Garden of Eden (18 page)

Catherine
came into the big room dishevelled, excited and full of accomplishment and
gaiety. "You did take him swimming," she said. "You both do look
handsome enough, though still wet from the shower. Let me look at you.
"Let me look at you," the girl said. "What did you do to your
hair?" "It's cendre," Catherine said. "Do you like it? It's
a rinse that Jean's experimenting with."

"It's
beautiful," the girl said. Catherine's hair was strange and exalting
against her dark face. She picked up Marita's drink and sipping it watched herself
in the mirror and said, "Did you have fun swimming?" "We both
had a good swim," the girl said. "But not as long as yesterday."
"This is such a good drink, David," Catherine said. "What makes
your martinis better than anyone else's?" "Gin," David said.
"Will you make me one please?" "You don't want one now, Devil.
We're going to have lunch."

"Yes
I do," she said. "I'm going to sleep after lunch. You didn't have to
go through all the bleaching and re-bleaching and all of it. It's
exhausting."

"What
color is your hair really now?" David asked.

"It's
almost like white," she said. "You'd like it. But I want to keep this
so we see how it lasts."

"How
white is it?" David asked.

"About
like the soap suds," she said. "Do you remember?"

That
evening Catherine was completely different from the way she had been at
mid-day. She was sitting at the bar when they drove up from swimming. The girl
had stopped off at her room and when David came into the big main room he said,
"What have you done to yourself now, Devil?"

"I
shampooed all that nonsense out," she said. "It made gray stains on
the pillow."

She
looked very striking, her hair a very light almost toneless silver that made
her face darker than it had ever looked.

"You're
too damned beautiful," he said. "But I wish they'd never touched your
hair."

"It's
too late for that now. Can I tell you something else?"

"Sure."

"Tomorrow
I'm not going to have drinks and I'm going to study Spanish and read again and
stop thinking only about myself."

"My
God," David said. "You had a big day. Here, let me get a drink and go
in and change."

"I'll
be here," Catherine said. "Put on your dark blue shirt will you? The
one I got you like the one of mine?"

David
took his time in the shower and changing and when he came back the two girls
were together at the bar and he wished he could have a painting of them.

"I
told Heiress everything about my new leaf," Catherine said. "The one
I just turned over and how I want you to love her too and you can marry her too
if she'll have you."

"We
could in Africa if I was registered Mohammedan. You're allowed three
wives."

"I
think it would be much nicer if we were all married," Catherine said.
"Then no one could criticize us. Will you really marry him, Heiress?"

"Yes,"
the girl said.

"I'm
so pleased," Catherine said. "Everything I worried about is so simple
now."

"Would
you really?" David asked the dark girl.

"Yes,"
she said. "Ask me."

David
looked at her. She was very serious and excited. He thought of her face with
her eyes closed against the sun and her black head against the whiteness of the
towel robe on the yellow sand as it had been when they had made love at last.
"I'll ask you," he said. "But not in any damned bar.

"This
isn't any damned bar," Catherine said. "This is our own special bar
and we bought the mirror. I wish we could marry you tonight."

"Don't
talk balls," David said.

"I'm
not," Catherine said. "I really mean it. Truly."

"Do
you want a drink?" David asked.

"No,"
Catherine said. "I want to get it said right first. Look at me and
see." The girl was looking down and David looked at Catherine. "I thought
it all out this afternoon," she said. "I really did. Didn't I tell
you, Marita?"

"She
did," the girl said.

David
saw that she was serious about this and that they had reached some
understanding that he did not know about.

"I'm
still your wife," Catherine said. "We'll start with that. I want
Marita to be your wife too to help me out and then she inherits from me.

"Why
does she have to inherit?"

"People
make their wills," she said. "And this is more important than a
will."

"What
about you?" David asked the girl.

"I
want to do it if you want me to."

"Good,"
he said. "Do you mind if I have a drink?"

"You
have one please," Catherine said. "You see I'm not going to have you
ruined if I'm crazy and I won't be able to decide. I'm not going to be shut up
either. I decided that too. She loves you and you love her a little. I can
tell. You'd never find anybody else like her and I don't want you to go to some
damn bitch or be lonely."

"Come
on and cheer up," David said. "You're healthy as a goat."

"Well,
we're going to do it," Catherine said. "We'll work out
everything."

THE
SUN WAS BRIGHT now in the room and it was a new day.

You
better get to work, he told himself. You can't change any of it back. Only one
person can change it back and she can't know how she will wake nor if she'll be
there when she wakes. It doesn't matter how you feel. You better get to work.
You have to make sense there. You don't make any in this other. Nothing will
help you. Nor would have ever since it started.

