bathers beneath an obscenely colourful sky. A concrete jetty elbowed far out from the coast and the water thrashed against its walls. Among the thistles bordering the beach, Georgine discovered an unmanned booth stacked with deck chairs, dark green, salt-stained; Midhat volunteered to climb over the counter and extract one for each of them. He and Frédéric carried them to a spot between a tent and a coloured hut. Midhat removed his shoes: between his toes the dune was ice-cool. He unfolded a chair, and pointed it out to sea.
Docteur Molineu was the only one who swam in the end. He tried his best to cajole Georgine but she refused, going redder and redder in the face until finally Jeannette admonished her father for being so insistent, and he let it go, and tore off into the water on his own.
The waves were still breathing in their ears when, speechless and sand-heavy, they took the train back to town. Through the windows the sky glowered purple, and on their way from the station they were forced to take shelter in the awning of a closed café as the clouds suddenly emptied their weight with great force on the city. They waited and watched the rain shiver down the awning. Jeannette paced from end to end. Out on the road the water was falling in dollops that splashed upwards, so copious they looked like bowls of silver. After a while she sighed and upturned a chair, arranging over the damp seat the canopy of a half-closed parasol. She perched, looking uncomfortable.
Molineu, who was peering out with his arms behind his back, said: “I think we should run. We can use the parasols as umbrellas.” He turned to look at them. “What do you think? Otherwise we really will be here for hours.”
“Run?” said Georgine. “But Docteur, my shoes …”
“Oh come on Georgine, it’ll be fun,” said Molineu. “You can have an old pair of Jeannette’s. All right, everyone ready? Get on your feet Jojo. Don’t be morose.”
They could not help laughing as their linens turned transparent, and at the parasols, which did not function as umbrellas at all but were completely useless against the downpour. Midhat tried not to look at Jeannette’s dress which, going grey, was sticking to her waist, revealing the socket of her navel. He increased his pace to catch up with Docteur Molineu and left the women shrieking behind. They reached the house out of breath and dispersed to change.
When Midhat came back downstairs, the door to the cream salon was open; he could see Jeannette inside, standing with her back to him. Courage flashed. He stepped in and, after bolting the door, turned and jumped to find her already right behind him. She laughed, then he laughed, and he took her body in his hands, and to the soft wet of her parted lips his heart reacted violently.
Grief excused intimacy, but was also real and demanded it. Even their spasms of guilt, felt on occasion over the next few days, could only be assuaged with further closeness. It was a miracle they kept it a secret. Their colour was always rising in company, they could not help smiling at each other across full rooms, and clasping fingers just out of sight, under the skirt of a tablecloth or behind backs as they filed through a doorway. And yet the most Docteur Molineu seemed to notice were the shadows and red fever spots that appeared beneath Midhat’s eyes.
“Nothing is worth losing sleep over,” he said, saluting Midhat and wishing him good luck before class. “Remember they are only exams. It will turn out fine in the end. And if the worst comes to the worst and you do need to repeat the year,” he opened his arms, “we will still be here. Provided we are not bombed, of course. All right, off you go.”
All day long Midhat’s insomniac brain vaulted between euphoria and fear, and Docteur Molineu’s sympathetic speeches only doubled the terror of confronting him. He would postpone the proposal to Jeannette, at least until the end of the academic year, and yet the prospect remained an agony even at that distance. The rules of guest and host were so ingrained, he knew the shame of trespass in his bones. From this again he sought refuge in Jeannette’s lips and whispers, and her head resting softly on his shoulder.
It was also during this period that he discovered a side of the Molineu house that was entirely