" 'I'm going to lie down on the grass where it's comfortable. You can come and look if you like.'

" 'Don't go into the trees,' he said to her.

" 'Why not?' she asked him.

'"Because there are poisonous things there,' he replied. "Things that have fed on the flesh of dead men.'

"Jerusha didn't believe him. "That's where I'm going,' she said. 'Ifyou want to come, then come. If you 're afraid, stay where you are.' And she got up to leave.

' "The man called after her, telling her to wait. "There's another reason,' he said.

"'What's that?' she said.

" 'I can't go very far from the water. Every step I take is dangerous to me.'

' 'Jerusha just laughed at this. It was a silly excuse she thought. "Then you're just weak,' she said.

'"No. I-'

" 'Yes you are! You 're weak! A man who can't climb out of a river without complaining? I never heard anything so ridiculous!'

"She didn't wait for him to reply. She could tell by the expression on his face that she stirred him up. She just turned around and traipsed off into the trees, wandering until she found a small grove where the grass looked soft and inviting. There she lay down on her back, with her feet towards the river, so that when the stranger found her the first thing he'd see was what lay between her legs."

Rachel had not missed the fact that her own position, lying there on the bed in front of Galilee, was not so unlike that of Jerusha.

"What are you thinking?" he said to her.

"I want to know what happens next."

"You could make it up for yourself if you'd prefer," he replied.

"No," she said. "I want you to tell me."

"Your version might be better," he said to her. "Less sad."

"Is this going to end sadly?"

He turned his head toward the window, and for the first time the moonlight showed her his full face. She hadn't been mistaken before: his forehead was scarred, deeply scarred, from the middle of his left eyebrow to his hairline, and his mouth was indeed wide and full: a sensualist's mouth, if ever there was one. But it was the foundation upon which these details rode that was the true astonishment. She had never seen a face, in a photograph or a painting or the flesh, that so exquisitely wed the curves and gullies of its bones with the filigree of tissue and nerve covering them. It was as though his flesh, instead of masking his skull, expressed it. And his skull-which had been made long before the sorrow in his eyes-had known in the womb that sorrow was coming, and had shaped itself accordingly.

"Of course it's going to end sadly," he said. "It has to."

"Why?"

"Let me tell how it goes," he said, glancing down at her. "And if you know a better way to finish it, please God tell me."

So he began again, revisiting the scene that he'd been describing, to be sure she remembered where the story stood.

"Jerusha was lying down on the grass, a little distance from the river. She was certain he'd come, and she wanted to be ready for him when he did, so she pulled off her shoes and her stockings, then lifted her hips off the around to pull her underwear down. Then she drew up her petticoats and her skirt until they were over her knees. She didn't need to touch herself to be aroused. A warm breeze came along just as she opened her legs and moved like a breath against her sweet pink pussy; spears of grass sprang up and gently pricked the insides of her thighs. She started to moan; she couldn't help herself. If her life had depended on her silence at that moment then she would have perished, she was so utterly overwhelmed.

"Then she heard him …"

"The river god," Rachel said.

"You've heard this before."

Rachel laughed. "That's what he is, isn't he?"

"A god, no. But something like that."

"Is he old?"

"Ancient."

"But not very clever."

"What makes you say that?"

"If he was smart he'd know to stay in the river. That's where he belongs."

Galilee sighed. "It's not always possible to stay where you belong. You know that."

She stared at him in silence for several seconds. "You know who I am," she said.

"You're my Jerusha," he replied, conferring the name upon her with the greatest gentility. "My child bride."

At this, Rachel reached up and took hold of the sheet that concealed her lower body. "Then I should let you see me," she said, and pulled the sheet off. Her knees were a little raised; the space between them was shadowy. But Galilee's eyes lingered there nonetheless, as though his gaze was piercing the darkness and seeing her clearly; piercing her too, maybe: insinuating himself between her labia to see what he would find.

The thought did not distress her; quite the reverse. She wanted him to look at her, and keep looking. She was his Jerusha, his child bride lying on a bed of soft grass, excited as she'd never been excited before. She was trembling with pleasure, and the prospect of pleasure, as aroused by him as he was by her; by his face, by his words, by his very presence. Most of all, by the sight of him watching her. She'd never experienced anything remotely like this before. She'd had sex with seven men in her life, including her tumblings with Neil Wilkens. She was no great sexual sophisticate, to be sure; but nor was she a complete novice. She'd had wild times. But nothing so intense as this; nothing so naked.

They hadn't even touched one another, for God's sake, and she was shaking. The bed between her legs was soaked. Her breaths were shallow and fast.

"You were telling me…" she said.

"Jerusha…"

"… lying on her back, waiting for the river god…"

"She looked up-"

"Yes."

"-it was strange to see him coming between the trees the way he did, with every step an effort, a terrible effort, that made his head sink lower and lower."

"Did she wish she'd never asked him?" Rachel whispered.

"No," Galilee replied. "She was too excited for regrets. She wanted him to see her more than she'd wanted anything in her life.

' 'And as he came toward her, there were times when he passed through a shaft of sunlight, and rainbows sprang from him, rising up into the trees.

"She was about to ask him if he liked what he saw when she heard the whirring of wings, and a beetle-about as big as a hummingbird, but dark and ugly-came circling over her. She remembered what the man in the river had said-"

"Poisonous things," Rachel said. "Things that have been eating corpses."

"This beetle was the worst of the worst. It ate onfy the bodies of people who'd died of disease. It carried every kind of contagion."

Rachel made a disgusted sound. "Can't you make it fly away?" she said.

"I told you before: you can finish it if you like."

She shook her head. "No," she said. "I want to hear it from you."

"Then the beetle has to circle… and suddenly it dropped down onto her body."

"Where?"

"Shall I show you?" Galilee said, and without waiting for a reply he went to the bottom of the bed and reached between her legs. She wanted him to touch her labia, but instead his fingers nipped the inside of her thigh between finger and thumb, "ft bit her," he said. "Hard."

She cried out.

"She cried out, more with surprise than pain, and killed the beetle with one blow, squashing its body against her white skin."

He withdrew his hand. Rachel could feel the beetle's ooze running down her leg; she reached up as if to wipe it away, and then reached further, to catch hold of Galilee's fingers.

"Don't go yet," she said.

"I have not finished telling you what happened," he murmured, and eased his fingers from her grip. Instinc lively she pulled the sheet back over her nakedness. The story was souring. If Galilee noticed what she'd done, he made no sign of it. He simply kept talking.