The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [50]
Now the woman was paying for her pineapple. She turned and moved in his direction. For a moment, she looked quizzical, straw basket in one hand, the wallet in the other. Her face was leaner, not as rounded as he remembered. Even in the gloom of the market, he could see the gold cross. He heard the gasp.
—Thomas, the woman said.
She took a step forward.
—Is it really you?
He put his hands in his pockets, afraid that he might inadvertently touch her. Her presence a grenade, detonating.
—Linda.
His mouth already dry.
She smiled tentatively and cocked her head.
—What are you doing here?
What was he doing in Africa? It seemed a valid question.
—I’ve been here. A year.
—Really? So have I. Nearly, anyway.
Her eyes slid off his own for just a second, and the smile flickered. She wouldn’t have seen the scar before.
—This is very strange, he said.
An elderly man in a royal-blue jacket approached him and tugged at his sleeve. Thomas was rigid, unable to move, as though he might shatter something important. He watched as Linda reached into her wallet and took out shillings. The beggar, appeased, moved away.
She put the backs of her fingers to her nose, assaulted by one of the smells that wafted through the building. He thought her fingers might be trembling. Regina would be somewhere, waiting for him now. Regina. He struggled to say something sane.
—My wife is with UNICEF.
The words my wife not possible, he thought. Not here. Not now.
—Oh, she said. I see.
Thomas glanced at her fingers for a wedding band. Something that might have been a ring on her left hand. You’re in Nairobi?
—No. I’m in the Peace Corps. In Njia.
—Oh, he said. I’m surprised.
—Why?
—I never figured you for the Peace Corps.
—Well. People change.
—I suppose they do.
—Have you changed?
He thought. I don’t think so.
His lips were dry, and he had to lick them. His breathing was too shallow, and he needed air. The pain in his temple was excruciating. Regina would have the medicine in her purse. He put a hand to his head, almost before he realized he’d done so.
—You have a migraine.
He looked at her, astounded.
—It’s a pinching you get around your eyes.
She who had seen dozens.
—I don’t get them as often as I used to. The doctor tells me that by the time I’m fifty, they’ll have disappeared. He took in a great suck of air, hoping to disguise it as a sigh.
—It’s hard to imagine living that long, she said lightly.
—I used to think I’d be dead by thirty.
—We all did.
She had water-blue eyes and long, blond lashes. Shallow wrinkles already spoking out from the eyes. Her face tanned, an Indian red. After the accident, it had not been possible to be together. Her aunt and her uncles had forbidden it. He had besieged her house for days. Until, finally, they had sent her away. He still didn’t know where she had gone.
He had sent four letters, none of which had been answered. And then it was fall, and he had enrolled at Harvard. She had chosen Middlebury. He’d made himself give it up then, accept her silence as his punishment.
A decade had changed her. She looked a woman now. Her breasts were loose inside her blouse, and he struggled not to look at them.
—We live in Karen, he said.
She nodded slowly.
—It’s west of here. He waved his hand in a direction that might be west.
—I know the place.
—I never got the chance to tell you how sorry I was, he said. I tried to write you.
She looked away. Her chest was red in the deep V of her blouse. — For the accident, he said. It was inexcusable. If I hadn’t been driving so fast. If I hadn’t been drinking.
She glanced quickly back at him. I was there. I was as much a part of what happened as you.
—No, you weren’t. I was the one who was driving.
She put a hand out and touched his wrist. The touch so electric that he flinched. Thomas, let’s not do this. That