The Bookman's Tale by Berry Fleming Read Free Book Online Page A

Johnson,” but it didn’t divert her. She said she had a half-done novel that was better than the poetry. “Maybe no good, but—yes, good,” he trying to arrange an escape by saying his company didn’t publish fiction, and much relieved at the reappearance of their waiter and her making an expert leap to, “Thomas, is Mr. Hugh Jim here today?”
    Thomas, wary as his Georgia cousins, said he couldn’t say about that, and she, understanding the idiom as well as Ray did, said to tell him she would like to speak to him, turning then to Ray and saying perhaps he would like to see something of the back country. “Maybe worth the trip, maybe not. Rites? Rituals? Maybe nothing. You never know. Or is your evening spoken for?” Confronting him with an immediate decision: off with this subtly foreign, pushy young woman to tourist “sights” he was too old to have room for, or off to bed with a paperback under a slow-turning ceiling fan possibly not turning at all after a ten-o’clock curfew.
    â€œâ€˜Adam and Eve,’ once, somebody told us. Not Christians, where did they get it? And maybe it wasn’t ‘Adam and Eve’ at all.… Hugh Jim,” to a tall black man in a chef’s pleated toque that made him seem all but majestic, “Mr. Ray is a distinguished visitor to San Juan de Pinos. He would like to see something of the real island, the mountains, the Cockpit country, the people—the sort of thing you once arranged for Mr. Jerry on the paper; remember?” Hugh Jim gazing down slantways as if at something between him and the broad cypress planks of the floor. When he said nothing she said, “Remember?” again and he waited a minute as if for a sauce to settle then shook his head. “Not the right season, madam.”
    Surprised, she asked, Why not? and he said, “Christmas-time, madam. Old year dying, new year borning—”
    â€œYes, but—”
    â€œNew day borning—”
    â€œWell, all right, but—”
    â€œNot a time for visitors,” moving from one glistening shoe to the other, obviously anxious to be gone.
    She persisted with, “You could arrange it, Hugh Jim,” giving Ray the idea she wanted to go for reasons of her own, probably for filling out something in her book (already a member of the ruthless-author clan).
    â€œOn duty tonight, madam,” finality in the shake of the white cap, she dismissing him with a petulant wave then calling him back and handing him ten dollars with, “Christmas gift, Hugh Jim.”
    Taking him back for an instant—street lights coming on—to the Christmas lanterns strung about the deck of the anchored ship and Sarah-Wesley talking to the mate, talking down a little, eyes on the others dancing to the phonograph. “Take a drink, Mr. First Mate. You’re not having any fun,” the mate smiling at his cup of punch, taking an obedient sip and as the music ended going to the turntable and changing the record, she beside him, shoulders rocking on the memory of the old tune and, as the new one started, opening her arms to be danced with—
    Janet saying, “Never mind, there are other ways,” in much the manner of Sarah-Wesley concerned that the mate was “not having any fun,” standing up with, “I’ll ask Jerry,” and leaving Ray to phone him from the lobby—leaving him dancing with Cousin Becky but thinking of the other two, Sarah-Wesley feather-light on her debutante feet, the mate’s big shoes threatening a collision at each step and she by some laser-beam signal to her toes moving them in the nick of time, the mate not able to see it but conscious of it and smiling at her spread of white teeth. Bits of their talk drifting to him laced into the music: “You really think I’m lightheaded, don’t you?” “Lightheaded? What is lightheaded? I think you are beautiful-headed.” A