‘You don’t have to look at me when we talk,’ I said. ‘Just look at the road.’
‘You’re scared, ha ha! I’ve never had an accident, so don’t sweat it.’
‘That only hastens the day when you will have one.’
‘You’re drumming up bad karma, Ludwig.’
At a gas station I bought a pair of sunglasses with dark green lenses. Broad, bleached freeway interchanges slid past below us, the road a track of bone. When you’re driving towards the ocean you can feel it, a kind of reassurance. Occasionally the sparkle of water between roads and buildings. And further away, on the horizon, the vision of Schultz’s lacerated mountain, in sharp silhouette like Mount Fuji.
The hubcaps scraped the curb as she parked. We walked along the side of a house, climbed a set of metal steps in the backyard to her apartment. It was small, she mumbled something about not paying any attention to the mess, but it was impossible not to; the innards of a closet lay scattered across the floor, the couch, the bed. While she was digging around in a wooden crate, I looked at her backside.
‘Swimming trunks,’ I heard, ‘must be here somewhere. .’
A triumphant yelp, she held up a little black slip de bain. The bathroom was so small that your body acted as the lock on the door when you sat down on the pot. The hips of the man whose trunks these had been were even narrower than mine. I preferred somewhat roomier beach fashion, trunks in which you didn’t stand out so much. She was sitting on the bed, a sarong around her hips. The cups of her bikini top closed around her breasts like a pair of hands. There would be no resistance. We were living in a state of delectable deferment.
We walk to the beach, it’s not far. Sarah. Her flip-flops make a clapping sound. The sun has permeated the pavement with heat, it seeps up through your soles. To touch her, to give her a little shove — it’s allowed, she is free in her conduct, without a word she has let you know that you may be as well. To give a little shove to someone you have known for only a couple of hours, call it playfulness but the seriousness of desire burns in your throat. The start of something. An encounter like this, those sparkling little teeth, the lovely dark hair; all it demands of you is participation, the willingness to leave your murky life story behind.
She asks about you, who you are, where you come from, but your biography suddenly seems so leaden.
‘I’m going in for a dip,’ she says. ‘I have to pee.’
Shameless creature, I thought, with your delicious tits. I watched her go, her ample butt and thighs. I kicked off my own clothes and followed. I thought about her urine when I dove, in the state I was in everything was charged with sex. She was already out to where the waves were breaking. Surfers lay in wait for the big rollers. I couldn’t catch up with her, she was the better swimmer. Bobbing around a bit, I waited for her to come back. The water was cold and stinging, I imagined the journey a drop of it might make, touching land again only at Sydney or Osaka. I also thought about a song by David Bowie, ‘Space Oddity’, about the wayward astronaut Major Tom who leaves his tin can.
The rise of an approaching wave toppled me from my floating position, I resurfaced and rubbed the water out of my eyes. I found myself looking straight into her smile, behind her a wave rising up like a wall of steel. The surfers were lying on their boards, paddling full speed before the curl. Then it crashed.
We found each other close to the beach, stinging water in my nose, Sarah rising up from the bubbling foam, laughing, coughing. She stuck her fingers under the hem of her bikini top and pulled it into place. Water glistened on her skin.
‘Come on, up onto your feet, you.’
She slapped her palms on the water’s surface, the way boys do in a swimming pool. We walked back to our clothes. I saw the dimples in the small of her back. She spread out her sarong for us on the sand and said, ‘The water along the coast is actually too polluted to swim in. Around here it’s a little better, but people often get sick. Surfers develop sores. Seals and sea lions develop problems with their immune system. We do everything we can, but it’s tough.’
‘We?’
‘Clean the Bay, an organization I’m involved in. We’ve had some success, but it takes such a long time!’
She rolled her eyes.
‘And you, you, could stand a little sun.’
She poked her finger at my upper arm and chest. I said, ‘So you demonstrate against an artist and in favor of clean water, and what else?’
She glanced over, as though to check whether I was poking fun at her.
‘Oh, a couple of other things. The Venice Beach Tree Savers. . the city’s plans for the neighborhood are completely ridiculous. And an organization called Save the Holy Peaks, the protests against Schultz are actually related to that. We work with Native American organizations to counter the commercial exploitation, the disfigurement of holy mountains in Arizona, Hopi territory. Ski resorts have already been built there, but because there’s been so little snow the last few years they’re talking about pumping polluted water up from the valley and using machines to turn it into snow.’
Sarah shook her head.
‘Perverse,’ I said.
‘You wouldn’t believe the things people come up with.’
‘I guess it keeps you pretty busy,’ I said goofily.
‘In a couple of weeks there’s going to be a march on the Court of Appeals in Pasadena. If you come along you can see what we do, and why.’
With a simple gesture she opened a perspective that went beyond today; in a few weeks’ time we would be together again, or still together. I was relieved to find that there were things that happened that had nothing to do with my mother. Her name admitted light into the picture. Sarah. She lay on her back, her arms folded behind her head. Short black hair in her armpits. I lost my way in the details, the little golden hairs on her tummy, darker on her forearms. I knew how the dried salt felt on her skin, that it tugged slightly, sometimes chafed a little.
It was cool in the shade along the streets. Young families behind windows with wrought-iron bars, the clattering of pans and voices calling out to each other. She looked at me. Heat expanded in my throat. We stopped, she came one step closer. The warmth of her body, exhaling sunlight. I smelled her hair, she raised her head, her breath against my armpit, my neck, her face brushing lightly against mine. Our bodies dovetailed. I was embarrassed by my erection pressing against her thigh.
‘Are you coming with me, Mr. Ludwig?’
She pulled me along, I drew her back and wrapped my arms around her. We kissed greedily, quickly, she pulled away again. Could they see it, the people in their houses, were we passing by in the fiery glow of a comet. .?
She closed the door quietly behind her, latched it. Our coming together bristled with electricity.
‘Do you want to take a shower?’
Clumsy mouths searching each other’s shape, imprinting them. Our hands went their way. The slow waltz towards the bed, I felt her hand on my member. Her giggle, light as a feather.
‘I noticed already, back on the beach.’
She stepped back, the sarong slid off her. She reached around behind her, unhooked the bikini top, slid the straps down over her arms, it fell to the ground the way everything fell to the ground here. She stepped out of her bottoms. The stripes from elastic bands on her skin. The shadows. I pulled off my T-shirt. She unbuckled my belt. I struggled out of my trunks and my cock, the uneasy third party in this company, sprang to attention. Her cool hand closed around it, led me to the bed. She fell back, I knelt between her legs, spread my fingers to seize her breasts, lifted my head and kissed her hard, cold nipples, the bikini top had still been wet. Her hand felt its way down, took me into her, her eyes wide open.