Genesis by Jim Crace Read Free Book Online Page A

(if he was truly sleeping) and stepped out of the car in her bare feet, without her underwear, her own short hair flattened and unflattering. The ground was sodden still. Silver sheets of water spread across the park, low-lit and shadowy. The mud pressed up between her toes. She wanted shelter, privacy, a pee. And then some breakfast at the Palm & Orchid Coffee House. She’d earned it, hadn’t she?
    Already there were signs that this could be a fine, dry day. Retreating clouds, hugging the roofs of office blocks. A clearing wind. The skies prematurely busy with geese, commuter jets, and bees. No army helicopters yet above Deliverance Park, but she could hear their chudder from across the river and—something she could not recognize at first—the drum-‘n’-bass of flood
machines, already pumping out the rain from underpasses, cellars, and low roads.
    Mouetta half stood, half crouched behind the car, her legs spread like an outfielder’s. She held her skirt up around her waist and looked about both nervously and recklessly. Perhaps there’d be somebody walking their dog, or a jogger, or someone else who’d slept out in the park. Well, then, hard luck. They must have seen a woman passing water before. And if they hadn’t, let them look—and learn how everyday it was. How pleasurable, in fact.
    She was surprised to see how deep into the park Lix had driven her the night before. The car wheels had churned up ugly and irresponsible ruts across the grass. The service road was almost out of sight, but anyone could find them there—and issue reprimands. Their tracks were deep and almost unbroken. She stretched her arms and legs. She tried to warm herself, loading up on early sun. It would serve her husband right if he got caught and fined for Damage and for Reckless Parking. The celebrated Lix.
    Now that her bladder had been emptied and her limbs untangled, Mouetta felt refreshed and comfortable enough to concentrate on her ill temper. It was the product of their anniversary, that much she knew. Was it their failings—well, Lix’s failings—with the student that bothered her? Perhaps, to some extent. She’d set her heart on that “sweet boy.” On having him at home. On taking him from Freda. And, yes, her husband had been feeble, as he usually was when there was any challenge to be faced, or any risk, or any threat to his good name. Actually, the firebrand student had almost faded from her memory. What then? The
night of damp discomfort in the car? Her husband’s hurried lovemaking, the sudden sated ease with which he’d dropped asleep? Not that. A woman’s used to that.
    Freda, then? Was she to blame? Was her arrest the cause of this uneasiness? No, that was an ancient memory as well, surprisingly. She ought to, she knew, collect her cell phone from the car at once and scroll through her contacts for a sympathetic and earlyrising lawyer. She ought, at least, to let her cousin know that the student had not been rescued yet. The poor boy would want feeding. But Freda’s predicament had lost its urgency overnight. The detainee would have to wait, Mouetta felt, till she and Lix got home and she had showered, changed her clothes, and settled into a less disgruntled mood. Besides, what Lix had said the night before was true. Her cousin would probably be freed in time for breakfast, with or without lawyers. She’d welcome the celebrity, her “night in chains”! Freda was too well known and well attached to stay in custody for long. As soon as they got home, they’d find a message from her winking on the answering machine, her piping, fruity voice, undulled by its experience, with her usual slogans and her provocations, her infuriating “Ciao.” Sweet, slender cousin Freda, oh so brave and beautiful! And oh so undermining.
    So now—she only had to listen to her inner voice—Mouetta recognized the truth. Freda was the