Bradbury, Ray - SSC 09 Read Online Free PDF Page B

She
sat on the bed, again and again stroking the towel laid across her lap. Her
eyes were blind as the brown paps of her breasts. She
did not see him or the room. She knew that if he snapped his fingers or
coughed, she wouldn’t even look up.
                 “They
were eating fruit at her funeral, and laughing,” she said.
                 “It’s
a long climb to the cemetery.”
                 She
shuddered, a convulsive motion, like a fish trying to free itself from a
deep-swallowed hook. She lay back and he looked at her as one examines a poor
sculpture; all criticism, all quiet and easy and uncaring. She wondered idly
just how much his hands had had to do with the
broadening and flattening and changement of her body.
Certainly this was not the body he’d started with. It was past saving now. Like
clay which the sculptor has carelessly impregnated with water, it was
impossible to shape again. In order to shape clay you warm it with your hands,
evaporate the moisture with heat. But there was no more of that fine summer
weather between them. There was no warmth to bake away the aging moisture that
collected and made pendant now her breasts and body. When the heat is gone, it
is marvelous and unsettling to see how quickly a vessel stores self-destroying
water in its cells.
                 “I
don’t feel well,” she said. She lay there, thinking it over. “I don’t feel
well,” she said again, when he made no response. After another minute or two
she lifted herself. “Let’s not stay here another night, Joe.”
                 “But
it’s a wonderful town.”
                 “Yes,
but we’ve seen everything.” She got up. She knew what came next. Gayness, blitheness, encouragement, everything quite false and
hopeful. “We could go on to Patzcuaro . Make it
in no time. You won’t have to pack, I’ll do it all myself, darling! We can get
a room at the Don Posada there. They say it’s a beautiful little town—”
                 “This,”
he remarked, “is a beautiful little town.”
                 “Bougainvillea
climb all over the buildings—” she said.
                 “These—”
he pointed to some flowers at the window”—are bougainvillea.”
                 “—and
we’d fish, you like fishing,” she said in bright haste. “And I’d fish, too, I’d
learn, yes, I would, I’ve always wanted to learn! And they say the Tarascan Indians there are
almost Mongoloid in feature, and don’t speak much Spanish, and from there we
could go to Paracutin , that’s near Uruapan , and they have some of the finest lacquered
boxes there, oh, it’ll be fun, Joe. I’ll pack. You just take it easy, and—”
                 “Marie.”
                 He
stopped her with one word as she ran to the bathroom door.
                 “Yes?”
                 “I
thought you said you didn’t feel well?”
                 “I
didn’t. I don’t. But, thinking of all those swell places—”
                 “We
haven’t seen one-tenth of this town,” he explained logically. “There’s that
statue of Morelos on the hill, I want a shot of that,
and some of that French architecture up the street .  . .
we’ve traveled three hundred miles and we’ve been here one day and now want to
rush off somewhere else. I’ve already paid the rent for another
night. . . .”
                 “You
can get it back,” she said.
                 “Why
do you want to run away?” he said, looking at her with an attentive simplicity.
“Don’t you like the town?”
                 “I
simply adore it,” she said, her cheeks white, smiling. “It’s so green and
pretty.”
                 “Well,
then,” he said. “Another day. You’ll love it. That’s
settled.”
                 She
started to speak.