you’re not on duty, are you? You have tendered your resignation to me, and rather coldly at that, considering what we have shared.” He rested his elbow on his left knee and considered me. I was wearing my nightgown and my dressing gown belted over it, like a Victorian maiden afraid of ravishment. My hair was loose and just touched my shoulders. “Is something the matter?” he said.
“No.”
“There must be something the matter. It’s not even dawn yet, and here you are, out on deck, looking as if you mean to do something dramatic.”
I laughed. “Do I? I can’t imagine what. I don’t do dramatic things.”
“Oh, no. You only wrap tourniquets around the legs of dying men—”
“You weren’t dying, not quite, and anyway, I wasn’t the one who put the tourniquet on you.”
He waved his hand. “You carry him in a boat across the sea—”
“Across a harbor, a very still and familiar harbor.”
“Toward an unknown destination, a yacht, and you nurse him back to health. All without knowing who he is, and why he’s there, and why he’s been shot through the leg and nearly killed. Whether you’ve just committed an illegal act and are now wanted by a dozen different branches of the police.”
“Am I?”
“I doubt it. Not in France, in any case.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and drew out his cigarette case. “So I’ve been lying here, day after day, and wondering why. Why you would do such a thing.”
“You might just have asked me.”
“I was afraid of your answer.”
I watched him light the cigarette and replace the case and the lighter in his pocket. The smoke hovered in the still air. Stefan waved it away, observing me, waiting for me to reply.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said. “It’s simple. My brother asked me to.”
“You trust your brother like that?”
“Yes. He would never ask me to do something dishonorable.”
He muttered something in German and swung himself upright.
“You should use your crutches,” I said.
“I am sick of fucking crutches,” he said, and then, quickly, “I beg your pardon. I find I am out of sorts tonight.”
I gripped the rail as he limped toward me. “I suppose I am, too.”
“Ah. Now, this is a curious thing, a very interesting thing. Why, Annabelle? Tell me.”
“Surely you know already.”
“I know very well why I am out of sorts. I am desperate to know why you are out of sorts.”
The water slapped against the side of the ship. I counted the glittering waves, the seconds that passed. I pressed my thumbs together and said: “I don’t know. Just restless, I suppose. I’ve been cooped up for so long. I’m used to exercise.”
He leaned his elbow on the railing, a foot or so from mine. I felt his breath as he spoke. “You are bored.”
“Not bored.”
“Yes, you are. Admit it. You have had nothing to do except fetch and carry for a grumpy patient who does not even thank you as you deserve.”
I laughed. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”
“There is an easy cure for your boredom. Do something unexpected.”
“Such as?”
“Anything. You must have some special talent, besides nursing. Show it to me.” He transferred his cigarette to his other hand and reached into his pocket. “Do you draw? I have a pen.”
“I don’t have any paper.”
“Draw on the deck, if you like.”
“I’m not going to ruin your deck. Anyway, I’m hopeless at drawing.”
“A poem, then. Write me a poem.”
I was laughing, “I don’t write, either. I play the cello, quite well actually, but my cello is back at the Villa Vanilla.”
“The Villa Vanilla?”
“My father’s house.”
Stefan began to laugh, too, a handsome and hearty laugh that shivered his chest beneath his dinner jacket. “Annabelle. Am I just supposed to let you slip away?”
“Yes, you are.” His hand, broad and familiar, had worked close to mine on the railing, until our fingers were almost touching. I drew my arm to my side and said, “I do have one talent.”
“Then do it. Show me, Annabelle.”
I reached for the sash of my dressing gown. Stefan’s astonished eyes slid downward.
The bow untied easily. I let the gown slip from my shoulders and bent down to grasp the hem of my nightgown.
“Annabelle—”
I knotted the nightgown between my legs and turned to brace my hands on the railing. “Watch,” I said, and I hoisted myself upward to balance the balls of my feet on the slim metal rod while the moonlight washed my skin.
“My God,” Stefan said, reaching for my legs, but I was already launching myself into the free air, tucking myself into a single perfect roll, uncurling myself just in time to slice into the water beneath a silent splash.
9.
“You are quite right,” called Stefan, when my head bobbed at last above the surface. “That is an immense talent.”
“I was club champion four years running.” The water slid against my limbs, sleek and delicious.
He pointed to the side of the ship. “The ladder is over there, Mademoiselle.”
“So it is.”
But I didn’t swim toward the ladder. I turned around and kicked my strong legs and stroked my strong arms, toward the shore of the Île Sainte-Marguerite, waiting quietly in the moonlight.
10.
I lay in the rough sand without moving, soaking up the faint warmth of yesterday’s sun into my bones. I thought I had never felt so magnificent, so utterly exhausted and filled with the intense pleasurable relief that follows exhaustion. The water dried slowly on my legs and arms; my nightgown stiffened against my back. I inhaled the green briny scent of the beach, the trace of metal, the hint of eucalyptus from the island forest, and I thought, Someone should bottle this, it’s too good to be true.
I didn’t count the passing of minutes. I had no idea how much time had passed before I heard the rhythmic splash of oars in the water behind me.
“There you are, Mademoiselle,” said Stefan. “I had some trouble to find you in the darkness.”
I sat up. “You haven’t rowed all the way over here!”
“Of course. What else am I to do, when Annabelle dives off my ship and swims away into the night?”
I rose to my unsteady feet and took the rope from his hand. “Let me do that.”
“I assure you, I can manage.”
“If your wound opens—”
“Don’t be stupid.” He pulled on the rope and the boat slid up the sand. I took a few