The Same Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

venue then goes
off to the pub to drink with young fans and groupies.

She comes to him hut he is busy
    She has made him some tea and brought him some crackers and olives
and goat cheese on a tray and now here she is barefoot in the doorway
of his room, feeling partly like a daughter and partly like a waitress,
waiting for him to turn his tired head. But he has not noticed. He
is hunched over a document, absorbed in checking the details
of the rotten agreement she has so incautiously signed. She has been
taken for a ride. She had such high hopes. He finds that all she gets
in return for the money is not a commitment but, at best, only
a conditional intent. It is a contemptible contract, yet so full of holes
that even without lawyers there is a fair chance of rescuing her
and putting pressure on him to pay back the money.
    Barefoot with her tray she waits for him to notice her. If she calls him
he will start and his voice will tremble. Yesterday evening she said Albert
and he jumped, almost shuddered. What will happen if she touches
his hand, not like a woman but like a child asking
When are you going to stop being busy?
    He glances at his watch: ten to five. Ten to nine out in Nepal. He'll
pay it back, and how: we'll scare him. At the meeting
tomorrow we'll point out, here and here, how we'll nail him if he tries
to get clever. On the other hand, if he admits his errors and makes amends,
our side may consider taking no further action on this occasion.
    While he is still making notes, the tray arrives with the touch of her hand,
not like a daughter but like a bold schoolgirl, deliberately
teasing a middle-aged teacher who is shy but endearing.

He isn't lost and even if he is
    Crystalline silence, transparent and blue.
The wind has died. Over deserted plains
a veil of glassy frost descends.
    Cold and empty. Vast. Just over the horizon
according to the map there is a little village.
There is no sign of the village. Perhaps he is lost.
    He will press on a little further. If he is lost
never mind: he will give up and go back
silently. The way he came.
    The road is level. The frost is fine and bright
Beside the sea his father is waiting
and beyond, in the depths, his mother.

Desire
    His father is waiting and so is his mother and Dita is with them
in a strange shack and the woman Maria and the mountain shadows
and the roar of the sea and David and Michal and Jonathan too,
and there is no limit to their passionate longing many waters cannot quench
and mighty rivers cannot drown. See, he is returning to them filled.

Like a miser who has sniffed a rumor of gold
    But what is the Narrator trying to say? Is he resentful? Is his blood pounding
or his heart aching or his flesh bristling on the threshold? Here he has made
a list of words: in the word woods there is a vague dread. In the word hills is
a world of lust. If you say shack, or meadow, or wayfarer, rain, compassion,
at once he lights up like a miser who has sniffed a rumor of gold. Or if,
for instance, the evening paper prints the phrase "new horizons," at once
I am on my way to bathe twice in the same river.

Shame
    A miser who has sniffed a rumor of gold should wrap himself in dark robes.
Mr. Danon is working as usual compiling balance sheets on his computer
screen. Next screen previous screen. Checking every entry. His heart is not
in it. In vain he clears his mind, he has no refuge from her smell. Her smell
on her towel her smell on her sheets whom did she call whom did she talk to.
Her smell in the kitchen where has she gone where has she gone when
will she be back in the hall her smell in the living room her smell who
has she gone out with what is there between them. Her smell in the bathroom
where has she gone and what if she is taken for a ride again. The smell
of her shampoo. Her smell in the laundry basket. Where has she gone. When
will she be back. She'll be back late. In the Himalayas it's already tomorrow.
Where can I hide from her smell.
    He lies in the dark with