by James Salter
“Look, Papa.”
“It’s a rhinoceros beetle,” he tells her.
“Mama!” she cries. “Look! A rhinoceros beetle!”
She is nine. Danny is seven. These years are endless, but they cannot be remembered.
Viri sleeps in the sun. He is tan, his fingernails are bleached. On Mondays he goes to the city on the train and returns on Thursday night. He is shuttling between one happiness and another. He has a new secretary. They work together in a kind of excitement, as if there were nothing else in their lives. The isolation and indifference of the city in summer, like a long vacation, like a voyage, casts its spell on them. He cannot get over her niceness, the beauty of her name: Kaya Doutreau.
Near him on the beach lie two young women on their stomachs. Beyond them, scattered, are families, clothing, men sitting alone. It’s late. The sea is empty. Down near its dying edge walk a bearded young man in Levis, naked to the waist, and a girl in the slimmest of bathing suits. They are talking, heads down. The new freedom pours from them; their lives seem infinitely useful and sweet.
Sometimes at noon, reflected in shop windows, he sees himself and a child, sees them as if looking into the stream of life, among cakes and Bordeaux wine. For a moment they stand there, their backs to the street. They have almost finished their errands. Her face is against his arm. They are speechless, united. She has a straw hat. Her feet are bare. He is overwhelmed with a sense of contentment. The sun fills the summer town.
They return to the house. The faded sound of car doors closing. Danny is feeding the rabbit near the kitchen step, a black rabbit with two white paws and a spot on his chest; they call it his star. His mouth moves hastily as he eats. His ears lie flat.
In the brimming paper bags Viri finds a carrot. “Here,” he says.
She slips it through the wire of the cage. The rabbit ingests it like a mechanical toy.
“He likes lunch,” she says.
“What about breakfast?”
“He likes that, too.”
“Does he wash his hands?”
The carrot greens are vanishing in little jerks.
“No,” she says.
“Does he brush his teeth?”
“He can’t,” she says.
“Why not?”
“No sink.”
Danny is less obedient; she has a stubborn quality. She is less beautiful. In the summer her leanness and tan skin conceal it. She goes out in the deep water in a rubber tube, daring, kicking like an insect. It is morning, the surf falling forward, its white teeth hissing on the shore. Viri watches, sitting on the sand. She waves at him, her shouts carried off by the wind. He understands suddenly what love of a child is. It overwhelms him like the line from a song.
Morning; the sea sound faint on the wind. His sunburned daughters walk on creaking floors. They pass their life together, in a compact that will never end. They go to the circus, to stores, the market shed in Amagansett with its laden shelves and fruits, to picnics, pageants, concerts in wooden churches among the trees. They enter Philharmonic Hall. The audience is hushed. They are seated, the programs in their laps. To listen to a symphony is to open the book of faces. The maestro arrives. He collects himself, stands poised. The great, exotic opening chords of Chabrier. They go to perfomances of Swan Lake, their faces pale in the darkness of the Grand Tier. The vast curve of seats is lighted like the Ritz. A huge orchestra pit, big as a ship, a ceiling of gold, hung with bursts of light, with pendants that glitter like ice. The great Nureyev comes out after, bowing like an angel, like a prince. They beg each other for the glasses; his neck, his chest are gleaming with sweat, even the ends of his hair. His hands, like those of a child, play with the cape tassels. The end of performances, the end of Mozart, of Bach. The solo violinist stands with her face raised, utterly drained, the last chords still sounding, as if from a great love. The conductor applauds her, the audience, the beautiful women, their hands held high.
They pass their life together, they pass boys fishing, walking to the end of the pier with a small eel tied, doubled up, on the hook. The mute eye of the eel calls out, a black dot in his plain, silver face. They sit at the table where their grandfather eats, Nedra’s father, a salesman, a man from small towns, his cough yellow, the Camel cigarettes always near his hand. His voice is out of focus, his eyes are filmed, he hardly seems to notice them. He brings death with him into the kitchen; a long, wasted life, the chrysalis of Nedra’s, its dry covering, its forgotten source. He has cheap shoes, a suitcase filled with samples of aluminum window frames.
Their life is formed together, woven together, they are like actors, a group of devoted actors who know nothing beyond themselves, beyond the pile of roles from old, from immortal plays.
The summer ends. There are misty, chilly days, the sea is quiet and white. The waves break far out with a slow, majestic sound. The beach is deserted. Occasional strollers along the water’s edge. The children lie on Viri’s back like possums; the sand is warm beneath him.
Peter and Catherine join them, together with their little boy. The families sit separated, in the solitude and mist. Peter has a folding chair and wears a yachting cap and a shirt. Beside him is a bucket filled with ice, bottles of Dubonnet and rum. An eerie and beautiful day. The fine points of mist drift over them. August has passed.
At a pause in the conversation, Peter rises and walks slowly, without a word, into the sea, a solitary bather, swimming far out in his blue shirt. His strokes are powerful and even. He swims with assurance, strong as an iceman. Finally Viri joins him. The water is cool. There is mist all about them, the swelling rhythm of the waves. No one is in sight except their families sitting on shore.
