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after a while my mouth was stinging with the salty bitterness. Then Marie swam over to me and pressed herself against me in the water.She put her lips on mine. Her tongue cooled my lips and we tumbled in the waves for a moment.
    When we’d gotten dressed again on the beach, Marie looked at me with her eyes sparkling. I kissed her. We didn’t say anything more from that point on. I held her to me and we hurried to catch a bus, get back, go to my place, and throw ourselves onto my bed. I’d left my window open, and the summer night air flowing over our brown bodies felt good.
    That morning Marie stayed and I told her that we would have lunch together. I went downstairs to buy some meat. On my way back upstairs I heard a woman’s voice in Raymond’s room. A little later old Salamano growled at his dog; we heard the sound of footsteps and claws on the wooden stairs and then “Lousy, stinking bastard” and they went down into the street. I told Marie all about the old man and she laughed. She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so. She looked sad. But as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her. It was then that we heard what sounded like a fight break out in Raymond’s room.
    First we heard a woman’s shrill voice and then Raymond saying, “You used me, you used me. I’ll teach you to use me.” There were some thuds and the woman screamed, but in such a terrifying way that the landingimmediately filled with people. Marie and I went to see, too. The woman was still shrieking and Raymond was still hitting her. Marie said it was terrible and I didn’t say anything. She asked me to go find a policeman, but I told her I didn’t like cops. One showed up anyway with the tenant from the third floor, who’s a plumber. The cop knocked on the door and we couldn’t hear anything anymore. He knocked harder and after a minute the woman started crying and Raymond opened the door. He had a cigarette in his mouth and an innocent look on his face. The girl rushed to the door and told the policeman that Raymond had hit her. “What’s your name?” the cop said. Raymond told him. “Take that cigarette out of your mouth when you’re talking to me,” the cop said. Raymond hesitated, looked at me, and took a drag on his cigarette. Right then the cop slapped him—a thick, heavy smack right across the face. The cigarette went flying across the landing. The look on Raymond’s face changed, but he didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he asked, in a meek voice, if he could pick up his cigarette. The cop said to go ahead and added, “Next time you’ll know better than to clown around with a policeman.” Meanwhile the girl was crying and she repeated, “He beat me up! He’s a pimp!” “Officer,” Raymond asked, “is that legal, calling a man a pimp like that?” But the cop ordered him to shut his trap. Then Raymond turned to the girl and said, “You just wait, sweetheart—we’re not through yet.” The cop told him to knock it off and said that the girl was to go and he was to stay in his room and wait to be summoned to thepolice station. He also said that Raymond ought to be ashamed to be so drunk that he’d have the shakes like that. Then Raymond explained, “I’m not drunk, officer. It’s just that I’m here, and you’re there, and I’m shaking, I can’t help it.” He shut his door and everybody went away. Marie and I finished fixing lunch. But she wasn’t hungry; I ate almost everything. She left at one o’clock and I slept awhile.
    Around three o’clock there was a knock on my door and Raymond came in. I didn’t get up. He sat down on the edge of my bed. He didn’t say anything for a minute and I asked him how it had all gone. He told me that he’d done what he wanted to do but