On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Tell me about the dark, Leslie said, which seemed strange to Jane, because they were in the dark.

It was night, and they were sitting on the sand with the black plain of the lake spread out before them. Jane felt nervous and shy. Behind them, at the top of the bluff, was the dormitory where their classmates were sleeping in scarred and splintered wooden bunks. The blankets smelled of the damp. All day long they had talked about religion in moderated discussion groups, or had been lectured about it. What was right to do. What must be avoided. What the saints had done. Leslie and Jane sat, listening, sometimes stifling laughter, for it was odd to see the nuns in such a casual setting.

Leslie looked as she always did, her dark blonde bangs brushed down to her eyes, her cheeks puffy, her eyes a little squinted. She had long restless fingers. The young priest had played guitar and led them in folk songs. The old priest had told them the analogy of the universe as a watch and the necessity of a watchmaker. But what if there wasn’t one, Jane thought, what if no one had made the watch, although she didn’t dare to say it.

After dinner, after the campfire, after the brushing of teeth, the checking out of each other’s nightwear, after the whispers had subsided into the longer breathing of sleep, Jane and Leslie had snuck out into the dark, down to the beach. They had known each other for a while, but only as two parts of a group of five. The other three were back there, at the top of the bluff, dreaming in the stifling dark of the dormitory, which was as different as possible from the dark on the beach. Here, the darkness was wide, beckoning. The dark had colors, gradations. The black of the lake, the deeper black of the sky, the gray of the sand, the gray froth of the waves that was almost lavender. When a bird flew silently overhead, it could be seen only because its shape blotted out the pinpricks of the stars.

I don’t know what you mean, Jane said. Leslie took her hand. Their two hands, pale as they were, were part of the darkness. She said, I’m pretty sure you do.