by James Salter
“Arnaud …” She began to weep. “They beat him. He’s lost an eye.”
“Beat him?”
“Yes. Somewhere downtown,” she cried.
3
LIFE DIVIDES ITSELF WITH SCARS like the rings contained within a tree. How close together the early ones seem, time compacts them, twenty years become indistinguishable, one from another.
She had entered a new era. All that belonged to the old had to be buried, put away. The image of Arnaud with his thickly bandaged eye, the deep bruises, the slow speech like a record player losing speed—these injuries seemed like omens to her. They marked her first fears of life, of the malevolence which was part of its fluid, which had no explanation, no cure. She wanted to sell the house. Something was happening on every side of her existence, she began to see it in the streets, it was like the darkness, she was suddenly aware of it, when it comes, it comes everywhere.
In Jivan she noticed for the first time things which were small but clear, like the faint creases in his face which she knew would be furrows one day; they were the tracings of his character, his fate. The somewhat servile deference he paid to Viri, for example, she saw was not the result of a unique situation, it was his nature; there was something obsequious in him, he respected successful men too much. His assurance was physical, it did not go beyond that, like a young man practicing with weights in his room; he was strong, but his strength was childish. Things had somehow changed between them. She would always have affection for him, but the summer had passed.
“What is it?” he wanted to know.
She did not feel like explaining. “Love is movement,” she answered. “It is changing.”
“Yes, of course it’s movement, but between two people. Nedra, something is bothering you, I know you too well.”
“I just feel we need to breathe some new air.”
“New air. You don’t mean air.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Maybe I do. You know, you look wonderful. You look better than when I first met you. It’s natural, but I’ll tell you something you don’t realize. You think when you have love that love is easy to find, that everyone has it. It’s not true. It’s very hard to find.”
“I haven’t been looking for it.”
“It’s like a tree,” he told her, “it takes a long time to grow. It has roots very deep, and these roots stretch out a long way, farther than you know. You can’t cut it, just like that. Besides, it’s not your nature. You’re not a child, you’re not interested simply in sensation. I don’t have another woman, I’m not married, I have no children.”
“You can marry.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Things will change.”
“Nedra, you know I love Franca. I love Danny.”
“I know you do.”
“It isn’t fair, what you’re saying.”
“I’m tired of looking on both sides of things,” she said simply.
She was above bickering. She had decided.
Her children became for her all there was, so much so that the remark of Jivan’s, about loving them, disturbed her. Somehow she found it dangerous.
Her love for them was the love to which she had devoted her life, the only one which would not be consumed or vanish. Their lives would be ascendent when hers was fading, they would carry her devotion within them like a kind of knowledge which swam in the blood. They would always be young to her; they would linger, walk in the sunshine, talk to her to the end.
She was reading Alma Mahler. “Viri, listen to this,” she said.
It was the death of Mahler’s daughter who had diphtheria. They had gone to the country and suddenly she became sick. It grew quickly worse. On the last night a tracheotomy was performed; she was choking, she could not breathe. Alma Mahler ran along the edge of the lake, alone, sobbing. Mahler himself, unable to bear the grief, went to the door of his dying child’s room again and again, but could not bring himself to go in. He could not even bear to go to the funeral.
“Why are you reading that?” Viri asked.
“It’s so terrible,” she confessed. She reached over and touched his head. “You’re losing your hair.”
“I know.”
“You’re losing it at the office.”
“Everywhere,” he said.
She was sitting in the armchair covered in white, her favorite chair—his, too; one or the other was always sitting in it, the light was good for reading, the table was piled with new books.
“Oh, God,” she sighed, “we’re in the grocery store of life. We sit here at night, we eat, we pay bills. I want to go to Europe. I want to go on a tour. I want to see Wren’s cathedrals, the great buildings, the squares. I want to see France.”
“Italy.”
“Yes, Italy. When we’re there, we’ll see everything.”
“We couldn’t go until spring,” Viri said.
“I want to go this spring.”
The thoughts of travel thrilled him too. To wake in London, the sunlight falling, black cabs queued outside the hotels, four seasons in the air.
“I want to read about it first. A good book on architecture,” she said.
“Pevsner.”
“Who is that?”
“He’s a German. He’s one of those Europeans who become strangely at home in England—after all, it is the civilized country—and live their entire lives there. He’s one of the great authorities.”
“I’d like to go by boat.”
The winter night embraced the house. Hadji, who was growing old, lay against a sofa, his legs stretched out. Nedra was borne by a dream, by the excitement of discovery. “I’m going to have some ouzo,” she said.
She poured two glasses from a bottle Jivan had brought at Christmas. She looked like a woman for whom travel to Europe was an ordinary act: her ease, her long neck from which there hung strings of Azuma beads, putty, blue and tan, the bottle in her hand.
“I didn’t know we had any ouzo,” he said.
“This little bit.”
“Do you know how Mahler died?” Viri said. “It was in a thunderstorm. He’d been very sick, he was in a coma. And then at midnight there came a tremendous storm, and he vanished into it, almost literally—his breath, his soul, everything.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“The bells were tolling. Alma lay in bed with his photograph, talking to it.”
