Читать книгу Along the Infinite Sea: Love, friendship and heartbreak, the perfect summer read - Beatriz Williams, Beatriz Williams - Страница 27

I woke up suddenly at three o’clock in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. The wind had changed direction, drawing the yacht around on her mooring; you started to notice these things when you’d been living on a ship for a week and a half, the subtle tugs and pulls on the architecture around you, the various qualities of the air. My legs twitched restlessly. I rose from my bed and went out on deck.

The night was clear and dry and unnaturally warm. I had been right about the change in wind: the familiar shape of the Île Sainte-Marguerite now rose up to port, lit by a buoyant white moon. I made my way down the deck, and I had nearly reached the railing when I realized that Stefan’s deck chair was still out, and Stefan was in it.

I spun around, expecting his voice to reach me, some comment rich with entendre. But he lay still, overflowing the chair, and in the pale glow of the moon it seemed as if his eyes were closed. I thought, I should go back to my cabin right now.

But my cabin was hot and stuffy, and while it was hot outside, here in the still Mediterranean night, at least there was moving air. I stepped carefully to the rail, making as little noise as possible, and stared down at the inviting ripples of cool water, the narrow silver path of moonlight daring me toward the jagged shore of the island.

If I were still a girl on Cape Cod, I thought, I would take that dare. If I hadn’t spent seven years at a convent, learning to subdue myself, I would dive right off this ship and swim two hundred yards around the rocks and cliffs and the treacherous Pointe du Dragon to stagger ashore on the Île Sainte-Marguerite, where France’s most notorious prisoner spent a decade of his life, dreaming over the sea. I had been like that, once; I had taken dares. I had swum fearlessly into the surf. When had I evaporated into this sapless young lady, observing life, living wholly on the inside, waiting for everything to happen to me? When had I decided the risk wasn’t worth the effort?

I looked back over my shoulder, at Stefan’s quiet body. He wasn’t wearing his pajamas, I realized. He was wearing something else, a suit, a dinner jacket. As if he were waiting to meet someone, at three o’clock in the morning, on the deck of his yacht; as if he had a glamorous appointment of some kind, and the lady was late. The blood splintered down my veins, making me dizzy, the kind of drunkenness that comes from a succession of dry martinis swallowed too quickly.

You should wake him, I thought. You should do it. You have to be kissed by someone, sometime. Why not him? Why not here and now, in the moonlight, by somebody familiar with the practice of kissing?

“Good evening,” he said.

I nearly flipped over the railing, backward into the sea. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

“I’m here most nights. The cabin’s too stuffy for me.” He sat up and swung his left foot down to the deck, next to a silver bucket, glinting in the moonlight. “Join me. I have champagne.”

“At this hour?”

“Can you think of a better one?”

“I don’t drink on duty.”

“But you’re not on duty, are you? You have tendered your resignation to me, and rather coldly at that, considering what we have shared.” He rested his elbow on his left knee and considered me. I was wearing my nightgown and my dressing gown belted over it, like a Victorian maiden afraid of ravishment. My hair was loose and just touched my shoulders. “Is something the matter?” he said.

“No.”

“There must be something the matter. It’s not even dawn yet, and here you are, out on deck, looking as if you mean to do something dramatic.”

I laughed. “Do I? I can’t imagine what. I don’t do dramatic things.”

“Oh, no. You only wrap tourniquets around the legs of dying men—”

“You weren’t dying, not quite, and anyway, I wasn’t the one who put the tourniquet on you.”

He waved his hand. “You carry him in a boat across the sea—”

“Across a harbor, a very still and familiar harbor.”

“Toward an unknown destination, a yacht, and you nurse him back to health. All without knowing who he is, and why he’s there, and why he’s been shot through the leg and nearly killed. Whether you’ve just committed an illegal act and are now wanted by a dozen different branches of the police.”

“Am I?”

“I doubt it. Not in France, in any case.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

He reached into his inside jacket pocket and drew out his cigarette case. “So I’ve been lying here, day after day, and wondering why. Why you would do such a thing.”

“You might just have asked me.”

“I was afraid of your answer.”

I watched him light the cigarette and replace the case and the lighter in his pocket. The smoke hovered in the still air. Stefan waved it away, observing me, waiting for me to reply.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said. “It’s simple. My brother asked me to.”

“You trust your brother like that?”

“Yes. He would never ask me to do something dishonorable.”

He muttered something in German and swung himself upright.

“You should use your crutches,” I said.

“I am sick of fucking crutches,” he said, and then, quickly, “I beg your pardon. I find I am out of sorts tonight.”

I gripped the rail as he limped toward me. “I suppose I am, too.”

“Ah. Now, this is a curious thing, a very interesting thing. Why, Annabelle? Tell me.”

“Surely you know already.”

“I know very well why I am out of sorts. I am desperate to know why you are out of sorts.”

The water slapped against the side of the ship. I counted the glittering waves, the seconds that passed. I pressed my thumbs together and said: “I don’t know. Just restless, I suppose. I’ve been cooped up for so long. I’m used to exercise.”

He leaned his elbow on the railing, a foot or so from mine. I felt his breath as he spoke. “You are bored.”

“Not bored.”

“Yes, you are. Admit it. You have had nothing to do except fetch and carry for a grumpy patient who does not even thank you as you deserve.”

I laughed. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“There is an easy cure for your boredom. Do something unexpected.”

“Such as?”

“Anything. You must have some special talent, besides nursing. Show it to me.” He transferred his cigarette to his other hand and reached into his pocket. “Do you draw? I have a pen.”

“I don’t have any paper.”

“Draw on the deck, if you like.”

“I’m not going to ruin your deck. Anyway, I’m hopeless at drawing.”

“A poem, then. Write me a poem.”

I was laughing, “I don’t write, either. I play the cello, quite well actually, but my cello is back at the Villa Vanilla.”

“The Villa Vanilla?”

“My father’s house.”

Stefan began to laugh, too, a handsome and hearty laugh that shivered his chest beneath his dinner jacket. “Annabelle. Am I just supposed to let you slip away?”

“Yes, you are.” His hand, broad and familiar, had worked close to mine on the railing, until our fingers were almost touching. I drew my arm to my side and said, “I do have one talent.”

“Then do it. Show me, Annabelle.”

I reached for the sash of my dressing gown. Stefan’s astonished eyes slid downward.

The bow untied easily. I let the gown slip from my shoulders and bent down to grasp the hem of my nightgown.

“Annabelle—”

I knotted the nightgown between my legs and turned to brace my hands on the railing. “Watch,” I said, and I hoisted myself upward to balance the balls of my feet on the slim metal rod while the moonlight washed my skin.

“My God,” Stefan said, reaching for my legs, but I was already launching myself into the free air, tucking myself into a single perfect roll, uncurling myself just in time to slice into the water beneath a silent splash.