Blind Date Read Free Page A

left ValPina, Levanter invited her to visit the underground lake of St. Leonard. The lake had been discovered when a huge boulder was displaced by a rockslide in an earth tremor that shook the valley just after the war.
    When they arrived at the narrow opening to the rectangular cavern, the custodian, a young man in a sheepskin coat, seemed surprised to see them. Although the fifty-foot-deep lake was a popular tourist attraction, visitors seldom came to St. Leonard in the winter because the cavern was too cold. He sold them tickets, and they followed him into the grotto, leaving the daylight behind.
    The narrow walkway was lit by dim electric bulbs. They reached the edge of the lake, but could not see the far end, a thousand feet away. The custodian untied one of the three boats moored to a rock and steadied it as first Levanter and then Pauline stepped in and sat down.
    Levanter started the boat moving with one powerful pull of the oars. They glided noiselessly into the shadowy space, breaking the still water and upsetting the reflection cast upon it by the bulbs attached to the rock roof. In seconds, the lights of the mooring site disappeared as Levanter rowed around a curving wall of rock. The cave opened before them, revealing massive walls of limestone, iron, and marble. Elsewhere, nature surrendered these raw materials to man, but here they seemed appropriated solely for nature’s own use. Levanter had the sense of intruding in the domain of an artist who worked hidden from the world.
    A school of albino fish flashed in the translucent waters around the boat. The custodian had told them that salmon were brought in; after weeks of being deprived of natural light, the fish lost their orange coloring and turned chalk-white.
    Levanter folded the oars, and the boat floated slowly. They were in the center of the cave, hardly moving. The light that reflected in the water seemed to be shining up from below the surface. Pauline’s shadowed face looked unfamiliar in the strange half-light.
    â€œIf the mountain above us collapsed and cut us off here —” she began. She waited for him to finish her thought.
    Levanter said, “We would just wait here together until they came to blast away the rocks.”
    â€œFor how long?” she murmured.
    â€œA few days, I guess. Maybe more. It would depend on how much rock fell over the entrance.”
    â€œWhat would we do while we waited to be rescued?”
    â€œTalk.”
    â€œTalk about what?”
    â€œAbout ourselves,” he told her. “Possibly for the last time.”
    â€œThen this could be our last talk,” she said, huddling down in the boat, drawing her long fox coat tightly around her.
    â€œIt could,” he agreed. “Still, this cave has brought us close to each other.”
    The fish darted from under the boat, their white bodies glittering in the faint light.
    â€œA baseball player I once knew,” said Levanter, “fell in love with a teen-age waitress in a small town where his team sometimes played. Soon the girl was in love with him too. Each time he came to town, they would lock themselves in his hotel room after the game and make love until they were exhausted. Some months later, he was bought by a major-league team and became a big star, playing only in large cities.”
    â€œWhy are you telling me this?” Pauline asked.
    Levanter smiled. “This is how we get close to one another. Besides, you’re a performer, like him. In any case, the baseball player didn’t get back to that town for a year. When he looked for the waitress, he learned that she’d become a hooker. He went to the club she hung out at and asked her to come to his hotel room. She said she didn’t like him anymore and refused to go with him. He thought she was teasing, so he assured her that he wanted her then as much as he had always wanted her — it was simply the circumstances of his life that had changed. Again