Beecher held up his glass. “I’m working at it,” he said, and edged around the knot of people and walked on to the foot of the garden.
A girl in a white blouse and a full red skirt was standing alone at the swimming pool smoking a cigarette. It was Ilse, the young Austrian girl who lived with Don Willie. She turned at the sound of his footsteps and smiled at him. “Hello, Mike.”
“Hello yourself. Brooding?”
“No, nothing like that. I was listening to the music, watching the sea. It’s strange to see you here.”
“I know.” He felt uncomfortable. “There’s a first time for everything, I guess.”
“Why don’t you like Don Willie? He wants to be friendly with everyone.”
“Well, maybe it’s something glandular.”
“Seriously, Mike.”
“It’s nothing important,” he said. “We just have a slight disagreement about the best uses for ovens and barbed wire. That’s all.”
“It’s the war, then,” she said slowly.
“Come on now. It’s too nice a night for this sort of talk.”
“All right. I saw the girl you brought here. She is lovely. Is she an American?”
“Yes.”
“Most American women look like window dummies,” Ilse said. “But she is different. She’s got some sense, I think. And personality.”
Beecher smiled at her. Ilse was about twenty-two, he guessed, with a spare, childish body, and a delicate, impassive face. He was amused by her air of cynical wisdom.
“Where did you run into all these stupid American women?” he asked.
“Coming out of the big, shining PXs in Germany,” she said. “Have you seen them too? With their hair in curlers and scarves around their heads? They wear slacks on the street and have their arms full of store bread and canned goods.” She twisted her lips. “The wives of conquering Americans! They look more like kitchen maids.”
Beecher said gravely, “Those are the only ones we let out of America. We keep the good-looking ones at home.”
“Where they are cozy and safe? It would be nice to live that way.”
“Why are you here then?”
She looked up sharply, and a curl of her long black hair fell across her forehead. “You know why,” she said, and pushed it away with a swift, angry gesture. Her eyes were like diamonds in her small pale face. “I live with Don Willie.”
“Yes, I know that, Ilse,” he said quietly.
“And you think it is disgraceful, don’t you? Everyone here thinks so. You wonder why I am alone. The Spanish women pretend I don’t exist. The foreign women are worse. They pity me. They are successful whores. They married rich men and worked them to death. Now they have their villas and servants and slim young Italians and Spaniards to kiss their hands and feet. They think I could do better than Don Willie. If I painted my face and bought the right clothes I could go to the Riviera and find someone much better. Someone much older and nearer death. Then I could live as they do, with villas and young French lovers. Isn’t that what they think? But do you imagine I care?”
Beecher was distressed by her outburst, because it was so obvious she did care; her lips were trembling and her slight breasts rose and fell rapidly under the white blouse. She seemed childish, and very vulnerable, with her thin wrists and unpainted fingernails, and hurt flaming in her dark eyes.
“I don’t know what they think about you,” he said. “I see very little of the people you’re talking about.”
“You’re very wise or very lucky, then, I don’t know which. They are evil people, and foolish. The men smile so knowingly at me. If Don Willie can succeed, then how much better their chances? That is what is on their minds.”
“People don’t think about us as much as we imagine they do,” Beecher said. “They’ve got problems of their own to worry about. Let’s sit down and listen to the music. Or would you like to dance?”
“I would prefer to sit down,” she said. “I have a headache.”
They sat on a low stone bench and Beecher put his drink on the ground and lit a cigarette. They were in the shadows of a bougainvillaea vine, but the lanterns filtered through the leaves and purple streaks of light filtered into the darkness at their feet.
She wore rope-soled slippers with strings crisscrossed and tied about her slender ankles. Her legs seemed slim and pale and insubstantial in the flickering lantern light.
“You know, Ilse, if people thought about me they’d probably decide I was a bum,” Beecher said. “Lazy, worthless, scared. But they don’t waste their time that way. We’re not as interesting as we like to think. Remember the female impersonator who was here last year? And the Canadian missionary who took Spanish youngsters up to the big springs behind Loma de los Riscos for communion with the Almighty in the nude? We can’t compete with characters like that. Nobody’s worrying about us, believe me.”
She looked at him gravely. “Why did you say you were scared?”
“Did I?” He shrugged. “Well, it follows, doesn’t it? People who withdraw from the big scramble must be afraid of getting hurt. It’s safe and comfortable on the sidelines.”
“Stay safe and comfortable,” she said. “You won’t prove anything by getting hurt.” She was quite serious, he realized, and her intensity embarrassed him. Who was comforting whom? he wondered.
“All right, I’ll keep my head in the sand.”
“Please, Mike. It isn’t funny.”
Don Willie came down the steps then with Laura and the Englishman, Lynch, and his harsh gutturals fell across Ilse’s soft voice with metallic finality.
“I must make my speech now,” he was saying. “I welcome everyone, tell them to be happy, to eat and drink, there is plenty of everything.”
Ilse rose to her feet. Don Willie stopped and patted her arm. “You are hiding here with Mike, eh? You must meet my friends. This is my English friend, Mr. Lynch, and my American friend, Miss Meadows. They are so glad to be here. They love my party.”
Ilse and Laura nodded to one another, and Lynch grinned amiably at Beecher. “I’ve just been telling them about the narrow squeak I had with you this afternoon.”
“But golf is no game for me,” Don Willie said, pounding his chest. “I like a game where there is a fight, a struggle. Even tennis, you can drive a man here, drive him there, make him weak, knock him to pieces.” He smiled, and his eyes sparkled beneath white bushy brows. “Spearing the big fishes, hunting them in their caves deep under the water, that is something I understand. Or training horses and dogs, breaking them to make them do what you want, and fast cars, pushing the other fellows on the curves.” He spread his arms. “I understand these things. But this golf! A silly little stick in your fingers, a silly little ball to strike. Can you win over a little ball? Can it feel it when you strike it?”
“I guess not,” Beecher said. “Maybe we should play with live mice, or something like that.”
“Oh, Mike!” Laura said.
Don Willie roared with laughter, triumphant at understanding Beecher’s sarcasm. “You are teasing me, I know. Because I am bloodthirsty. But no arguments tonight. All are friends here. Now I must excuse myself to make my speech.”
Beecher discovered then that Ilse had gone; he glanced up the garden and saw that she was walking rapidly toward the villa, threading her way gracefully through the clusters of guests.
Lynch said, “I’m going for a refill. Can I bring anyone a drop?” Neither Laura nor Beecher needed a drink, and Lynch gave them a smiling wave and started back toward the bar on the terrace.
“I don’t think I like him,” Laura said.
“Who? Lynch?”
“Yes, I believe that’s his name.”
“What don’t you like about him?”
“I don’t know. He seems so foolish and cheerful, like a big happy puppy. But then he doesn’t miss much, I notice.” She laughed suddenly. “I’m being foolish. I met him ten minutes ago, and I’m already ripping him up like some tea-party gossip.”