The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [120]
And I never have swam good since.’
Harry scrambled up the bank. ‘Gosh! I never heard about that.’
She meant to add on to the tale to make it sound more reasonable, but instead she just looked at Harry. His skin was light brown and the water made it shining. There were hairs on his chest and legs. In the tight trunks he seemed very naked. Without his glasses his face was wider and more handsome. His eyes were wet and blue. He was looking at her and it was like suddenly they got embarrassed.
The water’s about ten feet deep except over on the other bank, and there it’s shallow.’
‘Less us get going. I bet that cold water feels good.’
She wasn’t scared. She felt the same as if she had got caught at the top of a very high tree and there was nothing to do but just climb down the best way she could--a dead-calm feeling. She edged off the bank and was in ice-cold water. She held to a root until it broke in her hands and then she began to swim.
Once she choked and went under, but she kept going and didn’t lose any face. She swam and reached the other side of the bank where she could touch bottom. Then she felt good.
She smacked the water with her fists and called out crazy words to make echoes.
Watch here!’ Harry shimmied up a tall, thin little tree. The trunk was limber and when he reached the top it swayed down with him. He dropped into the water.
‘Me too! Watch me do it!’
‘That’s a sapling.’
She was as good a climber as anybody on the block. She copied exactly what he had done and hit the water with a hard smack. She could swim, too. Now she could swim O.K.
They played follow the leader and ran up and down the bank and jumped in the cold brown water. They hollered and jumped and climbed. They played around for maybe two hours. Then they were standing on the bank and they both looked at each other and there didn’t seem to be anything new to do. Suddenly she said: ‘Have you ever swam naked?’
The woods was very quiet and for a minute he did not answer.
He was cold. His titties had turned hard and purple. His lips were purple and his teeth chattered. ‘I-I don’t think so.’
This excitement was in her, and she said something she didn’t mean to say. ‘I would if you would. I dare you to.’
Harry slicked back the dark, wet bangs of his hair. ‘O.K.’
They both took off their bathing-suits. Harry had his back to her. He stumbled and his ears were red. Then they turned toward each other. Maybe it was half an hour they stood there-maybe not more man a minute. Harry pulled a leaf from a tree and tore it to pieces. ‘We better get dressed.’
All through the picnic dinner neither of them spoke. They spread the dinner on the ground. Harry divided everything in half. There was the hot, sleepy feeling of a summer afternoon.
In the deep woods they could hear no sound except the slow flowing of the water and the songbirds. Harry held his stuffed egg and mashed the yellow with his thumb. What did that make her remember? She heard herself breathe.
Then he looked up over her shoulder. ‘Listen here. I think you’re so pretty, Mick. I never did think so before. I don’t mean I thought you were very ugly--I just mean that--’ She threw a pine cone in the water. ‘Maybe we better start back if we want to be home before dark.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Let’s lie down. Just for a minute.’
He brought handfuls of pine needles and leaves and gray moss. She sucked her knee and watched him. Her fists were tight and it was like she was tense all over.
‘Now we can sleep and be fresh for the trip home.’
They lay on the soft bed and looked up at the dark-green pine clumps against the sky. A bird sang a sad, clear song she had never heard before. One high note like an oboe--and then it sank down five tones and called again. The song was sad as a question without words.
‘I love that bird,’ Harry said. ‘I think it’s a vireo.’
‘I wish we was at the ocean. On the beach and watching the ships far out on the water. You went to the beach one summer--exactly what is it like?’
His voice was rough and low. Well--there are the waves.
Sometimes blue and sometimes