Part 1

Cottages surrounded the vast green-water lake. Camille swam near the old rental boats with peeling paint. Oars slapped in the water and banged against the hulls. She sat in the grass on the bank beside the willow brush and drank wine she’d bought at the kiosk. Wet and drunk, she slept on the bank until the evening mosquitoes buzzed around her face.

* * *

The red sun weakened and dipped behind the peach trees in the garden. They ate wild boar stew with soft, steamed dumplings. The food disappeared, and the women washed dishes. Night fell on the terrace and candlelight jumped across the table. Wax poured over the red-and-white tablecloth. Candle flames hid behind wine and beer bottles. The light trickled through the plastic glasses and illuminated the faces around the table.

Zoe sat in the chair next to Camille wearing a white summer dress. Camille saw the profile of her face and its high forehead, delicate nose, black hair tied in a knot, locks falling down her cheeks. Hands wrapped her knees, and her chin sat on them. The eruptions of spurious laughter forced her head backward, her lips peeled, and her teeth shone with joy in the night. Zoe smoked and drank. Camille heard Zoe’s soft whimpers between the surges of laughter. Camille observed her from the darkness without a word, without being noticed, just the way she saw her once at night in the park, under a streetlight, a stranger leaning into her body.

The night deepened. People slowly dissolved into the night. Some of the candles spilled and died. Men’s laughter echoed in the darkness. Zoe found Camille’s hand under the tablecloth and squeezed until their bones ground painfully together. Camille freed herself to light a cigarette.

“Does anybody want more wine?” Zoe asked.

“I’ll have some,” Camille said. As Zoe stood up from the chair, her body leaned against Camille. Camille smelled Zoe’s body, fresh and clean, and her heart pounded in her chest. She imagined Zoe’s wonderful body, the body she had never touched but had known so well from afar. Sometimes she would visit the family just to be close to it, to experience it at least through her eyes. She saw Zoe’s thighs, lusty brown eyes flickering, and a lonely, hungry hand on Camille’s shoulder.

“I’m good. I’m turning in,” Lester’s brother said, standing up. He nudged Lester. “Let’s go, you drunk bastard.”

Lester’s sleeping head jerked. “What’s going on? You want to fight?” He shot upright and shuddered. The chair hit the railing of the terrace with a loud bang.

“Quiet, you idiot.”

The door opened and closed behind them. At last, they sat alone.

Camille’s mind roamed through the memories of Zoe’s body. She remembered Zoe in the garden. It was a hot August evening, and Camille was a young girl then. Zoe’s father was patching a bicycle tire in the garage. Zoe sat on one of the white garden chairs that huddled in a circle under the clotheslines in the shade of an arching lilac tree. Her slippers lay in the grass, and her legs stretched over another chair. A glossy magazine lay open on her thighs. Dried stalks of tall grass swayed. Red sun poured over her face. The sun slowly slid behind the roofs, shadows stretched, and the air stopped moving at sunset.

Camille killed the black hornets that nested in the crevices of the lilac tree. She stood still, waited for a hornet to drone toward her face, and then slapped the threatening insect out of the air with her hand. The insect landed in the grass, its anxious legs treading aimlessly but with resolve, and Camille stomped it before it untangled itself from the grass. Twenty-two dead hornets lay curled on the windowsill of the garden house.