Castle of Water: A Novel(38)
*
The moon had risen by the time Sophie emerged fresh from the palms, stepping gracefully from between the shivering fronds into the gleam of its sterling light. Barry, crouched over the fire, watched her approach with an elegance that bordered on the spectral. When she entered the bouncing glow of the cooking fire, he received his first real glimpse, fleeting as it was, of what their first meeting may have been like under different circumstances—a blind date at a restaurant in the East Village or a chance encounter at a little café on the Canal Saint-Martin. Gone was the irritated girl he had seen for the very first time at the Tahitian airstrip; nowhere to be found was the heartbroken woman he had shared that Alcatraz of an island with for more than a year. Instead, he saw Sophie Ducel, the brilliant architect, great beauty, and longtime resident of the tenth arrondissement, walk into the firelight and say a confident bonsoir as a long-lost smile spread charmingly across her face. Granted, such an encounter in an international capital would likely not have involved so much bare nipple, but Barry was hardly one to complain. Partial nudity aside, they could have been meeting for an allongé at Aux Deux Amis or after-work cocktails at Tavern on the Green. It all felt that natural.
“You look…” And his voice trailed off in buoyant wonder.
“Oui?”
He was going to say something trite like “incredible” but instead stated what was to him the obvious, and even more complimentary. “Like a Gauguin painting.”
“Which one?”
“Like a cross between Vairumati and Two Tahitian Women.”
“Well, there’s just one of me.”
“Thank the Lord for that. I don’t think I could handle two of you.”
“Imbécile,” she shot back, although for once she meant it endearingly.
“So should we eat?”
“Pfff. We’re in the middle of a banana famine, and you need to ask?”
“Then bon appétit.”
Barry laid two skewers of roasted octopus sections across their stone table, and for a solid ten minutes neither of them spoke, occupied as they were with stuffing their faces full of the tender grilled meat. The fact that said meat had belonged to their archnemesis Balthazar only made the feast that much sweeter.
“Better than Lisbon?” Barry finally asked, cheeks bulging with roasted octopus.
“Better than anything,” Sophie replied through a mouth just as full. “I can’t stop eating. Je suis trop gourmande.”
They gorged until their bellies distended, washed everything down with two tall, stainless-steel cups of coconut water, and crumpled in tandem onto the sand, lying side by side beneath a mother lode of stars. The hearth had long since burned itself out, and the only light came courtesy of their distant fire.
“Want to know one thing about it here that makes me sad?”
Sophie turned her head toward Barry, whose eyes were battened to the heavens above.
“What’s that?” She had come close to answering with, Just one thing? but the lingering swoon of the dinner had robbed her of all snark.
“The constellations. I learned all the northern ones in Boy Scout camp when I was a kid, but in the Southern Hemisphere, I don’t know a single one. It would be nice to look up and see something familiar. You know, just one thing that hadn’t changed.”
“You can always make new ones. You don’t have to depend on the old.”
“The Medium Dipper?”
“No, totally new ones. You just have to find them.”
“Any jump out at you?”
Sophie’s eyes danced across the great wash of stars. “That one, there.” She jabbed at the sky with her finger. “It looks like une grosse bite avec deux couilles tombantes.”
“Like what?”
“A big dick with two droopy balls. Capricock.”
Barry erupted with laughter, hard enough to trigger a coughing fit. It had been so long since he’d had a good laugh, he’d forgotten what it felt like—he even peed a little in his pants, or loincloth, as it were.
Sophie laughed alongside him, taking no small pleasure in the mirth she had caused. “See, maybe us French are funnier than you think.”
“I never said you weren’t funny.”
“But you probably thought it.”
“Well, if being stuck on a desert island doesn’t give you a sense of humor about things, I suppose nothing will.”
“Stuck on a desert island—it’s like that game. Did you play it in America?”
“Which one?”
“You know, if you were stuck on a desert island, what one thing would you bring. Some people say a pocketknife, or a record player, or some beautiful supermodel. Whatever matters most.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“So?”
“You mean what would I bring with me?”
“Oui.”
“Not including a French architect with a strange sense of humor and a lifetime supply of little green bananas?”
“Oui. Not including that.”
“Hmmm.” Barry mulled it over. The irony of playing the game while actually on a desert island was rich indeed and, frankly, rather mind-boggling. But it didn’t take long to find his answer. “My paints. I miss painting.”
“That’s the only thing? Quel artiste.”