9. Elle told peacefully

Elle told peacefully she had been so scared to see Him again. So scared. She did not want that torture. Passionately wanting a man you live side by side with. Unreachable. A kind of sympathy you keep tearing apart. A refined on going pain. Him must have anticipated this painful moment he was reponsible for, after all. Without greeting her, he had quietly given her instructions for the day. During the morning from a distance on his tractor he had thrown a long glance at her without a smile, that Elle had returned in the same way. 'I love you still' had been Elle's interpretation. Yes but there was no hope.

Days were going by. A kind of complicity had settled in between them. An on going silent understanding which put some balm on the tearing apart.

F-sharp had asked her if she didn't feel like cheating at times. After all...

- "After all, F-sharp," Elle had answered, "if I leave with the memory of having desired with passion, it will be like a miscarriage... that I'll forget. But if I leave with the memory of an ardent physical love, it will be like the death of a new born... I'd rather not..."

In any case Elle knew perfectly well Him would not cheat and she loved him for it all the more.

- "What I don't understand," Liyan had intervened, "is how he can love you so much and stay faithful to the other one. If he loves you, it means he doesn't love the other. And then, why should he be faithful to her?"

Elle thought that Liyan wasn't all that Chinese. According to the little doll passion excused all crimes. That was a French creed. Him was Kiwi and in the anglo creed applicable in this instance, passion was synonymous with dirt, filth, sin.

One day there was no more apples to pick. Plans for departure became more precise. Elle would travel by car with Philip and Matt to Auckland from where she would sail to the tropics. A last visit to the supermarket with Cameron who had volunteered to take her there. Elle would not see Him again, ever.