"Don't blame him. He was upset. And from what he was telling me it sounds like the family gave everybody a raw deal."

Galilee shook his head. "I'm not complaining," he said. "This is a hard world to get by in. It makes people cruel sometimes. There's a lot worse than the Gearys. Anyway… you're a Geary." The smile crept back. "And you're not so bad."

"I'm getting a divorce," she said.

"Oh? Don't you love him then?"

"No."

"Did you ever?"

"I don't know. It's hard to be sure of what you feel when you meet somebody like Mitchell. Especially when you're just a Midwestern girl, and you're lost and you're not sure what you want. And there he is, telling you not to worry about that anymore. He'll take care of everything."

"But he didn't?" Galilee said.

She thought about this for a moment. "He did his best," she admitted. "But as time went by…"

"The things you wanted changed," Galilee said.

"That's right."

"And eventually, the things you end up wanting are the things they can't give you." He wasn't talking about her any longer, she realized. He was talking about himself; of his own relationship with the Gearys, the nature of which she did not yet comprehend.

"You're doing the right thing," he said. "Leaving before you start to hate yourself."

Again he was talking autobiographically, she knew, and she took comfort from the fact. He seemed to see some parallel between their lives. The fears that had threatened her that afternoon were toothless. If he understood her situation as he seemed to-if he saw some sense in which his pain and hers overlapped-then they had some common ground upon which to build.

Of course now she wanted to know more, but having made the remark about hating yourself he fell silent, and she couldn't think of a way to raise the subject again without seeming pushy. No matter, she thought. Why waste time talking about the Gearys, when there was so much to enjoy: the sky turning pink as the sun slid away, the sea calmer than she'd seen it, the motion of the water around her legs, the heat of Galilee's palm against hers.

Apparently much the same thoughts were passing through her companion's head.

"Sometimes I talk myself into such foul moods," he said, "and then I think: what the hell do I have to complain about?" He looked up at the reef of coral clouds that was accruing high, high above them. "So what if I don't understand the world?" he went on. "I'm a free man. At least most of the time. I go where I want when I want. And wherever I go…" his gaze went from the clouds to Rachel "… I see beautiful things." He leaned toward her and kissed her lightly. "Things to be grateful for." They stopped walking now. "Things that I can't quite believe I'm seeing." Again he put his lips against hers, but this time there was no chasteness. This time they wrapped their arms around one another and kissed deeply, like the lovers they'd been bound to be from the beginning.

It passed through Rachel's head that she wasn't living this but dreaming it: that every detail of this moment was in such a perfect place there was no improving it. Sky, sea, clouds, lips. His eyes, meeting hers. His hands on her back, at her neck, in her hair.

"I'm sorry…" he murmured to her.

"For what?"

"For not coming to find you," he said. "I should have come to find you."

"I don't understand."

"I was looking away. I was staring at the sea when I should have been watching for you. Then you wouldn't have married him."

"If I hadn't married him we'd never have met."

"Oh yes we would," he said. "If I'd not been watching the sea, I would have known you were out there. And I would have come looking for you."

They walked on after a time, but now they walked with their arms around one another. He took her to the end of the beach, then led the way over the spit of rocks that marked the divide between the two bays. On the other side was a stretch of sand perhaps half the length of the beach behind them, in the middle of which was a small, and plainly very antiquated, wooden jetty, its timbers weathered to a pale gray, its legs shaggy with vivid green weed. There was only one vessel moored there: The Samarkand. Its sails were furled, and it rode gently on the incoming tide, the very picture of tranquillity.

"Did you build it?" she asked him.

"Not from scratch. I bought her in Mauritius, stripped her down to the bare essentials and fashioned her the way I wanted her. It took two years, because I was working on my own."

"Like the house."

"Yeah, well, I prefer it that way. I'm not very comfortable with other people. I used to be…"

"But?"

"I got tired of pretending."

"Pretending what?"

"That I liked them," he said. "That I enjoyed talking about…" he shrugged "… whatever people talk about."

"Themselves," Rachel said.

"Is that what people talk about?" he said quizzically. It was as though he'd been out of human company so long he'd forgotten. "I mustn't have been paying attention." Rachel laughed at this. "No seriously," he said, "I wouldn't have minded if they'd really wanted to talk about what was going on in their souls. I'd have welcomed that. But that's not what you hear. You hear about pretty stuff. How fat their wives are getting and how stupid their husbands are and why they hate their children. Who could bear that for very long? I'd prefer to hear nothing at all."

"Or tell a story?"

"Oh yes," he said, luxuriating in the thought, "that's even better. But it.can't be just any story. It has to be something true."

"What about the story you told me last night?"

"That was true," he protested. "I swear, I never told a truer story in all my life." She looked at him quizzically. "You'll see," he said, "if it isn't true yet, it will be."

"Anybody could say that," she replied.

"Yes, but anybody didn't. I did. And I wouldn't waste my time with things that weren't true." He put his hand to her face. "You have to tell me a story sometime soon. And it has to be just as true."

"I don't know any stories like that."

"Like what?"

"You know," she said. "Stories that could stir you up the way that story stirred me up."

"Oh it stirred you up did it?"

"You know it did."

"You see. Then it must have been true."

She had no answer to this. Not because it made no sense but because after some fashion that she couldn't articulate, it did. Obviously his definition of true wasn't the standard definition, but there was a kind of cockeyed logic to it nevertheless.

"Shall we go?" he said, "I think the boat's getting lonely."

A they walked along the creaking jetty Rachel asked turn why he had dubbed his boat The Samarkand. Galilee explained that Samarkand was the name of a city.

"I've never heard of it," she told him.

"There's no reason why you should. It's a long way from Ohio."

"Did you live there?"

"No. I just passed through. I've done a lot of passing through in my life."

"You've traveled a lot?"

"More than I'd like."

"Why don't you just find a place you like and settle down?"

"That's a long story. I suppose the simple answer is that I've never really felt I belonged anywhere. Except out there." He glanced seaward. "And even there…"

For the first time since they'd begun this conversation, she sensed his attention wandering, as though this talk of things far off was making him yearn for them. Perhaps not for the specific of Samarkand; simply for something remote from the here and now. She touched his arm.

"Come back to me," she said.

"Sorry," he replied. "I'm here."

They'd reached the end of the jetty. The boat was before them, rocking gently in the arms of the tide.

"Are we going aboard then?" she asked him.