Read Online Zulu by Caryl Férey - Free Book Online

there—imagining, from a distance, the delights of immersion. Very soon to be yours, my darling!
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    For the twelfth time, Claire read the note that Dan had slipped in with the flowers. She kept the note and gave the roses to the Xhosa nurse who had been pampering her for the last three nights.
    When you’re thirty, you worry about your choices, mostly crucial ones, you worry about your marriage, car accidents, but not cancer—cancer of the breast, which had been detected three months earlier, and had metastasized. The ground had given way beneath them, Dan had seen only an abyss, but Claire seemed to be bearing the chemotherapy and the loss of her hair. The latest series of tests had turned out well, by and large. They just had to wait and see how things developed. Of course the kids didn’t know anything about it. Tom, who was four and a half, was convinced that his mother had “caught the autumn” and her hair would soon grown back again, while Eve quite simply hadn’t noticed anything.
    Dan picked up his wife from the lobby of Somerset Hospital. Claire was wearing a black beret on her bald head and a short skirt that revealed her thin knees. She smiled as he walked toward her through the crowd, took him by the shoulders, and kissed him hard on the mouth by way of welcome. A long, languorous kiss, just like their first dates. You had to kiss your misfortune, that was what she said. She might be an angel knocked off her pedestal, but the disease wouldn’t have her skin—that was his exclusive preserve.
    People passed them, as their reunion showed no sign of ending.
    â€œHave you been waiting long?” he whispered in her ear.
    â€œTwenty-six years in two months,” Claire replied.
    Dan freed himself from her loving embrace. “Then let’s get out of here.”
    He took her delicate hand and her overnight bag, and led her to the exit. The air in the parking lot suddenly felt new, the sky almost as luminous as her swallow-blue eyes.
    â€œThe children are waiting for you so we can have a little party,” Dan announced. “The house is in a bit of a mess, I didn’t have time to tidy up, but the nanny’s made some cakes.”
    â€œCool!”
    â€œI told them we wouldn’t be back before eight,” he added, casually.
    It was only just six-fifteen.
    â€œWhere are you taking me, Casanova?”
    â€œLlandudno.”
    Claire smiled. There was a little inlet they knew along the peninsula, a quiet spot where they could safely bathe naked. Snuggling up to him, she saw the unmarked police car in the parking lot.
    â€œAre you on duty?”
    â€œYes. Bad timing, I know. They found a girl in Kirstenbosch this morning.”
    â€œThe rugby player’s daughter?”
    â€œYou know about it?”
    â€œThey mentioned it on the radio. Are the guys coming to dinner?”
    She meant Ali and Brian, their dearest friends, and their little ritual of inviting each other to make up for the unpredictable hours, the stress, the rotten work.
    â€œWe were thinking tomorrow night. If you feel up to it, of course,” he hastened to add.
    â€œWe already talked about that,” Claire said, firmly. “Let’s not change anything, O.K.?”
    She didn’t want to be treated like a patient, but like someone in recovery. Ali and Brian both agreed. Dan kissed her again.
    â€œDid you find what I asked for?” she asked as she got in the car.
    â€œYes, it’s on the back seat.”
    Claire twisted in the front seat, took hold of the hat box, and put it on her knees.
    â€œClose your eyes,” she said.
    â€œThey’re closed.”
    Claire gave him a sideways glance, quickly removed her beret, took the wig out of the box and adjusted it in the rear-view mirror. A platinum-blonde bob, with two sixties streaks below the ears. Mmm, not too bad. She patted her husband’s arm.
    â€œHow do I look in acrylic?”
    Dan