Dusk and Other Stories Read Free Page A

coast past cheap bathing beaches, campgrounds, houses, hotels. Between the road and the sea is the railroad with small tunnels built beneath it for bathers to reach the water.After a while this begins to disappear. They drive along almost deserted stretches.
    “In Sitges,” Inge says, “are all the blond girls of Europe. Sweden, Germany, Holland. You’ll see.”
    Malcolm watches the road.
    “The brown eyes of the Spaniards are irresistible to them,” she says.
    She reaches across him to blow the horn.
    “Look at them! Look at them crawling along!
    “They come here full of hopes,” Inge says. “They save their money, they buy little bathing suits you could put in a spoon, and what happens? They get loved for one night, perhaps, that’s all. The Spanish don’t know how to treat women.”
    Nico is silent in the back. On her face is the calm expression which means she is bored.
    “They know nothing,” Inge says.
    Sitges is a little town with damp hotels, the green shutters, the dying grass of a beach resort. There are cars parked everywhere. The streets are lined with them. Finally they find a place two blocks from the sea.
    “Be sure it’s locked,” Inge says.
    “Nobody’s going to steal it,” Malcolm tells her.
    “Now you don’t think it’s so nice,” she says.
    They walk along the pavement, the surface of which seems to have buckled in the heat. All around are the flat, undecorated facades of houses built too close together. Despite the cars, the town is strangely vacant. It’s two o’clock. Everyone is at lunch.
    Malcolm has a pair of shorts made from rough cotton, the blue glazed cotton of the Tauregs. They have a little belt, slim as a finger, which goes only halfway around. He feels powerful as he puts them on. He has a runner’s body, a body without flaws, the body of a martyr in a Flemish painting. One can see vessels laid like cord beneath the surface of his limbs. The cabins have a concrete backwall and hemp underfoot. His clothes hang shapeless from a peg. He steps into the corridor. The women are still undressing, he does not know behind which door. There is a small mirror hung from a nail. He smooths his hair and waits. Outside is the sun.
    The sea begins with a sloping course of pebbles sharp as nails. Malcolm goes in first. Nico follows without a word. The water is cool. He feels it climb his legs, touch the edge of his suit and then with a swell—he tries to leap high enough—embrace him. He dives. He comes up smiling. The taste of salt is on his lips. Nico has dived, too. She emerges close by, softly, and draws her wetted hair behind her with one hand. She stands with her eyes half-closed, not knowing exactly where she is. He slips an arm around her waist. She smiles. She possesses a certain, sure instinct of when she is most beautiful. For a moment they are in serene dependence. He lifts her in his arms and carries her, helped by the sea, toward the deep. Her head rests on his shoulder. Inge lies on the beach in her bikini reading Stern .
    “What’s wrong with Inge?” he says.
    “Everything.”
    “No, doesn’t she want to come in?”
    “She’s having her period,” Nico says.
    They lie down beside her on separate towels. She is, Malcolm notices, very brown. Nico can never get that way no matter how long she stays outside. It is almost a kind of stubbornness as if he, himself, were offering her the sun and she would not accept.
    She got this tan in a single day, Inge tells them. A single day! It seems unbelievable. She looks at her arms and legs as if confirming it. Yes, it’s true. Naked on the rocks at Cadaques. She looks down at her stomach and in doing so induces it to reveal several plump, girlish rolls.
    “You’re getting fat,” Nico says.
    Inge laughs. “They are my savings,” she says.
    They seem like that, like belts, like part of some costume she iswearing. When she lies back, they are gone. Her limbs are clean. Her stomach, like the rest of her, is covered