. You were there." "Will you and
David lunch with me?" "All right," Catherine said. "I'll go
up and change. Will you wait for me?" "Don't you want to finish your
drink?" David asked. "I don't care about it," she said.
"Don't worry about me. I won't be shy." She walked to the door and
they both looked after her. "Was I too rough?" the Colonel asked.
"I hope not. She's a very lovely girl." "I just hope I'm good
for her." "You are. How are you doing yourself?" "All right
I think." "Are you happy?" "Very." "Remember
everything is right until it's wrong. You'll know when it's wrong."
"You think so?" "I'm quite sure. If you don't it doesn't matter.
Nothing will matter then." "How fast will it go?" "I didn't
say anything about speed. What are you talking about?" "Sorry."
"It's what you have, so have a lovely time." "We do."
"So I see. There's only one thing." "What?" "Take good
care of her." "That's all you've got to tell me?" "One
small thing more: The get's no good." "There isn't any get yet."
"It's kinder to shoot the get." "Kinder?" "Better.
They talked about people for a while, the Colonel speaking outrageously, and
then David saw Catherine come through the door wearing a white sharkskin outfit
to show how really dark she was. "You do really look extraordinarily
beautiful," the Colonel said to Catherine. "But you must try to get
darker." "Thank you. I will," she said. "We don't have to
go out now in the heat do we? Can't we sit here in the cool? We can eat here in
the grill." "You're lunching with me," the Colonel said.