Light Years

by James Salter

  “Yes, I’d love one.”

  She poured the wine. “Robert is living in New York,” she said. “Here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you about it.”

  She sat down and sipped. “It should be colder,” she said. She jumped up to get another bottle of wine.

  “This is all right.”

  “No, I want you to have it exactly as it should be.” She was filled with a pathetic energy. “You deserve it,” she said.

  Nedra sat calmly, but she was uncomfortable. She dreaded confidences, especially those of strangers.

  “Here,” Nora said again.

  The glass was chilled. “Oh, it’s good.”

  Calmly, like lovers raising their eyes, they exchanged unintentional glances.

  “I’m glad you came. I just wanted to see you. You know, people around here are so boring.”

  “Yes,” Nedra said, “why is that?”

  “They’re sunk in their lives. I don’t know any of them anyway. We hardly ever entertained. Well, there is a girl named Julie,” she said. “Do you know her? She sells cosmetics. She used to be a stripteaser. Do you like the kir?”

  “It’s wonderful. What is it again?”

  “Wine and cassis, very little cassis.”

  Nedra was inspecting the bottle in which it came.

  “It’s made from berries,” Eve said.

  “What kind of berries?”

  “I don’t know. French. I was telling you about Julie. She’s had a fantastic life. Gangsters used to take her to the St. George Hotel. I mean, she can describe them. They sent her home with a bodyguard. Of course, you know what the bodyguard did. Now she’s selling face cream. Would you like another one? You haven’t finished.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let’s sit near the window. It’s nicer there.”

  As they were moving the phone rang. Nora picked it up abruptly. “Hello,” she said. She listened. “I’m sorry, Mr. Maas isn’t here. Mr. Maas is in New York.”

  She listened again. “New York, New York,” she said.

  “One moment, please,” the operator was saying. Then, “My party would like to speak to Miss Moss. Is Miss Moss there?”

  “Miss Moss is in Los Angeles, California,” Nora said. “Who is calling?”

  Nedra sat in a comfortable chair, the sun on her knees. The window sill was dense with plants. The music from half-forgotten Broadway shows was playing. Nora came back, sat down and closed her eyes. She began to hum, to sing an occasional phrase, finally she was holding long, passionate notes with all her heart. Suddenly she got up and began to move from side to side, to dance. She shot out her hands in the style of hoofers. She laughed self-consciously, but she didn’t stop. One saw the life in which she had bloomed, the gaiety, the foolishness leaking out like the stuffing from a doll.

  “I used to know all the scores by heart,” she confessed.

  She could cook, her legs were good, what was she going to do, she asked, stay out here with the apple trees? Most of them were so old anyway that they never bore fruit.

  “I like to read,” she said, “but my God …”

  She had good hands, she said. She looked at them, one side, then the other, a little worn, but they know things. Well, that was true of everything about her.

  “The thing is, a man can go off with a younger woman, but it doesn’t work the other way.”

  “Yes, it does,” Nedra said.

  “You think so?”

  “Certainly.”

  “No, not for me,” she decided. “You have to believe in it.”

  Here she sat, alone in the country. In the orchard were the trees; in the cupboard, clean glasses and plates. It was a house built of stone, a house that would stand for centuries, and within it were the books and clothes, the sunny rooms and tables necessary for life. And there was a woman as well, her eyes still clear, her breath sweet. Silence surrounded her, the air, the hush of the grass. She had no tasks.

  “I’m not staying out here,” she said abruptly.

  Some of his clothes were hanging in the closets, his canvases were still in the studio above their heads. She could not stay. The ending of days was too long, the darkness came and crushed her, she could not move.

  “It isn’t fair,” she said.

  “No.”

  “What can I do?”

  “You’ll meet someone,” Nedra said. How am I so different from this woman? she was thinking. Am I that much more sure of my life? “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “Thirty-nine,” Nedra said.

  “Katy’s eighteen.”

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen her.”

  “I spent my life looking after him,” Nora cried. “I can remember when I first met him. He was marvelous-looking, I’ll show you some pictures.”

  “You’re still young.”

  “Do we really only have one season? One summer,” she said, “and it’s over?”

  14

  IN THE MORNING, WITH THE FIRST light, a great wind—a wind that slammed doors and broke glass—devoured the silence in sudden, overwhelming claps. Hadji lay huddled in the blankets. The rabbit, his ears back, was crouched beside his box. There were periods of ominous calm and then, lasting sometimes for half a minute, the awful roar of air. The walls seemed to creak.

  All day, though the sky was clear, even warm, the wind blew, tearing at the shutters, ravishing the trees. The vines stood erect in frenzy, shrieked and were pulled away. In the greenhouse there was a musical crash of panes. It was a wind that had no edge, a huge, open-mouthed wind which would not cease.

  In the late afternoon there was a call. It was from another city, there was a strange, mechanical tone. “Mrs. Berland?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Dr. Burnett.” He was calling from Altoona. “I thought I had better advise you,” he said. “Your father is in the hospital. He’s quite ill.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re not familiar with his condition?”

  “No, what is it?”

