The next day they exhausted themselves visiting ruins, climbing ancient stone steps, peering inside cathedrals, losing themselves among marble statues and extravagant fountains. After nightfall they again drank too much, staggered back to the decadent hotel, and for a second time made love without any great desire but with the best will in the world. And so, day by day and night after night, they toured the cities and cruised the waters of the trip as planned, gradually establishing the married couple’s routine they had so carefully avoided so far, until it became natural to share the bathroom and wake up on the same pillow.
Alma did not stay on in London. She returned to San Francisco with piles of museum leaflets and postcards, art books, and photos of picturesque corners taken by Nathaniel. She was keen to take up her painting again; her head was filled with colors and images from all she had seen: Turkish rugs, Greek urns, Flemish tapestries, paintings from every age, icons overlaid with precious stones, languid Madonnas and starving saints, but also fruit and vegetable markets, fishing boats, laundry hanging from balconies in narrow streets, men playing dominoes in taverns, children on beaches, packs of stray dogs, sad donkeys, and ancient roofs in villages dozing under the weight of centuries of routine and tradition. Everything came alive in broad brushstrokes of vibrant color on her silk screens. By then she occupied a workshop of eight thousand square feet in San Francisco’s industrial district, a place that had remained unused for many months and that she aimed to bring back to life. As she submerged herself in work, weeks went by without her thinking of either Ichimei or the child she had lost. On their return from Europe, the intimacy with Nathaniel dwindled away to almost nothing; each of them was very busy, and so the sleepless nights reading together on the sofa came to an end, although they were still united by the tender friendship they had always enjoyed. Alma seldom dozed off with her head in the exact spot between her husband’s shoulder and chin where she had once felt so secure. They no longer slept between the same sheets or shared the same bathroom. Nathaniel used the bed in his study, leaving Alma on her own in the blue room. If they occasionally made love it was by coincidence, and always with too much alcohol in their veins.
“I want to free you from your promise to be faithful to me, Alma. It’s not fair to you,” Nathaniel said to her one night when they were admiring a shower of shooting stars from the garden pergola, smoking marijuana. “You are young and full of life, you deserve more romance than I can give you.”
“What about you? Is there someone out there who is offering you romance that you want to be free for? I’ve never stood in your way, Nat.”
“It’s not about me, Alma.”
“You’re freeing me from my promise at a bad moment, Nat. I’m pregnant, and this time you are the only possible father. I was going to tell you once I was sure.”