Along the Infinite Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

half past ten, shortly before the Jew’s arrival, I became aware of an immense heat taking shape in the air nearby. I waited for this body to carry on into the garden, or the scrubby sea lawn sloping toward the cliffs, but instead it lingered quietly, smelling of liquor and cigarettes. Without turning my head, I said, in English, “I’m sorry. Am I in your way?”
    â€œI beg your pardon. I did not wish to disturb you.” The English came without hesitation, a fluid intermingling of High German and British public schools, delivered in a thick bass voice.
    I told him, without turning my head, that he hadn’t. I knew how to kick away these unwanted advances from my father’s accidental strays. (The nuns, remember.)
    â€œVery good,” he said, but he didn’t leave.
    He occupied a massive hole in the darkness behind me, and that—combined with the massive voice, the hint of dialect—suggested that this man was Herr von Kleist, an army general and Junker baron who had arrived three days ago in a magnificent black Mercedes Roadster with a single steamer trunk and no female companion. How he knew my father, I couldn’t say; not that prior acquaintance with the host was any requirement for staying at the Villa Vanilla. (That was my name for the house, in reference to the sandy-pale stone with which it was built.) I had spoken to him a few times, in the evenings before dinner. He always sat alone, holding a single small glass of liquor.
    I rose to a sitting position and swung my feet down from the wall. “I’ll leave you to yourself, then,” I said, and I prepared to jump down.
    â€œNo, please.” He waved his hand. “Do not stir yourself.”
    â€œI was about to leave anyway.”
    â€œNo, you mistake me. I only came to see if you were well. I saw you steal out here and lie on the garden wall.” He gestured again. “I hope you are not unwell.”
    â€œI’m quite well, thank you.”
    â€œThen why are you here, alone?”
    â€œBecause I like to be alone.”
    He nodded. “Yes, of course. This is what I thought about you, when you were playing your cello for us the other night.”
    He was dressed in a precise white jacket and tie, making him seem even larger than he did by day, and unlike the other guests he had no cigarette with him, no glass of some cocktail or another to occupy his hands, though I smelled both in the air surrounding him. The moon was new, and I couldn’t see his face, just the giant outline of him, the smudge of shadow against the night. But I detected a slight nervousness, a particle of anxiety lying between me and the sea. I’d seen manythings at the Villa Vanilla, but I hadn’t seen nervousness, and it made me curious.
    â€œReally? Why did you think that?”
    â€œBecause—” He stopped and switched to French. “Because you are different from the others here. You are too young and new. You shouldn’t be here.”
    â€œNone of us should be here, really. It is a great scandal, isn’t it?”
    â€œBut you particularly. Watching this.” Another gesture, this time at the terrace on the other side of the wall, and the shimmering figures inside it.
    â€œOh, I’m used to that.”
    â€œI’m very sorry to hear that.”
    â€œWhy should you be sorry? You’re a part of it, aren’t you? You came here willingly, unlike me, who simply lives here and can’t help it. I expect you know what goes on, and why. I expect you’re here for your share.”
    He hesitated. There was a flash of light from the house, or perhaps the driveway, and it lit the top of his head for an instant. He had an almost Scandinavian cast to him, this baron, so large and fair. (I pictured a Viking longboat invading some corner of Prussia, generations ago.) His hair was short and bristling and the palest possible shade of blond; his eyes were the color of Arctic sea