Genesis by Jim Crace Read Free Book Online

understood. From then, he’d always found it wisest to start off with a wary, playful joke. A decoy, as it were. Then he could judge how serious she was, how easy to offend.
    Lix looked around the crowded coffeehouse, packed with breakfasting commuters. Here were the city’s office staff, mostly women dressed for desk work and warm weather—although the Palm & Orchid boasted that its “atmosphere” was always semi-temperate—their makeup as yet unsmudged, their skirts and tops fresh from hangers and drawers. Still crisp and fragrant. He’d sleep with fifty women there, if life were simpler.
    â€œThe little waitress, obviously,” he said at last.
    Mouetta pinched his hand again. “Be serious.”
    â€œI’m being serious. I like my women old and gray. And wearing sandals. I like a lived-in face with lots of chins. And I’m especially fond of bunions. You should be pleased.”
    â€œOh, yes? My pleasure knows no boundaries. I can get some gray highlights put in today, if that’s your preference.”
    â€œI’m joking but I’m serious. Old’s fine by me. Up to a point. It means I’m not the sort to dump you for some frisky pony as soon as you begin to …” He hesitated, searching for a further equine metaphor. “ … refuse the jumps.” He had to laugh, despite the warning tilt of Mouetta’s face. “The truth is, I can’t wait till
you’re sixty—and serving me with your tray and apron. Naked otherwise, of course. Bare bunions.” Lix made his lecher’s face. “I’ll have a double latte please. And honey cake. Give me the little waitress anytime.”
    â€œWhy am I less than thrilled with that good news?” she said.
    Mouetta could not find it in herself to be pleased with anything that morning. She wasn’t still mentally stimulated by their lovemaking in the car, as he’d imagined. Far from it. She felt, illogically, as if he’d poisoned her. She was in toxic shock. Her temperature was wrong. Her stomach ached. The seat belt strap, her pillow for the night, had left a ridge across her cheek that had not yet repaired itself. Her head and heart were dulled by something out of her control. She could not, dare not, put a name to it. A woman of her age and hopes who has no children yet is always nervous of an early menopause. She’d not slept well, of course. Who does, in cars? But there was something else that bothered her, something undermining and elusive that she’d squeeze out of her husband’s palms with her fingernails, an answer she could only draw with blood.
    It was, of course, mostly the onset of her pregnancy that had disrupted her, the gelling of the early cells, the hormone parties striking out to colonize new settlements, the stiffening of glands. How could she know at this precocious stage? How could she yet understand her sudden listlessness, the unusual and overwhelming irritation that she felt for Lix, the nagging private voice that seemed to say her world had changed? Mouetta was a morning person, normally. Only moody after dark, when she was tired. So this was worrying.

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    SHE’D WOKEN UP in their Panache, aching and perspiring, soon after dawn. The leather front seats of a car are disappointing mattresses. Her body felt precarious, subjected to confinements and contortions for too long. She checked the dashboard clock. Five-forty-six. The only sounds inside the car came from her husband’s nose.
    The celebrated Lix had not looked handsome with his great head lolling on one side. The angle rucked up folds of fat around his chin. His hair was unkempt and the infuriating vestiges of his Tartuffe makeup—so oddly stimulating when they were making love—were smeared from his lashes and his eyebrows across his cheek and on his shirt collar. It looked as if his cherry birthmark had been leaking its pale juice.
    Mouetta let him sleep