THE VIOLINIST WAS LOCATED at the top of the building and next afternoon she set out for there. Along the quiet and empty corridor she walked, like a shadow, stealthily, and close to the wall. He had warned her not to be seen by guests. On the sixth landing she rested. He had warned her too about not taking the lift in case the lift operator might see her and watch where she went. By the time she got to his door she was out of breath. She tapped nervously and he opened it a little and drew her in. The first effect was of clutter and not much light. Musical instruments were strewn about and the feeling of constriction was terrible. It was an attic room, and compared with the majestic ballroom where he played each night, this was absurd.
His clothes were hung in an alcove and she saw the jacket that had first introduced her to him. Not sumptuous now but a best jacket carefully hung up so that it would be perfect for its evening's outing.
She said 'Bonjour,' but said it badly. All the way up the stairs she had practised saying it casually. He scratched idly at the hair on his chest, smiling at her, stretching his other arm to show the difference in their colouring. They were like people from different orbits. There was a smell of ozone from under his armpits. Then in his shorts, he stood before her and kissed her and positioned his legs so that they coincided with hers exactly. When she made a small change of position he moved his limbs too and she thought, 'He's hurrying everything, he's rushing it.' Over his bare, bronze shoulder she saw a camera on a tripod, like an eye spying on her, and she drew back quickly and asked what it was. She really meant, 'Why is it there spying on me?'
'For photograph,' he said, and then remembering his duties as a host he offered her apple juice.
'Have you whisky?' she said. She felt nervous. The small room was suffocating and insects came in hordes through the window space. He had taken the glass out completely. She breathed out through her parted lips to try and cool herself. The morning's heat had murdered her. Sun got in the folds of her arms and legs, and she gasped when she went out and saw the cars cooking on the roadside and the brown bodies glistening with jelly and not even a twilight under the trees where she ran to escape.
'Spirits no gud,' he said handing her the half glass of apple juice.
'Christ, I always pick the puritans,' she said, hoping he would not know what she meant. He told her to sit on the bed and then he got behind the camera and asked if he could take a picture.
'I'm not very pretty,' she said, sitting all the same. She saw him stoop down and heard something click and knew that the picture when it was developed would show an apprehensive woman, with a glass midway between her chest and her open mouth. He crossed over and drew down one strap of her dress so that it fell on her arm. The white sagging top of one breast came into view. Above it was a line of raw pink where she had boiled in the sun that morning in an effort to get a tan for him. He photographed her like that and then with both straps down so that the sag of both breasts was in view and then he brought her dress down around her waist and photographed her naked top. It had been too hot to put on a brassière. From his position, stooped behind the camera, he indicated that she hold one breast, perkily, as if she enjoyed showing it off.
'I'm not well formed,' she said stupidly, and remembered, stupidly again, that breasts ought to be the shape of champagne glasses. Then she asked him to talk. Desire had snapped since the previous night, and she thought of elastic snapping and the ugly pimply look it got. She felt ugly like that.
'Take your dress...' and then he frowned. 'Your name?' he asked.
'Ellen,' she said, flatly.
'Ellen,' he said, and dwelt on it for a second, to please her. 'Ellen, take your dress right off, show the body,' he said. He pulled an imaginary dress down the length of his own body.