“It’s like swimming in the Irish Sea,” Peter says. “Never any sun.”
Franca and Danny come out to them.
“It’s deep here,” Viri warns.
Each of the men holds a child. They huddle close.
“The Irish sailors,” Peter tells them, “never learn to swim. Not even a stroke. The sea is too strong.”
“But what if the boat sinks?”
“They cross their hands on their chests and say a prayer,” Peter says. He performs it. Like the carved lid of a coffin he sinks from sight.
“Is it true?” they ask Viri later.
“Yes.”
“They drown?”
“They deliver themselves to God.”
“How does he know that?”
“He knows.”
“Peter is very strange,” Franca says.
And he reads to them, as he does every night, as if watering them, as if turning the earth at their feet. There are stories he has never heard of, and others he has known as a child, these stepping stones that are there for everyone. What is the real meaning of these stories, he wonders, of creatures that no longer exist even in the imagination: princes, woodcutters, honest fishermen who live in hovels. He wants his children to have an old life and a new life, a life that is indivisible from all lives past, that grows from them, exceeds them, and another that is original, pure, free, that is beyond the prejudice which protects us, the habit which gives us shape. He wants them to know both degradation and sainthood, the one without humiliation, the other without ignorance. He is preparing them for this voyage. It is as if there is only a single hour, and in that hour all the provender must be gathered, all the advice offered. He longs for the one line to give them that they will always remember, that will embrace everything, that will point the way, but he cannot find the line, he cannot recognize it. It is more precious, he knows, than anything else they might own, but he does not have it. Instead, in his even, sensuous voice he laves them in the petty myths of Europe, of snowy Russia, the East. The best education comes from knowing only one book, he tells Nedra. Purity comes from that, and proportion, and the comfort of always having an example close at hand.
“Which book?” she says.
“There are a number of them.”
“Viri,” she says, “it’s a cha
rming idea.”
9
IN THE RESTAURANT THEY WERE seated in the way he preferred, on adjoining sides of the table. The creases in the linen were fresh, the room filled with light.
“Would you like some wine?” he asked.
She was wearing a plum-colored dress, sleeveless—September is warm in New York—and a necklace of silver like foliage, like a swarm of i’s. He noticed everything, he fed on it: the ends of her teeth, her scent, her shoes. The room was crowded, brimming with talk.
He talked as well. He explained too much but he could not resist. One thing led to another, inspired it, the story of Stanford White, the city as it once had been, the churches of Wren. He invented nothing; it poured from him. She nodded and answered with silence, she drank the wine. She leaned with her elbows on the table; her glance made him weak. She was absorbed, hypnotized almost. She was intelligent, that was what made her extraordinary. She could learn, comprehend. Beneath her dress, he knew, she had nothing on; deBeque had told him that.
Her apartment belonged to a journalist who was away for a year. Books, sharpened pencils, wood piled neatly for the winter, everything one could need. There were copies of Der Spiegel, white Kneissl skis. She closed the door behind her and turned the lock. From that first moment, that cool and trivial act, it seemed a kind of movie started, silent, almost flickering, a movie with foolish sections which nonetheless consumed them and became real.
There was one large room. Photos of friends on the wall, of boats, parties, afternoons at Puerto Marques. A plastic radio with the cities of Europe printed on its dial. The Odyssey by Kazantzakis. Red and blue edges of air-mail envelopes. Vailland’s Écrits Intimes. In the sleeping alcove, a mirror set in hammered silver, carved birds, a hand-printed spread.
“It looks like Mexico,” Viri said. His voice seemed to lurch from him, it had no tone. “Are those your skis?” he asked.
“No.”
As if without reason then, she kissed him. He removed her shoes, one, then the other, they fell to the floor and rolled over. Her feet were aristocratic, well-formed. The faint sound of a zipper. She turned and raised her arms.
The wide afternoon bed, the dark of drawn curtains. He was escaping from his clothes, they fell in a heap. She lay there waiting. She seemed quiet, remote. He touched his forehead to her like a servant, like a believer in God. He could not speak. He embraced her knees.
It was an apartment in back facing courtyards with trees still in leaf. The sounds from the street had died. Her head was turned to one side, her throat bared. The newness of her drowned him. Somewhere near the bed the phone began to ring. Three rings, four. She did not hear it. It stopped at last.
They awoke much later, weak, reprieved. Her face was swollen from love. She spoke impassively.
“How do you like Mexico?”
He finally replied. “It’s a nice town,” he said.
He started her bath. In the dimness he saw his reflection like that of another man, a triumphant glimpse that held him as water crashed in the tub. His body was in shadow. It seemed strong, like a fighter’s or jockey’s. He was not a city man; suddenly he was primitive, firm as a bough. He had never been so exhilarated after love. All the simple things had found their voice. It was as if he were backstage during a great overture, alone, in semi-darkness but able to hear it all.
She passed by him, naked, her skin grazing his. He was overwhelmed by this vision of her, he could not memorize it, he could not have enough. She was indifferent to his presence. Her nudity was dense, unchildish; her buttocks gleamed like a boy’s.
She slipped into the water and bound up her hair. He was sitting outside, his knees drawn up, content.
