52

"bent*5 the air a child

awlitgin^ '■:, v.'tr’* if' *, *2* '>9 r- ^

gref!»»«. t,n', 'Mt#
Young. They had been travelling for three days,
r. . -*
straight down the coast, leaving the town of the wedding,
the voices that crackled good-byes In the raw wind like
dry twigs, the pale smiling faces, the purple flowers,
curving from the chill of the room towards the shaded
bulb of a floor lamp. Three days and already the thoughts
were dimming -- she could only remember now the minister,
loosening his black bib as he stood before the punch bowl,
the way the boy's tongue had darted dryly against her teeth
t.

after the service, the open sandwiches the mothers had

served-- moist suid small, a sliver of olive dropped on
-me
the melted cheese like an eye. ■'.►f

Straight down along the coastal route, seldom

seeing the wate:?, l^ut always being aware of it. In their
new car that smelled of leather and oil. There had been
snow on the hood and as they drove, it blew and drifted
against the windows like dust. The shops and restauran
were closed. Curtains hung limp and grey by the empty pie
rack. A sign In the window warned of spring. It snowed
some in the afternoons, though there wasn't enough for ski
ing, not even enough to completely cover the scrub oak and
 53

bent stelke nf the fields. 3ometlt.as the, sa« a child

swinging from a tree In an old tire, or homes, their coats
^ Tinw fffllloplng sluggishly behind low stone
grown thick and yellow, gaxx p &
- ^ there was nothing and she would become
fences, but usually there
heat of the car and would doze,
drowsy In the close metallic neai.
,3 as a schoolgirl's, her chin bounc-
her legs crossed and close as a

Ing on her chest.

a lot they left the main road and drove
The first night, tney
. „^hed by a lake at the foot of a moun-
to a small town, hunchea oy
with a white canopied bed and
tain. The room was small
.. fnr the shower and he emptied his
heavy paper bathmats f
- ofltooped dresser -- cigarettes, wrinkled
pockets onto the glass P - u rsi
a nice oiano keys sjnong the coins and han -
and bleak, lying H^® ^ 4. t.
, He went to the hotel bar to get some
kerchief and nalloliP* 4.
^ r«ecinated at these common fragments of
ice, and she stared f . u .Ji n 0
4 their linty mannish odor, unable
his discarded self wit ^ 4--
«hen he returned and they began to
to forget them, even whe

bad first slept together three months before

* tittle angr, and a little repelled, pres-
and she had been a H 4. ..u u
the rough corded green of the couch
sing her head agalne ^ September and orange
so ha could not se eoreens of his apartment,
leaves rattled against

He had kissed her ca strands of her own long

era, laying the scratches
 54

o flrtrawled on the sidewalk with chalk,

red hair. Numbers were sera
^ ♦•ha shreds of a gum eraser fell into
and cookie crumbs and the
* . cluttered desk and corrected papers
her lap as she sat at ^ ^
4.100 dav her brother's dog had died,
for him. It had been the da^ n
4.+ «nd quiet furriness, the day the
effacing itself id so
last day of summer, six weeks after
pool had closed, the las
^ through the gentle preliminary know-
they had met and fled >,0
__ j^ever realizing they were bored be-
ledge of each other
cause they bad so ^he presence of each other,
individual paste each 1^

as solid and ava a

Picture hoCs of a nurse ^
for and substance c
their desired selves froo •
the days together were too near ana
have existed because a„a„_ thamqelves
living them* Memorizing themselves,
they «ere too busy exhausting, their thoughts
u avthpr out,
searching each oth ^le^ayed, like sparrous In
and desires banging na e hopelessness, out of

the ulnd, against a they had finally

a sense of doom and yet^«^ — the ecstatic

replaced the lack wit center from which every-

vsftflles becoming xne
wonder of their b easiest and most satisfying

thing else could spring, understand.

a as-p that whiob tney
destruction of tna
 55

u v.«pn repelled at first by this

And she had been repo
bewildered by the surrender which
betrayal of her body,
as her own, and he had said
she was unable to recognise ae ne ,
. a thev stood under the shower, the
later on that fall day ae they
*u +inv holes of the spigot as constant
water hanging from the ti y
,.v,arras9ed when they bathed together,
as string {she still e n l,
. a awkward on the ellpperj tile aa he aorub-
Standing hard and awlcwar ^ u
..-.a the plnh OPhP sliding over her fleah
bed her 113te a child, th P

like a live thing).

. Tiffl glad we did it. Because we could
“I'm glad. I 6 a. u
, . »e did. And now there will be ao much
go no further unless

and her feeling bad gradually become one of accep- .

