"I thought I'd get to Carcassonne."
"No, Devil, please."
"Perhaps I can get off early and make Carcassonne. I'd go by Aries and Montpellier and not lose time by Nimes."
"If you get off late stop at Nimes."
"It seems so babyish," she said.
"I'll drive with you," he said. "I should."
"No, please. It's important that I do this by myself. It really is. I wouldn't have you."
"All right," he said. "But I ought to go."
"Please don't. You must have confidence in me, David. I'll drive carefully and I'll drive it right straight through."
"You couldn't, Devil. It gets dark early now.
"You mustn't worry. You're sweet to let me go," Catherine said. "But you always did. If I did anything I shouldn't I hope
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you can forgive me. I'll miss you terribly. I miss you already. Next time we'll drive it together."
"You've had a very busy day," David said. "You're tired. At least let me run your Bugatti down to town and back and give it a check."
He stopped at Marita's door and said, "Do you want to go for a ride?"
"Yes," she said.
"Come on then," he told her.
Chapter Twenty - seven DAVID GOT INTO THE CAR and Marita climbed in beside him and he put the car at a stretch of road where the sand drifted across from the beach and then throttled back and held it in, watching the papyrus grass ahead on his left and the empty beach and the sea on his right as he saw the black road ahead. He put the car at the road again until he saw the white painted bridge coming at him fast then held his speed as he calculated the distance, raised his foot from the throttle and pumped the brakes gently. She was steady and lost momentum at each pump with no devia tion and no binding. He brought the car to a stop before the bridge, downshifted and then put her at the road again in a rising disciplined snarl along the N.6 to Cannes. "She burned them all," he said. "Oh David," Marita said and they drove on into Cannes where the lights were on now and David stopped the car under the trees in front of the cafe where they had first met. "Wouldn't you rather go somewhere else?" Marita asked. "I don't care," David said. "It doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference."
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"If you'd rather just drive," Marita offered.
"No. I'd rather cool out," David said. "I just wanted to see if the car was in shape for her to drive it."
"She's going?"
"She says so."
They were sitting at the table on the terrace in the dappled shadow of the leaves of the trees. The waiter had brought Marita a Tio Pepe and David a whiskey and Perrier.
"Do you want me to go with her?" Marita said.
"You don't really think anything will happen to her?"
"No, David. I think she's done her damage for a while."
"Could be," David said. "She burned every fucking thing except the narrative. The stuff about her."
"It's a wonderful narrative," Marita said.
"Don't buck me up," David said. "I wrote it and I wrote what she burned. Don't give me the stuff they feed the troops."
"You can write them again."
"No," David told her. "When it's right you can't remember. Every time you read it again it comes as a great and unbelievable surprise. You can't believe you did it. When it's once right you never can do it again. You only do it once for each thing. And you're only allowed so many in your life."
"So many what?"
"So many good ones."
"But you can remember them. You must."
"Not me and not you and not anybody. They're gone. Once I get them right they're gone."
"She was wicked to you."
"No," David said.
"What then?"
"Hurried," David said. "Everything today was because she was hurried really."
"I hope you'll be as kind to me."
"You just stay around and help me not to kill her. You know what she's going to do don't you? She's going to pay me for the stories so that I won't lose anything."
"No."
"Yes she is. She's going to have her lawyers have them appraised in some fantastic Rube Goldberg manner and then she's going to pay me double the appraisal price."
"Truly, David, she didn't say that."
"She said it and it's infinitely sound. Only the details need working out and what's more the doubling of the appraisal or whatever makes it generous and gives her pleasure."
"You can't let her drive alone, David."
"I know it."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. But let's sit here for a little while," David said. "There isn't any hurry now. I think she's probably tired and gone to sleep. I'd like to go to sleep too, with you, and wake up and find the stuff all there and not gone and go to work again."
"We will sleep and someday when you wake up you'll work as wonderfully as you did this morning."
"You're awfully good," David said. "But you certainly got into a fine lot of trouble when you came in here that night, didn't
you?"
"Don't try to put me outside," Marita said. "I know what I got into."
"Sure," said David. "We both know. Do you want another drink?"
"If you do," Marita said and then, "I didn't know it was a battle when I came."
"Neither did I."
"With you it's really only you against time.
"Not the time that's Catherine's."
"Only because her time is different. She's panicked by it. You
said tonight that all of today was only hurry. That wasn't true but it was perceptive. And you won so well over time for so long."
Very much later he called for the waiter and paid for the drinks and left a good tip and he had started the car and put on the lights and was letting out the clutch when what had really happened came back to him again. It was back as clear and unblurred as when he had first looked into the trash burner and seen the ashes that had been stirred by the broomstick. He pushed his headlights carefully out through the quiet and empty evening of the town and followed them along the port onto the road. He felt Marita's shoulder by him and heard her say, "I know, David. It hit me too."
"Don't let it."
"I'm glad it did. There's nothing to do but we'll do it."
"Good."
"We'll really do it. Toi et moi."
Chapter Twenty-eight
AT THE HOTEL Madame came in from the kitchen when David and Marita came into the main room. She had a letter in her hand.
"Madame took the train for Biarritz," she said. "She left this letter for Monsieur."
'When did she go?" David asked.
"Immediately after Monsieur and Madame left," Madame Aurol said. "She sent the boy to the station for the ticket and to reserve a wagon-lit."
David began reading the letter.
'What would you eat?" Madame said. "Some cold chicken and a salad? An omelette to start. There's lamb too if Monsieur would rather. What would he like, Madame?"
