“There’s the difference in age and he was within his rights to hit her if she was insulting. She said so. At the end. And she sent you messages.
‘What messages?”
“Just loving messages.
“She loves you,” David said.
“No. You stupid. She’s only on my side.”
“There aren’t any sides anymore,” David said.
“No,” Marita said. “And we didn’t try to make sides. It just happened.”
“It happened all right.” David handed her the jar with the cut up artichoke heart and the dressing and found the second bottle of Tavel. It was still cool. He took a long drink of the wine. “We’ve been burned out,” he said. “Crazy woman burned out the Bournes.”
“Are we the Bournes?”
“Sure. We’re the Bournes. It may take a while to have the papers. But that’s what we are. Do you want me to write it out? I think I could write that.”
243
“You don’t need to write it.”
“I’ll write it in the sand,” David said.
They slept well and naturally through the late afternoon and when the sun was low Marita woke and saw David lying in the bed by her side. His lips were closed and he was breathing very slowly and she looked at his face and his covered eyes that she had only seen lidded in sleep twice before and looked at his chest and his body with the arms straight by his sides. She went over to the door of the bathroom and looked at herself in the full length mirror. Then she smiled at the mirror. When she was dressed she went out to the kitchen and talked with Madame.
Later, David was still asleep and she sat by him on the bed. In the dusk his hair was whitish against his dark face, and she waited for him to wake.
They sat at the bar and were both drinking Haig Pinch and Perrier. Marita was being very careful with her drink. She said, “I think you should go to town every day and get the papers and have a drink and read by yourself. I wish there was a club or a real cafe where you met your friends.”
“There isn’t”
“Well, I think it would be good every day for you to be away from me for a while when you’re not working. You’ve been over run with girls. I’m always going to see you have your men friends. That’s one thing very bad that Catherine did.”
“Not on purpose and it was my own fault.”
“Maybe that’s true. But do you think we’ll have friends? Good friends?”
“We each have one already.”
“Will we have others?”
“Maybe.”
.
“Will they take you away because they know more than I do?”
“They won’t know more.
“Will they come along young and new and fresh with new things and you be tired of me?”
“They won’t and I won’t be.”
“I’ll kill them if they do. I’m not going to give you away to anyone the way she did.”
“That’s good.”
“I want you to have men friends and friends from the war and to shoot with and to play cards at the club. But we don’t have to have you have women friends, do we? Fresh, new ones who will fall in love and really understand you and all that?”
“I don’t run around with women. You know that.”
“They are new all the time,” Marita said. “There are new ones every day. No one can ever be sufficiently warned. You most of all.”
“I love you,” David said, “and you’re my partner too. But take it easy. Just be with me.
“I’m with you.”
“I know it and I love to look at you and know you’re here and that we’ll sleep together and be happy.”
In the dark, Marita lay against him and he felt her breasts against his chest and her arm behind his head and her hand touching him and lips against his.
“I’m your girl,” she said in the dark. “Your girl. No matter what I’m always your girl. Your good girl who loves you.
“Yes, my dearest love. Sleep well. Sleep well.”
“You go to sleep first,” Marita said, “and I’ll be back in a minute.”