Bethany Read Online Free Page B

brown eyes and sensuous mouth were full of gentleness as she looked down at the baby and cupped her breast to help him. It was difficult to imagine hardness in that face, but Coral had hinted that there were many things in her past that did not bear examination. She was, I thought, to a greater extent than any of us, a refugee. She had stopped running, now.
    I glanced at the others. Pete. Immediately I experienced the slight withdrawal I was never quick enough to stop. I had tried to like Pete, I had catalogued to myself his virtues and tried to return his open smile with an equally open one of my own, but it was no use. Confronted by Pete, my heart did not open up to welcome him, it closed like a clam.
    What was it? His appearance? The black beard, hairy chest, powerful arms? Yes, he repelled me, even slightly alarmed me, as did all very masculine men, but I knew that I could have forgiven Pete his abundance of hormones were it not for the two other qualities he combined with them: a level of intellect which I despised and an intuition I had to respect.
    How these two qualities came to co-exist in the same person I could only explain by Pete’s long association with Simon. Pete was a simple, straightforward man, ill-educated and not very articulate, but on this ordinary material had been superimposed something of Simon’s extraordinary perception and Simon’s wide-ranging knowledge. The result was a man capable of remarkable intuitions and well acquainted with Eastern thought, who was quite unable to express himself in terms that could be understood. Sometimes I listened to Pete trying to express an idea, and it was like listening to a peasant who had once, long ago, seen a wonderful thing in a dream. Yet, at other times I was not so sure. Simon, Dao and Coral seemed to understand without any trouble what he meant. I had even seen Alex engage in discussion with him when I could not makehead or tail of what he was saying. So perhaps there was something wrong with me?
    The disturbance this idea caused me largely accounted for my difficulties with Pete. Objectively I acknowledged him to be a kind, helpful and considerate man: inwardly, the moment I saw him I recoiled. Physical distaste, sexual antagonism, intellectual disdain: it was a potent mixture, I thought, and none of it to my credit. I resolved to try harder to like him. If I indulged it, my stupid egotism could wreak havoc here.
    My eyes moved to Dao, sitting comfortably in the lotus position with her children arranged around her skirts. I thought I had never in my life seen a face so beautiful: so eloquent and yet so contained, so serious and yet so full of laughter. She was so beautiful, so serene, this tiny Oriental creature, that at first I had found myself almost tongue-tied in her presence and had been as conscious of the size of my feet and the loudness of my voice as an adolescent. After a week of daily contact I was still shy of her, and she knew it, and across the supper table her laughing eyes would seek out mine and silently accuse me of running away. I couldn’t help it: simplicity always frightened me, and here were wisdom, simplicity and beauty together. It was too much. She made me feel worthless. She made me feel like a child. She made me feel what I was – a devious, superficial, ungenerous and utterly imperceptive Westerner.
    Simon had met her in Thailand, when he was working there for the British Council and she was teaching English at Bangkok University. He had played the flute for her in her village, and they had fallen in love. She came back with him to England. Simon was already married, although estranged from his wife, but the problem of a passport for Dao was simply if imaginatively solved – she married a college friend of Simon’s who was also working in Thailand and who handed her over to Simon immediately after the ceremony. I blinked when I heard this part of the story: it seemed less than perfect. I then