Honeymoon Read Online Free Page A

enveloped the beach, the sea, and the Moorea terrace in a sheet of silence. And against this background of silence, the slightest sound stood out with unusual acuity: the voices of a group of people in swimming costumes at a table some way away from ours, whose conversation we could follow as if they were sitting next to us; the drone of a Chriscraft gliding over the calm sea and from time to time letting itself float, its engine switched off. And then we heard the laughter and shouts of the people on board.
    "If I understand rightly," he said to me, "you weren't making for anywhere in particular."
    'No."
    "You were just drifting …"
    Not the slightest irony in his voice. On the contrary, I detected fellow-feeling in it.
    "But unfortunately, I have to get back to Paris as soon as possible for my work."
    "What kind of work?"
    This time it was she who was questioning me, her pale eyes still fixed on me.
    "I write articles for geographical magazines …"
    I was only half lying. I had written a long article on the journalist and explorer Henry M. Stanley and sent it to a travel magazine, but I still didn't know whether it would be published.
    "And you've just come back from a trip?" he asked.
    "Yes. From Austria. Vienna."
    I was hoping to steer the conversation round to Vienna. She ought to know it well, seeing that she had been born there. To my great astonishment, she didn't react.
    "It's a very beautiful city, Vienna."
    It was no use my insisting. Vienna didn't mean a thing to her.
    "And you, do you work in Paris?"
    "I've retired," he answered with a smile, but in an abrupt tone which discouraged further questions.
    "I'm going to bathe. Will you wait here for me?"
    She stood up and took off her white bath robe. I watched her in the heat haze. She crossed the beach, then walked into the sea, and when the water came up to her waist she began to swim on her back.
    We met again in the shade of the pines by the bungalow. We played a game of cards they taught me whose rules were very simple. That was the only time in my life that I have played cards. And then we got to the end of the afternoon.
    "I'm going to do a bit of shopping," she said.
    He turned towards me:
    "Could you go with her? It'd be wiser … She hasn't got a driving licence … I didn't want to tell you, earlier … You might have been afraid we'd be stopped on the Saint-Raphaël road …"
    He gave a short little laugh.
    "I'm not afraid of anything," I told him.
    "You're right … Nor were we, either, at your age …" "But we're still not afraid of anything," she said, raising her index finger.
    •
    I always kept my passport and driving licence in the inside pocket of my jacket. I sat at the wheel. I had trouble in moving off and getting out of the Moorea car park, because I hadn't driven for some time.
    "I have a feeling that you drive even worse than I do," she said.
    She showed me the way. Once again the little track bordered by bamboos. It was so narrow that every time a car came in the opposite direction I had to pull in on to the verge.
    "Would you like me to take over?" she asked.
    "No, no. It'll be quite all right."
    •
    I parked the car outside the Hôtel de Paris, whose façade and little windows with their wooden shutters made it look like an hotel in the mountains, and we walked down to the port. It was the time of day when groups of tourists were strolling along the quayside admiring the moored yachts, or trying to find a free table on the terrace of Senéquier's. She bought a few things at the chemist's. She asked me whether I needed anything, and after a moment's hesitation I confessed that I needed some Extra Blue Gillette razor blades and some shaving cream, but that I hadn't any money on me. Then we went to the bookshop where she picked out a detective story. Next, to the port's bar-tabac . She bought a few packets of cigarettes. We had difficulty in making our way through the crowd.
    A little later, though, we were the only ones walking through