Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [349]
“Come,” she said, and Isabelle let herself be led. They climbed alongside the waterfall to about half its height, with the help of hands and footholds worn in the stone by long years of use. Ten feet up, they balanced on a ledge, and Nanon thrust her free arm to the elbow into the curtain of falling water.
“Come,” she said, and she drew Isabelle forward into the current, before she could think of resisting. The cold drenched her, shocked her to the bone. Then she was through. She and Nanon stood in a little grotto behind the fall, hugging each other for warmth and laughing from excitement.
The sun, filtered through the falling water, covered them with a strange liquid light. Nanon pulled her dress over her head and balled it up and hurled it through the barrier. She turned to Isabelle and kissed her on the corner of the mouth.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. Then she stepped through the veil, as she were herself translated into water, and disappeared into the tumbling light.
Isabelle stood poised a moment, with her finger laid on her open mouth where she had been touched. The waterfall made a weird window, through which everything appeared magnified, distorted, rearranged by the ropes of crystal fluid. She could not really see what lay beyond it.
She took off her own dress and jumped through the waterfall, holding the garment stretched out at arm’s length like a flag. As she launched into the bright air, she shouted out a mixture of joy and fear and surprise at the chill water washing over her again. The water of the pool was warmer than she had expected when she went under, though it was very deep. She came up spluttering. Nanon reached out her hand to pull her up over the bank into the glow of the sunshine.
For a moment they stood side by side, studying each other’s bodies, each pear-shaped from pregnancy. Nanon set her arm against Isabelle’s; they were now almost the same honey shade, for in these last weeks Isabelle had abandoned all her usual precautions against the sun. Only her breasts and belly were still pallid, of course, and the parts of her limbs which were usually covered, and soon they were both giggling at the effect of this. Then they turned and stood side by side, looking into the pool, where their dresses floated like two great crumpled water lilies.
“The water is not so cold as I thought,” Isabelle said. “And it seems to get warmer the deeper you go.”
“A warm spring feeds it from below,” Nanon said. She wrinkled her nose, and Isabelle thought she caught a hint of sulfur in the air.
“But come,” Nanon said, “you will burn.”
She led Isabelle to the spread blanket and covered her with the folded one. They stretched out on their backs, side by side, with their fingers lightly laced and the sun red against their eyelids.
Later, when they roused from their doze, they were both very hungry. Isabelle busied herself laying out the cold chicken, bread and fruit, while Nanon hooked their dresses from the pool with a long stick and spread them on the grass to dry. Then she climbed again to the grotto behind the waterfall. When she came out this time, she was brandishing a bottle of white wine.
“Miracle,” Isabelle said, when she had tasted it. “But this is very good, it is certainly French. How is it possible?”
Nanon gave her only a sly smile. For a time they went on eating and drinking and silence.
“But it must be witchcraft,” Isabelle said finally, as she drained her glass.
“No,” said Nanon, a little sadly, it seemed. “No witchcraft. Choufleur kept his wine here, so it would not sour in the heat. Now I am the only one that knows.” She smiled distantly. “There are still a great many bottles hidden there. I think I shall not tell the Fortiers.”
“All this place must be your secret, then.”
“It was one of the first secrets I shared with him. Later, after he had changed, it was all destroyed for me.” Nanon turned to Isabelle, her heavy red lips curving. “But now I can love it again, because of you.”
“Why, you touch my heart,” Isabelle said.