  “Well, he’s asked for you, and I think it might be a good thing if you could come.”

  “How long has he been there?”

  “About five days,” the doctor said.

  She drove that night. She left an hour before the light began to go. Sibelius was thundering on the radio, the wind battered her car. She passed shipyards, refineries, throbbing, ugly neighborhoods she did not even glance at, the industry that supported her life. Cars streamed in both directions, their lights becoming brighter. Darkness fell.

  She drove without stopping. The radio stations faded; corrupted by static, they began to devour each other. There were gusts of music, ghostly voices; it was like a vast, decaying canopy, like leaking roofs in a poverty-stricken town, a town awash in cheap advertisements, sentiment, mindless noise. The chaos filled her ears, oncoming headlights stung her eyes. The sky glowed with cities beyond the black trees.

  She drove into darkness, the darkness of an old land, weary, close-held, sold and resold, and passed into the zone of deep night. The roads emptied. She was crossing the Susquehanna, still as a pond, when the first waves of sleepiness struck her. The drive became a dream. She thought of her father, of the past she was reentering. She knew the helplessness and despair of beginning again an endless journey, a journey that had been taken already, once and for all. The long white tunnel at Blue Mountain swept by like a hospital corridor. Then Tuscarora. The names had not changed. They were waiting for her, certain of her return.

  Finally she slept for a few hours, the car solitary in a blue-lighted service area. When she woke, the sky to the east was faint. She was in country vaguely familiar to her: the slope of the hills, the dark trees. The road had become visible, smooth and pale, the woods as far as one could see were without a single house or light. She was thrilled; may it always be thus, she thought. The early day, like dawn at sea, stunned her and gave her new life.
/>   Soon there were the first farms, barns beautiful in the silence, the radio giving prices, the number slaughtered of sheep and lambs. Old houses of faded brick that struck the heart, white pillars on the porches, the occupants still asleep. The sky grew more and more faint, as if washed away. Suddenly everything was colored, the fields turned green. Helplessly, she recognized her source, though far from it for years, the vacant, illiterate country, the hills that were long to walk up, the vulgar towns. She passed a single car, just as the cows were coming in, a lone Chevrolet, silent as a bird in flight. A boy and girl were in it, seated close together. They did not seem to see her. They drifted behind in the brimming light.

  Small gardens, churches, hand-painted signs. She felt no warmth of recognition; it was desolation to her, ruin. What failure to someday crawl back; it would erase everything in a single day.

  Morning in the heartland. Early workers driving. Near a farmhouse two ducks wandered dazedly in the road where, amid white feathers, a bloody third lay, killed by a car.

  Greenhouses, ancient schools, factories with their windows broken out. Altoona. She was turning down streets she remembered as a girl.

  The hospital was just awake. The newspapers of the day before were still in its vending machines, the schedules for surgery had not yet been typed.

  She was quickly stopped. “I’m sorry, you’re not allowed in,” the receptionist said. “Visiting hours begin at eleven.”

  “I’ve driven all night.”

  “You can’t visit now.”

  At eleven she returned. In a room with two beds she found her father near the window. He was asleep. His arms outside the covers seemed very frail.

  She touched him. “Hello, Papa.”

  His eyes opened. Slowly, he turned his head.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “All right, I guess.”

  She could see it plainly. His face seemed smaller, his nose large, his eyes worn.

  “I’ve been in here a week now,” he said.

  There was nothing to show it. On the table were a waterglass and tray. There were no books, no letters, not even a watch. In the next bed lay an old man recovering from some sort of surgery.

  “He never stops talking,” her father said.

  The old man could hear them. He smiled as if praised.

  “Never shuts up,” her father said. “Where are you staying?”

  “At the house.”

  Outside was clear, sunny morning. The room seemed dark.

  “Do you want a newspaper?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I’ll read it to you, if you like.”

  He did not reply.

  She stayed until two. They spoke very little. She sat reading. He seemed half asleep. The nurses declined to comment on his condition; he had a strong heart, they said.

  The doctor spoke to her, finally, in the hall. “He’s very weak,” he said. “It’s been a long struggle.”

  “His back hurts him terribly.”

  “Yes, well, it’s spread.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Into the bone.” He explained the loss of weight and strength, the inanition that was taking its course.

  At the house she made herself some tea and rested. It was the house in which she had been brought up: papered rooms, the curtains gray. Near the back door the earth was packed hard, the grass never grew. She called Viri.

  “How is he?”

  “Very bad.”

  “Will he recover?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Nedra, I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, what can we do?” she asked. “I’m staying at the house.”

  “Are you comfortable there?”

  “It isn’t that bad.”

  “How long do you suppose … What do they think?”

  “He seems so weak, so far gone. This morning I was shocked at how far it had progressed.”

  “Do you want me to come down?”

  “Oh, no, that really wouldn’t do anything. It’s very sweet of you, but I don’t think so.”

  “Well, if you need me …”

  “Viri, these hospitals are so awful. You ought to design a hospital, with sunlight and trees. If you’re dying you should have one last look at the world—I mean, at least you should see the sky.”

