And then, turning to Lillian, she added in a lower tone, while Hatcher talked with the young doctor: "I don't know why he loves me. I am so short and squatty. He was once married to someone like you. She was tall, and she had long, pointed, painted nails. He never talks about her. I worked for him, at first. I was his secretary. We are going to build a beautiful place here. This is only the beginning."

Against the wall at the back they had their bedroom. Lillian could imagine them together. She was sure that he lay with his head on his wife's breast. She was compliant, passive, devoted.

Lillian wondered if he were truly happy. He seemed so intent on affirming his happiness. He was not tranquil, nor capable of contemplation. He named all the beauties of his place, summoned them. When he mentioned America, his mouth grew bitter. He missed nothing. American women... He stopped himself, as if aware for the first time that Lillian was one of them. His eyes alighted on Lillian's nails. "I hate painted nails," he said. Until now he had been friendly. Something, a shadow of a resemblance, a recall, had sent him for a moment into the city beneath the city, the subterranean chambers of memory. But he leaped back into the present to describe all the work that had yet to be done.

"As you can see, it is still very primitive."

On the terrace, several camp beds were set side by side, as in an army barracks, with screens between them.

"I hope you won't mind sleeping out of doors."

The Mexican doctor was leaving. "Tomorrow I will be driving back with friends who are spending a few days in Golconda. If you want us to, we will pick you up."

Lillian wanted to walk to the beach. She left the Hatchers discussing dinner, and followed a trail down the hill. The flowers which opened their violet red velvety faces toward her were so eloquent, they seemed about to speak. The sand did not seem like sand, but like vaporized glass, which reflected lights. The spray and the foam from the waves was of a whiteness impossible to match. The sea folded its layers around her, touched her legs, her hips, her breasts—a liquid sculptor, the warm hands of the sea all over her body.

She closed her eyes.

When she came out and put on her clothes she felt reborn, born anew. She had closed the eyes of memory. She felt as though she were one of the red flowers, that she would speak only with the texture of her skin, the tendrils of hair at the core, remain open, feel no contractions ever again.

She thought of the simplified life. Of cooking over a wood fire, of swimming every day, of sleeping out of doors in a cot without sheets with only a Mexican wool blanket. Of sandals, and freedom of the body in light dresses, hair washed by the sea and curled by the air. Unpainted nails.