She was sure that when she got out, her body would be bright pink. She plunged underwater one last time, emerging a moment later looking like a plucked chicken, with goose pimples all over and a vague feeling of happiness reaching down to her fingertips. She had stood indecisively at the water’s edge for rather a long time, successively attracted and repelled by the idea of her first swim of the year, but now the young May sun had warmed her towel, and it spread itself generously over her back, a guarantee of warmth that might, in a little while, encourage her to repeat the experience.While her body temperature returned to normal, Sara sat down and looked at the beach. The steady movement of the sea broke the silence—free of the noise of radios and conversation—with its perfect, rhythmic roar, producing foam that dissolved an instant later in a dance that seemed absurd, and was therefore always fascinating to a child of arid lands. She went home at lunchtime, tired and happy, though on the last hill she had to force her feet forward as they seemed to have forgotten the way.
