Along the Infinite Sea

  “Hush, now,” he said, between kisses. “Annabelle, it is all right, I am here. Liebling, stop, you are frantic, you must stop and think.”

  “I don’t want to think. I don’t want to stop.” I kissed his lips and jaw and neck, I kissed him everywhere I could, wetting us both with my tears. “I have been stopping all my life. I want to live.”

  “Ah, Annabelle. And I would have said you were the most alive girl I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s you. You have brought me to life.”

  Stefan paused in his kisses, holding my face to the sunlight, as if I were a new species brought in for classification and he had no idea where to begin, my nose or my hair or my teeth. “Tell me what you want, Annabelle,” he said.

  “But you know what I want.”

  He took my hand and led me up the slope, where a cluster of olive trees formed an irregular circle of privacy. He urged me carefully down and I put my arms around his neck and dragged him into the grass with me. “I thought you had gone off with her,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt.

  “What? Gone off with whom?”

  “The honey-haired woman, the one you used to make love to.”

  He drew back and stared at me. “My God. How stupid. What do I want with her?”

  “I don’t know. What you had before.”

  “What I had before.” He lowered his head into the grass, next to mine. His body lay across me, warm and heavy, supported by his elbows. “You are the death of me,” he said softly. “I have no right to you.”

  “You have every right. I’m giving you the right.”

  He turned his mouth to my ear. “Don’t say that. Tell me to stop, tell me to take you home.”

  “No. That’s not why you came for me, to take me home.”

  He lifted his head again, and his eyes were heavy and full of smoke. “No. God forgive me. That is not why I came for you.”

  I touched his cheek with my thumb and began to unbutton my blouse, and he put his fingers on mine and said, “No, let me. Let me do it.”

  He uncovered my breasts and kissed me, and his hands were gentle on my skin. “So new and pure,” he said. “I don’t think I can bear it.”

  I spread out my arms in the warm grass.

  “God will curse me for this,” he said.

  “No, he won’t.”

  He kissed me again and lifted my skirt to my waist. I hadn’t worn stockings or a girdle. He worked my underpants down my legs and leaned over my belly to touch me with his gentle fingers, in such an unexpected and unbearably tender way that my legs shook and my lungs starved, and at last I made a little cry and grabbed his waist, because I couldn’t imagine what else to hold on to. His shirt was unbuttoned and came away in my hands. “Tell me to stop, Annabelle,” he said.

  “Please don’t stop. I’ll die if you stop.”

  He muttered something in German and fumbled with his trousers and lowered himself over me, so that his forearms touched my shoulders and he arched above my ribs. I felt his legs settle between mine, pushing me apart while the grass prickled my spine. I loved his breath, the tobacco smell of him.

  “Put your arms around me, Annabelle,” he said, and I pressed my palms against the back of his sunburned neck. He reached down with one hand and bent my knee upward, and I thought, My God, what have I done? He said, with his hand still on my raised knee, Are you sure, Annabelle, are you sure you want this? and I nodded my head once, because even when you looked down from the heights to measure the distance to the surface, and the terror turned your limbs to water, you knew you had to dive, you had no choice except to jump. And as I nodded, I lifted my other knee because I thought I’d be damned if I didn’t jump in with both feet. Stefan’s eyes went opaque. He sank his belly down to mine and said my name as he pushed into me, just my name—twice, a cry that was more like a groan, Annabelle, Annabelle—but I, Annabelle, had no air in my lungs to say anything at all, no way of telling him what I felt, the splitting apart, the roar of panic smothered by the gargantuan joy of possession.

  He lay buried and still, breathing hard, and I thought, so dizzy I was almost sick, So that’s it, it’s over, we’ve made love, but then he moved again and I cried out, and he stopped and kissed me and said my name again, stroking my hair. Open your eyes, he said, but I couldn’t. He moved again, kissing me as he went, and the sickness undulated into something else, a collusion between us, his skin on my hands, the roughness of his breath. I opened my eyes and thought, My God, this is it, now we are making love.

  2.

  We lay submerged for ages, while the morning went on without us. I had no will to move, no idea what movement was. At some point I opened my eyes and found the slow crump of my heartbeat against Stefan’s ribs. He was beautifully heavy, pinning us to the earth, and in my bemusement I thought he had fallen asleep. The tiny green leaves rustled above us, as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed at all. I watched them move, watched the patient blue sky beyond them, the wisps of dark hair near my eyes. Stefan’s neck was smooth and damp beneath my fingers. Between my legs, I was shocked and stretched and aching, and I did not want it to stop, I wanted this abundance to continue forever.

  When he spoke, the softness of his voice stunned me.

  “Gott im Himmel. Annabelle. I did not expect that.”

  “It was unexpected and beautiful.”

  “Everything about you has been unexpected and beautiful.” He pushed back my hair, which had come loose across my face. “Look at you. What a brute I am.”

  “I didn’t give you a choice.”

  “A man has always the choice. Did I hurt you?”

  “No, no.”

  “Yes, I did. I hurt you. I tried to be gentle, but I have never done that before, been with an innocent.”

  “Never? Really?”