“That’s exactly like her. How did you know all that?”
“I was reading ahead in your book.”
As they stood on the corner near Bloomingdale’s, the crowd passing, brushing against them, the buses roaring by, she said to Eve, “It’s finished,” by which she meant everything which had nourished her, most of all the city beyond the far margins of which she had found refuge, still subject to its pull, still beneath a sky one end of which glowed from its light.
Passing through the doors of the store she looked at those going in with her, those leaving, women buying at the handbag counters ahead. The real question, she thought, is, Am I one of these people? Am I going to become one, grotesque, embittered, intent upon their problems, women in strange sunglasses, old men without ties? Would she have stained fingers like her father? Would her teeth turn dark?
They were looking at wineglasses. Everything fine or graceful came from Belgium or France. She read the prices, turning them upside down. Thirty-eight dollars a dozen. Forty-four.
“These are beautiful,” Eve said.
“I think these are better.”
“Sixty dollars a dozen. What will you use them for?”
“You always need wineglasses.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll break?”
“The only thing I’m afraid of are the words ‘ordinary life,’ ” Nedra said.
They were sitting at Eve’s when Neil arrived. He had come to visit his son. The room was too small for three people. It had a low ceiling, a little fireplace covered by glass. The whole house was small. It was a house for a writer and a c
at, off the street at the end of a private alley, a disciplined writer, probably homosexual, who occasionally had a friend sleep over.
“Too bad about Arnaud,” Neil said.
“It’s horrible.”
“Eve says he … may never talk right again,” he said to the water glass. He had a thin mouth, the words leaked out.
“They don’t know.”
“Would you like some tea?” Eve asked.
“Let me make it,” Nedra said, rising quickly to her feet. She disappeared into the kitchen.
“Rotten weather, isn’t it?” Neil murmured after a pause.
“Yes.”
“It’s a lot colder than … last winter,” he said.
“I guess it is.”
“Something to do with the … earth’s orbit … I don’t know. We’re supposed to be entering a new ice age.”
“Not another one,” she said.
4
THE SEASONS BECAME HER SHELTER, her raiment. She bent to them, she was like the earth, she ripened, grew sere, in the winter she wrapped herself in a long sheepskin coat. She had time to waste, she cooked, made flowers, she saw her daughter stricken by a young man.
His name was Mark. He made beautiful line drawings, without shadow, without flaw, like the Vollards of Picasso. He resembled them; he was lean, his legs were long, his hair faded brown. He came in the afternoons, they sat in her room for hours with the door closed, sometimes he stayed for dinner.
“I like him,” Nedra said. “He isn’t callow.”
Afterwards Franca looked up the word. Destitute of feathers, it said.
“She likes you. She says you’re feathered.”
“I’m what?”
“Like a bird,” she said.
Franca he was in love with, but Nedra he revered. Their world had a mysterious pull. It was more vivid, more passionate than other worlds. To be with them was like being in a boat, they floated along their own course. They invented their life.
The three of them met in the Russian Tea Room. The headwaiter knew Nedra; they were given one of the booths near the bar. It was one she liked. Nureyev had once sat nearby. “At that table there,” she said.
“All alone?”
“No. Have you ever seen him?” she said. “He’s the most beautiful man on earth. You simply can’t believe it. When he got up to leave, he went over to the mirror and buttoned his coat, tied the belt. The waiters were watching, they were standing in adoration, like schoolgirls.”
“He comes from a little town, isn’t that right?” Franca said. “They knew he was very talented. They thought he should go to Moscow to school, but he was too poor to ride the train. He waited six years to be able to buy a ticket.”
“I don’t know if it’s true,” Nedra said, “but it fits him. How old are you, Mark?”
“Nineteen,” he said.
She knew what that meant, what acts were burning within him, what discoveries were ordained. He had been to Italy on a year of exchange and inspired in Franca a desire to do the same. Imagine a boy of eighteen landing in Southampton. He looked at a map and saw that Salisbury was not far. Salisbury, he suddenly thought, the painting of its cathedral by Constable came to his mind, a painting he knew and admired, and here was the name on a map. He was overwhelmed by the coincidence, as if the one word he knew in a foreign language had brought him success. He took the train, he had a compartment all to himself, he was delighted, the countryside was ravishing, he was alone, traveling the world, and then, across a valley, the cathedral appeared. It was late afternoon, the sun was falling upon it. He was so deeply moved he applauded, he said.
Viri arrived and sat down. He was urbane; in that room, at that hour, he seemed the age one longs to be, the age of accomplishments, of acceptance, the age we never achieve. He saw before him his wife and a young couple. Franca was surely a woman, he knew it suddenly. He had somehow missed the moment it had happened, but the fact was clear to him. Her real face had emerged from the young, sympathetic face it had been and in an hour become more passionate, mortal. It was a face he was in awe of. He heard her voice saying, “Yeah, yeah,” eagerly in response to Mark, the years of her girlhood vanished before his eyes. She would take off her clothes, live in Mexico, find life.