“How is it?” he asked.
“It’s like making love the second time.”
His eyes moved around the well-arranged apartment. There are women who live carefully, who are cunning, who take a step only when the ground is firm beneath their feet. She was not one of these. There were her necklaces hung casually near the mirror, her scattered clothes, her cigarettes. He turned the television on without the sound. The set was foreign, the colors beautiful and deep. It seemed to him he was elsewhere, in a city in Europe, on a train. He had entered this room in which there was a woman who had been waiting for him, a clever woman who knew why he had come.
She stood against the doorway watching, whiteness encircling her haunches, the dark handful of hair. He longed to stare at her but was embarrassed. He was somehow dismayed that she should give herself to him. He knew he was eating her, like a fox.
“Do you think I should go back to the office?” she said.
“It might be better if we didn’t go back at the same time.” He picked up his watch. “My God,” he murmured. “It’s almost four. Why don’t you come in about four-thirty? Say you’ve been to the dentist or something.”
“Do you think they’ll notice?”
“Will they notice?” he said. He had slowly begun to dress. “They probably already have.”
He watched her comb her hair. She saw him in the mirror; she barely smiled. It was her silence, her submission which overwhelmed him. She wanted nothing, he felt; she would permit anything. He could not look at her without thinking of this, without filling with desire. It was as if she were lost. He was afraid to disturb her, to give her help. It was as if she had not really seen him yet. How long could it last? How long could it be before she recognized him, knew his thoughts? He was afraid of the sudden glint of a wrist watch, the flash of a smile, the sun on the hub cap of a car—any powerful male emission that might wake her. He wanted to continue to possess her even if he could not believe in it, to feel the confidence on which everything depended. He wanted to be invulnerable, even for an hour, to admire her as she lay face down, to talk to her softly as one talked to a child. He placed a pillow beneath her, doubling it with great care. They were swimming in slowness. It seemed five minutes were required to kneel between her legs. She lay stretched beneath him, his hand on her body to steady it …
He left her at the corner, near the museum. She stood waiting for the light. The buildings he passed seemed strangely dead, the street bare, even in sunlight. He turned to look once more. Suddenly, he did not know why—she was crossing the wide avenue alone—all his uncertainty fled. He began to run and caught up to her on the steps.
“I decided to go with you,” he said. His voice was uneven; he managed to calm his breath. “There’s a room of Egyptian jewelry, a beautiful room, I wanted to show it to you. Do you know who Isis is?”
“A goddess,” she said.
“Yes. Another one.”
She lowered her head in a gesture of profound contentment. She looked at him and smiled. “So she’s one too, eh? You know them all.”
He could feel her love plainly. She was his, he understood it. He had never felt happier, more sure.
“There’s a lot I want to show you.”
She followed him into the great galleries. He guided her by the elbow, touching her often, her shoulder, the small of her back. In the end she would forget him; that was how she would win.
He drove home in a luminous twilight. The closing prices of shares were being given, the trees held the remnants of day.
Nedra was sitting at a table in the living room, notes spread around her. She was writing something.
“A story,” she said. “Was the traffic bad?”
“Not very.”
“You have to illustrate it for me.” She had a certain, strange elation. Near her elbow was a San Raphael. She glanced up. “Would you like one?”
“I’ll have a sip of yours. No, on second thought, I will have one.”
She seemed calm, secure; she knew nothing, he was certain of it. She went to prepare the drink. He felt relief. He was like a hare, safe in his form at last. He had a glimpse of her crossing the hall and a feeling of great warmth came over him, affection for her hips, her hair, the bracelets on her wrist. In some way he was suddenly equal to her; his love di
d not depend on her alone, it was more vast, a love for women, largely ungratified, an unattainable love focused for him in this one wilful, mysterious creature, but not only this one. He had divided his agony; it was cleaved at last.
She returned with his drink and sat in a comfortable chair. “Did you work hard today?”
“Well, yes.” He sipped the drink. “This is delicious. Thank you.”
“And did it go well?”
“More or less.”
“Um.”
She knew nothing. She knew everything, the thought flashed, she was too wise to speak.
“What have you done today?” he asked.
“I’ve had a marvelous day, I really have. I’m writing the story of the eel for Franca and Danny. I don’t like the books they give them in school. I want to do my own. Let me read it to you. I’ll get it.” She smiled at him before she rose, a wide, understanding smile.
“The eel …” he said.
“Yes.”
“That’s very Freudian.”
“I know, but Viri, I don’t believe in all that. I think it’s quite narrow.”
“Narrow. Well, definitely narrow, but the symbolism is very clear.”
“What symbolism?”
“I mean, it’s clearly a cock,” he said.
“I hate that word.”
“It’s inoffensive.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Well, I mean, there are worse.”
“I just don’t like it.”
“What one do you like?”
“What word?”
“Yes.”
“Inimitable,” she said.
“Inimitable?”
“Yes.” She began to laugh. “He had a big inimitable. Listen to what I’ve written.”
She showed him a drawing she had done. It was just to give an idea; his would be better. “Oh, Nedra,” he said, “it’s beautiful.”