__ the eternal surrender of their
tance and then of nee nke the water of a
flesh always return! g alienation was obliter-

fountain, and In t attained, their bodies

ated, the self reoognls and It was once

returned to the their wedding night

again aa If they had ne ^

being the same excep that giving her a greater sense

ray of coins on the drea

Of intimacy, of and he. In sleep,

known before. And yet , . ..gd which he knew would
, «t word of his no®
tried to form the la
make all the difference —■ while the snow turned to rain
and ran along the tin drainspout like a child pulling a
Wagon.
Why, she thought the next morning as they dangled
in a chair lift one thousand feet above the torn and ugly
mud of the mountain, does he always make me feel foolish,
as if I must conspire with waiters and clerks and strangers
against him, as if I am always more of them than of him.
The lift ran every day, even in the summer for plcnlcers
who, weary of the lake and the town, brought eggs and cold
tea in plastic lunch buckets and picked blueberries on the
green ski trail. A man had rubbed the damp seat with a torn
denim shirt, and they plunged upwards alone, the empty chairs
before them, swaying and whistling with no weight.
"Last month", he said, "a boy was dragged into the
machinery because he couldnH let go of the rope. His mit
tens were frozen to the rope and he crossed his sklls."
She looked at the tiny tow beneath them, running
along the ground like a broken clothesline, trying to con
centrate. "How awful... .and did he die?
"Oh yea", he said, seeing the red and icy mittens
on the snow, the cheap dye and bits of wool clinging to
the boy's fingers, his own wrists, pink and cold between
his gloves and coat cuff, the full and pouting lips of ^
 57

his young wife thinking suddenly of the party months

before when she told him that she could ski, that she loved
the way her body turned to air --
“Why did you make up all those stories when we
first met", he asked, turning to her, watching the tops of
the trees sink away as they climbed higher and higher in
the damp air. “Did you think you'd never see me again?
Was that why?“, the words, faint and hoarse, clattering
back against his teeth like tiny pebbles in the rushing
wind, so that he was not really sure if he had spoken them
at all, but she replied, quickly accepting the lurch of his
mind,
“It was a party. That's what you always do at a
par ty."
“Not even glamorous lies", he went on, "except
perhaps for the skiing. You said when you were little, the
boy next door broke your back with a snowshovel. His name
was Danny. His mother made popslcles in the ice box trays,
with toothpicks for sticks, and he always read the Bible
in class, hidden behind his schoolbooks. He was religious,
you said and wanted to be a minister, and you told me he
broke your back." He spoke as if he were reciting, as if He
were reading from a newspaper, knowing that she would never
lie in this particular way to him again and afraid because
 58

of IPA.M' .' * ■ • '^'''•' h T '.- V

“I don’t know. It was silly. I suppose I was

trying to Impress you in some wayj.^" -g

Tile chair swung around, the pulleys momentarily v
ground into silence before the descent. The lodge lay far
below them like a scrap of wet fur, and in the new quiet,
they realized that they had been shouting. .,g
“I wish", she spoke softly then, “that they hadn't
convinced us to take this ride. It's so cold and homely ——
though I came up here once before — to watch the others ~-
and it was quite nice. There was snow and red flags on the

slope.... “
“Tonight", he said, "we'll be in the South and

tomorrow there will be Florida, and there won't be anything

that you can remember because it will all be new.

"Things should always be new for us", she said. ^
"They will be. Let's always keep things new between us."

"Yes." The sound of the machinery forced him to

raise his voice again.

In Florida she was conscious only of whiteness.
The color slipped into her brain and pressed against her
eyes like physical pain. Breakers crashed on the beach

and rushed away again, leevlng a quivering lip of foam on

the hard sand. The bumpy stucco of the hotel, the sand,
 59

, the blue fell away and left only

the 8lty after four when th
^ oven coming from anywhere, the town,
clouds, the clouds not e
out of the blueness -- everything
the sea, but Just grow g + -te that
when she saw some toothpaste that
white so that one morning , , ^ ^ ^-ho
hrush and dropped and hardened In the
had dribhled for the , *u em'^tv
h aoooped It “P.
porcelain sink, e e fingers under the high rushing
Intensity of It, and he

=- f the brllllanoe of the days

She Itnew only
hougbt darker sunglasses for her
gave her a headache.
and a straK hat In a va sandals
late bars and large vl-^- ^

and a red plastic es people, their shy and

**“'1 penetrating and pervasive as the heat
humble presence as y streets or sat on shaded
and light. They orange slacks and bright
porches, the men In chests, bunched and pale as
shirts, the pale hair c jelloate, veins throbbing
d-Ho women thin
wilted grass, tne . complained that they
blue in their <iuie everything with vacant, lashless
stared at them, gulpi*^^ T^ecause they were young.

eyes, staring at tne uves", he said. "There's

tlived tneii
"They've ou .^houghts. Their thoughts are
nothing more and they
 6o

as dry and thin as their bones. And t ere’s no love because

they can’t remember it, and there’s nothing to say because

nothing has ever happened. *•

The old people depressed them, staring at them
wordlessly, unsmiling, as if they would draw the very passion

from them. They tried to forget them, the bent, slow

They spent their days on the beaches, their thoughts

only of each other, of their love, talking about their nights,

their bodies, the children that were to be, speaking of the
next weeks and years as if they did not belong to them at
all, as if they would never have to live those plans, those
days that they could cut as neatly as cake in the blank south

ern sunshine. They sailed, went to the races, the bars.

