Garden of Eden Read Free

am? You're sure.
     
    "Yes,"
he said. "So much yes."
     
    "Because
I'm going to be changed."
     
    "No,"
he said. "No. Not changed."
     
    "I'm
going to," she said. "It's for you. It's for me too. I won't pretend
it's not. But it will do something to you. I'm sure but I shouldn't say it."
     
    "I
like surprises but I like everything the way it is just now at this
minute."
     
    "Then
maybe I shouldn't do it," she said. "Oh I'm sad. It was such a
wonderful dangerous surprise. I thought about it for days and I didn't decide
until this morning."
     
    "If
it's something you really want."
     
    "It
is," she said. "And I'm going to do it. You've liked everything we've
done so far haven't you?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "All
right."
     
    She
slipped out of bed and stood straight with her long brown legs and her
beautiful body tanned evenly from the far beach where they swam without suits.
She held her shoulders back and her chin up and she shook her head so her heavy
tawny hair slapped around her cheeks and then bowed forward so it all fell
forward and covered her face. She pulled the striped shirt over her head and
then shook her hair back and then sat in the chair in front of the mirror on
the dresser and brushed it back looking at it critically. It fell to the top of
her shoulders. She shook her head at the mirror. Then she pulled on her slacks
and belted them and put on her faded blue rope-soled shoes.
     
    "I
have to ride up to Aigues Mortes," she said.
     
    "Good,"
he said. "I'll come too."
     
    "No.
I have to go alone. It's about the surprise."
     
    She
kissed him goodbye and went down and he watched her mount her bicycle and go up
the road riding smoothly and easily, her hair blowing in the wind.
     
    The
afternoon sun was in the window now and the room was too warm. The young man
washed and put on his clothes and went down to walk on the beach. He knew he
should swim but he was tired and after he had walked along the beach and then
along a path through the salt grass that led inland for a way he went back
along the beach to the port and climbed up to the cafe. In the cafe he found
the paper and ordered himself a fine á l'eau because he felt empty and hollow
from making love.
     
    They
had been married three weeks and had come down on the train from Paris to
Avignon with their bicycles, a suitcase with their town clothes, and a rucksack
and a musette bag. They stayed at a good hotel in Avignon and left the suitcase
there and had thought that they would ride to the Pont du Gard. But the mistral
was blowing so they rode with the mistral down to Nimes and stayed there at the
Imperator and then had ridden down to Aigues Mortes still with the heavy wind
behind them and then on to le Grau du Roi. They had been there ever since.
     
    It
had been wonderful and they had been truly happy and he had not known that you
could love anyone so much that you cared about nothing else and other things
seemed inexistent. He had many problems when he married but he had thought of
none of them here nor of writing nor of anything but being with this girl whom
he loved and was married to and he did not have the sudden deadly clarity that
had always come after intercourse.
     
    That
was gone. Now when they had made love they would eat and drink and make love
again. It was a very simple world and he had never been truly happy in any
other. He thought that it must be the same with her and certainly she acted in
that way but today there had been this thing about the change and the surprise.
But maybe it would be a happy change and a good surprise. The brandy and water
as he drank it and read the local paper made him look forward to whatever it
was.
     
    This
was the first time since they had come on the wedding trip that he had taken a
drink of brandy or whiskey when they were not together. But he was not working
and his only rules about drinking were never to drink before or while he was
working. It would be good to work again but that would come soon enough as