When
he finally got back into the story the sun was well up and he had forgotten the
two girls. It had been necessary to think what his father would have thought
sitting that evening with his back against the green-yellow trunk of the fig
tree with the enameled cup of whiskey and water in his hand. His father had
dealt so lightly with evil, giving it no chance ever and denying its importance
so that it had no status and no shape nor dignity. He treated evil like an old
entrusted friend, David thought, and evil, when she poxed him, never knew she'd
scored. His father was not vulnerable he knew and, unlike most people he had
known, only death could kill him. Finally, he knew what

his
father had thought and knowing it, he did not put it in the story. He only
wrote what his father did and how he felt and in all this he became his father
and what his father said to Mob was what he said. He slept well on the ground
under the tree and he waked and heard the leopard cough. Later he did not hear
the leopard in the camp but he knew he was there and he went back to sleep. The
leopard was after meat and there was plenty of meat so there was no problem. In
the morning before daylight sitting by the ashes of the fire with his tea in
the chipped enameled cup he asked Mob if the leopard had taken meat and Mob
said, "Ndiyo" and he said, "There's plenty where we're going.
Get them moving so we can start the climb."

They
were moving for the second day through the high wooded and park-like country
above the escarpment when he stopped finally and he was happy with the country
and the day and the distance they had made. He had his father's ability to
forget now and not dread anything that was coming. There was another day and
another night ahead in that new high country when he stopped and he had lived
two days and a night today.

Now
that he left that country his father was with him still as he locked the door
and walked back to the big room and the bar.

He
told the boy he did not want breakfast and to bring him a whiskey and Perrier
and the morning paper. It was past noon and he had intended to drive the old
Isotta into Cannes and see that the repairs were made but he knew the garages
were closed now and it was too late. Instead he stood at the bar because that's
where he would have found his father at that hour and, having just come down
from the high country, he missed him. The sky outside was very much the sky
that he had left. It was high blue and the clouds white cumulus and he welcomed
his father's presence at the bar until he glanced in the mirror and saw he was
alone. He had intended to ask his father about two things. His father, who ran
his life more disastrously than any man that he had ever known, gave marvelous
advice. He distilled it out of the bitter mash of all his previous mistakes
with the freshening addition of the new mistakes he was about to make and he
gave it with an accuracy and precision that carried the authority of a man who
had heard all the more grisly provisions of his sentence and gave it no more
importance than he had given to the fine print on a transatlantic steamship
ticket.

He
was sorry that his father had not stayed but he could hear the advice clearly
enough and he smiled. His father would have given it more exactly but he,
David, had stopped writing because he was tired and, tired, he could not do
justice to his father's style. No one could, really, and sometimes his father
could not either. He knew now, more than ever, why he had always put off
writing this story and he knew he must not think about it now that he had left
it or he would damage his ability to write it.

You
must not worry about it before you start nor when you stop he told himself.
You're lucky to have it and don't start fumbling with it now. If you cannot
respect the way you handle your life then certainly respect your trade. You
know about your trade at least. But it was a rather awful story really. By God
it was.

He
sipped the whiskey and Perrier again and looked out the door at the late summer
day. He was cooling out as he always did and the giant killer made things
better. He wondered where the girls were. They were late again and he hoped
that this time it would be nothing bad. He was not a tragic character, having
his father and being a writer barred him from that, and as he finished the
whiskey and Perrier he felt even less of one. He had never known a morning when
he had not waked happily until the enormity of the day had touched him and he
had accepted this day now as he had accepted all the others for himself. He had
lost the capacity of personal suffering, or he thought he had, and only could
be hurt truly by what happened to others. He believed this, wrongly of course
since he did not know then how one's capacities can change, nor how the other could
change, and it was a comfortable belief. He thought of the two girls and wished
that they would turn up. It was getting too late to swim before lunch but he
wanted to see them. He thought about them both. Then he went into his and
Catherine's room and took a shower and shaved. He was shaving when he heard the
car come up and he felt the sudden empty feeling in his gut. Then he heard
their voices and heard them laughing and he found a fresh pair of shorts and a
shirt and pulled them on and went out to see how things would be.

The
three of them had quiet drinks and then a lunch that was good but light and
they drank Tavel and when they were eating cheese and fruit Catherine said,
"Should I tell him?"

"If
you want," the girl said. She picked up her wine and drank part of it
down.

"I
forgot how to say it," Catherine said. "We waited too long."

"Can't
you remember it?" the girl said.

"No,
I've forgotten it and it was wonderful. We had it all worked out and it was
really wonderful."