Read Online The Circle by Elaine Feinstein - Free Book Online Page A

curiously.
    They broke off digging to shelter at the far side of their primitive cart and light matches for their cigarettes , their faces drawn inside their donkey jackets. They stood sullenly. Except the big Pole. After a puff or two, he went back to it, the cigarette still in his mouth. The wind and snow got in his eyes but he shook his head laughing.
    It was very strange to see him; his cold companions, sour, green-faced, longing for the time to be free. Their pinched faces. And the snow sticking now, as they got back to filling the hole; on their jackets, on their cart, sticking and winning as they wiped their eyes desperately , hating their day, their own cold bodies, whatever it was had reduced them to that place. But the Pole was happy. Singing as he pushed into the broken road,getting down to check what had to be done. Even when the bus came she wondered at him, as she climbed into the front of the bus, tasting the ashy stink with no warmth in it, feeling for the fare; she puzzled at his singing.    And at his stamina.    As a condition of joy. If it could be willed.

6
    So many kinds of infidelity. At the height of Lena’s love for Eli she was bothered by a peculiar dream. There she lay locked in the double bed she and Ben usually shared, with Eli in her arms, and suddenly she wonddered where Ben was: just where had he found to sleep? And it bothered her, it entered her dream with such desolation that she couldn’t bear it, she had to get up from whatever congress of legs and arms her mind had thrown up for her delight, and yes, in the dream go looking. All through the house. In every window was the white full moon and the beds were filled with children peacefully sleeping but there was no Ben, no Ben in the chair downstairs, he was nowhere, where, in the garden? The night was always white and cold, and she was frightened. Out of the house and into the moonlight shivering she went to look for him calling Ben, my darling, Ben where are you? You ’ ll catch cold .
    And so woke many times at Ben’s side mumbling, and tried to tell it to him while she still remembered and he held her close saying he supposed yes, that would be the reason for fidelity if there was one. That the other should not be lonely.    As though the act oflust were the only way.    To leave someone alone.    To leave them lonely.
    As though treachery were so simple. When she and Eli walked chastely in the rain past black and shining trees, she supposed the light of every car passing them in the dark showed only a young boy and a middle-aged woman walking side by side untouching. But when she came back from such an evening and Ben looked in her face strangely, she found herself evasive under his questioning. She was ashamed because she did not want to be explicit. And yes, yes, the erotic twinge was there, she would not deny that if Ben pressed. But it made her angry to discuss it, it was so distant from any act or intention. And this was before Gertrud, so she had no pleasure in his curiosity.
    In the dark, the cinema dark.    Watching.    Open lips meet on the screen, or.    The acted exchange of sexual desire in a glance. Their hands touched once. Accidentally, for a moment. Hesitated. And held. And the rest of the film was charged for her with that touch, their laughter coloured with it. But no more. They came out of the film, separate and laughing. Falling easily back into the group of the young people they had come with. And soon she was rushing off. To catch a train. Their eyes meeting innocently, as though nothing had happened of any moment. And their friendliness. Still as simple and indeterminate as before. As she wanted it.
    How near was she in those days to a total, mad withdrawal from the world around her? It was hard to be sure. But certainly knowing Eli made the world more dreamlike. Once she was to meet him at Old Street Station and to get there she had to change that strange deserted way from Bank to Monument;