She put down the first notebook and the girl picked it up and held it on her lap, her eyes still watching Catherine.
Catherine read on and said nothing now. She was halfway through the second part. Then she tore the cahier in two and threw it on the floor.
“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s bestial. So that was what your father was like.”
“No,” said David. “But that was one way he was. You didn’t finish it.”
“Nothing would make me finish it.
“I didn’t want you to read it at all.”
“No. You both conspired to make me read it.”
“May I have the key, David, to lock it up?” the girl asked. She had retrieved the torn halves of the notebook from the floor. It
was just ripped apart. It was not torn across. David gave her his key.
“It’s even more horrible written in that child’s notebook,” Catherine said. “You’re a monster.”
“It was a very odd rebellion,” David said.
“You’re a very odd person to write about it,” she said.
“I asked you not to read the story.”
She was crying now. “I hate you,” she said.
They were in their room in bed and it was late.
“She’ll go away and you’ll have me shut up or put away, Catherine said.
“No. That isn’t true.”
“But you suggested we go to Switzerland.”
“If you were worried we could see a good doctor. The same way we’d go to the dentist.”
“No. They’d shut me up. I know. Everything that’s innocent to us is crazy to them. I know about those places.”
“It’s an easy drive and beautiful. We’d go by Aix and St. Remy and up the Rh6ne from Lyon to Geneva. We’d see him and get some good advice and make a fun trip out of it.”
“I won’t go.”
“A very good intelligent doctor that—”
“I won’t go. Didn’t you hear me? I won’t go. I won’t go. Do you want me to scream?”
“All right. Don’t think about it now. Just try to sleep.”
“If I don’t have to go.”
“We don’t have to.”
“I’ll sleep then. Are you going to work in the morning?”
“Yes. I might as well.”
“You’ll work well,” she said. “I know you will. Good night David. You sleep well too.”
He did not sleep for a long time. When he did he had dreams of Africa. They were good dreams until the one that woke him. He got up then and went direct from that dream to work. He was well into the new story before the sun came up out of the sea and he did not look up from where he was to see how red the sun was. In the story he was waiting for the moon to rise and he felt his dog’s hair rise under his hand as he stroked him to be quiet and they both watched and listened as the moon came up and gave them shadows. His arm was around the dog’s neck now and he could feel him shivering. All of the night sounds had stopped. They did not hear the elephant and David did not see him until the dog turned his head and seemed to settle into David. Then the elephant’s shadow covered them and he moved past making no noise at all and they smelled him in the light wind that came down from the mountain. He smelled strong but old and sour and when he was past David saw that the left tusk was so long it seemed to reach the ground. They waited but no other elephants came by and then David and the dog started off running in the moonlight. The dog kept close behind him and when David stopped the dog pressed his muzzle into the back of his knee. David had to see the bull again and they came up on him at the edge of the forest. He was travelling toward the mountain and slowly now moving into the steady night breeze. David came close enough to see him cut off the moon again and to smell the sour oldness but he could not see the right tusk. He was afraid to work closer with the dog and he took him back with the wind and pushed him down against the base of a tree and tried to make him understand. He thought the dog would stay and he did but when David moved up toward the bulk of the elephant again he felt the wet muzzle against the hollow of his knee.