John Hawkes - The Blood Oranges

“You’re thinking of your children.”

“Yes. My children.”

“Tomorrow,” I whispered, “we’ll teach you and Hugh to play the grape-tasting game.”

“All right.”

She did not move, together we waited. And I knew again that it was time to act and slowly, distinctly, and gesturing about the room with my upraised chin: “In all this confusion,” I whispered, “can you find your pajamas?”

“Yes.”

“Put them on. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

“All right.”

Elation? Tenderness? Guilt? Had I, who did not believe in trivial, tedious seduction, maneuvered her after all into a kind of uneasy submission? It was possible that hers was a troubled or low-pitched acquiescence or even worse a defensive gesture motivated more by the lyrical sex-play in the lemon grove than by her internal needs and the attention I was interested in giving her. By dawn would she feel nothing but distaste? Or would I return to find her deep in sleep? But no, I told myself (walking with careful step and heavy purpose past the grape arbor and on toward our own dark villa) no, I could not have been so very wrong, could not have so underestimated the flesh of her womanhood or so mistaken the sound of her voice. Small fears, perhaps, but no disappointment. No unfortunate deception or painful aftermath. Could anything be more unquestionable than love undertaken in the presence of her sleeping children? She had passed the test of the children, I told myself, surely had forgotten the cries coming from the lemon grove even before we had strolled away from the grapes.

Yes, I told myself (abruptly detecting Fiona’s absence from the now familiar darkness of this room we ordinarily shared together) and emptying my pockets, putting aside Fiona’s helpful talisman, removing my large white tennis shoes, undressing once again though not for sleep — yes, of course I had read the cues and inferences correctly because now I recognized once more those first sensations of inevitability, certainty, slow emotional assent that had characterized the early hours of my most vivid relationships throughout the years. And my companion? Was my soft and unexplored companion now pacing me on the other side of the funeral cypresses, I wondered (climbing into my cerulean pajama bottoms and adjusting the ties, buttoning the top) or was she already waiting for my return and the approval guaranteed in the slowness of my embrace? Waiting already, I decided (thrusting first one arm and then the other into the cool loose sleeves of my maroon-colored dressing gown) but selflessly, patiently, since this was our first time and even now she must know that my lengthy preparations were all for her. Tying the sash, tugging at the silken lapels of my dressing gown, feeling about for handkerchief, black cigarettes, tortoise-shell brush and comb, and brushing my hair and then rinsing my mouth at the round mouth of a small earthenware vessel that tasted of Fiona’s lipstick and timeless clay — in all this I found myself pleasurably confirming once again my own modest belief in the theory that, whenever possible, it was always best to make the gift of love intentional.

At the last moment I decided that it was easiest to wear the tennis shoes on my naked feet as protection against the thorns that were bound to lie embedded in the dark path between the villas, and so took a little extra time and put them on.

“Cyril? Is it you?”

The sleepy voice was coming not from the lemon grove but from the grape arbor, though I could see nothing and did not know if they were sitting on the stone bench so recently vacated or on the ground with their knees drawn up.

“I know it’s you, baby. Stop hiding.”

I paused, allowed the cigarette to hang between my lips, and smiled at the sleepy quality in Fiona’s voice which meant more than that she was tired of running and that her feeling for the one-armed man was lapsing predictably but only momentarily into girlish grief. Fiona habitually imagined the death or departure of a potential lover within the first few hours of any unexpected passion. But generally such moodiness was short-lived.

“It’s me,” I called softly and laughed. “You know it is. How are the grapes?”

And then clear, sleepy, fading: “We’re going to sit up and watch the sunrise, baby. OK?”

“Great idea, Fiona. Great.”

I heard nothing more, no sighing, not even the solace of a deliberately noisy kiss, and I shook loose the skirts of the dressing gown, walked on. To me the sunset was always preferable to the sunrise, but there was no way I could help them back there in the arbor and of course Fiona was too good a woman, inside or outside of marriage, to brook any interference with her romantic views. It would have to be the sunrise then. But at least in a sense I had given her the secluded arbor, since apparently the lemon grove, like the night itself, was not enough.

“Is it you?”

“Of course it is.”

“I’m over here.”

The lantern was out but I had followed the sounds of the dog and in my absence she, my waiting partner, had forced open the rotten shutters so that now the same faint light that Fiona no doubt was noticing in the grapes was also turning my partner’s orderly white pajamas into a beckoning yet somehow modest concentration of mute phosphorescence. The old dog lay as before, still dreaming his way toward death, and still the villa was filled with the pleasing chaos of scattered children, scattered signs of temporary life. Carefully I nudged aside what appeared to be one of her husband’s shoes and half facing the head on the pillow, sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were turned toward mine, her legs were heavy, her arms were at her sides. With gentle fingers I discovered that in her nearest hand she was holding the stems of Fiona’s impulsive little gift of flowers.

“Was I long?”

“I didn’t mind waiting.”

Lifting my hand, leaning in her direction, knowing that she was as conscious as I was of my soft lips pressing together, parting and then pressing together again, slowly I slid up the bottom of her pajama jacket and exposed a few inches of her wide stomach and then withdrew my hand, leaving the soft broad belt of skin exposed. Her hardly audible vocal throb subsided, she did not move. I swung away and for a moment devoted precise fingers to the carefully tied laces of my tennis shoes.

“I wonder if they’re lying in bed together right now,” she whispered. “Like us.”

“Would it change anything?”

“It might explain what I’m doing here with you.”

“Do you think so?”

“No.”

I was standing barefooted beside the bed and untied the large bow I had made in the sash. “As a matter of fact,” I whispered, “they’re just sitting up to watch the sunrise. Is that better?”

“That makes it worse.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Seated once more on the edge of the bed and laughing: “I can give you clarity,” I whispered, “but not understanding.”

Only then did I remove my spectacles and for safekeeping put them inside my left tennis shoe beneath the edge of the bed.

“Don’t be prudish.”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t worry,” I whispered, “just relax.”

Eyes shut, mouth dissolving, oblivious to snoring dog and absent husband and little nearby unconscious witnesses but not to me, slowly she moved at last, waited, moved again. Her head had fallen to one side but she was listening to me, to all my voices, and watching me in the depths of her smothered eyes.

“Your shoulder’s cold,” I said, and covered it with a soothing hand. Murmuring, waiting, stroking her hair, smiling at the thought that her soft arms were hardly able to reach around my back and that her hands had not been able to preserve their desperate grip on my enormous tough rump — beyond all this I the white bull finally carried my now clamorous companion into a distant corner of the vast tapestry where only a little silvery spring lay waiting to restore virginity and quench thirst.