SUNNY HONEYMOON
649
When Livio heard them coming he leaped to his feet and said:
"Come on, Simona, let's dive in and race over to that rock."
"You'll have to give me a handicap of at least .a length," she
said joyfully, forgetful of her husband.
"I'll give you three lengths, if you say so."
There it was, Giacomo could not help thinking, the same inti–
mate, conspiratorial, clubby, Party manner, that tone of voice in
which, despite their marriage, she had never spoken to him, and
perhaps never would speak either. Sitting on a flat rock, just above
the landing, he watched his wife plunge awkwardly in and then swim
like a dark shadow under the green water until she came out, with
her blond head dripping.
"That was .a real belly-flop," Livio shouted, making a perfect
dive to join her. He too swam underwater, but for a longer distance
than Simona, so that he came out farther away. Giacomo wondered
if
this "Party manner" weren't all a product of his imagination, and
if
there hadn't been in the past some more intimate personal relation–
ship between them. And he realized that this second hypothesis was,
on the whole, less disagreeable than the first. Then he said to him–
self that if he were to mention any such suspicion to Simona she
would be outraged and brand
it
as utterly "bourgeois," not to say
"evil-minded and filthy." The moment after, he dismissed it as out
of the question. No, they were comrades, as she had said, and nothing
more. What still puzzzled him was why he objected more to their
being Party comrades than to their being lovers. With a wavering
effort of good will, he said to himself that his jealousy was absurd,
and he must drive it out of his mind . . . And all the while he
watched the two of them race across the dazzling green water in the
direction of a round rock which emerged at the far end of the basin.
Livio got there first, and hoisting himself up on .a protruding spur
shouted back at Simona:
"I win! You're all washed up!"
"Speak for yourself!" Simona retorted.
This was the sort of joking insult he and Simona should have
batted back and forth between them, Giacomo reflected.
If
they
didn't joke that way on their honeymoon, when would they ever do
it? He got up decisively, ran several steps along the landing and
went in after them. He landed square on his stomach and was in-
