I wonder if the place is haunted by the ghosts of the women, fugitives and pirates, but I am no mystic; all I see is the tapestry of stars and the shadows of giant boulders. I stretch out against his back and throw my arm across his belly. I smell the smoke from a Frenchman’s musket. Slave catcher? Pirate? On the next cliff there’s a row of traveler’s trees.

“No paradise for a woman,” he mumbles.

No paradise for a woman, but no paradise for a man either.

“Why do they call them traveler’s trees?”

But he is silent. I must make my own answer. But are not all trees traveler’s trees? Places to seek rest, the only places where any traveler’s welcome.

He reaches his hand back, presses me nearer him. I kiss the back of his neck. He turns to me and we make love again.

“I can hear the wheels inside you turning.”

“What?”

“I can hear the wheels inside you turning.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m the mechanical woman?”

“The original.”

But it is a dream, and I am really sand poured through fingers. I am really sand. I am really sundial and magnolia blossoming.

54

We sat at the back of the restaurant, eating a Chinese dinner.

Shrimp and fried rice, sweet and sour pork, snow peas.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to Madagascar to work on a travel book,” I said.

“Oh?”

“I’ve got my tickets.”

“Why are you telling me now?”

I bit into a piece of sweet and sour pork.

“I wasn’t going to tell you at all.”

“That would have been pretty rotten,” he said, his eyes narrowed and cold. Then he arched his eyebrow. “But why weren’t you going to tell me at all?”

I stared at the gray in his moustache. He brushed his hair back with his hands. His forehead was a brown bell.

“Because I’ve decided I’m not coming back.”

He put down his fork.

“Because of what I said about your book?”

I stared at his snow peas, his fried rice.

“That’s ridiculous. That’s childish. That’s silly. Why do you want to give me a hard time?”

“I don’t want to give you a hard time.”

He said nothing, then, “I’m not letting you go.”

I pushed away from the table, then I pulled my chair up to it again.

“How are you going to spend your time?” he asked. He had let me go.

“Working. Working on my book, like I said. Maybe you don’t think that’s much.”

He sighed. He rubbed back his hair.

“What about Panda?”

I must say that I had not thought about Panda at all.

“She’ll stay with you. I couldn’t have her running about with me. She’s too young.”

“No, you couldn’t do that. Have her getting in the way of your lovers.”

I sat with my mouth open. I had talked about work, and he was talking about lovers. Well, I’d give him lovers! I’d give him work and lovers!