Marita and Madame Aurol were talking together and David finished reading the letter. He put it in his pocket and looked at Madame Aurol. "Did she seem herself when she left?"
"Perhaps not, Monsieur."
"She'll be back," David said.
"Yes, Monsieur."
"We will take good care of her."
"Yes, Monsieur." She began to cry a little as she turned the omelette and David put his arm around her and kissed her. "Go and talk to Madame," she said, "and let me set the table. Aurol and the boy are at Napoule, mixing belote and politics."
"I'll set it," Marita said. "Open the wine, David, please. Don't you think we should have a bottle of the Lanson?"
He closed the door of the ice chest and holding the cold bottle untwisted the seal and loosened the wire and then carefully moved the cork between his thumb and first finger feeling the pinch of metal cap against his thumb and the long cold rounded promise of the bottle. He brought the cork out gently and poured three glasses full. Madame stood back from the stove with her glass and they all raised their glasses. David did not know what to drink to so he said the first words that came which were, "A nous et a la liberte."
They all drank and then Madame served the omelette and they all drank again without making a toast.
"Eat, David, please," Marita said.
"All right," he said and drank some of the wine and ate some of the omelette slowly.
"Just eat a little," Marita said. "It will be good for you."
Madame looked at Marita and shook her head. "Nothing is helped by your not eating," Madame told him.
"Sure," said David and ate slowly and carefully and drank the champagne that was born new each time he poured a glass.
"Where did she leave the car?" he asked.
"At the station," Madame said. "The boy rode down with her. He brought back the key. It's in your room.
'Was the wagon-lit crowded?"
"No. He put her aboard. There were very few passengers. She will have a place."
"It's not a bad train," David said.
"Eat some chicken," Madame said, "and drink some more wine. Op en another bottle. Your women are thirsty too."
"I'm not thirsty," Marita said.
"Yes, you are," Madame said. "Drink up now and take a bottle with you. I know this one. It's good for him to drink good wine."
"I don't want to drink too much, chbie," David said to Madame. "Because tomorrow is a bad day and I'd rather not feel bad too."
"You won't. I know you. Just eat now to please me.
She excused herself in a few minutes and was gone for a quarter of an hour. David ate all of his chicken and the salad finally and after she had come back they all had a glass of wine together and then David and Marita said good night to Madame who was very formal now and went out onto the terrace and looked at the night. They were both in a hurry and David was carrying the opened bottle of wine in an ice bucket. He put it down on the stove and took Marita in his arms and kissed her. They held each other close and said nothing and then David picked up the bucket and they walked to Marita's room.
Her bed had been made up now for two people and David put the ice bucket down on the floor and said, "Madame."
"Yes," Marita said. "Naturally."
They lay together with the night clear and cool outside and the small breeze from the sea and Marita said, "I love you, David, and it's so sure now.
Sure, David thought. Sure. Nothing is sure.
"All the time before now," Marita said, "before I could sleep all night with you I've thought and thought you wouldn't like the sort of wife who couldn't sleep."
"What sort of wife are you?"
"You'll see. A happy one now.
Then he felt it was a long time before he went to sleep but really it was not and when he woke at the first gray light he saw Marita in the bed beside him and was happy until he remembered what had happened. He was very careful not to wake her but when she stirred he kissed her before he stepped out of bed. She smiled and said, "Good morning, David," and he said, "Go back to sleep my dearest love."
She said, "All right," and rolled over quickly like a small animal and, dark headed, lay curled up with her closed eyes away from the light and her long dark shiny eyelashes against the rose brown early morning color of her skin. David looked at her and thought how beautiful she was and how he could see her spirit had not gone from her body when she slept. She was lovely and her coloring and the unbelievable smoothness of her skin were almost Javanese, he thought. He watched the coloring in her face deepen as the light grew stronger. Then he shook his head and carrying his clothing on his left arm opened and closed the door and went out into the new morning, walking barefoot on the stones that were still wet with dew.
In his and Catherine's room he took a shower, shaved, found a fresh shirt and shorts and put them on, looked around the empty bedroom, the first morning he had ever been in it with Catherine not there, and then went out to the empty kitchen and found a tin of Maquereau Vin Blanc Capitaine Cook and opened it and took it, perilous with edge-level juice, with a cold bottle of the Tuborg beer out to the bar.
He opened the beer, took the bottle top between his right thumb and the first joint of his right forefinger and bent it in until it was flattened together, put it in his pocket since he saw no container to toss it into, raised the bottle that was still cold to his hand and now beaded wet in his fingers and, smelling the aroma from the opened tin of spiced and marinated mackerel, he took a long drink of the cold beer, set it down on the bar and
took an envelope from his hip pocket and unfolded Catherine's letter and commenced to reread it.
David, I knew very suddenly you must know how terrible it was. Worse than hitting someone, a child is the worst I guess—with a car. The thump on the fender or maybe just a small bump and then all the rest of it happening and the crowd gathering to scream. The Frenchwoman screaming &rasseuse even if it was the child's fault. I did it and I knew I did it and I can't undo it. It's too awful to understand. But it happened.
I'll cut this short. I'll be back and we'll settle things the best we can. Do not worry at all. I'll wire and write and do all the things for my book so if you ever finish it only I will try to do this one thing. I had to burn the other things. The worst was being righteous about it but I don't have to tell you that. I do not ask for forgiveness but please have good luck and I will do everything as well as I can.