  “Never. And I can’t seem to regret it. A cad as well as a brute.” He kissed my lips, rose up on his hands, and lifted himself carefully away. He gazed back at me and his face was deep with remorse. I sat up and laid my bold palms against his cheeks. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you want to take it all back.”

  “No, never. It’s done now. We’re in God’s hands.”

  “Listen to you. A moment ago you were offering me a villa by the sea and a shameless apartment in Paris.”

  “Because I did not think you would be so foolish as to accept. I thought you would slap me as I deserved and stalk back to your father’s house.”

  “But I’m unexpected.”

  “Unexpected and beautiful.” He pulled my hands from his face and kissed each one, and he drew me into his chest and settled us in the grass. I lay bare and marveling in the curve of his body, thinking, My God, we are lovers now, we have actually made love together.

  The silence stretched out lazily. I said, “I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?”

  He laughed. “You have shocked and delighted me beyond words. But I must think a little. I must think what is to be done now.”

  “You mentioned a villa.”

  “Yes, I did. But this villa is something of a dream, and there is a reality to be considered first.” He shifted me on his chest and reached for his jacket, and this time he drew out his cigarettes and lit one briskly with his gold lighter. “Do you know what I have been thinking about, this past week?”

  “I know I’ve spent the past week wishing that I did.”

  “I have been thinking how I have arranged my life in a certain way, according to certain principles, and a rather arrogant belief that this was what God intended of me, and he would therefore overlook any little sins I might commit. And I have been wondering whether perhaps God has intended something entirely different, or if he has merely decided he should punish me after all.”

  “Is this one of those little sins?”

  “Ye
s, I suppose it is, according to the covenant. But I don’t regret it, I will never regret this moment. I am only pondering the path now before us.” He lay there, smoking quietly with one hand and holding me to his chest with the other. “You are a great complication, you know,” he said solemnly, after a moment.

  “Am I?”

  “A tremendous complication. So I suppose, before I ponder this matter any longer, I should humble myself to ask you what you want. What path you imagine for us. Since I find myself bound to you, by the pint of your blood that communicates in my veins, and now by honor, so therefore I am your servant on earth.”

  This time, it was my turn to laugh. “I love your chivalry. You talk like a man from a hundred years ago.”

  “Hmm. Yes. And what is your plan for this ancient servant you have brought under your command?”

  “Well. I like the sound of this villa of yours, with the olives and the grapes.” I paused, because I had left something out, and I wanted to see if he would supply the word for me. But he said nothing, and I went on: “And then there’s that talk about Paris, and by a strange coincidence, I was just thinking this morning that an apartment in Montparnasse might be the very thing for me.”

  “Montparnasse! Annabelle in Montparnasse?”

  “Yes. Why not? It’s crammed with Americans and art. It’s the most interesting place in the world right now. I could live in some grubby little room above a café and teach the cello to the daughters of the bourgeoisie.”

  “You realize that in Montparnasse, you will be expected to take a new lover every night, as a matter of course?”

  “Ah, but I’m unexpected, remember? I think I’ll be happy with just the one.”

  “I see. I suppose, so long as this lover is me, I cannot object.”

  “Yes, this lover would be you.” I rolled over and propped my chin on my hands, atop his chest, between the white sides of his unbuttoned shirt. Stefan stubbed out his cigarette in the grass and cupped his hands around the backs of my bare shoulders. I felt suddenly daring and desirable, like somebody’s mistress. I said, “What do you think of my path, Herr Silverman? Would you like to travel it with me?”

  He kissed me. The smoke was returning to his eyes. He kissed me again, a little harder. “This is your path. This is what you want of me.”

  “Only if you want it, too.”

  He studied me, kissed me, and then studied me again, as if the kiss might have made a difference. “All right, then. All right, Mademoiselle de Créouville. I will see what I can arrange. I will take care of everything for us. But come. The tide will be turning soon. I must be off.” He reached for my blouse and helped me into it.

  “The tide?”

  “Yes, the tide. I have left the tender at the Hôtel du Cap.”

  “But where are you going?”

  He was standing up, fastening his trousers, buttoning his shirt. “To my ship, of course. She is off to her winter mooring in Monte Carlo, which I must oversee. You will stay with your father for a few more days, and then I will return and take you—”

  My hands froze on my buttons.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “My father. My God, I forgot all about it.”

  “Forgot about what? Why are you laughing?”

  “I can’t stay here with my father. He’s leaving this morning for Paris. That’s why I ran out here, to see if I could find you somehow, because he’s already packed, we’re to leave right away. Poor Papa, he’s probably mad with impatience by now.”

  “Ah, yes. So it is true. I heard a rumor that a certain impoverished prince was experiencing some new difficulties in his poverty, which is why I woke up this morning and thought perhaps it was time to act. Well, then. It seems God, in his wisdom, has arranged things in a very satisfactory manner. You will come with me, of course. We cannot have you going off to Paris with your father and forgetting me altogether.”

  “I don’t think there’s much chance of my forgetting you.”

  He kissed my hand. “Then come. We will telephone your father from the hotel.”

  “What on earth am I going to tell him?”