They rinsed out empty Coppertone bottles on the beach and
filled them with vodka. Their mouths tasted of felt, and

the liquor and salt made their lips sting. It tasted so

odd they poured it into glasses and it was white and oily

and bits of the lotion floated up, clinging to the icecubes

like pinheads. They laughed, became brown, mailed sand to

people in bulging envelopes and ate huge meals.

The last day they were there was over The
sea was high and dirty green, and work crews were clearing

away great piles of seaweed. She was almost glad of the

change. They shopped, went to an afternoon movie and ate
 6l

* hntel in a large quiet room of round

an early dinner at the hotex «•
j vs nicp mushroome from the brown carpet,
tables that cropped uP muex
I ^ there, a few couples and a great
There were several famlli
, nnnvprsation leapt distantly around them —
many old people. Convers
. not seeming to come from any source
distinct and subdued but noii s
.vsiiP the mouths were forming something
— the words going on while in

else.
, them comolalnea about his food. Jabbing
A man near tnem -
he were trying to push it to the
at his plate wildly aa ii _
aflt nodding her head uncontrollably,
floor while his wife sat , u-i
A to be contained in his solemn, hlgh-
The very world seemed t
the out of 111-aone meat the reason
pitched ramblings-- ^ * «oitAr.
tvthing that was or had been. A waiter
for and master of every
4. Vile so smoothly that he could have
walked over to their a » ^ntimipfl to nod
Kile the old woman continued to nod
been dnawn » „nbln blmeelf, ble bones
ben »e.en bead and
suddenl, melting awa,, ^ ^

fear of deprivation — »
the plate would remove
4vor sli<l away.
nothing and the «a ,j„ntlnued to eat in silence. He
The young peopl
^ and tried to speak. The girl
felt awkward in the Under the blood and gristle
tier piaie.
bent towards him ove ^ curving flower etched on
of the gone rare beef
 62

^ uo in tihe polished silver of

china. She saw her face well up
reflection twlBted Into wide, flat
the sugar bowl --
1. He grew quiet and dropped his
dumbness -- and drew back. He g
with coffee cups and turned on
spoon. The waitress cam
tholr table so that everything became
the small lamp on their la
ringed stain left by the dishes
rozy like firelight, the S
m«.n lurched to his feet. The
barely visible. The ol
voman left a bobb,-pln hh her napMn.
eeia irritably. They drank
-Let's go», the boy e
,rklv and talked past the maltred'e «ho
their coffee quickly an
his eyes closed, rooking back and
stood by the door wHb or.nked and
His skin vias brown — cracked and
forth on his hee s. were pale as
papery except for
the stones he place crowded. They moved
veoil lounges were
° iv the sound of saxaphones pres-
from bar to bar ^ band. The bass was slapped
sing, shoving against them shaking
A the drummer
and apun around, microphones. Waitresses with
his shoulders smiled ^ danced, and
hfiCL ^
trays of drinks pus grizzle sticks into his pockets.
a man with a mustache stu drank too much
veil®'* vests a
The bartenders wore j fsioe. Everything
V*. her husband's necm
and began to stroKe album, and the drummer
like piotures in s. Pn
was far away ^
 63

.
sang into the microphone, fflressing
caress g the words while the
. hpr thigh. But for the warmnese
boy ran hia hand along h
ofrald that they didn't exist,
beneath his hand, he was
, hP flung some bills on the wet
and draining his glass, he nung
table and pulled her to her f©
^ t towards the hotel that last night of
Walking back towar »
of anything except the wind, the
their vacation, unconscious
V, others bodies, walking past the sleepless,
pressure of each otners
, .he porches, they returned to the room
rumpled figures of the P
^ «fi«r and unused drawers, falling upon
that smelled of powder ana
. .ing cloth from sunburnt shoulders,
each other then, tearing 4-
_ frantic in the hope that
sinking, silent, frlghtene ^ vo hi nn Amooth
gtain of bodies on smooth
there was always this, n-r
„ noons «na dinners, the strand of
sheets, to keep away +hoi-
. , V the unshared laughter - thintlng that •
hair in the sink, the
be this, «hlle the old people, their
at least there would
soft, clothed buttoo ^blnhlng, their minds emptied
deck ohalrs, thinking or form, pearled
long ago of passion, 0 »nlnkled chamois,
and musing, hands ly one-legged on
watched the cars g®
the lifeguard's tower.