Garden of Eden

THEY
WERE LIVING at le Grau du Roi then and the hotel was on a canal that ran from
the walled city of Aigues Mortes straight down to the sea. They could see the
towers of Aigues Mortes across the low plain of the Camargue and they rode
there on their bicycles at some time of nearly every day along the white road
that bordered the canal. In the evenings and the mornings when there was a
rising tide sea bass would come into it and they would see the mullet jumping
wildly to escape from the bass and watch the swelling bulge of the water as the
bass attacked.

A
jetty ran out into the blue and pleasant sea and they fished from the jetty and
swam on the beach and each day helped the fishermen haul in the long net that
brought the fish up onto the long sloping beach. They drank aperitifs in the
cafe on the corner facing the sea and watched the sails of the mackerel fishing
boats out in the Gulf of Lions. It was late in the spring and the mackerel were
running and fishing people of the port were very busy. It was a cheerful and
friendly town and the young couple liked the hotel, which had four rooms
upstairs and a restaurant and two billiard tables downstairs facing the canal
and the light house. The room they lived in looked like the painting of Van
Gogh's room at Arles except there was a double bed and two big windows and you
could look out across the water and the marsh and sea meadows to the white town
and bright beach of Palavas.

They
were always hungry but they ate very well. They were hungry for breakfast which
they ate at the cafe, ordering brioche and cafe au lait and eggs, and the type
of preserve that they chose and the manner in which the eggs were to be cooked
was an excitement. They were always so hungry for breakfast that the girl often
had a headache until the coffee came. But the coffee took the headache away.
She took her coffee without sugar and the young man was learning to remember
that.

On
this morning there was brioche and red raspberry preserve and the eggs were
boiled and there was a pat of butter that melted as they stirred them and
salted them lightly and ground pepper over them in the cups. They were big eggs
and fresh and the girl's were not cooked quite as long as the young man's. He
remembered that easily and he was happy with his which he diced up with the
spoon and ate with only the flow of the butter to moisten them and the fresh
early morning texture and the bite of the coarsely ground pepper grains and the
hot coffee and the chickory-fragrant bowl of cafe au lait.

The
fishing boats were well out. They had gone out in the dark with the first
rising of the breeze and the young man and the girl had wakened and heard them
and then curled together under the sheet of the bed and slept again. They had
made love when they were half awake with the light bright outside but the room
still shadowed and then had lain together and been happy and tired and then
made love again. Then they were so hungry that they did not think they would
live until breakfast and now they were in the cafe eating and watching the sea
and the sails and it was a new day again.

"What
are you thinking?" the girl asked.

"Nothing."

"You
have to think something."

"I
was just feeling."

"How?"

''Happy."

"But
I get so hungry," she said. "Is it normal do you think? Do you always
get so hungry when you make love?"

"When
you love somebody."

"Oh,
you know too much about it," she said.

"I
don't care. I love it and we don't have to worry about anything do we?"

"Nothing."

"What
do you think we should do?"

"I
don't know," he said. "What do you?"

"I
don't care at all. If you'd like to fish I should write a letter or maybe two
and then we could swim before lunch."

"To
be hungry?"

"Don't
say it. I'm getting hungry already and we haven't finished breakfast."

"We
can think about lunch."

"And
then after lunch?"

"We'll
take a nap like good children."

"That's
an absolutely new idea," she said. "Why have we never thought of
that?"

"I
have these flashes of intuition," he said. "I'm the inventive type.

"I'm
the destructive type," she said. "And I'm going to destroy you.
They'll put a plaque up on the wall of the building outside the room. I'm going
to wake up in the night and do something to you that you've never even heard of
or imagined. I was going to last night but I was too sleepy."

"You're
too sleepy to be dangerous."

"Don't
lull yourself into any false security. Oh darling let's have it hurry up and be
lunch time."

They
sat there in their striped fishermen's shirts and the shorts they had bought in
the store that sold marine supplies, and they were very tan and their hair was
streaked and faded by the sun and the sea. Most people thought they were
brother and sister until they said they were married. Some did not believe that
they were married and that pleased the girl very much.

In
those years only a very few people had ever come to the Mediterranean in the
summer time and no one came to le Grau du Roi except a few people from Nimes.
There was no casino and no entertainment and except in the hottest months when
people came to swim there was no one at the hotel. People did not wear
fishermen's shirts then and this girl that he was married to was the first girl
he had ever seen wearing one. She had bought the shirts for them and then had
washed them in the basin in their room at the hotel to take the stiffness out
of them. They were stiff and built for hard wear but the washings softened them
and now they were worn and softened enough so that when he looked at the girl
now her breasts showed beautifully against the worn cloth.

