by James Salter
“Come in and have a drink,” someone finally said.
He found himself next to Hilmo, who reached across to shake hands with an iron grip. “How are you?” he said. The others went on talking. “You look great.”
“You, too.”
Hilmo seemed not to hear. “Where are you living?” he said.
“Rosemont. Rosemont, New Jersey. It’s where my wife’s family’s from,” Reemstma said. He spoke with a strange intensity. He had always been odd. Everyone wondered how he had ever made it through. He did all right in class but the image that lasted was of someone bewildered by close order drill which he seemed to master only after two years and then with the stiffness of a cat trying to swim. He had full lips which were the source of an unflattering nickname. He was also known as To The Rear March because of the disasters he caused at the command.
He was handed a used paper cup. “Whose bottle is this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Hilmo said. “Here.”
“Are a lot of people coming?”
“Boy, you’re full of questions,” Hilmo said.
Reemstma fell silent. For half an hour they told stories. He sat by the window, sometimes looking in his cup. Outside, the clock with its black numerals began to brighten. West Point lay majestic in the early evening, its dignified foliage still. Below, the river was silent, mysterious islands floating in the dusk. Near the corner of the library a military policeman, his arm moving with precision, directed traffic past a sign for the reunion of 1960, a class on which Vietnam had fallen as stars fell on 1915 and 1931. In the distance was the faint sound of a train.
It was almost time for dinner. There were still occasional cries of greeting from below, people talking, voices. Feet were leisurely descending the stairs.
“Hey,” someone said unexpectedly, “what the hell is that thing you’re wearing?”
Reemstma looked down. It was a necktie of red, flowered cloth. His wife had made it. He changed it before going out.
“Hello, there.”
Walking calmly alone was a white-haired figure with an armband that read 1930.
“What class are you?”
“Nineteen-sixty,” Reemstma said.
“I was just thinking as I walked along, I was wondering what finally happened to everybody. It’s hard to believe but when I was here we had men who simply packed up after a few weeks and went home without a word to anyone. Ever hear of anything like that? Nineteen-sixty, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You ever hear of Frank Kissner? I was his chief of staff. He was a tough guy. Regimental commander in Italy. One day Mark Clark drove up and said, Frank, come here a minute, I want to talk to you. Haven’t got time, I’m too busy, Frank said.”
“Really?”
“Mark Clark said, Frank, I want to make you a B.G. I’ve got time, Frank said.”
The mess hall, in which the alumni dinner was being held, loomed before them, its doors open. Its scale had always been heroic. It seemed to have doubled in size and was filled with the white of tablecloths as far as one could see. The bars were crowded, there were lines fifteen and twenty deep of men waiting patiently. Many of the women were in dinner dresses. Above it all was the echoing haze of conversation.
There were those with the definite look of success, like Hilmo who wore a gray summer suit with a metallic sheen and to whom everyone liked to talk although he was given to abrupt silences, and there were also the unfading heroes, those who had been cadet officers, come to life again. Early form had not always held. Among those now of high rank were men who in their schooldays had been relatively undistinguished. Reemstma, who had been out of touch, was somewhat surprised by this. For him the hierarchy had never been altered.
A terrifying face blotched with red suddenly appeared. It was Cramner, who had lived down the hall.
“Hey, Eddie, how’s it going?”
He was holding two drinks. He had just retired a year ago, Cramner said. He was working for a law firm in Reading.
“Are you a lawyer?”
“I run the office,” Cramner said. “You married? Is your wife here?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She couldn’t come,” Reemstma said.
His wife had met him when he was thirty. Why would she want to go, she had asked? In a way he was glad she hadn’t. She knew no one and given the chance she would often turn the conversation to religion. There would be two weird people instead of one. Of course, he did not really think of himself as weird, it was only in their eyes. Perhaps not even. He was being greeted, talked to. The women, especially, unaware of established judgments, were friendly. He found himself talking to the lively wife of a classmate he vaguely remembered, R. C. Walker, a lean man with a somewhat sardonic smile.