“Don’t you want a drink, Viri?”
“A drink? Yes, what’s that you have?”
“It’s called White Nights.”
“Let me taste it,” he said. “What’s in it?”
“Vodka and Pernod.”
“Is that all?”
“A lot of ice.”
“I was coming down in the elevator today, you’ll never guess who got on: Philip Johnson.”
“Really?”
“He looked fantastic. I said hello to him. He had on a terrific hat.”
Mark said, “Is this Philip Johnson, the …”
“Architect.”
“Why was he wearing the hat?” Franca asked.
“Ah, well. Why does a rooster wear his feathers?”
“You’re as talented as he is,” Nedra said.
“It didn’t seem to worry him.”
“I’m going to buy you a marvelous hat.”
“A hat isn’t going to help that much.”
“A big, doe-colored velour hat,” she said.
“The kind that pimps wear.”
“I think I’ve somehow given you the wrong impression.”
“If Philip Johnson has a hat, you can have a hat.”
“It’s like the joke about the actor who dropped dead on the stage,” Viri said. “Do you know that story?” He turned to Mark. It was one of Arnaud’s, pungent, homely. “It was in the Yiddish theater. I think he was playing Macbeth.”
“They dropped the curtain, but everyone could see there was something wrong,” Nedra said. “Finally the manager came out and told them: it was a terrible thing, terrible, he was dead.”
“But a woman in the balcony keeps calling, ‘Give him some tsicken soup. Give him some tsicken soup!’ And the manager is standing there next to the body, and finally he calls out, ‘Look, you don’t understand. He’s dead! Tsicken soup couldn’t help him, lady!’ ‘It couldn’t hoit,’ she says.”
They told it together as fondly as they had once joined lives. No one knew Nedra as well as Viri. They were the owners of a vast, disordered merchandise; together they had faced it all. When he undressed at night, he was like a diplomat or judge. A white body, gentle and powerless, emerged from his clothes, his position in the world lay tumbled on the floor, fallen from his ankles; he was clement, he was froglike, a touch of melancholy in his smile.
He buttoned his pajamas, brushed his hair.
“Do you approve of him?” Nedra asked.
“Mark?”
“I’m sure they’ve made love.”
The coolness of it stung him. “Oh. Why?”
“Wouldn’t you?” she asked. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t.”
“I think it’s very important that she knows what to do.”
“Oh, she knows. I’ve given her everything she needs.”
“What do you mean, pills?”
“She didn’t want to take pills,” Nedra said.
“I see.”
“I agreed with her. She didn’t want chemicals in her body.”
His thoughts suddenly rushed to his daughter. She was not far away, she was in her room, the music on softly, her dresses neatly hung. He thought of her innocence, of the prodigality of life as if it had surprised him, like a sudden, unheard wave that catches a stroller on the beach, soaking his pants, his hair. And yet now, struck by that wave, a sense of acceptance, even pleasure, came over him. He had been touched by the sea, that greatest of earthly elements, as a man is touched by the hand of God. The need to fear such things was ended.
That night he dreamed of a seashore silver with wind. Kaya came to him. They were in a vast room, alone, there was a convention going on outside. He did not know how he persuaded her, but she said, “Yes, all right.” She
slipped from her clothes. “But I like it in the evening too.”
Her hips were so real, so dazzling, that he hardly felt shame when his mother walked by, pretending not to see. She would tell Nedra, she would not tell Nedra, he could not decide, he tried not to worry. Then he lost this shining woman in a crowd, near a theater. She vanished. Empty rooms, corridors in which old classmates were standing, absorbed in conversation. He walked past them, conspicuously alone.
In the morning he looked at Franca more closely, concealing it, trying to be natural. He saw nothing. She seemed the same, if anything more affectionate, more in harmony with the day, the air, the invisible stars.
“How are things going at school?” he asked.
“Oh, I love school,” she said. “This year is the best.”
“That’s good. What do you like most?”
“Well, of everything …”
“Yes?”
“Biology.” She was tapping at the crown of a soft-boiled egg, dressed neatly, her face clear.
“And next to that?” he said.
“I don’t know. I guess French.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to spend a year of college there?”
“In Paris?”
“Paris, Grenoble. There are a lot of places.”
“Yes. Well, I’m not sure I want to go to college.”
“What do you mean?”
“Now, don’t get excited,” she said. “I only mean I might want to go to art school or something.”
“Well, it’s true you paint beautifully,” he admitted.
“I haven’t decided.” She smiled like her mother, mysterious, assured. “We’ll have to see.”
“Is Mark going to stay in school?”
“He doesn’t know, either,” she said. “It depends.”
“I see.”
There was such reason in her voice.
5
IN THE FALL—IT WAS OCTOBER, A windy day—she drove to Jivan’s for lunch. The river was a brilliant gray, the sunlight looked like scales.
He had moved. He had bought the small, stone cottage at the end of a rutted drive, a long drive that crossed a brook. The trees were everywhere, the sun spilled through them. She was in a white dress, cool as fruit.