Yehudit lay on her stomach,
chin propped on her hands,
staring over the pond, she
called their lake. Ducks were
there, floating like small boats
on the water’s skin. Naaman
lay beside her his head leaning
on his hand. Last time they had
laid there they had just made
love in the dense woods behind.
Early evening that had been,
moonbeams played on the
surface of the water, the night
cool. She had been concerned
of her mother’s rebuke because
of the lateness. The *** would
have been beyond her mother’s
grasp. You used to fish here, she
said, turning to look at him. I got
bored, he said. I used to swim here
as a child, she said, until one of
the gamekeepers saw me and
informed my father. What did
your mother say to that? he asked.
Father didn’t tell her, he told me
not to swim there again. I missed
that then, he said, smiling. Yes, you
did, she said. It was hot that summer,
I wanted to cool down. Maybe it
was like a baptism? he said. In the
****? she said. Maybe it was a new
kind of baptism, he said. It nothing
like that. It was innocent fun, she said.
He touched her hand by the pond’s
edge. Her fingers squeezed his. Her eyes
smiled. The sunlight filtered through the
branches overhead, glimpses of blue sky
reflected on the water. That evening we
made love back there, you said you loved
me, she said, did you mean that? Yes, of
course, he said. It was special to me, she
said, not just the making of love of you
and me, but the evening and the moon
and the stars and the smell of you and me
and the flowery smell of it all. He watched
as a duck took off from the pond, its wings
outspread, breaking the air, and she looking
at the pond’s surface with her far away stare.