Free Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter Page A

about there at night, after a rain, with everything washed clean, and the sweet-by-night and jasmine in full bloom and the colors of the plaster walls very pure. I would come on those unexpected squares and corners and fountains, all of them composed, just waiting to be painted, and none of them looking the way they did in daylight. All the windows would be open and pale yellow light streaming out, with clouds of white mosquito netting over the big beds, and half-dressed half-asleep people moving about already in a dream; or sitting out on the little balconies just for the pleasure of breathing. It was lovely, David, and I loved it. The people seemed so friendly and easy—everybody. And once there was a terrible glorious thunderstorm and lightning hit the elevator shaft in my hotel about twenty feet from my room and knocked me out, almost. It was fun! It was real danger and yet I was alive.”
    David protested this memory coldly, doubtfully. “You never told me this before,” he said.
    â€œI hope not,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be dull? But you never believe any memory that is pleasant, I wonder why? You must let me remember it in my own way, as beautiful at least once.” After a light pause she added, “I am sure that if you had been there it would all have looked very different.” She watched with clinical attention his smooth, tight-skinned face that gave absolutely no sign when he was hit.
    â€œWho was with you then, that it was all so delightful?”
    â€œNobody,” she said softly. “I was there by myself and I saw it in my own way with no one to spoil it for me.”
    â€œAnd no boat to catch.”
    â€œNo, I had come off a boat from New York. Nine lovely days when I didn’t know a soul on board, and spoke only to my waiter and my stewardess.”
    â€œThey should have been flattered,” said David darling, meanly. But it gave him no satisfaction.
    Jenny straightened her knife and fork and took a sip of water. “I don’t know,” she told him gravely as if she were considering deeply an important question. “I really don’t know whether I am going to be able to sit at this table with you the whole voyage or not. At least I am glad we have separate cabins.”
    â€œSo am I,” said David, instantly, a cold fire in his eyes.
    They both fell silent then, dismayed at how suddenly things could get out of hand; knowing as always there was no end to it, because there was no real beginning. The quarrel between them was a terrible treadmill they mounted together and tramped round and round until they were wearied out or in despair. He went on doggedly with his food, and she took up her fork again. “I’ll stop if you will,” she said at last. “How does it begin? Why? I never know.”
    David knew that her yielding was half fatigue, half boredom, but he was grateful for the reprieve. Besides, she had got in a good blow at him, and must be feeling easier.
    He did not forgive her; he would take her by surprise someday in turn, as he had done often before, and watch her face turn pale; she always recognized revenge for what it was, yet admitted its barbarous justice. At least she had some little sense of turn and turn about, she didn’t expect always to be allowed to get away with murder, and he would make it part of his business to see that she did not. Feeling within him his coldness of heart as a real power in reserve, he smiled at her with that sweetness which always charmed her, reached out and laid his hand over hers warmly.
    â€œJenny angel,” he said. Instantly she felt her heart—she believed firmly that her heart could feel—melting just a little, timidly and distrustfully: she knew what David could and would do to her if she let herself be “caught soft” as he described it. Yet she could not stop herself. She leaned forward and said, “You old thing, you! Oh, let’s try to