“You do really look extraordinarily beautiful,” the Colonel said to Catherine. “But you must try to get darker.”
“Thank you. I will,” she said. “We don’t have to go out now in the heat do we? Can’t we sit here in the cool? We can eat here in the grill.”
“You’re lunching with me,” the Colonel said.
“No please. You’re lunching with us.”
David stood up uncertainly. There were more people at the bar now. Looking down at the table he saw that he had drunk Catherine’s drink as well as his own. He did not remember drinking either of them.
It was the siesta time and they lay on the bed and David was reading by the light that came in the window on the left of the bed where he had pulled up one of the slatted curtains about a third of its length. The light was reflected from the building across the street. The curtain was not pulled high enough to show the sky.
“The Colonel liked me being so dark,” Catherine said. “We must get to the sea again. I have to keep it.”
“We’ll go there whenever you want.”
“That will be wonderful. Can I tell you something? I have to.”
“What?”
“I didn’t change back to be a girl for lunch. Did I behave all right?”
“You didn’t?”
“No. Do you mind? But now I’m your boy and I’ll do anything for you.”
David continued reading.
“Are you angry?”
“No.” Sobered, he thought.
“It’s simpler now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I’ll be careful. This morning everything I did felt so right and happy, so clean and good in the daylight. Couldn’t I try now and we see?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Can I kiss you and try?”
“Not if you’re a boy and I’m a boy.”
His chest felt as though there were an iron bar inside it from one side to the other. “I wish you hadn’t told the Colonel.”
“But he saw me, David. He brought it up and he knew all about it and understood. It wasn’t stupid to tell him. It was better. He’s our friend. If I told him he wouldn’t talk. If I didn’t tell him he had a right to.”
“You can’t trust all people like that.”
“I don’t care about people. I only care about you. I’d never make scandals with other people.”
“My chest feels like it is locked in iron.
“I’m sorry. Mine feels so happy.”
“My dearest Catherine.”
“That’s good. You call me Catherine always when you want. I am your Catherine too. I’m always Catherine when you need her. We’d better go to sleep or should we start and see what happens?”
“Let’s first lie very quiet in the dark,” David said and lowered the latticed shade and they lay side by side on the bed in the big room in The Palace in Madrid where Catherine had walked in the Museo del Prado in the light of day as a boy and now she would show the dark things in the light and there would, it seemed to him, be no end to the change.
Chapter Eight
IN THE BUEN RETIRO in the morning it was as fresh as though it was a forest. It was green and the trunks of the trees were dark and the distances were all new. The lake was not where it had been and when they saw it through the trees it was quite changed.
“You walk ahead,” she said. “I want to look at you.
So he turned away from her and walked to where there was a bench and sat down. He could see a lake at a long distance and knew it was too far to ever walk to. He sat there on the bench and she sat down beside him and said, “It’s all right.”
But remorse had been there to meet him in the Retiro and now it was so bad he told Catherine that he would meet her at the cafe of The Palace.
“Are you all right? Do you want me to come with you?”
“No. I’m all right. I just have to go.
“I’ll see you there,” she said.