SUNNY HONEYMOON
659
"Yes, it is true. And it's equally true that if your Party came
to power you'd inform on me ..."
"Who says so?"
"You said so yourself this morning, on the way to the
lighthouse."
"I said nothing at all."
"Well, what would you do then?"
She hesitated for a moment and then said:
"Why do you bring up such things at a time like this?"
"Because they prevent you from loving me and becoming my
wife."
"I wouldn't inform on you," she said at last. "I'd kave you,
that's all."
"But you're supposed to inform on your enemies," he shouted,
angrier than ever. "It's your duty."
Still huddled up at the head of the bed, she burst into tears.
"Giacomo, why are you so unkind? ... I'd kill myself, that's
what I'd do."
Giacomo did not have the courage to remind her that on the
way to the lighthouse she had branded suicide a!' morbid and abso–
lutely inadmissible. After all, this contradiction
",-a'l
more flattering
to him than an open declaration of love. Meanwhile, still in tears, she
had got down from the bed and gone over to the open window.
Giacomo lay on the bed, watching. She stood straight, with her head
bent to the side and one arm raised against the frame. Suddenly the
room was lit up, and every object in it, her naked, white body, the
garden and the potted lemon trees around the terrace. There followed
a metallic crack and a violent tremor which made the window and
the walls of the room tremble. Simona gave a terrified cry, left the
window and threw herself sobbing into her husband's arms. Giacomo
pressed her to him, and almost immediately, while still weeping
she sought his embrace, he penetrated her body without any diffi–
culty whatsoever. He had the feeling that a hidden flower, composed
of only two petals, had opened-although still remaining invisible-–
to something that in the dark night of the flesh played the role of
the sun. Nothing was settled, he reflected later on, but for the time
being
it
was enough to know that she would kill herself for him.
(Translated from the Italian
by
Frances Frenayc)
