When the Night Read Online Free Page A

eat.
    What a beautiful day! People in town say that it will rain again in a few days. Let’s hope not. What will we do if it rains? We’ll be stuck inside.
    Think of that poor woman up at the lodge! The winters must have been especially hard. All alone, with three small children. Why do women put themselves in these situations? Then the American came. Maybe he liked to listen to jazz; better than alpine music. She imagined herself standing on a beach with him at sunset, with a cocktail in her hand, like a movie star. Dancing, making love, day after day. Who can blame her?
    WHEN I WAS younger I liked to dress up, put on makeup, and go to parties. All the boys fell in love with me, but I didn’t go steady with anyone. The important thing was not to go to bed with them, or else they thought you were theirs for life. I would have liked to know what they were like in bed, how they touched you. But you had to be careful, otherwise people thought you were easy. Sometimes, because of the things that went through my mind, I felt that way too, but I didn’t tell anyone. My father used to talk to my mother about that kind of woman.
    “Good for a roll in the hay.”
    He scorned them but desired them. My mother would get nervous and he would reassure her.
    “You’re the only one for me.”
    He didn’t convince us. We couldn’t stop thinking about the other kind of woman, the one who was better in bed than we were.
    When I was a girl, I went to parties and I felt beautiful. I didn’t look at the boys, only at my rivals. The boys’ desire for me erased them.

    THE BATHROOM IN the apartment is pleasant. I’m sure the bumpkin downstairs didn’t decorate it. When he cooks, I have to close the windows because of the smell. You can just imagine the state of the house; no wonder his wife left him. He has an attractive face and nice eyes, but he looks old.
    There are dark circles around my eyes. I don’t sleep enough. At the end of the month we’ll go to the beach. I want to sunbathe. In the morning I’ll leave the baby with my mother and Mario and I will go out on the boat.
    AFTER WE MET, Mario came to see me at the beach. We used to take the boat out, drop the anchor, and kiss. One time we made love under a beach towel. Then we jumped into the water, sweaty and hot, our heads spinning. We no longer knew who we were, our bodies belonged to the sea.
    My mother used to say he was like a rooster in a henhouse. My sister’s boyfriend didn’t visit, so she left him. At first she waited, and then that was it, she didn’t care anymore. Mario enjoyed being the only man in our midst: three sisters and my mother.
    My father came on the weekends. He would look at him and laugh: “Ah, you’re like a pasha with your harem.”
    Mario ate with us but slept in a rented room by the port; my mother wouldn’t let him stay in the house. In the evening we would tell everyone we were going to the movies and then run to his room to make love. I didn’t go to parties. I was afraidthat I would never fall in love and that people would call me a whore. One night, a boy said something to me, and it stayed inside, like a brand on a cow in the field.
    “You’re an
allumeuse
, Marina.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re a tease.”
    One of those nights in his room near the port, I got pregnant. We decided to get married. If I close my eyes, I know why I married him. Not because of the baby, but because of the way he held the rudder of the boat and the way he made love to me. Everything changed with the baby. I wasn’t as strong and capable as he expected. But now I’m better: I came here by myself, and at night on the phone I tell him that everything is OK. One month in the mountains by myself. After this, he will trust me and I will once again become the woman he married.
    A QUICK LOOK out the window: oh no; the landlord is standing next to the stroller. I didn’t hear the car arrive. The baby is awake.
    I run downstairs. He stares at me. He is