The two of them followed the elephant until he came to an opening in the trees. He stood there moving his huge ears. His
bulk was in the shadow but the moon would be on his head. David reached behind him and closed the dog’s jaws gently with his hand and then moved softly and unbreathing to his right along the edge of the night breeze feeling it on his cheek, edging with it, never letting it get between him and the bulk until he could see the elephant’s head and the great ears slowly moving. The right tusk was as thick as his own thigh and it curved down almost to the ground.
He and the dog moved back, the wind on his neck now, and they backtracked out of the forest and into the open park country. The dog was ahead of him now and he stopped where David had left the two hunting spears by the trail when they had followed the elephant. He swung them over his shoulder in their thong and leather cup harness and, with his best spear that he had kept with him all the time in his hand, they started on the trail for the shamba. The moon was high now and he wondered why there was no drumming from the shamba. Something was strange if his father was there and there was no drumming.
Chapter Nineteen
THEY WERE LYING on the firm sand of the smallest of the three coves, the one they always went to when they were alone, and the girl said, “She won’t go to Switzerland.”
“She shouldn’t go to Madrid either. Spain is a bad place to crack up.”
“I feel as though we’d been married all our lives and never had anything but problems.” She pushed his hair back from his forehead and kissed him. “Do you want to swim now?”
“Yes. Let’s dive from the high rock. The really high one.”
“You do,” she said. “I’ll swim out and you dive over my head.”
“All right. But hold still when I dive.”
“See how close you can come.
Looking up, she watched him poised on the high rock, arced brown against the blue sky. Then he came toward her and the water rose in a spout from a hole in the water behind her shoulder. He turned under water and came up in front of her and shook his head. “I cut it too fine,” he said.
They swam out to the point and back and then wiped each other dry and dressed on the beach.
“You really liked me diving that close?”
“I loved it.”
He kissed her and she felt cool and fresh from the swimming and she still tasted of the sea.
Catherine came in while they were still sitting at the bar. She was tired and quiet and polite.
At the table she said, “I went to Nice and then drove the little Corniche and I stopped up above Villefranche and watched a battle cruiser come in and then it was late.”
“You weren’t very late,” Marita said.
“But it was very strange,” Catherine said. “All the colors were too bright. Even the grays were bright. The olive trees were glittery.”
“That’s the noon light,” David said.
“No. I don’t think so,” she said. “It wasn’t very nice and it was lovely when I stopped to watch the ship. She didn’t look big to have such a big name.”
“Please eat some of the steak,” David said. “You’ve eaten hardly anything.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s good. I like tournedos.”
‘Would you like something instead of the meat?”
“No. I’ll eat the salad. Do you think we could have a bottle of the Perrier-Jouet?”
“Of course.”
“It was always such a nice wine,” she said. “And we were always so happy with it.”
Afterward in their room Catherine said, “Don’t worry, David, please. It’s just speeded up so much lately.”
“How?” he asked. He was stroking her forehead.
“I don’t know. All of a sudden I was old this morning and it wasn’t even the right time of year. Then the colors started to be false. I worried and wanted to get you taken care of.”