Dusk and Other Stories - James Salter [22]
“How about you?” he said. “What do you do?”
“Oh, I’m just taking care of Christopher.”
“Where’s his mother?”
“She lives here. She’s divorced,” Truus said.
“It’s terrible the way people get divorced,” he said.
“I agree with you.”
“I mean, why get married?” he said. “Are your parents still married?”
“Yes,” she said, although they did not seem to be a good example. They had been married for nearly twenty-five years. They were worn out from marriage, her mother especially.
Suddenly Robbie raised himself slightly. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Your kid. I don’t see him.”
Truus jumped up quickly, looked around, and began to run toward the water. There was a kind of shelf the tide had made which hid the ocean’s edge. As she ran she finally saw, beyond it, the little blond head. She was calling his name.
“I told you to stay up where I could see you,” she cried, out of breath, when she reached him. “I had to run all the way. Do you know how much you frightened me?”
Christopher slapped aimlessly at the sand with his shovel. He looked up and saw Robbie. “Do you want to build a castle?” he asked innocently.
“Sure,” Robbie said after a moment. “Come on, let’s go down a little further, closer to the water. Then we can have a moat. Do you want to help us build a castle?” he said to Truus.
“No,” Christopher said, “she can’t.”
“Sure, she can. She’s going to do a very important part of it for us.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.” They were walking down the velvety slope dampened by the tide.
“What’s your name?” Christopher asked.
“Robbie. Here’s a good place.” He kneeled and began scooping out large handfuls of sand.
“Do you have a penis?”
“Sure.”
“I do, too,” Christopher said.
She was preparing his dinner while he played outside on the terrace, banging on the slate with his shovel. It was hot. Her clothes were sticking to her and there was moisture on her upper lip, but afterward she would go up and shower. She had a room on the second floor—not the one Mrs. Pence had—a small guest room painted white with a crude patch on the door where the original lock had been removed. Just outside the window were trees and the thick hedge of the neighboring house. The room faced south and caught the breeze. Often in the morning Christopher would crawl into her bed, his legs cool and hair a little sour-smelling. The room was filled with molten light. She could feel sand in the sheets, the merest trace of it. She turned her head sleepily to look at her watch on the night table. Not yet six. The first birds were singing. Beside her, eyes closed, mouth parted to reveal a row of small teeth, lay this perfect boy.
He had begun digging in the border of flowers. He was piling dirt on the edge of the terrace.
“Don’t, you’ll hurt them,” Truus said. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to put you up in the tree, the one by the shed.”
The telephone was ringing. Gloria picked it up in the other part of the house. After a moment, “It’s for you,” she called.
“Hello?” Truus said.
“Hi.” It was Robbie.
“Hello,” she said. She couldn’t tell if Gloria had hung up. Then she heard a click.
“Are you going to be able to meet me tonight?”
“Yes, I can meet you,” she said. Her heart felt extraordinarily light.
Christopher had begun to scrape his shovel across the screen. “Excuse me,” she said, putting her hand over the mouthpiece. “Stop that,” she commanded.
She turned to him after she hung up. He was watching from the door. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
“No.”
“Come, let’s wash your hands.”
“Why are you going out?”
“Just for fun. Come on.”
“Where are you going?”
“Oh, stop, will you?”
That night the air was still. The heat spread over one immediately, like a flush. In the thunderous cool of the Laundry,