Garden of Eden (27 page)

"Won't
you come in too, David?"

"I
came by to see if you wanted to go to swim or anything," David said.

"I
don't want to," Catherine said. "Heiress was in bed asleep and I got
into bed with her. She was very good and asked me to leave. She's not a bit
unfaithful to you. Not in the least little bit. But won't you come in too so we
can both be faithful to you?"

"No,"
David said.

"Please,
David," Catherine said. "It's such a lovely day."

"Do
you want to go to swim?" David asked Marita.

"I'd
like to," the girl said above the sheet.

"You
two puritans," Catherine said. "Please both be reasonable and come to
bed David."

"I
want to go to swim," Marita said. "Please go out, David."

'Why
can't he see you?" Catherine asked. "He sees you at the beach."

"He'll
see me at the cove," Marita said. "Please go out, David."

David
went out and closed the door without looking back, hearing Marita talking in a
low voice to Catherine and Catherine's laughter. He walked down the flagstones
to the front of the hotel and looked out at the sea. There was a light breeze
now and he watched three French destroyers and a cruiser, neat and dark, and
sharply etched on the blue sea as they moved in formation working out some
problems. They were far out and they looked to be recognition silhouettes from
their size until a white line would show at the bow as a ship speeded up to
change the pattern. David watched them until the two girls came up to him.

"Please
don't be cross," Catherine said.

They
were dressed to go to the beach and Catherine put a bag with the towels and the
robes on an iron chair.

"Are
you going swimming too?" David said to her.

"If
you're not angry with me.

David
said nothing and watched the ships as they changed course and another destroyer
moved out of the pattern at a sharp angle with the line of white curling back
from her bows. She began to make smoke and it trailed in a black widening plume
as she curved at flank speed.

"It
was only a joke," Catherine said. 'We'd been making such good rough jokes.
You and I had."

"What
are they doing, David?" Marita asked.

"Anti-sub
maneuvers, I think," he said. "Maybe there are subs working with
them. They're probably out from Toulon."

"They
were in Sainte Maxime or Saint Raphael," Catherine said. "I saw them
the other day."

"I
don't know what it is now with the smoke screen," David said. "There
must be other ships we cane t see.

"There
come the planes," Marita said. "Aren't they lovely?"

They
were very small, neat sea-planes and three of them were coming around the point
low over the water.

"When
we were here in the early summer they had gunnery practice off the Porquerolles
and it was terrific," Catherine said. "It shook the window. Will they
use depth bombs now, David?"

"I
don't know. I shouldn't think so if they're working with real subs."

"I
can go to swim, can't I please David?" Catherine asked. "I'm going
away and then you can swim all the time by yourselves."

"I
asked you to swim," David said.

"That's
true," Catherine said. "You did. Then let's go now and all be friends
and happy. If the planes come in close they can see us on the beach at the cove
and that will cheer them up.

The
planes did come by close off the cove while David and Marita were swimming far
out and Catherine was tanning on the beach. They passed rapidly, three echelons
of three, their big Rhone motors roaring suddenly as they flew over then dying
away as they went toward Sainte Maxime.

David
and Marita swam back in to the beach and sat on the sand by Catherine.

"They
never even looked at me," Catherine said. "They must be very serious
boys."

"What
did you expect? Aerial photography?" David asked her.

Marita
had said very little since they had left the hotel and she said nothing to
this.

"It
was fun when David really did live with me," Catherine said to her.
"I can remember when I liked everything that David did. You must try to
like his things too, Heiress. That is if he has any left."

"Do
you have any left, David?" Marita asked.

"He
traded everything he had in on those stories," Catherine said. "He
used to have so many things. I certainly hope you like stories, Heiress."

"I
like them," Marita said. She did not look at David but he saw her serene
dark face and sea wet hair and smooth lovely skin and her beautiful body as she
sat looking out at the sea.

"That's
good," Catherine said lazily and took a long deep lazy breath as she
stretched out on the beach robe on the sand that was still warm from the
afternoon sun. "Because that's what you're going to get. He used to do so
many things too and he did them all so beautifully. He had a wonderful life and
all he thinks about now is Africa and his drunken father and his press
cuttings. His clippings. Has he ever shown you his clippings, Heiress?"

"No,
Catherine," Marita said.

"He
will," Catherine said. "He tried to show them to me once at le Grau
du Roi but I put a stop to that. There were hundreds of them and every one,
almost, had his picture and they were all the same pictures. It's worse than
carrying around obscene post cards really. I think he reads them by himself and
is unfaithful to me with them. In a wastebasket probably. He always has a
wastebasket. He said himself it was the most important thing for a
writer—"

"Let's
go in and swim, Catherine," Marita said. "I think I'm getting
cold."

