The Order of Good Cheer by Bill Gaston

Author:Bill Gaston
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: FIC019000, Historical
ISBN: 9780887848162
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Published: 2008-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

LUCIEN RETURNS TO their hidden meadow every day, just in case. Eight and nine and ten days pass and he tries to resign himself to the truth that she had spelled out weeks, not days, on her fingers.

But now, on this the twenty-first day, Ndene steps out of the trees. She is neither laughing nor smiling, and Lucien is at first wary of this until he sees that she has been waiting for him too and that her face is severe with missing him.

Their clothes are more and thicker but they come off as quickly, and though there are no bugs there is the broader bite of the cold. In the corner of the meadow where wind has forced a bed of oak leaves into a nook, they lay her cape, and they draw his coat over them both.

Soon they are made perfectly warm in their lovemaking. When they finish, and rest, and begin to cool, they have only to begin again and it is like pulling a weightless quilt over them.

Even when they have paused in their lovemaking they don’t try to talk. It is Ndene who seems assured that there is no need to. Her manner of resting, of staring off over his shoulder, suggests that whatever thoughts or words they could arrive at are of no matter at all. How could one better this? And so Lucien relaxes into this posture as well. He doesn’t try to think, or to speak, or to meet her eye. To do so, seeking some kind of reassurance, would be to doubt their growing bond and by questioning hurt it. Her manner tells him that, at least for now, lovemaking is all they need do. And how can he not agree? As her loveliest body, her perfect shape, takes his in, it is only obvious that both of them have been made for this, for this most of all; that in their perfect wrestling they do none other than unwrap God’s gift and witness its sacred brilliance, and in doing so carry out God’s will. That God had them snorting and yelling like beasts could be seen either as comedy or tragedy, should one care to ponder this, and Lucien does not.

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