“Did you ask old man Aurol about it?”
“Yes. He was pleased.”
“I’d better pay him corkage on that Bollinger or something.”
“I gave him four bottles and two very good bottles of fine. He’s taken care of. It was Madame I was afraid of about trouble.”
“You were absolutely right.”
“I don’t want to make trouble, David.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do.”
The young waiter had come in with more ice and David made two martinis and gave her one. The waiter put in the garlic olives and then went back to the kitchen.
“I’ll go and see how Catherine is,” the girl said. “Things will turn out or they won’t.”
She was gone for about ten minutes and he felt of the girl’s drink and decided to drink it before it got warm. He took it in his hand and raised it to his lips and he found as it touched his lips that it gave him pleasure because it was hers. It was clear and undeniable. That’s all you need, he thought. That’s all you need to make things really perfect. Be in love with both of them. What’s happened to you since last May? What are you anymore anyway? But he touched the glass to his lips again and there was the same reaction as before. All right, he said, remember to do the work. The work is what you have left. You better fork up with the work.
The girl came back and when he saw her come in, her face happy, he knew how he felt about her.
“She’s getting dressed,” the girl said. “She feels fine. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes,” he said, loving Catherine too as always.
“What happened to my drink?”
“I drank it,” he said. “Because it was yours.
“Truly, David?” She blushed and was happy.
“That’s as well as I can put it,” he said. “Here’s a new one.
She tasted it and passed her lips very lightly over the rim and then passed it to him and he did the same and took a long sip. “You’re very beautiful,” he said. “And I love you.
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Chapter Fifteen
HE HEARD THE BUGATTI start and the noise came as a surprise and an intrusion because there was no motor noise in the country where he was living. He was completely detached from every thing except the story he was writing and he was living in it as he built it. The difficult parts he had dreaded he now faced one after another and as he did the people, the country, the days and the nights, and the weather were all there as he wrote. He went on working and he felt as tired as if he had spent the night crossing the broken volcanic desert and the sun had caught him and the others with the dry gray lakes still ahead. He could feel the weight of the heavy double-barreled rifle carried over his shoulder, his hand on the muzzle, and he tasted the pebble in his mouth. Across the shimmer of the dry lakes he could see the distant blue of the escarpment. Ahead of him there was no one, and behind was the long line of porters who knew that they had reached this point three hours too late.
It was not him, of course, who had stood there that morning, nor had he even worn the patched corduroy jacket faded almost white now, the armpits rotted through by sweat, that he took off
then and handed to his Kamba servant and brother who shared with him the guilt and knowledge of the delay, watching him smell the sour, vinegary smell and shake his head in disgust and then grin as he swung the jacket over his black shoulder holding it by the sleeves as they started off across the dry-baked gray, the gun muzzles in their right hands, the barrels balanced on their shoulders, the heavy stocks pointing back toward the line of porters.
It was not him, but as he wrote it was and when someone read it, finally, it would be whoever read it and what they found when they should reach the escarpment, if they reached it, and he would make them reach its base by noon of that day; then whoever read it would find what there was there and have it always.