"I
mean the wastebasket was the most important thing for a writer," Catherine
said. "I used to think I ought to get him a really wonderful one that
would be worthy of him. But he never puts anything he writes in the
wastebasket. He writes in those ridiculous child's notebooks and he doesn't
throw anything away. He just crosses things out and writes along the sides of
the pages. The whole business is a fraud really. He makes mistakes in spelling and
grammar too. Did you know, Marita, that he doesn't even really know
grammar?"

"Poor
David," Marita said.

"Of
course his French is worse," Catherine said. "You've never seen him
try to write it. He fakes along well enough in conversation and he's amusing
with his slang. But actually he's illiterate."

"Too
bad," said David.

"I
thought he was wonderful," Catherine said, "until I found he couldn't
write even a simple note correctly. But then you'll be able to write in French
for him."

"Ta
gueule," David said cheerfully.

"He's
good at that sort of thing," Catherine said. "Quick tags of slang
that are probably outdated before he knows it. He speaks very idiomatic French
but he can't write it at all. He's really illiterate, Marita, and you have to
face it. His handwriting is terrible too. He can't write like a gentleman nor
speak like one in any language. Especially not his own."

"Poor
David," Marita said.

"I
can't say I've given him the best years of my life," Catherine said.
"Because I've only lived with him since March I think it was, but I've
certainly given him the best months of my life. The ones I've had the most fun
in anyway and he certainly made them fun too. I wish it hadn't ended in
complete disillusion too but what are you to do if you discover the man is
illiterate and practices solitary vice in a wastebasket full of clippings from
something called The Original Romeike's, whoever they are. Any girl would be
discouraged and frankly I'm not going to put up with it."

"You
take the clippings and burn them," David said. "That would be the
soundest thing. Wouldn't you like to go in now and swim, Devil?"

Catherine
looked at him slyly.

"How
did you know I did it?" she asked.

"Did
what?"

"Burned
the clippings."

"Did
you, Catherine?" Marita asked.

"Of
course I did," Catherine said.

David
stood looking at her. He felt completely hollow. It was like coming around a
curve on a mountain road and the road not being there and only a gulf ahead.
Marita was standing now too. Catherine was looking at them her face calm and
reasonable. "Let's go in and swim," Marita said. "We'll just
swim out to the point and back." "I'm glad you're being pleasant
finally," Catherine said. "I've been wanting to go in for a long
time. It's really getting quite cool. We forget it's September."

THEY
DRESSED ON THE BEACH and climbed up the steep trail with David carrying the bag
with the beach things to where the old car was waiting in the pine woods. The
got in and David drove back to the hotel in the early evening light. Catherine
was quiet in the car and to anyone passing them they might have been returning
from any afternoon at one of the unfrequented beaches of the Estérel. The war
ships were no longer in sight when they left the car on the driveway, and the
sea beyond the pines was blue and calm. The evening was as beautiful and clear
as the morning had been.

They
walked down to the entrance of the hotel and David took the bag with the beach
things into the storeroom and put it down.

"Let
me take them," Catherine said. "They ought to go to dry."

"I'm
sorry," David said. He turned at the door of the storeroom and walked out
and then down to his work room at the end of the hotel. Inside the room he opened
the big Vuitton suitcase. The pile of cahiers that the stories had been written
in was gone. So were the four bulky envelopes from the bank that had contained
the press clippings. The pile of cahiers with the narrative written in them
were intact. He closed and locked the suitcase and searched all of the drawers
in the armoire and searched the room. He had not believed that the stories
could be gone. He had not believed that she could do it. At the beach he had
known that she might have done it but it had seemed impossible and he had not
really believed it. They had been calm and careful and restrained about it as
you were trained to be in danger or emergency or in disaster but it had not
seemed possible that it could really have happened.

Now
he knew that it had happened but still thought it might be some ghastly joke.
So, empty and dead in his heart, he reopened the suitcase and checked it and
after he locked it he checked the room again.

Now
there was no danger and no emergency. It was only disaster now. But it couldn't
be. She must have hidden them someplace. They could be in the storeroom, or in
their own room, or she could have put them in Marita's room. She couldn't
really have destroyed them. No one could do that to a fellow human being. He
still could not believe that she had done it but he felt sick inside himself
when he closed and locked the door.

The
two girls were at the bar when David came in. Marita looked up at him and saw
how things were and Catherine watched him come in by looking at the mirror. She
did not look at him, only at his reflection in the mirror.