Page Content (OCR)
besides my own.” But Adam doubted his own explanation of it, for he looked several times at the third glass, and I could detect by his expression that he was asking himself if a third guest were to appear, after all. As for myself, I decided to drop the thought for a while. Adam himself was enough of an enigma to me until the third person should arrive, if at all. Then he broke the silence. “Would you like a bottle of beer, Orfeo?” I looked at the pitcher of water. His own glass contained a sparkling liquid the color of pale ginger ale, fizzing and bubbling continuously, though he had already drunk half of it. The lively bubbles arose from the remains of a tiny tablet at the bottom of the glass. My answer to his offer was a hurried, “No, Adam. No beer for me. I will take the water,” and I poured some from the pitcher 1 into my glass. Adam smiled even more broadly as his hand went into his coat pocket. He brought out an oyster-white pellet and held it before me as he remarked: “O.K., Orfeo. Then how about a very rare champagne?” Returning his reassuring smile with my own, I took the pellet and dropped it into my glass. Immediately the water bubbled, turning slowly into the clear, pale amber contained in his own glass. I lifted the glass a few inches from the table, looking into it with a feeling that this might be the drink I dared not hope for. The exhilarating aroma rising from it could not be mistaken. I had tasted and smelled the same liquid before. I put my lips to the glass and merely let the liquid touch my lips. That was enough. “Adam—Adam, I can’t believe it! Please don’t fool me.” My sudden excitement had taken me from earth number one to earth number two. I could feel my whole being swirling into another domain from the mere recognition of the nectar. I could not control my spiral ascent, nor did I want to. Adam’s eyes had continued smiling into my own. 19 ADAM IN THE DESERT “No,” he said thoughtfully. “I must have said two glasses to the waitress, and she may have understood it to mean two more toed »