Man Who Was Late Read Online Free Page A

precious cargo would be saved: Sarah’s and Rebecca’s childhoods, the delicate, miraculous realization of his dreams.
    Like most such arrangements, the deal did not hold for long. Rachel returned to Boston or, more precisely, to the family acres on the North Shore. Sarah became a boarder at Milton, and, over Ben’s tactless and quaint objection that she did not need instruction in breaking farm machinery, Rebeccawent far north in Vermont to progressive Putney. Tucked into unoccupied corners of midterm vacation, the dinners took place mostly in the familiar pomp of the Boston Ritz, the twins tasting Chambertin under the indulgent eye of the headwaiter, who was Ben’s friend. That hamburgers could have been eaten somewhere, without the benefit of crystal chandeliers, and shared with classmates clad in jeans did not occur to Ben. To meet Ben the twins wore the kilts and cashmeres he packed from London; in the lobes of their ears (pierced, he would claim, when his back was turned) glowed his peace offering—pink-hued pearls lovingly chosen in Tokyo.
    During the second Christmas vacation, Sarah stood him up without warning: friends were staying with her. She laughed queerly at his telephoned suggestion that she might have brought them. Ben returned to the table and a closed-faced Rebecca. It was too bad her genius sister Sarah hadn’t shown up, she informed him; she knew Ben thought everything about her own friends and Putney was dumb, but it took someone really dumb like her to want to hang around the Ritz; he should know his Wallace Stevens freaked her out. Heading for Beverly Farms on Route 128, driving her back to her mother’s home very slowly, Ben told her a story: In the king’s palace, the carpet of childhood is woven by a blind weaver with silk and wool of many colors from many spools. His fingers have learned the outlines of figures he must give shape to, but not the placement of the colors; his master changes them each year. When the child is grown, the master and the prince or princess who was that child examine thework and the weaver is lashed with whips or praised and released from toil for a while, according to their pleasure. He, Ben, is that weaver. Rebecca remained silent. When Ben turned to look at her, he saw that she was asleep.
    The next summer, like a murderer returning to the scene of the crime, Ben rented a house on an island off Hyères for his month of vacation. There was a terrace crowded by bougainvilleas, a beach below, and a fisherman’s boat with a two-stroke motor that took all of Ben’s strength to start. An Italian woman cooked. Sarah and Rebecca turned the color of copper in the sun. The tops of their bikinis off, bandannas in their hair, toes of arched feet touching, they lay foot to foot on the stone balustrade like rococo Indians.
    Ben’s heart ached with happiness and gratitude. He had not asked any of his friends to stay with them—there were people he knew on Porquerolles he could invite occasionally to dinner; L’Arche de Noé served bouillabaisse and the best profiteroles in the world when they got tired of pasta; Saint-Tropez was but two hours away. Mostly, however, the twins and he would fish
à la palangrotte
, as before, and dive for sea urchins. They would read the piles of books he had brought; the record player in the staid mahogany cabinet seemed to work, they would listen to music. The telephone also was working. From Antibes, where she was staying at Eden Roc, Rachel called each evening to talk to the twins. She was lonely; the hotel was expensive; one could water-ski in Antibes; boys from Andover, whose parents she knew, had a catamaran. By the end of the week, Sarah and Rebecca had gone to visit their mother; Ben had arranged to have themdriven over. When the same driver went to fetch them, the young ladies were out sailing. A day or so later, Rachel called to say the twins would stay with her: she had already reequipped them with bikinis and beach towels; he