Garden of Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

instead of the syphon. The waiter poured two large Armagnacs
and the young man put ice in the big glasses and poured in the Perrier.
     
    "This
will fix us," he said. "It's a hell of a thing to drink before lunch
though."
     
    The
girl took a long sip. "It's good," she said. "It has a fresh
clean healthy ugly taste." She took another long sip. "I can really
feel it. Can you?"
     
    "Yes,"
he said and took a deep breath. "I can feel it."
     
    She
drank from the glass again and smiled and the laugh wrinkles came at the corner
of her eyes. The cold Perrier had made the heavy brandy alive.
     
    "For
heroes," he said.
     
    "I
don't mind being a hero," she said. "We're not like other people. We
don't have to call each other darling or my dear or my love nor any of that to
make a point. Darling and my dearest and my very dearest and all that are
obscene to me and we call each other by our Christian names. You know what I'm
trying to say. Why do we have to do other things like everyone does?"
     
    "You're
a very intelligent girl."
     
    "All
right Davie," she said. "Why do we have to be stuffy? Why don't we
keep on and travel now when it can never be more fun? We'll do everything you
want. If you'd been a European with a lawyer my money would have been yours any
way. It is yours."
     
    "The
hell with it."
     
    "All
right. The hell with it. But we'll spend it and I think it's wonderful. You can
write afterwards. That way we can have the fun before I have a baby for one
thing. How do I know when I'll have a baby even? Now it's all getting dull and
dusty talking about it. Can't we just do it and not talk about it?"
     
    "What
if I want to write? The minute you're not going to do something it will
probably make you want to do it."
     
    "Then
write, stupid. You didn't say you wouldn't write. Nobody said anything about
worrying if you wrote. Did they?"
     
    But
somewhere something had been said and now he could not remember it because he
had been thinking ahead.
     
    "If
you want to write go ahead and I'll amuse myself. I don't have to leave you
when you write do I?"
     
    "But
where would you like us to go now when people begin to come here?"
     
    "Anywhere
you want to go. Will you do it, David?"
     
    "For
how long?"
     
    "For
as long as we want. Six months. Nine months. A year."
     
    "All
right," he said.
     
    "Really?"
"Sure. "You're awfully good. If I didn't love you for anything else
I'd love you for decisions." "They're easy to make when you haven't
seen how too many of them can turn out." He drank the hero drink but it
did not taste so good and he ordered a fresh bottle of cold Perrier and made a
short drink without ice. "Make me one please. Short like yours. And then
let's let it start and have lunch."
     

–3–
     
     
    THAT
NIGHT IN BED when they were still awake she said in the dark, "We don't
always have to do the devil things either. Please know that."
     
    "I
know."
     
    "I
love it the way we were before and I'm always your girl. Don't ever be lonely.
You know that. I'm how you want but I'm how I want too and it isn't as though
it wasn't for us both. You don't have to talk. I'm only telling a story to put
you to sleep because you're my good lovely husband and my brother too. I love
you and when we go to Africa I'll be your African girl too."
     
    "Are
we going to Africa?"
     
    "Aren't
we? Don't you remember? That was what it was about today. So we could go there
or anywhere. Isn't that where we're going?"
     
    "Why
didn't you say it?"
     
    "I
didn't want to interfere. I said wherever you wanted. I'd go anywhere. But I
thought that was where you wanted."
     
    "It's
too early to go to Africa now. It's the big rains and after wards the grass is
too high and it's very cold." "We could go to bed and keep warm and
hear the rain on a tin roof." "No, it's too early. The roads turn to
mud and you can't get around and everything is like a swamp and the grass gets
so tall you cans t see. "Then where should we go?" "We can go to
Spain but