RUBIO Y MORENA
could even say, I love you. The words would not come off
his
tongue,
not even
in
the intimacies of the night. He could only speak with
his body and his hands. With her child-like mind, the
girl
must have
found him altogether baffling. She could not have been able to be–
lieve that he loved her but she must have been equally unable to
fathom his reason for staying with her if he did not. Kamrowski
would never know how she explained these things to herself or
if
she tried to explain them or if she was really as mindless as she had
seemed: not looking for reasons for things but only accepting that
which happens to
be
as simply being. No. He would never know
how. The dark figure in the doorway of the hotel, even mistaken
at first for that of a man, did not come into the light.
It
remained
in shadow.
Morena.
She called him
Rubio
sometimes when she
touched him.
Rubio
meant blond one. Sometimes he would answer
Morena
which means dark.
Morena.
That's all she was. Something
dark. Dark of skin, dark of hair, dark of eyes. But mystery can be
loved as well as knowledge and there could be little doubt that Kam–
rowski loved her.
Nevertheless a change became evident after they had lived to–
gether for less than a year, which may not seem a long time but was
actually a relationship of unprecedented duration
in
the life of Kam–
rowski. This change seemed to have several reasons, but perhaps the
real one was none of those apparent. For one thing the presence of
women had ceased to disturb him so greatly. That nervous block
described in the beginning was now so thoroughly dissolved by vir–
tue · ·of the effortless association with Amada, that his libido had
now
begun to ask for an extended field of play. The mind of a
w,r!fnan no longer emasculated him. The simple half-Indian girl had
rektored his male dominance. In his heart he knew this and was
grateful but one does not always return a gift with an outward show
of devoir. He paid her back very badly. That winter season, which
they spent in a southern city, he began to go out in society for the
first time in his life, for he had lately become what is called a Name
and received a good deal of attention. It was possible, now, to ignore
the ornament at the throat of the woman and return, at least now
and again, tht! look of her eyes without too much mortification. It
was also possible to make amatory advances before she had gone
to sleep.
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