His shoulders shook, but he made no sound. "Twice I almost went, Herzchen, but I managed to avoid it."
"Well, if you had gone you'd understand. You have a magical name to an Australian, when it's pronounced my way. Rainer. Rain. Life in the desert." Startled, he dropped his cigarette. "Justine, you aren't falling in love with me, are you?"
"What egotists men are! I hate to disappoint you, but no." Then, as if to soften any unkindness in her words, she slipped her hand into his, squeezed. "It's something much nicer." "What could be nicer than falling in love?"
"Almost anything, I think. I don't want to need anyone like that, ever." "Perhaps you're right. It's certainly a crippling handicap, taken on too early. So what is much nicer?"
"Finding a friend." Her hand rubbed his. "You are my friend, aren't you?" "Yes." Smiling, he threw a coin in the fountain. "There! I must have given it a thousand D-marks over the years, just for reassurance that I would continue to feel the warmth of the south. Sometimes in my nightmares I'm cold again."
"You ought to feel the warmth of the real south," said Justine. "A hundred and fifteen in the shade, if you can find any."
"No wonder you don't feel the heat." He laughed the soundless laugh, as always; a hangover from the old days, when to laugh aloud might have tempted fate. "And the heat would account for the fact that you're hard-boiled." "Your English is colloquial, but American. I would have thought you'd have learned English in some posh British university."
"No. I began to learn it from Cockney or Scottish or Midlands tommies in a Belgian camp, and didn't understand a word of it except when I spoke to the man who had taught it tome. One said "abaht," one said "aboot," one said "about," but they all meant "about." So when I got back to Germany I saw every motion picture I could, and bought the only records available in English, records made by American comedians. But I played them over and over again at home, until I spoke enough English to learn more."
Her shoes were off, as usual; awed, he had watched her walk barefooted on pavements hot enough to fry an egg, and over stony places.
"Urchin! Put your shoes on."
"I'm an Aussie; our feet are too broad to be comfortable in shoes. Comes of no really cold weather; we go barefoot whenever we can. I can walk across a paddock of bindy-eye burns and pick them out of my feet without feeling them," she said proudly. "I could probably walk on hot coals." Then abruptly she changed the subject. "Did you love your wife, Rain?" "No."
"Did she love you?"
"Yes. She had no other reason to marry me."
"Poor thing! You used her, and you dropped her."
"Does it disappoint you?"
"No, I don't think so. I rather admire you for it, actually. But I do feel very sorry for her, and it makes me more determined than ever not to land in the same soup she did."
"Admire me?" His tone was blank, astonished.
"Why not? I'm not looking for the things in you she undoubtedly did, now am I? I like you, you're my friend. She loved you, you were her husband." "I think, Herzchen," he said a little sadly, "that ambitious men are not very kind to their women."
"That's because they usually fall for utter doormats of women, the "Yes, dear, no, dear, three bags full, dear, and where would you like it put?"' sort. Hard cheese all round, I say. If I'd been your wife, I'd have told you to go pee up a rope, but I'll bet she never did, did she?" His lips quivered. "No, poor Annelise. She was the martyred kind, so her weapons were not nearly so direct or so deliciously expressed. I wish they made Australian films, so I knew your vernacular. The "Yes, dear' bit I got, but I have no idea what hard cheese is."
"Tough luck, sort of, but it's more unsympathetic." Her broad toes clung like strong fingers to the inside of the fountain wall, she teetered precariously backward and righted herself easily. "Well, you were kind to her in the end. You got rid of her. She's far better off without you, though she probably doesn't think so. Whereas I can keep you, because I'll never let you get under my skin."
"Hard-boiled. You really are, Justine. And how did you find out these things about me?"
"I asked Dane. Naturally, being Dane he just gave me the bare facts, but I deduced the rest."
"From your enormous store of past experience, no doubt. What a fraud you are! They say you're a very good actress, but I find that incredible. How do you manage to counterfeit emotions you can never have experienced? As a person you're more emotionally backward than most fifteen-year-olds." She jumped down, sat on the wall and leaned to put her shoes on, wriggling her toes ruefully. "My feet are swollen, dammit." There was no indication by a reaction of rage or indignation that she had even heard the last part of what he said. As if when aspersions or criticisms were leveled at her she simply switched off an internal hearing aid. How many there must have been. The miracle was that she didn't hate Dane.
