“Just for you two to finish your debate,” Maggie answered, coming closer. “Zeb, I think Mimi and I will use the other side of that boulder. All right?”
“Okay. But wait a second. No diving, you both understand. And a safety man on the bank at all times-John and I will take turns.”
“Pooh!” said Miriam. “I dove the last time I was here.”
“You weren’t with me, that’s sure. No diving-or I’ll warm your pants where they are tightest.”
She shrugged. “All right, Colonel Crosspatch. Come on, Mag.” They went on past us and around a boulder half as big as a house. Miriam stopped, looked right at me, and waggled a finger. “No peeking, now!” I blushed to my ears.
They disappeared and we heard no more of them, except for giggles. I said hurriedly, “Look. You do as you please—and on your own head be it. But I’m not going in. I’ll sit here on the bank and be safety man.”
“Suit yourself. I was going to match you for first duty, but nobody is twisting your arm. Pay out a line, though, and have it ready for heaving. Not that we’ll need it; both the girls are strong swimmers.”
I said desperately, “Zeb, I’m sure the General would forbid swimming in these underground pools.”
“That’s why we don’t mention it. “Never worry the C.O. unnecessarily"-standing orders in Joshua’s Army, circa 1400 B.C.” He went right on peeling off his clothes.
I don’t know why Miriam warned me not to peek-not that I would!-for when she was undressed she came straight out from behind that boulder, not toward us but toward the water. But the flood light was full on her and she even turned toward us for an instant, then shouted, “Come on, Maggie! Zeb is going to be last if you hurry.”
I did not want to look and I could not take my eyes off her. I had never seen anything remotely resembling the sight she was in my life—and only once a picture, one in the possession of a boy in my parish school and on that occasion I had gotten only a glimpse and then had promptly reported him.
But I could not stop looking, burning with shame as I was.
Zeb beat Maggie into the water—I don’t think she cared. He went into the water quickly, almost breaking his own injunction against diving. Sort of a surface dive I would call it, running into the water and then breaking into a racing start. His powerful crawl was soon overtaking Miriam, who had started to swim toward the far end.
Then Maggie came out from behind the boulder and went into the water. She did not make a major evolution of it, the way Miriam had, but simply walked quickly and with quiet grace into the water. When she was waist deep, she let herself sink forward and struck out in a strong breast stroke, then shifted to a crawl and followed the others, when I could hear but hardly see in the distance.
Again I could not take my eyes away if my eternal soul had depended on it. What is it about the body of a human woman that makes it the most terribly beautiful sight on earth? Is it, as some claim, simply a necessary instinct to make sure that we comply with God’s will and replenish the earth? Or is it some stranger, more wonderful thing?
I found myself quoting: “How fair and how pleasant art thou, 0 love, for delights!
“This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.”
Then I broke off, ashamed, remembering that the Song of Songs which is Solomon’s was a chaste and holy allegory having nothing to do with such things.
I sat down on the sand and tried to compose my soul. After a while I felt better and my heart stopped pounding so hard. When they all came swimming back with Zeb in the lead, racing Miriam, I even managed to throw them a smile. It no longer seemed quite so terrible and as long as they stayed in the water the women were not shockingly exposed. Perhaps evil was truly in the eyes of the beholder—in which case the idea was to keep it out of mine.
Zeb called out, “ready to be relieved?”
I answered firmly, “No. Go ahead and have your fun.”
“Okay.” He turned like a dolphin and started back the other way. Miriam followed him. Maggie came in to where it was shallow, rested her finger tips on the bottom, and held facing me, with just her head and her ivory shoulders out of the inky water, while her waist-length mane of hair floated around her.
“Poor John,” she said softly. “I’ll come out and spell you.”
“Oh, no, really!”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“All right.” She turned, flipped herself over, and started after the others. For one ghostly, magic instant she was partly out of the water.
Maggie came back to my end of the cavern about ten minutes later. “I’m cold,” she said briefly, climbed out and strode quickly to the protection of the boulder. Somehow she was not naked, but merely unclothed, like Mother Eve. There is a difference-Miriam had been naked.
With Maggie out of the water and neither one of us speaking I noticed for the first time that there was no other sound. Now there is nothing so quiet as a cave; anywhere else at all there is noise, but the complete zero decibel which obtains underground if one holds still and says nothing is very different.
The point is that I should have been able to hear Zeb and Miriam swimming. Swimming need not be noisy but it can’t be as quiet as a cave. I sat up suddenly and started forward-then stopped with equal suddenness as I did not want to invade Maggie’s dressing room, which another dozen steps would have accomplished.
But I was really worried and did not know what to do. Throw a line? Where? Peel down and search for them? If necessary. I called out softly, “Maggie!”
“What is it, John?”
“Maggie, I’m worried.”
She came at once from behind the rock. She had already pulled on her trousers, but held her towel so that it covered her from the waist up; I had the impression she had been drying her hair. “Why, John?”
“Keep very quiet and listen.”
She did so. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s just it. We should. I could hear you all swimming even when you were down at the far end, out of my sight. Now there isn’t a sound, not a splash. Do you suppose they possibly could both have hit their heads on the bottom at the same time?”
“Oh. Stop worrying, John. They’re all right.”
“But I am worried.”
“They’re just resting, I’m sure. There is another little beach down there, about half as big as this. That’s where they are. I climbed up on it with them, then I came back. I was cold.”
I made up my mind, realizing that I had let my modesty hold me back from my plain duty. “Turn your back. No, go behind the boulder—I want to undress.”
“What? I tell you it’s not necessary.” She did not budge.
I opened my mouth to shout. Before I got it out Maggie had a hand over my mouth, which caused her towel to be disarranged and flustered us both. “Oh, heavens!” she said sharply. “Keep your big mouth shut.” She turned suddenly and flipped the towel; when she turned back she had it about her like a stole, covering her front well enough, I suppose, without the need to hold it.
“John Lyle, come here and sit down. Sit down by me.” She sat on the sand and patted the place by her—and such was the firmness with which she spoke that I did as I was told.
“By me,” she insisted. “Come closer. I don’t want to shout.” I inched gingerly closer until my sleeve brushed her bare arm. “That’s better,” she agreed, keeping her voice low so that it did not resound around the cavern. “Now listen to me. There are two people down there, of their own free will. They are entirely safe—I saw them. And they are both excellent swimmers. The thing for you to do, John Lyle, is to mind your own business and restrain that nasty itch to interfere.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.” Truthfully, I was afraid I did.
“Oh, goodness me! See here, does Miriam mean anything to you?”
“Why, no, not especially.”
“I should think not, since you haven’t addressed six words to her since we started out. Very well, then-since you have no cause to be jealous, if two people choose to be alone, why should you stick your nose in? Understand me now?”