Mambo proceeded to this careful labor by renewing his secret accusation against Sabina, that she sought only pleasure, that she loved in him only the island man, the swimmer and the drummer, that she never touched in him, or ardently desired, or took into her body, the artist that he most valued in himself, the composer of music which was a distillation of the barbaric themes of his origin.

He was a run-away from his own island, seeking awareness, seeking shading and delicate balances as in the music of Debussy, and at his side lay Sabina, feverishly dispersing all the delicacies as she demanded: "Drum! Mambo, drum! Drum for me."

Sabina too was slipping out of the burning moment which had almost welded their differences. Her secret self unveiled and naked in his arms must be costumed once more for what she felt in the silence were his withdrawal and silent accusations.

Before he could speak and harm her with words while she lay naked and exposed, while he prepared a judgment, she was preparing her metamorphosis, so that whatever Sabina he struck down she could abandon like a disguise, shedding the self he had seized upon and say: "That was not me."

Any devastating words addressed to the Sabina he had possessed, the primitive one, could not reach her then; she was already halfway out of the forest of their desire, the core already far away, invulnerable, protected by flight. What remained was a costume: it was piled on the floor of his room, and empty of her.

Once in an ancient city in South America, Sabina had seen streets which had been ravaged by an earthquake. Nothing was left but façades, as in Chirico paintings; the façades of granite had remained with doors and windows half unhinged, opening unexpectedly, not upon a household nestled around a hearth, but whole families camping under the sky, protected from strangers only by one wall and door, but otherwise completely free of walls or roofs from the other three sides.

She realized that it was this illimitable space she had expected to find in every lover's room, the sea, the mountains visible all around, the world shut off on one side. A hearth without roof or walls, growing between trees, a floor through which wild flowers pushed to show smiling faces, a column housing stray birds, temples and pyramids and baroque churches in the distance.

But when she saw four walls and a bed pushed against the corner as if it had been flying and had collided against an obstacle, she did not feel as other voyagers: "I have arrived at my destination and can now remove my traveling costume," but: "I have been captured and from here, sooner or later, I must escape."