Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

He nodded.

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” said Nat.

“Grace always said he was a jerk. She was his first choice, by the way.”

“She was?”

“She had a boyfriend of her own at the time.”

“And now?”

A wave rippled by, a green wave rippling a green reflection in her eyes. “No. He had personal problems.”

“Like what?”

“He was sort of married.”

“Sort of?”

“You know.”

But he didn’t. Out there, offshore and separated from everyone else, Nat asked a question he might not have asked on land. “Have you had any married boyfriends?”

“What do you take me for?”

Nat laughed. She raised an eyebrow-her right, the opposite of Grace. Did it have something to do with the way the egg had split?

“What are you thinking about?” she said.

“Eggs.”

“Eggs?”

“Eggs and you.”

“You’re funny,” Izzie said.

They fell silent. There was no sound but that of the sea; the sea, which began moving her a little closer to him. Their legs touched under the surface. Since the water was so clear they could have glanced down easily and seen this contact, but neither did: they pretended it was happening somewhere else, out of sight. But it was happening, all right; Nat felt something new going through him, or perhaps something he’d known before, just magnified by the emerald water, the deep blue sky, the scented air.

Izzie backed away. Nat saw for the first time that she had a speargun in one hand, dangling down in the water.

“What’s that for?”

“You like seafood?”

“Yes,” he said, although his mom almost never served it.

Izzie checked the sun, lower over the island now, and pulled down her mask. “Jukin’ time,” she said.

“Jukin’ time?”

“When the big ones come out, country boy.”

She stuck the snorkel in her mouth and swam off at a speed that amazed him, her fins, not quite breaking the surface, churning away. In what seemed like seconds, she had rounded a stony point at the south end of the beach and disappeared.

He thought of Patti. She’d spelled incident wrong. He’d made spelling mistakes too. Maybe Izzie couldn’t spell it either. He thought of testing her on the word, a disgusting idea he quashed almost as soon as it left the gate. And Patti had nice breasts too, although she’d never dream of swimming topless. All this led nowhere, and was still leading nowhere when something tickled his toes. He didn’t panic this time, but peered down through the clear water and saw a little green fish nibbling at him. He swam a few lazy strokes, turned on his back, floated under a purpling sky.

Did he actually fall asleep? It was close: his mind drifted, drifted, down into one of the seagoing sagas of his childhood. Pirates, pistols, parrots, pieces of eight. Only a slight chill, the difference between the ocean temperature and his own making itself felt at last, brought him back to full wakefulness. He treaded water, gazed out to sea.

The sun had sunk behind Aubrey’s Cay, graying the water around him, except for the wave tips, still liquid emerald. In the distance, light still shone bright, blazing on the sail of a lone windsurfer. With the wind at his back, he approached very quickly, skimming toward the point that Izzie had rounded, disappearing for a few seconds, then reappearing, much closer, cutting back toward the beach. With a sound from his board like tearing paper, the windsurfer blew by Nat, about ten yards away: a brown-tanned, barrel-chested, skinny-legged man, wearing a bathing suit even skimpier than Nat’s and a look of glee on his face. He ran his board right onto the beach, skipped nimbly off, noticed Nat, waved. Nat swam in.

The windsurfer-older than Nat had first thought, with a trim gray beard and gray hair, long, wild, matted with salt water-was lowering the sail.

“I saw you were in residence,” he said, nodding up toward the house; a white flag with a black Z on it now flew over the roof. “And so dropped in. You’re the physical trainer, as I recall? Angelo, is it?”

“No,” Nat said, and introduced himself.

“Not the trainer?”

“A friend.”

“Ah. Of the girls.” He gave Nat a closer look, or perhaps actually saw him for the first time. “Or of one particularly.”

“I’m a friend of the girls.”

“As am I,” the man said. “A friend of the girls, indeed of the whole lovely family.” He held out his hand. “May I present myself? Leo Uzig.”

They shook hands. Leo Uzig’s was big, out of proportion to the rest of him, except for his head. “Where did you drop in from, Mr. Uzig?” Nat said.

“Excellent question. You see that island? No. The one to the north. Not that. To the right. South, then. Got it. Discovered, and please spare me the politically correct boilerplate, by Drake in 1568, thus the name of the simple but pleasant Sir Francis Inn, where I spend my Christmases. Also explaining, to anticipate your question, my long association with the Zorns, the blanks easily filled in. You, I take it, are a student at some Ivy institution.”

“Not exactly,” said Nat. “I’m at Inverness.”

“What luck,” said Leo Uzig. “We’re fellow inmates, then, you a freshman-you are a freshman?”

“Yes.”

“And me chairman of the department of philosophy. If you’ll just help me pull my board above the high-tide line, we can be safely inside before the no-see-ums come out.”

“No-see-ums?” said Nat. Something bit him on the back of the neck.

Dinner on the terrace: mosquito coils burning on the tile floor, candles burning on the table, more stars than Nat had ever seen shining in a soft black sky, everyone barefoot except the servants. Professor Uzig sat at Mr. Zorn’s end of the table, Anton at Mrs. Zorn’s, Albert and Izzie on one side, Grace and Nat on the other. They ate the lobsters Izzie had caught, drank something called goombay smash, then Krug, then a Meursault, and more Krug, while a guitarist brought from Virgin Gorda in the cigarette played in the background and the smells of flowers and of the sea took turns drifting by. Could life really be this sweet? Nat had never even imagined it.

“We’re taking Phil three twenty-two from Leo next semester,” Izzie said across the table to Nat, her nose pink from the sun. “You should too.”

“A three hundred course?” Nat said.

“A misnomer,” said Professor Uzig, “dating back into the academic mists. Three twenty-two is now for freshmen only, selected freshmen.”

“It’s full, isn’t it?” said Grace.

“Oh, yes,” said Professor Uzig, “long full.”

“What’s it about?” said Nat.

“You haven’t heard of the famous course that teaches people to think?” said Mr. Zorn. “Isn’t that the one, Leo?”

“You know my thoughts on that subject,” said Professor Uzig.

“It’s called ‘Superman and Man: Nietzsche and Cobain,’ ” Izzie said. “Isn’t that cool?”

“Cool?” said Grace.

The girls stared across the table at each other. Izzie looked down.

“I don’t know anything about Nietzsche,” Nat said; he didn’t know much about Cobain, either.

Professor Uzig turned to him, his hair washed and dried now, but still wild, his teeth and the whites of his eyes the same color as the Meursault. “Of course you do, young man,” he said.

“Nat,” said Izzie.

A quick smile crossed his face as the professor continued: “That’s like saying you don’t know anything about Christ or-”

“Walt Disney,” said Mr. Zorn.

Everyone laughed, except the professor, and Nat, who wanted to hear what he was going to say.

“Yes, or Walt Disney, I suppose, but that simply demonstrates the power of the trivial in our times,” the professor said. “Nietzsche, on the other hand, is not trivial, and, unlike Mr. Disney, is inside all our minds at all times, whether we are aware or not.”