But the mountains were oppressive, in this other spot. They turned the sun off in one direction, and cast a sort of shade.
Ysabelle said softly, “If I had you alone, heaven knows what I’d do to you.”
“How startled I should be.”
“I’d nibble at you like a lettuce.”
“If only you could.”
They saw him on the path, dwarfed by distance, tiny, big and towering, sunburnt, carrying some trophy.
They turned into two whale bones, corsetted tight, dead and hard and upright.
He entered. The door slammed, and the servant girl, Gittel, ran up, noise, fluster, and then he was in the room, enormous, and he must be welcomed and begged to tell his wishes, and send to heat the kettle, the coffee must be prepared. And look,
here were the almond cakes bought especially, as he liked them, and some pâté that had been kept untouched and cool in the stone larder.
Would he sit? No. Was he tired? No. But surely, he must be tired a little, after so long an excursion? No. One saw how he watched, amused, the fuss. How strong and brave he was, to have walked so long and still be walking about, and to have broken this rock which now he put down on the table there. How astonishing. How erudite he was, to have found it. To have known where.
He spread the broken halves and showed the fossil, the little images, turned to stones, curling and perfect, ammonites, molluscs, from a sea long gone, in this afternoon of drought.
“Look here.” They clustered for the lesson. So impressed by him, gasping. “Nobody has witnessed this before,” he said.
It was true. They could not argue with him.
Later, alone a moment, she cut the apple, showed it to Hāna. “Nobody,” said Ysabelle, “has witnessed this before.”
“But, it’s only an apple. Many people—”
“Not this apple. Nobody, save you and I, have witnessed the inside of this apple, before.”
“Oh Ysabelle. You’re too clever – I’m afraid—”
“Yes, yes, my darling. So am I.”
This is Ernst’s house. Against the shadow mountains.
In the evening, after the thick soup and the cheese and wine, his cigars, and looking at the brown mass settling on the sides of the heights. Darkness will come. Cannot be held back. Nobody has witnessed this before, not this night.
“Oh, my good friend, yes, Le Rue. Of course, he has his life’s work at St Cailloux. A genius,” said Ernst, who had made the evening ‘go’, speaking, entertaining them, and even, in the case of Ysabelle, perhaps able to teach her somewhat. She was promising, Ysabelle. She might write up his notes for the paper on ammonites of the region. A fine clear hand. Her father was to be congratulated posthumously. “I’ve mentioned, he’s fascinated, Le Rue, by the surgical procedures of Ancient Egypt. But also of course by the most modern inventions. The X-ray now, what a wonder.”
“Seeing inside,” Hāna said after, another moment alone, “Nothing is to be private.”
But Ernst said, “We can’t pretend to be delicate. We’re monkeys, not angels. Descended from the apes. Not even you are an angel, Ysabelle.” He raised his glass, “So your appearance must be deceptive.”
“Ernst telling us,” Ysabelle, writing later, in her clear hand, “with such costive glee, of a machine which can see the very bones inside a body. Nothing is left secret. And the fossils, asleep for centuries. What a pillager he is, raping his way over the foothills.”
Taken home, in the trap. Ernst had insisted. Hāna left behind. Ernst. The moon high. They have sacrificed a goat in the woods for rain. The blood has splashed the moon. There are marks on it.
“Ysabelle.”
She sits silent, listening. At last she says, “Ernst – you flatter me. But – you frighten me, Ernst. I’ve never known a man so – powerful – so very wise. Even my father.”
“Ysabelle, don’t be afraid of me. What has my intellect to do with this? You inflame me, Ysabelle.”
“No, Ernst. I’m unworthy of you. I couldn’t bring myself-you’d be disappointed – how could I bear that? You would come to despise me. Oh, ten years ago, perhaps. Not now.”
“Don’t suppose, Ysabelle, I’m done with you. I shan’t give up.”
“Please. My dear friend. You must.”
“One kiss.”
“No, Ernst. I must be firm. What would you think if I had no honour?”
In the house of white-painted wood, retching into the iron sink, spitting the bitter bile, his wine.
He is tickled now. Soon he will be disillusioned.
“Hāna, can’t we fly away on the white angel wings of your hair?”
Ernst’s house stands there, at the top of the valley. It is well-maintained and there are many rooms. In the courtyard, the well has sweet water, which has almost run dry. It was once, this house, the domicile of a rich aristocrat. But that was long ago, before men learned they were descended from monkeys.
Shutters hang by the windows, the colour the mountains become in the sinking heat of evening.
Ysabelle looks at this house. Now she is often here. He has insisted. She must stay here, tonight, ftmust be the dominant one, not Ysabelle, who is a woman. There are more comforts here. And Hāna need not travel.
Ysabelle does not like the house. It seems to her, everything is held inside this building, confined. Just as the land confines the valley. The clouds confine the rain.
But they – can make rain.
In the midst of arid dry compression, the spring leaps forth. Oh, yes, even once when he was below, doing one of the things he does, something with knives or pins, pushing him from thought, in the upper room, clinging, and that enough—
But tonight, in the hot-brown, baked-closed-shutness of the house. For the cat is away. The cat is away again for one more night.
Let us dance. I walked here, dancing. Never before has anyone witnessed the cream of your thighs, the fleece of silver-gold – I cut a curl, two, three, from this sacred place, as you slept, and the god slept inside you. I – robbed you – did I? Did I? No, not robbery. Only too shy to say. One day I will confess, show you. Ysabelle that you call clever. I clipped the little curls and put them in this locket of silver, snapping shut the face of it upon my souvenir. Its hinges . . . Unhinged.
I have a lock of your hair in my locket, cold between my breasts, or is it boiling hot? I cut the curls so carefully I did not even wake you. Your gardens – your sweet breasts, small as a girl’s, your perfect face in its wreathes of angel wings. The centre of your life, your womb, behind its treasury silver-golden gate, soft as ermine.
The house is watching, as Ysabelle climbs towards it, but she thinks that is only Hāna, watching from the upstairs window, where she has strewn perfume in the bed.
Night after night, you loosed your hair. That greater river – dry, yet feeling wet to my thirst. But here there is no smell of cherries ripening. This house of his smells masculine, except for the sanctuary of your room, with the wild flowers in the vase, and the chocolate standing in its pot. You are my cherry-fruit.
“He went to that awful – to the asylum.”
“St Cailloux? St Stones . . .”
“That man – Le Rue – Ernst is intrigued by the – what does he say? – the so-interesting patients. By the operations Le Rue discusses with him and wants to carry out. These disgusting things he says the physicians of the pharoahs did—”
“Why are you talking of him?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s because we are here. Tomorrow, after he comes back – make some excuse . . . I know, I shall forget my basket. Then you must bring it to me. Such a womanly thing. How can I manage without it.”