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"No matter. I'm thinking for both of us.'"
They reached Honolulu in less than three hours and as they
climbed out of the plane Bob again asked Matilda: "Do you
want to rest?"
"No," she answered, slightly impatient.
In Honolulu it was not yet midnight. "Here," Matilda
noted, "are dark-skinned women with low buttocks who wiggle
their hips when they dance, but I don't see any." Her remark
about the low buttocks made Bob laugh.
In Honolulu Matilda had the impression that the night had
begun to expand like the cupola of an immense umbrella. It was
six o'clock by her watch, with still no sign of dawn.
They ate a light supper at the airport bar before returning
to the plane. Matilda drank only a sip of mineral water. She
drank nothing alcoholic because she wanted to be wide awake
and alert when the final instant arrived. That's what she said.
The next stop was in the Marshall Islands. It was terribly
hot and they shed so much clothing they were almost nude. See–
ing her awake, fresh and vigorous, and without fatigue or drowsi–
ness, Bob decided that she owed half her beauty to her excellent
health. The healthiness of a precious animal. Bob felt highly
stimulated and filled with hope. She repeated: "It's obscenely
hot." This expression, which she had learned from a waitress
in
the bar, appealed to her.
They reached Luzon in the Philippines. People dressed
neatly in white and, according to Matilda, had turtle eyes. They
all seemed affable and polite, but Matilda thought that they
stared at her too hard.
Then Calcutta, in India. Here they had difficulties because
the police asked for Matilda's passport which, naturally, she did
not have. Uncomfortably she said: "What are these people look–
ing for?" Bob whispered in her ear: "Maybe they suspect you."
"But why? Whatever I've done in my own country
is
my
affair and is nobody's business, much less theirs with their absurd
