Garden of Eden (24 page)

"Who
are the artists you thought up today?"

"Different
ones for different parts. Marie Laurencin, Pascen, Derain, Dufy and
Picasso."

"For
Christ sake, Derain."

"Can't
you see a nice Laurencin of Marita and me in the car when we stopped the first
time by the Loup on the way to Nice?"

"Nobody's
written that."

"Well
write it then. It's certainly much more interesting and instructive than a lot
of natives in a kraal or whatever you call it covered with flies and scabs in Central
Africa with your drunken father staggering around smelling of sour beer and not
knowing which ones of the little horrors he had fathered."

"There
goes the ball game," David said.

"What
did you say, David?" Marita said.

"I
said thank you very much for having lunch with me, David told her.

"Why
don't you thank her for the rest of it?" Catherine said. "She really
must have done something impressive to make you sleep as though you were dead
until the absolute end of the afternoon. Thank her for that at least."

"Thank
you for going swimming," David said to the girl.

"Oh
did you swim?" Catherine said. "I'm glad you swam.

"We
swam quite far," Marita said. "And we had a very good lunch. Did you
have a good lunch, Catherine?"

"I
think so," Catherine said. "I don't remember."

"Where
were you?" Marita asked gently.

"Saint
Raphael," Catherine said. "I remember stopping there but I can't
remember about lunch. I never notice when I eat by myself. But I'm quite sure I
did have lunch there. I know I intended to."

"Was
it nice driving back?" Marita asked. "It was such a cool lovely
afternoon."

"I
don't know," Catherine said. "I didn't notice. I was thinking about
making the book and getting it started. We have to get it started. I don't know
why David started to be difficult the moment I commenced to put a little order
into it. The whole thing has dragged along in such a haphazard way that I was
suddenly ashamed of all of us."

"Poor
Catherine," Marita said. "But now that you have it all planned you
must feel better."

"I
do," Catherine said. "I felt so happy when I came in. I knew I'd made
you happy and I'd accomplished something practical too and then David made me
feel like an idiot or a leper. I can't help it if I'm practical and
sensible."

"I
know, Devil," David said. "I just didn't want to get the work mixed
up."

"But
it's you who mixed it up," Catherine said. "Can't you see? Jumping
back and forth trying to write stories when all you had to do was keep on with
the narrative that meant so much to all of us. It was going so well too and we
were just coming to the most exciting parts. Someone has to show you that the
stories are just your way of escaping your duty."

Marita
looked at him again and he knew what she was trying to tell him and he said,
"I have to go get cleaned up. You tell Marita about it and I'll be back."

"We
have other things to talk about," Catherine said. "I'm sorry I was
rude about you and Marita. I couldn't be happier about you really."

David
took everything that had been said in with him to the bathroom where he had a
shower and changed into a newly washed fisherman's sweater and slacks. It was
quite cool now in the evening and Marita was sitting at the bar looking at
Vogue.

"She's
gone down to see about your room," Marita said.

"How
is she?"

"How
should I know, David? She's a very great publisher now. She's given up sex. It
doesn't interest her anymore. It's childish really, she says. She doesn't know
how it could ever have meant anything to her. But she may decide to have an
affair with another woman if she ever takes it up again. There's quite a bit
about another woman.

"Christ
I never thought it would go this way."

"Don't,"
Marita said. "No matter what or how it is I love you and you are going to
write tomorrow."

Catherine
came in and said, "You look wonderful together and I'm so proud. I feel as
though I'd invented you. Was he good today, Marita?"

"We
had a nice lunch," Marita said. "Please be fair, Catherine."

"Oh
I know he's a satisfactory lover," Catherine said. "He's always that.
That's just like his martinis or how he swims or skis or flew probably. I never
saw him with a plane. Everyone says he was marvelous. It's like acrobats really
I suppose and just as dull. I wasn't asking about that."

"You
were very good to let us spend a day together, Catherine," Marita said.

"You
can spend the rest of your lives together," Catherine said. "If you
don't bore each other. I have no further need of either of you."

David
was watching her in the mirror and she looked calm, handsome and normal. He
could see Marita looking at her very sadly.

"I
do like to look at you though and I'd like to hear you talk if you'd ever open
your mouths."

"How
do you do," said David.

"That
was quite a good effort," Catherine said. "I'm very well."

"Have
any new plans?" David asked. He felt as though he were hailing a ship.

"Only
what I've told you," Catherine went on. "They'll probably keep me
quite busy."

"What
was all the guff about another woman?"

He
felt Marita kick him and he put his foot on hers to acknowledge.

