The Dark of the Sun - Smith Wilbur (книги полные версии бесплатно без регистрации txt) 📗

him.

"I was wondering about the future," she answered softly.

"There is no one I know in Elisabethville, and I do not wish to stay

there." "Will you return to Brussels?" he asked. The question was

without significance, for Bruce Curry had very definite plans for the

immediate future, and these included Shermaine.

"Yes, I think so. There is nowhere else."

"You have relatives there?"

"An aunt."

"Are you close?" Shermaine laughed, but there was

bitterness in the husky chuckle. "Oh, very close. She came to see me

once at the orphanage. Once in all those years. She brought me a comic

book of a religious nature and told me to clean my teeth and brush my

hair a hundred strokes a day." "There is no one else?" asked

Bruce.

"No."

"Then why go back?" "What else is there to do?" she asked.

"Where else is there to go?"

"There's a life to live, and the rest of the world to visit."

"Is that what you are going to do?"

"That is exactly what I'm going to do, starting with a hot bath." Bruce

could feel it between them. They both knew it was there, but it was too

soon to talk about it. I have only kissed her once, but that was enough.

So what will happen?

Marriage? His mind shied away from that word with startling violence,

then came hesitantly back to examine it. Stalking it as though it were a

dangerous beast, ready to take flight again as soon as it showed its

teeth.

For some people it is a good thing. It can stiffen the spineless; ease

the lonely; give direction to the wanderers; spur those without ambition

- and, of course, there was the final unassailable argument in its

favour. Children.

But there are some who can only sicken and shrivel in the colourless

cell of matrimony. With no space to fly, your wings must weaken with

disuse; turned inwards, your eyes become short-sighted; when all your

communication with the rest of the world is through the glass windows of

the cell, then your contact is limited.

And I already have children. I have a daughter and I have a son.

Bruce turned his eyes from the road and studied the girl beside him.

There is no fault I can find. She is beautiful in the delicate, almost

fragile way that is so much better and longer-lived than blond hair and

big bosoms. She is unspoilt; hardship has long been her travelling

companion and from it she has learned kindness and humility.

She is mature, knowing the ways of this world; knowing death and fear,

the evilness of men and their goodness. I do not believe she has ever

lived in the fairy-tale cocoon that most young girls spin about

themselves.

And yet she has not forgotten how to laugh.

Perhaps, he thought, perhaps. But it is too soon to talk about it.

"You are very grim." Shermaine broke the silence, but the laughter

shivered just below the surface of her voice. "Again you are

Bonaparte. And when you are grim your nose is too big and cruel. It is a

nose of great brutality and it does not fit the rest of your face.

I think that when they had finished you they had only one nose left in

stock. "It is too big," they said, "but it is the only nose left, and

when he smiles it will not look too bad." So they took a chance and

stuck it on anyway."

"Were you never taught that it is bad manners to poke fun at a man's

weakness?" Bruce fingered his nose ruefully.

"Your nose is many things, but not weak. Never weak." She laughed now

and moved a little closer to him.

"You know you can attack me from behind your own perfect nose, and

I cannot retaliate."

"Never trust a man who makes pretty speeches so easily, because he

surely makes them to every girl he meets." She slid an inch further

across the seat until they were almost touching. "You waste your

talents, mon capitaine. I am immune to your charm."

"In just one minute I will stop this car and-"

"You cannot." Shermaine jerked her head to indicate the two gendarmes in

the seat behind them.

"What would they think, Bonaparte? It would be very bad for discipline."

"Discipline or no discipline, in just one minute I will stop this car

and spank You soundly before I kiss you."

"One threat does not frighten me, but because of the other I will leave

your poor nose." She moved away a little and once more Bruce studied her

face.

Beneath the frank scrutiny she fidgeted and started to blush.

"Do you mind! Were you never taught that it is bad manners to stare?" So

now I am in love again, thought Bruce. This is only the third time, an

average of once every ten years or so. It frightens me a little because

there is always pain with it.

The exquisite pain of loving and the agony of losing.

It starts in the loins and it is very deceptive because you think it is

only the old thing, the tightness and tension that any well-rounded

stern or cheeky pair of breasts will give you. Scratch it, you think,

it's just a small itch. Spread a little of the warm salve on it and it

will be gone in no time.

But suddenly it spreads, upwards and downwards, all through you.

The pit of your stomach feels hot, then the flutters round the heart.

It's dangerous now; once it gets this far it's incurable and you can

scratch and scratch but all you do is inflame it.

Then the last stages, when it attacks the brain. No pain there, that's

the worst sign. A heightening of the senses; your eyes are

sharper, your blood runs too fast, food tastes good, your mouth wants to

shout and legs want to run.

Then the delusions of grandeur: you are the cleverest, strongest, most

masculine male in the universe, and you stand ten feet tall in your

socks.

How tall are you now, Curry, he asked himself. About nine feet six and I

weigh twenty stone, he answered, and almost laughed aloud.

And how does it end? It ends with words. Words can kill anything. It

ends with cold words; words like fire that stick in the structure and

take hold and lick it up, blackening and charring it, bringing it down

in smoking ruins.

It ends in suspicion of things not done, and in the certainty of

things done and remembered. It ends with selfishness and carelessness,

and words, always words.

It ends with pain and gteyness, and it leaves scar tissue and damage

that will never heal.

Or it ends without fuss and fury. It just crumbles and blows away like

dust on the wind. But there is still the agony of loss.

Both these endings I know well, for I have loved twice, and now I

love again.

Perhaps this time it does not have to be that way.

Perhaps this time it will last. Nothing is for ever, he thought.

Nothing is for ever, not even life, and perhaps this time if I cherish

it and tend it carefully it will last that long, as long as life.

"We are nearly at the bridge," said Shermaine beside him, and

Bruce started. The miles had dropped unseen behind them and now the

forest was thickening. It crouched closer to the earth, greener and

darker along the river.

Bruce slowed the Ford and the forest became dense bush around them, the

road tunnel through it. They came round one last bend in the track and

out of the tunnel of green vegetation into the clearing where the road