Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

“Now lie on your back. I will hold you under your head,” said Pacifica.

Mrs. Copperfield looked around wildly, but she obeyed, and floated on her back with only the support of Pacifica’s open hand under her head to keep her from sinking. She could see her own narrow feet floating on top of the water. Pacifica started to swim, dragging Mrs. Copperfield along with her. As she had only the use of one arm, her task was an arduous one and she was soon breathing like a bull. The touch of her hand underneath the head of Mrs. Copperfield was very light — in fact, so light that Mrs. Copperfield feared that she would be left alone from one minute to the next. She looked up. The sky was packed with gray clouds. She wanted to say something to Pacifica, but she did not dare to turn her head.

Pacifica swam a little farther inland. Suddenly she stood up and placed both her hands firmly in the small of Mrs. Copper-field’s back. Mrs. Copperfield felt happy and sick at once. She turned her face and in so doing she brushed Pacifica’s heavy stomach with her cheek. She held on hard to Pacifica’s thigh with the strength of years of sorrow and frustration in her hand.

“Don’t leave me,” she called out.

At this moment Mrs. Copperfield was strongly reminded of a dream that had recurred often during her life. She was being chased up a short hill by a dog. At the top of the hill there stood a few pine trees and a mannequin about eight feet high. She approached the mannequin and discovered her to be fashioned out of flesh, but without life. Her dress was of black velvet, and tapered to a very narrow width at the hem. Mrs. Copperfield wrapped one of the mannequin’s arms tightly around her own waist. She was startled by the thickness of the arm and very pleased. The mannequin’s other arm she bent upward from the elbow with her free hand. Then the mannequin began to sway backwards and forwards. Mrs. Copperfield clung all the more tightly to the mannequin and together they fell off the top of the hill and continued rolling for quite a distance until they landed on a little walk, where they remained locked in each other’s arms. Mrs. Copperfield loved this part of the dream best; and the fact that all the way down the hill the mannequin acted as a buffer between herself and the broken bottles and little stones over which they fell gave her particular satisfaction.

Pacifica had resurrected the emotional content of her dream for a moment, which Mrs. Copperfield thought was certainly the reason for her own peculiar elation.

“Now,” said Pacifica, “if you don’t mind I will take one more swim by myself.” But first she helped Mrs. Copperfield to her feet and led her back to the beach, where Mrs. Copperfield collapsed on the sand and hung her head like a wilted flower. She was trembling and exhausted as one is after a love experience. She looked up at Pacifica, who noticed that her eyes were more luminous and softer than she had ever seen them before.

“You should go in the water more,” said Pacifica; “you stay in the house too much.”

She ran back into the water and swam back and forth many times. The sea was now blue and much rougher than it had been earlier. Once during the course of her swimming Pacifica rested on a large flat rock which the outgoing tide had uncovered. She was directly in the line of the hazy sun’s pale rays. Mrs. Copperfield had a difficult time being able to see her at all and soon she fell asleep.

* * *

Upon arriving back at the hotel, Pacifica announced to Mrs. Copperfield that she was going to sleep like a dead person. “I hope I don’t wake up for ten days,” she said.

Mrs. Copperfield watched her stumble down the bright green corridor, yawning and tossing her head.

“Two weeks I’ll sleep,” she said again, and then she went into her room and shut the door behind her. In her own room Mrs. Copperfield decided that she had better call on Mr. Copperfield. She went downstairs and walked out into the street, which seemed to be moving as it had on the first day of her arrival. There were a few people already seated on their balconies who were looking down at her. A very thin girl, wearing a red silk dress which hung down to her ankles, was crossing the street towards her. She looked surprisingly young and fresh. When Mrs. Copperfield was nearer to her she decided that she was a Malayan. She was rather startled when the girl stopped directly in front of her and addressed her in perfect English.

“Where have you been that you got your hair all wet?” she said.

“I’ve been taking a swim with a friend of mine. We — we went early to the beach.” Mrs. Copperfield didn’t feel much like talking.

“What beach?” asked the girl.

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Well, did you walk there or did you ride?”

“We rode.”

“There isn’t any beach really near enough to walk to, I guess,” said the girl.

“No, I guess there isn’t,” said Mrs. Copperfield, sighing and looking around her. The girl was walking along with her.

“Was the water cold?” asked the girl.

“Yes and no,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Did you swim in the water naked with your friend?”

“Yes.”

“Then there weren’t any people around, I suppose.”

“No, there wasn’t a soul there. Do you swim?” Mrs. Copper-field asked the girl.

“No,” she said, “I never go near the water.” The girl had a shrill voice. She had light hair and brows. She could easily have been partly English. Mrs. Copperfield decided not to ask her. She turned to the girl.

“I’m going to make a telephone call. Where is the nearest place with a phone?”

“Come to Bill Grey’s restaurant. They keep it very cool. I generally spend my mornings there drinking like a fish. By the time it’s noon I’m cockeyed drunk. I shock the tourists. I’m half Irish and half Javanese. They make bets about what I am. Whoever wins has to buy me a drink. Guess how old I am.”

“God knows,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“Well, I’m sixteen.”

“Very possible,” said Mrs. Copperfield. The girl seemed peeved. They walked in silence to Bill Grey’s restaurant, where the girl pushed Mrs. Copperfield through the door and along the floor towards a table in the middle of the restaurant.

“Sit down and order whatever you like. It’s on me,” said the girl.

There was an electric fan whirling above their heads.

“Isn’t it delicious in here?” she said to Mrs. Copperfield.

“Let me make my phone call,” said Mrs. Copperfield, who was terrified lest Mr. Copperfield should have come in a few hours ago and be waiting impatiently for her call even at this very moment.

“Make all the phone calls you like,” said the girl.

Mrs. Copperfield went into the booth and phoned her husband. He said that he had arrived a short time ago, and that he would have breakfast and join her afterwards at Bill Grey’s. He sounded cold and tired.

The girl, while waiting anxiously for her return, had ordered two old-fashioneds. Mrs. Copperfield came back to the table and flopped into her seat.

“I never can sleep late in the mornings,” said the girl. “I don’t even like to sleep at night if I have anything better to do. My mother told me that I was as nervous as a cat, but very healthy. I went to dancing school but I was too lazy to learn the steps.”

“Where do you live?” asked Mrs. Copperfield.

“I live alone in a hotel. I’ve got plenty of money. A man in the Army is in love with me. He’s married but I never go with anyone else. He gives me plenty of money. He’s even got more money at home. I’ll buy you what you want. Don’t tell anyone around here, though, that I’ve got money to spend on other people. I never buy them anything. They give me a pain. They live such terrible lives. So cheap; so stupid; so very stupid! They don’t have any privacy. I have two rooms. You can use one of them if you like.”