  “It’s all efficiency.”

  “Damn efficiency.”

  When she returned to the hospital her father was asleep again. He woke as soon as she came near, wide-eyed suddenly, aware. She sat by his bed through the long afternoon. For dinner he took only a few sips of milk.

  “Papa, you must eat.”

  “I can’t.”

  The nurses came in occasionally. “How are you feeling, Mr. Carnes?”

  “It won’t be long,” he murmured.

  “Are you feeling better?” they asked.

  He seemed not to hear them. He was being enclosed in an invisible shroud. His mouth was dry. When he talked it was barely a mumble, deep, almost unintelligible. Several times he asked what day it was.

  That night, exhausted, she bathed and went to bed. She woke once during the night. The sky, the street outside, were absolutely silent. She was rested, calm, alone. The cat had entered the room and sat on the window sill, looking out.

  By morning her father had gone into a coma. He lay helpless, breathing more evenly, more slowly, there were pads of moist gauze on his eyes. She called to him: nothing. He had said his last words.

  Suddenly she was choked with sadness. Oh, peace to you, Papa, she thought. For hours she sat by the bed.

  He was stubborn. He was strong. He could not hear her now, nothing could rouse him. His arms were folded weakly across his chest like featherless wings. She wiped his face, adjusted his pillow.

  Viri called that evening. “Is there any change?”

  “I’m going out for some dinner,” she told him. She talked to the children. How was Grandpa, they asked. “He’s very sick,” she said.

  They were polite. They didn’t know what to reply.

  It took a long time, it took forever; days and nights, the smell of antiseptic, the hush of rubber wheels. This frail engine, we think, and yet what murder is needed to take it down. The heart is in darkness, unknowing, like those animals in mines that have never seen the day. It has no loyalties, no hopes; it has its task.

  The night nurse listened to him. It had begun. Nedra leaned close. “Papa,” she said, “can you hear me? Papa?”

  His breaths came faster, as if he were fleeing. It was six in the evening. She sat all night as he lay there gasping, his body working with the habit of a lifetime. She was praying for him, she was praying against him and thinking to herself as she did, You’re next, it’s only a matter of time, a few swift years.

  At three in the morning there was only the light at the nurse’s desk, there was no doctor. The corridors were empty.

  Below was the dark, impoverished town, its sidewalks crumbled, its houses so close there was not even space to walk between them. The ancient schools were silent, the theater, its windows covered with metal sheet, the veterans’ halls. Through the center ran not a river, but a broad, silent bed of rails. The tracks were rusted, the great repair shops closed. She knew this steep town, she was friendless here, she had turned her back on it forever. In it, sleeping, were distant cousins, never to be claimed.

  She listened to the terrible struggle that was going on upon the narrow bed. She took his hand. It was cool; there was no feeling in it, no response. She watched him. He was fighting far beyond her; his lungs were fighting, the chambers of his heart. And his mind, she thought, of what was that thinking, trapped within him, fated? Was it in harmony, his being, or in chaos, like the people of a falling city?

  His throat began to fill. She called the nurse. “Come right away,” she said.

  His breath was frightening, his pulse weak. The nurse felt his wrist, then his elbow.

  He did not die. He went on with the awful bre
athing. The effort of it made her weak. It seemed that if only he could rest from it he would be all right. An hour passed. He did not know how he was exhausting himself. It was a kind of insanity, he was running on and on, had stumbled and gotten to his feet again a hundred times. Nothing could stand such punishment.

  At a little past five, abruptly, he took his last breath. The nurse came in. It was done.

  Nedra did not weep. She felt instead that she had seen him home. She suddenly knew the meaning of the words “at peace, at rest.” His face was calm. It bore a gray ash of beard. She kissed his cheek, his bluish hand. It was still warm. The nurse was putting in his teeth.

  Outside, the tears began to run down her cheeks. She walked dazedly. She made a single vow: not to forget him, to remember him always, as long as she lived.

  The funeral was simple. She had requested no services. Near gravestones that said simply, Father, and crosses of stone carved to look like logs, amid tilted obelisks and markers for children—Faye Milnor, Aug. 1930–Nov. 1931, a small stone, a hard year—he was buried high on the hill, in a quiet section in back where the graves were slightly disordered. The town, dense with trees, seemed asleep in the afternoon, distant as a painting done by a primitive. She glanced at names as she walked. There were pigeons on the path. Miniature flags waved in brief ripples.

  The gravedigger was a young man, naked to the waist, his long hair drawn back and tied.

  He nodded politely and stopped working. His dog was lying in the grass beneath a tree.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  The lid of the vault was already in place.

  “This is a really good spot,” he told her. He had a narrow face. His front tooth was broken. “The next time you come, the grass will be up.”

  “So soon?”

  “Well, you have to give it a couple of weeks.”

  “Yes,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “David.”

  He was Mexican, she realized. “David …”

  “Yes, m’am.”

  He went back to work. His arms were lean, but he shoveled steadily. Far off was the dome of the cathedral, gray on the sky. She waited until the grave was half filled.

  “Is that your dog?” she said.