  “The truth, of course. That you’re not yet ready to leave the seaside, and will spend the last few days of summer with your very dear friend, with whom you were staying before.”

  “And then?”

  He picked up his jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and leaned down to place a soft kiss on my lips. “And then we will see what comes next.”

  3.

  When we caught up with the Isolde in Monte Carlo, she was already moored in the harbor, surrounded by a few dozen yachts of similar proportion, but without her elegance. Stefan pulled me to the tender’s wheel. “Wait here just a moment,” he said. “I have a few instructions for the crew.”

  I kept the tender close, no easy feat in the constant chop of the busy harbor. The sun beat on my head; I hadn’t worn a hat. I looked up the familiar sides of the ship and remembered how I had arrived with Stefan at this exact spot in the middle of the night three weeks ago, on the brink of adventure, and now here I was again and the adventure had grown into dazzling dimensions, an infinity of adventure.

  I looked at my hands: one on the wheel, one on the throttle. There was still a soft ache between my legs. My skin felt as if it had been rubbed all over by a very fine grade of sandpaper. An hour ago, I had been lying on the grass with Stefan, and now I was running away with him, we were lovers running away together.

  True to his word, Stefan climbed back down the ladder a few minutes later and jumped nimbly into the boat. I smiled up at him and he took my shoulders and said, “My God, you’re here. It wasn’t a dream.”

  I laughed, because I’d been thinking the same thing. “No, of course not.”

  There was a hum of energy surrounding him, crackling the air. I wanted to fling my arms about his neck and kiss him, but instead I stepped back from the wheel so he could grab it. He took the wheel in one hand and the throttle in the other. “Let’s go, Liebling,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” I shouted, over the engine and the salt breeze.

  “I have a friend who keeps a place here, just outside of town. He lets me use it when the ship is in port for repairs and so on. It’s very nice, though the staff is all gone. I hope these nuns of yours have taught you to cook in addition to applying tourniquets.”

  “I guess I can boil an egg or two, in a pinch.”

  “Good. There is plenty of wine and a bakery in the fishing village, a kilometer away. I will bring us our daily bread, how does that sound?”

  I leaned into his ear and said, “I don’t have any things with me.”

  “Ah, don’t worry. Did I not say I would take care of everything for us?” He brought his arm around my shoulder, drawing me close as we edged westward out of the harbor, toward Stefan’s little place, just outside of town.

  4.

  The house was small and beautiful, a miniature villa tucked into the cliffs, made of crumbling yellow bricks and crumbling red tile on the roof. There was a tiny dock and boathouse and a stairway cut into the rocks, leading up to the house.

  Inside, the house smelled like the sea and the eucalyptus that grew near the windows for shade. “First of all, I must draw you a bath,” said Stefan. “I am a terrible blackguard for taking you on a forced march like this, instead of making sure you are comfortable.”

  “I’m perfectly comfortable,” I said, and he laughed.

  “You are such an eager little liar, Annabelle, Liebling. Come. Let us see if the old boiler is working.”

  Stefan got the boiler working, and in half an hour the taps ran hot. He showed me the rooms, the kitchen and the living room, and the beautiful terrace overlooking the sea, planted with lemons. The bedroom upstairs had a balcony that opened out into the lemon branches, so that the scent of lemons mingled with the brine and th
e eucalyptus. Stefan stood behind me and stretched out his hand. “See there, to the east? You can just find the Isolde, if you look hard.”

  I peered past his pointing finger. “Oh, yes! I see her.”

  “I have always loved coming here. It is the most peaceful place I know, and yet Monte Carlo is a half hour’s walk away. I come here to be alone and think.”

  “Then I’m interrupting your solitude.”

  “No, you are improving it beyond measure. I have never wanted to bring another human being here until now.” He kissed my temple. “Let’s get you in your bath.”

  He made the strangest chambermaid I’d ever known, moving about the marble bathroom with his cigarette stuck at the corner of his mouth, sniffing a bottle of bath oil while the faucet poured forth with hot water. He added a few drops to the tub and replaced the lid. “That will do, I believe,” he said, and turned to me. His hair curled with the steam. He smiled, the kind of too-wide smile that made me think he was nervous. “I will walk into the village and get us a little lunch while you are soaking, Mademoiselle. But there is no hurry. Is there anything else I can do for you? How are you feeling?”

  I thought, I love you.

  He frowned. “Annabelle?”

  I took the cigarette from his fingers and crushed it into the tray on the windowsill. “I’m very well, Stefan, thank you. I guess losing your virginity isn’t a mortal illness after all, whatever those old nuns used to tell us. Now, will you help me with this dress?”

  5.

  When Stefan returned, an hour or so later, he found me standing on the balcony, wrapped in a dressing gown that was several sizes too large. I held up my flopping arms. “The best I could do. But at least I’m all freshened up.”

  He dropped the net bag on the floor. There was a soft thump of a bottle hitting wood. “Oh, God,” he said.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  I pushed my loose hair over my ear. The sun flooded Stefan’s face, turning his eyes to caramel, touching the tiny bristles of his beard. He looked stricken and beautiful. I nodded at the bag on the floor. “Did you find lunch?”