“Then what would you like, maybe…”
Before I could finish, again the same movement.
I could see now what was in store. But the die was cast and the game had to be played out.
“I’ll bring our things,” I said. I waited for her to reply, but she sat on a chair as green as grass and I realized that she would not speak. That first day was terrible. Eri did nothing obvious, did not go out of her way to avoid me, and after lunch she even tried to study a little — I asked her then if I could stay in her room, to look at her. Promising that I would not utter a word and would not disturb her. But after fifteen minutes (how quick of me!) I realized that my presence was a tremendous burden to her; the line of her back betrayed this, her small, cautious movements, their hidden effort; so, covered with sweat, I beat a hasty retreat and began to pace back and forth in my own room. I did not know her yet. I could see, however, that the girl was not stupid, far from stupid. Which, in the present situation, was both good and bad. Good, because even if she did not understand, she could at least guess what I was and would not see in me some barbarous monster or wild man. Bad, because in that case the advice that Olaf had given me at the last moment was worthless. He had quoted to me an aphorism that I knew, from Hon: “If the woman is to be like fire, then the man must be like ice.” In other words, he felt that my only chance was at night, not during the day. I did not want this, and for that reason had been wearing myself out, but I understood that in the short time I had I could not hope to get through to her with words, that anything I said would remain on the outside — for in no way would it weaken her rectitude, her well-justified anger, which had shown itself only once, in a short outburst, when she began to shout, “I don’t! I don’t!” And the fact that she had then controlled herself so quickly I also took to be a bad sign.
In the evening she began to be afraid. I tried to keep low, step softly, like Voov, that small pilot who managed — the perfect man of few words — to say and do everything he wanted without speaking.
After dinner — she ate nothing, which alarmed me — I felt anger growing inside me; at times I almost hated her for my own torment, and the great injustice of this feeling only served to intensify it.
Our first real night together: when she fell asleep in my arms, still all hot, and her ragged breath began, in single, ever-weaker sighs, to pass into oblivion, I was certain that I had won. Throughout she had struggled, not with me but with her own body, which I came to know, the delicate nails, the slender fingers, the palms, the feet, whose every part and curve I unlocked and brought to life, as it were, with my kisses, my breath, stealing my way into her — against her — with infinite patience and slowness, so that the transitions were imperceptible, and whenever I felt a growing resistance, like death, I would retreat, would begin to whisper to her mad, senseless, childish words, and again I would be silent and only caress her, and I besieged her with my touch, for hours, and felt her open and her stiffness give way to the trembling of a last defense, and then she trembled differently, conquered now, but still I waited and, saying nothing, for this was beyond words, drew from the darkness her slender arms, and breasts, the left breast, for there beat the heart, faster and faster, and her breath grew more violent, more desperate, despairing, and the thing took place; this was not even pleasure, but the mercy of annihilation and dissolving, a storming of the last wall of our bodies, so that in violence they could be one for a few seconds, our battling breaths, our fervor passed into mindlessness, she cried out once, weakly, in the high voice of a child, and clutched me. And then her hands slid away from me, furtively, as if in great shame and sadness, as if suddenly she understood how horribly I had tricked her. And I began everything again, the kisses placed in the bends of the fingers, the mute appeals, the whole tender and cruel progression. And everything was repeated, as in a hot black dream, and at one point I felt her hand, buried in my hair, press my face to her naked shoulder with a strength I had not expected in her. And later, exhausted, breathing rapidly, as if to expel from herself the accumulated heat and sudden fear, she fell asleep. And I lay motionless, like one dead, taut, trying to figure out whether what had happened meant everything or nothing. Just before I fell asleep it seemed to me that we were saved, and only then came peace, a great peace, as great as that on Kereneia, when I lay on the hot sheets of cracked lava with Arder, whose mouth I could see breathing behind the glass of his suit although he was unconscious, and I knew that it had not been in vain, yet I hadn’t the strength then even to open the valve of his reserve cylinder; I lay paralyzed, with the feeling that the greatest thing of my life was behind me now and that if I were to die right there, nothing would change, and my immobility was like the unutterable silence of triumph.
But in the morning everything began again. In the early hours she was still ashamed, or perhaps it was contempt, I do not know whether it was directed at me or whether it was herself she despised for what had taken place. Around lunchtime I succeeded in persuading her to take a short drive. We rode along the huge beaches, with the Pacific stretched before us in the sun, a roaring colossus furrowed by crescents of white-and-gold foam, filled to the horizon with the tiny colored sheets of sailboats. I stopped the car where the beaches ended, ended in an unexpected wall of rock. The road made a sharp turn here, and, standing a meter from the edge, one could look straight down upon the violent surf. We returned for lunch. It was as on the previous day, and everything in me cringed at the thought of the night, because I did not want it. Not like that. When I was not looking at her, I felt her eyes on me. I was puzzled by her renewed frowns, her sudden stares, and then — how or why I do not know — just before dinner, as we sat at the table, suddenly, as though someone had opened my skull with a single blow, I understood everything. I wanted to punch myself in the head — what a self-centered fool I had been, what a self- deceiving bastard — I sat, stunned, motionless, a storm within me, beads of sweat on my forehead. I felt extremely weak.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“Eri,” I croaked, “I… only now. I swear! Only now do I understand, only now, that you went with me because you were afraid, afraid that I… yes?”
Her eyes widened with surprise, she looked at me carefully, as if suspecting a trick, a joke.
She nodded.
I jumped up.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To Clavestra. Pack your things. We’ll be there” — I looked at my watch — “in three hours.”
She stood without moving.
“You mean it?” she said.
“Eri, I didn’t know. Yes, it sounds unbelievable. But there are limits. Yes, there are limits. Eri, it is still not clear to me how I could have done such a thing — because I blinded myself, I guess. Well, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, it has no importance now.”
She packed — so quickly… Everything inside me broke and crumbled, but on the surface I was perfectly, almost perfectly, calm. When she sat down beside me in the car, she said:
“Hal, forgive me.”
“For what? Ah!” I understand. “You thought that I knew?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Let’s not talk about it any more.”
And again I drove at a hundred; houses flashed by, purple, white, sapphire, the road twisted and turned, I increased our speed, the traffic was heavy, then let up, the cottages lost their colors, the sky became a dark blue, the stars appeared, and we sped along in the whistling wind.
The surrounding countryside grew gray, the hills lost their volume, became outlines, rows of dark humps, the road stood out against the dusk as a wide, phosphorescent band. I recognized the first houses of Clavestra, the familiar turn, the hedges. At the entrance I stopped the car, carried her things into the garden, to the veranda.
“I don’t want to go inside. You understand.”
“I understand.”
I did not say good-bye to her, but simply turned away. She touched my arm; I flinched as if I had been struck.
“Hal, thank you.”
“Don’t say anything. Just don’t say anything.”
I fled. I jumped into the car, took off; the roar of the engine saved me for a while. It was laughable. Obviously she had been afraid that I would kill him. After all, she had seen me try to kill Olaf, who was as innocent as a lamb, simply because he had not let me — and anyway! Anyway, nothing. There in the car I howled, I could permit myself anything, being alone, and the engine covered my madness — and again I do not know at what point it was that I realized what I had to do. And once more, as the first time, peace came. Not the same. Because the fact that I had taken advantage of the situation so terribly and had forced her to go with me, and that everything
