A Table of Green Fields, Guy Davenport [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

had heard a violin. The tune was Magyar. Then he said that next we would grow nice little kids' horns and tails and hear a frenzy of music all the time. Tabors and panpipes and clashing cymbals.

Florent stretched wonderfully and winked. He poured more coffee and lit his pipe. He patted the ground in front of him. Where I was to lie. I got comfortable with my hands under my head. Ready? he asked. Ready. His watch hung down the front of the tent on its chain. I was to signal when I was near to shooting off and we would let the urge subside. And go on. Deliciouser and deliciouser.

Florent said in his grown-up way that he imagined all this would last maybe until lunchtime and that somebody named Jens will have had quite enough of it. There was always a tease in his grown-up voice. I said that he was never to quit. It became splendid. Sweet beyond sweet. Half an hour and my peter was as dense with sweet as the heart of a honeycomb.

We stopped for a quick stretch and pee and refiring of the pipe. I took a dizzy puff. We peed off the rock. Florent's peter was half hard and I gave it a nuzzle and kiss before we went on. Short of an hour I didn't signal fast enough and came two generous spurts which dabbed my chin and eyelid. Florent let my peter limber a bit. The tone was even finer when he recommenced. I kept the tip of my tongue between my teeth and kneaded the grass with my fingers.

He cockered along my craving with a knowing hand. He idled to a tease or took his hand away at a yummy moment or sped to the beat of a rabbit thump. In a frantic tantivy as pitched as a bolting horse I spouted a zinger that spattered us both. There were splats in the ginger down of Florent's unshaven face and a smattering down me from chin to hips. We hugged and rolled and shouted. Florent stretched and walked on his hands. We munched dried apples and stood on the rock looking out over the trees.

Then on for another wonderfully long time. After which we ate dried beef and mush and lay in the sun passing the pipe back and forth. Ready for another? Florent asked. Ready I was.

This time I too heard the violin. We cocked our ears and looked at each other. Florent said it was the same tune he had heard in the night. The carnival lilt of it came from somewhere in the forest below. Sounds carry on the wind in so quiet a place.

He went on. We achieved deliriums and idiocies of pleasure. By the middle of the afternoon I was doing Florent for we really could as I had not thought spring the bounce out of my horny pizzle. The sixth toss spavined the steed. Florent was so juicy that my hands kept slipping their grip. I tugged and bore down and just as I was beginning after a fine stretch of time to lick on some puppy laps for extra the big fellow buck-jumped a drencher full spatter all over my face. Florent sat up whooping and we rolled in a hug and squeezed and butted and crowed because we were crazy with happiness and silly beyond hope of ever being serious again.

We stretched out on the fragrant larchfall in kind warm light. I smoothed my sticky face along his tummy up to his fuzzy cheeks and lay on top of him nose to nose and eye to eye. And looked into his look.

We heard the chink of harness and the squeak of a wheel. Florent sat up and I back. We held each other's shoulders. There were voices below and a wagon. We crawled to the edge of the rock and peered down.

We saw bright colors down through the trees. I made out a flounce of orange and red that seemed to be a skirt. The wagon was a caravan all pink and yellow.

Fants! Florent said. They are fants. I said in a whisper that they looked like gypsies to me. Fants or gypsies he whispered back. Romany people. Look at the second wagon. That's the man in the white hat we saw yesterday. We could see several women in strange shawls and ruffled dresses on foot. The horses were in silver-studded harnesses. The men wore leather vests and had long moustaches. The violin! Florent whispered. There is the violin.

There were more wagons. All just below our rock. We scampered backward and got into our shorts and shirts. We pondered whether we ought to lie low. Florent pocketed his watch. We crept back to the edge.

Five wagons. Several women walking. I felt as if I were back in my place above the beach watching the gypsies looking for things the artillerymen had left behind. They were a handsome and dark people with an easy dignity to their bearing.

Florent pointed out the man with the gun and the woman with a baby at her breast. And a man in a vest all buttons.

But I saw the bear first. Behind the fourth wagon was a bear! A fat old pigeon-toed muzzled bear stepping along in a rolling lope. The man who had him on a leash carried a whip and a tambourine. I looked at Florent and Florent looked at me. A bear.

And when I looked back I saw Tarpy.

He was on the seat of the last wagon. His golden hair stood out among the gypsies like a single dandelion on a sward. I could not speak. My mouth made the shapes but not the sounds of words. I grabbed Florent's wrist. Then I remembered that he had never seen Tarpy.

Tarpy! I sang out.

A gypsy looked up. Florent pushed me back down from the edge of the rock.

He looked at me wildly. I had never seen his eyes so serious. I said that Tarpy was down there with them. That boy with the light hair on the last wagon is Tarpy.

Don't call again! Florent hissed at me. He had me hard by both wrists. He asked me if I was absolutely certain. I had begun to cry. I tore loose and went back to look again. A