No
one wore shorts either around the village and the girl could not wear them when
they rode their bicycles. But in the village it did not matter because the
people were very friendly and only the local priest disapproved. But the girl
went to mass on Sunday wearing a skirt and a long-sleeved cashmere sweater with
her hair covered with a scarf and the young man stood in the back of the church
with the men. They gave twenty francs which was more than a dollar then and
since the priest took up the collection himself their attitude toward the
church was known and the wearing of shorts in the village was regarded as an
eccentricity by foreigners rather than an attempt against the morality of the
ports of the Camargue. The priest did not speak to them when they wore shorts
but he did not denounce them and when they wore trousers in the evening the
three of them bowed to each other. "I'll go up and write the letters,"
the girl said and she got up and smiled at the waiter and went out of the cafe.
"Monsieur is going to fish?" the waiter asked when the young man,
whose name was David Bourne, called him over and paid him. "I think so.
How is the tide?" "This tide is very good," the waiter said.
"I have some bait if you want it." "I can get some along the
road." "No. Use this. They're sandworms and there are plenty."
"Can you come out?" "I'm on duty now. But maybe I can come out
and see how you do. You have your gear?" "It's at the hotel."
"Stop by for the worms. At the hotel the young man wanted to go up to the
room and see the girl but instead he found the long, jointed bamboo pole and
the basket with his fishing gear behind the desk where the room keys hung and
went back out into the brightness of the road and on down to the cafe and out
onto the glare of the jetty. The sun was hot but there was a fresh breeze and
the tide was just starting to ebb. He wished that he had brought a casting rod
and spoons so that he might cast out across the flow of the water from the
canal over the rocks on the far side but instead he rigged his long pole with
its cork and quill float and let a sandworm float gently along at a depth where
he thought fish might be feeding. He fished for some time with no luck and
watched the mackerel boats tacking back and forth out on the blue sea and the
shadows the high clouds made on the water. Then his float went under in a sharp
descent with the line angling stiffly and he brought the pole up against the
pull of a fish that was strong and driving wildly and making the line hiss
through the water. He tried to hold it as lightly as he could and the long pole
was bent to the breaking point of the line and trace by the fish which kept
trying to go toward the open sea. The young man walked with him on the jetty to
ease the strain but the fish kept pulling so that as he drove a quarter of the
rod was forced under water.

The
waiter had come from the cafe and was very excited. He was talking by the young
man's side saying, "Hold him. Hold him. Hold him as softly as you can.
He'll have to tire. Don't let him break. Soft with him. Softly. Softly."

There
was no way the young man could be softer with him except to get into the water
with the fish and that did not make sense as the canal was deep. If I could
only walk along the bank with him, he thought. But they had come to the very
end of the jetty. More than half the pole was under water now.

"Just
hold him softly," the waiter pleaded. "It's a strong trace." The
fish bored deep, ran, zig-zagged and the long bamboo pole bent with his weight
and his rapid, driving strength. Then he came up thrashing at the surface and
then was down again and the young man found that although the fish felt as
strong as ever the tragic violence was lessened and now he could be led around
the end of the jetty and up the canal.

"Softly
does it," the waiter said. "Oh softly now. Softly for us all."

Twice
more the fish forced his way out to the open sea and twice the young man led
him back and now he was leading him gently along the jetty toward the cafe.

"How
is he?" asked the waiter.

"He's
fine but we've beaten him."

"Don't
say it," the waiter said. "Don't say it. We must tire him. Tire him.
Tire him."

"He's
got my arm tired," the young man said.

"Do
you want me to take him?" the waiter asked hopefully.

"My
God no."

"Just
easy, easy, easy. Softly, softly, softly," the waiter said.

The
young man worked the fish past the terrace of the cafe and into the canal. He
was swimming just under the surface but was still strong and the young man
wondered if they would take him all the way up the canal through the length of
the town. There were many other people now and as they went by the hotel the
girl saw them out of the window and shouted, "Oh what a wonderful fish!
Wait for me! Wait for me!"

She
had seen the fish clearly from above and his length and the shine of him in the
water and her husband with the bamboo pole bent almost double and the
procession of people following. When she got down to the canal bank and,
running, caught up with the people, the procession had stopped. The waiter was
in the water at the edge of the canal and her husband was guiding the fish
slowly against the bank where there was a clump of weeds growing. The fish was
on the surface now and the waiter bent down and brought his hands together from
either side and then lifted the fish with his thumbs in both his gills and
moved up the bank of the canal with him. He was a heavy fish and the waiter
held him high against his chest with the head under his chin and the tail
flopping against his thighs.