Emmanuelle Read Online Free PDF Page B

diversion to escape from the group, saying that she did not want to keep her husband waiting. She hurried toward her cabana.
    “Do you think the guest room could be ready in a few days?” Emmanuelle’s husband asked her when they sat down to dinner.
    The folding walls, pushed back now, opened onto a rectangle of water in which lotuses, pink, purple, white, or blue in the morning, nodded their green calyxes in the evening.
    “It can be used right now, if necessary. Only the curtains and multicolored cushions I want to put on the bed are missing. Ah, yes, a lamp, too.”
    “I’d like it to be completed a week from Sunday.”
    “I’m sure it will be. It won’t take ten days to put in those things. But what do you want to do with it? Is someone coming?”
    “Yes, Christopher . . . you know, he’s been in charge of the Malaysian office for the past month. I invited him before you came. He’s just answered. It’s worked out perfectly . . . the company is sending him on a tour of Thailand, so he’ll be able to spend several weeks with us. He’s a very nice fellow, you’ll see. It’s been almost three years since I saw him last.”
    “Isn’t he the one who stayed with you at Aswan after the dam was built?”
    “Yes, he was the only one who didn’t lose his nerve.”
    “I remember now. You told me how serious he was . . .”
    Jean laughed at her pout. “He’s serious, yes, but he’s not gloomy. I like him, and I’m sure you will, too.”
    “How old is he?”
    “He’s six or seven years younger than I am. He was just out of Oxford at the time.”
    “He’s English?”
    “No. Only half . . . his mother is English. But his father is one of the founders of the company. Don’t think he’s a spoiled brat, though. He’s a hard worker. You can rely on him.”
    Emmanuelle was a little disappointed to learn that her intimacy with Jean would be disturbed so soon after she had regained it. Even so, she decided to give a warm welcome to the visitor who meant so much to him. She recalled having seen photographs showing Christopher as a tanned, athletic explorer with a reassuring smile, and, after all, she would rather have him as a guest than the paunchy old inspectors whom she would later, no doubt, have to guide through the sights of the city, protecting them from sunstroke and mosquitoes.
    She asked about other details, avid for images of the dangerous years before Jean had met her. If he had been killed then, she would never have become his wife. This thought made her heart tighten and she was unable to continue eating.
    The houseboy moved around the table, bringing coconuts filled with custard and caramel, after the polished rice and the flower fritters that the old cook with red teeth had spent three days preparing in honor of the new mistress. He walked by rising alternately on the ball of each foot, as if he were about to leap. Emmanuelle was a bit afraid of him. He made too little noise, he was too strong and lithe, too neat, too ubiquitous—too much like a cat.
    Marie-Anne arrived in a white American car driven by an Indian chauffeur with a turban and a black beard. He left as soon as she had gotten out. “Will you be able to drive me home, Emmanuelle?” she asked.
    Emmanuelle was struck by her familiarity and also noticed, more than the day before, how much Marie-Anne’s voice was in harmony with her braids and her skin. She had an impulse to kiss the girl on both cheeks, but something held her back. Was it the pointed little breasts under her blue blouse? Ridiculous!
    Marie-Anne was standing close to her. “Don’t pay any attention to the stories those idiots tell,” she said. “They’re always bragging. They don’t do a tenth of what they say they do.”
    “Of course,” Emmanuelle agreed after taking a second to realize that Marie-Anne was referring to the older women at the pool. “Shall we sit on the terrace?”
    Marie-Anne accepted the proposal with a nod. They went up to the second