"That's
not guff," Catherine said. "I want to have one more try to see if
I've missed anything. I might have."

"All
of us are fallible," David said and Marita kicked him again.

"I
want to see," Catherine said. "I know enough about that now so I
should be able to tell. Don't worry about your dark girl. She's not my type at
all. She's yours. She's what you like and very nice it is but not for me. I'm
not attracted to the gamin type."

"Perhaps
I am a gamin," Marita said.

"That's
a very polite word for that part."

"But
I'm also more of a woman than you are Catherine."

"Go
ahead and show David what sort of gamin you are. He'd like it.

"He
knows what sort of woman I am.

"That's
splendid," Catherine said. "I'm glad you both found your tongues
finally. I do prefer conversation.

"You
aren't really a woman at all," Marita said.

"I
know it," Catherine said. "I've tried to explain it to David often
enough. Isn't that true, David?"

David
looked at her and said nothing.

"Didn't
I?"

"Yes,"
he said.

"I
did try and I broke myself in pieces in Madrid to be a girl and all it did was
break me in pieces," Catherine said. "Now all I am is through. You're
a girl and a boy both and you really are. You don't have to change and it
doesn't kill you and I'm not. And now I'm nothing. All I wanted was for David
and you to be happy. Everything else I invent."

Marita
said, "I know it and I try to tell David."

"I
know you do. But you don't have to be loyal to me or to anything. Don't do it.
Nobody would anyway and you probably aren't really. But I tell you not to be. I
want you to be happy and make him happy. You can too and I can't and I know
it."

"You're
the finest girl there is," Marita said.

"I'm
not. I'm finished before I ever started."

"No.
I'm the one," Marita said. "I was stupid and awful."

"You
weren't stupid. Everything you said was true. Let's stop talking and be
friends. Can we?"

"Can
we please?" Marita asked her.

"I
want to," Catherine said. "And not be such a tragic bully. Please
take your time about the book, David. You know all I want is for you to write
the best you can. That's what we started with. I'm over it now whatever this
one was.

"You
were just tired," David said. "I don't think you ate any lunch
either."

"Probably
not," Catherine said. "But I may have. Can we forget it all now
though and just be friends?"

So
they were friends; whatever friends are, David thought, and tried not think but
talked and listened in the unreality that reality had become. He had heard each
one speak about the other and he knew each must know what the other thought and
probably what they each had told him. In that way they really were friends,
understanding in their basic disagreement, trusting in their complete distrust
and enjoying one another's company. He enjoyed their company too but tonight
he'd had enough of it.

Tomorrow
he must go back into his own country, the one that Catherine was jealous of and
that Marita loved and respected. He had been happy in the country of the story
and knew that it was too good to last and now he was back from what he cared
about into the overpopulated vacancy of madness that had taken, now the new
turn of exaggerated practicality. He was tired of it and he was tired of
Marita's collaborating with her enemy. Catherine was not his enemy except as
she was himself in the unfinding unrealizable quest that is love and so was her
own enemy. She needs an enemy so badly always that she has to keep one near and
she's the nearest and the easiest to attack knowing the weaknesses and
strengths and all the faults of our defenses. She turns my flank so skillfully
then finds it is her own and the last fighting is always in a swirl and the
dust that rises is our own dust. Catherine wanted to play backgammon with
Marita after dinner. They always played it seriously and for money and when
Catherine went to get the board Marita said to David, "Please don't come
to my room tonight after all." "Good." "Do you understand?"
"Let's skip that word," David said. His coldness had come back as the
time for working moved closer. "Are you angry?" "Yes,"
David said. "At me?"

"You
can't be angry with someone who's ill." "You haven't lived very
long," David said. "That's exactly who everyone is always angry with.
Get ill sometime yourself and see." "I wish you wouldn't be
angry." "I wish I'd never seen any of you." "Please don't,
David." "You know it isn't true. I'm only getting ready to
work." He went into their bedroom and put on the reading light on his side
of the bed and made himself comfortable and read one of the W. H. Hudson books.
It was Nature in Downland and he had taken it to read because it had the most
unpromising title. He knew enough to know a time was coming when he'd need all
the books and he was saving the best ones. But once past the title of this one
nothing in it bored him. He was happy to read and he was back out of his life
and with Hudson and his brother riding their horses into the tumbled whiteness
of breast-high thistledown in the moonlight and gradually the click of dice and
the low sound of the girls' voices became real again too so that when, after a
time, he went out to make himself a whiskey and Perrier to take back to his
reading they seemed, when he saw them playing, to be actual human beings doing
something normal and not figures in some unbelievable play he had been brought
unwillingly to attend.