AMOSOZ
495
night: she had a sofa-bed. She sat me on her bed, the rain was beating on
the windows like stones, she lit a paraffin heater; poured me a glass of my
own brandy, brought some fruit, paper napkins; then all at once she
changed her mind, blew out the candle, sat herself down next to me and
said, The courting's over; let's make love. And she started unbuttoning
my shirt. At that moment I felt a warm flood not just of desire but of
protectiveness. Her sensuality turned out to be dead straight, open, and
yet - curious, with a strong determination to study me at once and in
depth, to skip the niceties, make my acquaintance thoroughly and
quickly, establish a foothold in me that very night.
Straight after the love, she fell asleep lying on her stomach like a
baby, her face in the hollow of my shoulder. In the morning she said:
You enjoyed that a hell of a lot. Like a stallion. Me too.
After the night of the storm and after the following nights, I was still
certain that there was no permanent relationship. I still saw myself ending
my days alone. But she and I could not have an agreement of the sort I
had had all those years with transient women in hotels, villages, ham–
mocks, Development Agency hostels, the two-clause agreement: fair
pleasure and farewell . On the contrary: our friendship became open and
playful after the night of the storm. We both felt easier and better. It was
a strange experience, because up to then I didn't really believe in friend–
ship, certainly not friendship between a man and a woman. Intimacy, yes,
and passion, and fair play, and passing affection, and pleasure for pleasure,
give and take, all these I had known over the years, and always in the
shadow of the inescapable combination of desire and embarrassment.
With the limits marked out in advance. But open-handed friendship, an
unembarrassed relationship, no limits, I didn't think that was possible
between me and a woman. In fact I didn't think it was possible between
any two people. Then along came Noa, in her colorful summer dresses
that whirled round her legs, with rows of large buttons fastened with
loops down the front, the whole length of her lithe body, teasing me,
slapping my shoulder sometimes in a gesture of relaxed comradeship, her
deep simple sexuality like warm brown bread, the way she loved to strip
us both naked in broad daylight, on the bank of a stream or in a clearing
in the forest, free from all embarrassment, of flesh, or cash, or feelings,
and the way she seemed to have made up her mind to untie me too and
set me free.
Once I stayed with her for three days and three nights. When it was
time to leave for the airport I said, Look, no arguments, I'm leaving you
four hundred dollars on the shelf here. It's what I'd have spent on a hotel.
And you're living such a hand-to-mouth existence. Noa said: Fine. That's
okay. Thanks. A moment later she changed her mind, she'd worked out
