Zeb was already unbuttoning his shirt. I stepped up to him quickly and said privately, ‘Zeb! Mixed bathing? You must be joking?’
‘Not a bit of it.’ He searched my face. ‘Why not? What’s the matter with you, boy? Afraid someone will make you do penance? They won’t, you know. That’s all over with.’
‘But -‘
‘But what?’
I could not answer. The only way I could make the words come out would have been in the terms we had been taught in the Church, and I knew that Zeb would laugh at me-in front of the women. Probably they would laugh, too, since they had known and I hadn’t. ‘But Zeb,’ I insisted, ‘I can’t. You didn’t tell me . . . and I don’t even have a bathing outfit.’
‘Neither do I. Didn’t you ever go in raw as a kid-and get paddled for it?’ He turned away without waiting for me to answer this enormity and said, ‘Are you frail vessels waiting on something?’
‘Just for you two to finish your debate,’ Maggie answered, coming closer. ‘Zeb, I think Mimi and I will use the other side of that boulder. All right?’
‘Okay. But wait a second. No diving, you both understand. And a safety man on the bank at all times-John and I will take turns.’
‘Pooh!’ said Miriam. ‘1 dove the last time I was here.’
‘You weren’t with me, that’s sure. No diving-or I’ll warm your pants where they are tightest.’
She shrugged. ‘All right, Colonel Crosspatch. Come on, Mag.’ They went on past us and around a boulder half as big as a house. Miriam stopped, looked right at me, and waggled a finger. ‘No peeking, now!’ I blushed to my ears.
They disappeared and we heard no more of them, except for giggles. I said hurriedly, ‘Look. You do as you please-and on your own head be it. But I’m not going in. I’ll sit here on the bank and be safety man.’
‘Suit yourself. I was going to match you for first duty, but nobody is twisting your arm. Pay out a line, though, and have it ready for heaving. Not that we’ll need it; both the girls are strong swimmers.’
I said desperately, ‘Zeb, I’m sure the General would forbid swimming in these underground pools.’
‘That’s why we don’t mention it. “Never worry the C.O. unnecessarily”-standing orders in Joshua’s Army, circa 1400 B.C.’ He went right on peeling off his clothes.
I don’t know why Miriam warned me not to peek-not that I would!-for when she was undressed she came straight out from behind that boulder, not toward us but toward the water. But the flood light was full on her and she even turned toward us for an instant, then shouted, ‘Come on, Maggie! Zeb is going to be last if you hurry.’
I did not want to look and I could not take my eyes off her. I had never seen anything remotely resembling the sight she was in my life-and only once a picture, one in the possession of a boy in my parish school and on that occasion I had gotten only a glimpse and then had promptly reported him.
But I could not stop looking, burning with shame as I was.
Zeb beat Maggie into the water-I don’t think she cared. He went into the water quickly, almost breaking his own injunction against diving. Sort of a surface dive I would call it, running into the water and then breaking into a racing start. His powerful crawl was soon overtaking Miriam, who had started to swim toward the far end.
Then Maggie came out from behind the boulder and went into the water. She did not make a major evolution of it, the way Miriam had, but simply walked quickly and with quiet grace into the water. When she was waist deep, she let herself sink forward and struck out in a strong breast stroke, then shifted to a crawl and followed the others, when I could hear but hardly see in the distance.
Again I could not take my eyes away if my eternal soul had depended on it. What is it about the body of a human woman that makes it the most terribly beautiful sight on earth? Is it, as some claim, simply a necessary instinct to make sure that we comply with God’s will and replenish the earth? Or is it some stranger, more wonderful thing?