Beatriz Williams - Along the Infinite Sea - Love, friendship and heartbreak, the perfect summer read

“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.

“You are quite right,” called Stefan, when my head bobbed at last above the surface. “That is an immense talent.”

“I was club champion four years running.” The water slid against my limbs, sleek and delicious.

He pointed to the side of the ship. “The ladder is over there, Mademoiselle.”

“So it is.”

But I didn’t swim toward the ladder. I turned around and kicked my strong legs and stroked my strong arms, toward the shore of the Île Sainte-Marguerite, waiting quietly in the moonlight.

I lay in the rough sand without moving, soaking up the faint warmth of yesterday’s sun into my bones. I thought I had never felt so magnificent, so utterly exhausted and filled with the intense pleasurable relief that follows exhaustion. The water dried slowly on my legs and arms; my nightgown stiffened against my back. I inhaled the green briny scent of the beach, the trace of metal, the hint of eucalyptus from the island forest, and I thought, Someone should bottle this, it’s too good to be true.

I didn’t count the passing of minutes. I had no idea how much time had passed before I heard the rhythmic splash of oars in the water behind me.

“There you are, Mademoiselle,” said Stefan. “I had some trouble to find you in the darkness.”

I sat up. “You haven’t rowed all the way over here!”

“Of course. What else am I to do, when Annabelle dives off my ship and swims away into the night?”

I rose to my unsteady feet and took the rope from his hand. “Let me do that.”

“I assure you, I can manage.”

“If your wound opens—”

“Don’t be stupid.” He pulled on the rope and the boat slid up the sand. I took a few steps away and sat down again. My legs were still a little wobbly, my skin still cool after the long submersion in the sea. Stefan reached into the boat and drew out the silver bucket and a pair of glasses.

“You’ve brought champagne?”

“What’s this? Did you think I would forget the refreshment?” He sank into the gravelly sand next to me and braced the bottle between his hands. His thumbs worked expertly at the cork until it slid out with a whisper of a pop.

“You are quite mad.”

“No, only a little. A little mad, especially when I saw Annabelle’s body lying there like a ghost in the moonlight, without moving.” He handed me a foaming glass. “And then I thought, No, my Annabelle would never swim so far through the water and then give up when she had reached the shore. But here.” He set down his own glass in the sand and shrugged his dinner jacket from his arms. “You must take this.”

“I’m not that cold, really. Nearly dry.”

“And how would I answer to God if Annabelle caught a chill while I still wore my jacket?” He placed it over my shoulders, picked up his glass, and clinked it against mine. “Now drink. Champagne should always be drunk ice-cold on a beach at dawn.”

“Is it dawn already?”

“We are close enough.”

I bent my head and sipped the champagne, and it was perfect, just as Stefan said, falling like snow into my belly. Next to me, Stefan tilted back his head and drank thirstily, and the beach was so still and flawless that I thought I could feel his throat move, his eyelids close in bliss.

“That woman,” I said. “The blond woman, the one who came to visit you. Is she your mistress?”

“Yes,” he said simply, readily, as if there couldn’t possibly exist any prevarication between us.

“She’s very beautiful.”

“That is the way of it, I’m afraid. Only the rich deserve the fair.”

I laughed. “I thought it was the brave. Only the brave deserve the fair.”

“A silly romantic notion. When have you ever seen a beautiful woman with a poor man? An ugly man perhaps, or a timid one, or a stupid one, or even an unpleasant one. But never a poor one.”

“Do you love her?”

“Only so much as is absolutely necessary.”

I swallowed the rest of my champagne and set the glass in the sand between us. My vision swam. “I don’t quite know what you mean.”

“No,” he said. “Of course you don’t.”

He lay back in the sand, and after a moment I lay back, too, a few inches away, listening to the sound of his breath. The beach was coarse, not like the sand on my father’s beach; the little rocks poked into my back. Stefan’s jacket brushed my jaw, enclosing me in an intimate atmosphere of tobacco and shaving soap. The moon had slipped below the horizon, and we were lit only by the stars, just as we had been on the first night as we rushed through the water toward the safety of Stefan’s yacht. I had known almost nothing about him then, and ten days later, having lived next to him, having spent hours at his side, having talked at endless length about an endless variety of subjects, I didn’t know much more.