“You’re a what?” she said in astonishment. “A painter? You mean an artist?” She had thick, naturally curly blond hair and a pleasant softness to her cheeks. Her chin had a slight double fold. “I think that’s fabulous!” She called to a friend, “Nita, you have to meet someone. It’s Ed, isn’t it?”
“Ed Reemstma.”
“He’s a painter,” Kit Walker said exuberantly.
Reemstma was dazed by the attention. When they learned that he actually sold things they were even more interested.
“Do you make a living at it?”
“Well, I have a waiting list for paintings.”
“You do!”
He began to describe the color and light—he painted landscapes—of the countryside near the Delaware, the shape of the earth, its furrows, hedges, how things changed slightly from year to year, little things, how hard it was to do the sky. He described the beautiful, glinting green of a hummingbird his wife had brought to him. She had found it in the garage; it was dead, of course.
“Dead?” Nita said.
“The eyes were closed. Except for that, you wouldn’t have known.”
He had an almost wistful smile. Nita nodded warily.
Later there was dancing. Reemstma would have liked to go on talking but people drifted away. Tables broke up after dinner into groups of friends.
“Bye for now,” Kit Walker said.
He saw her talking to Hilmo, who gave him a brief wave. He wandered about for a while. They were playing “Army Blue.” A wave of sadness went through him, memories of parades, the end of dances, Christmas leave. Four years of it, the classes ahead leaving in pride and excitement, unknown faces filling in behind. It was finished, but no one turns his back on it completely. The life he might have led came back to him, almost whole.
Outside barracks, late at night, five or six figures were sitting on the steps, drinking and talking. Reemstma sat near them, not speaking, not wanting to break the spell. He was one of them again, as he had been on frantic evenings when they cleaned rifles and polished their shoes to a mirrorlike gleam. The haze of June lay over the great expanse that separated him from those endless tasks of years before. How deeply he had immersed himself in them. How ardently he had believed in the image of a soldier. He had known it as a faith, he had clung to it dumbly, as a cripple clings to God.
In the morning Hilmo trotted down the stairs, tennis shorts tight over his muscled legs, and disappeared through one of the sally ports for an early match. His insouciance was unchanged. They said that before the Penn State game when he had been first string the coach had pumped them up telling them they were not only going to beat Penn State, they were going to beat them by two touchdowns, then turning to Hilmo, “And who’s going to be the greatest back in the East?”
“I don’t know. Who?” Hilmo said.
Empty morning. As usual, except for sports there was little to do. Shortly after ten they formed up to march to a memorial ceremony at the corner of the Plain. Before a statue of Sylvanus Thayer they stood at attention, one tall maverick head in a cowboy hat, while the choir sang “The Corps.” The thrilling voices, the solemn, staggered parts rose through the air. Behind Reemstma so
meone said quietly, “You know, the best friends I ever had or ever will have are the ones I had here.”
Afterward they walked out to take their places on the parade ground. The superintendent, a trim lieutenant general, stood not far off with his staff and the oldest living graduate, who was in a wheelchair.
“Look at him,” Dunning said. He was referring to the superintendent. “That’s what’s wrong with this place. That’s what’s wrong with the whole army.”
Faint waves of band music beat toward them. It was warm. There were bees in the grass. The first miniature formations of cadets, bayonets glinting, began to move into view. Above, against the sky, a lone distinguished building, and that a replica, stood. The chapel. Many Sundays with their manly sermons on virtue and the glittering choir marching toward the door with graceful, halting tread, gold stripes shining on the sleeves of the leaders. Down below, partly hidden, the gymnasium, the ominous dark patina on everything within, the floor, the walls, the heavy boxing gloves. There were champions enshrined there who would never be unseated, maxims that would never be erased.
At the picnic it was announced that of the 550 original members, 529 were living and 176 present so far.
“Not counting Klingbeil!”
“Okay, one seventy-six plus a possible Klingbeil.”
“An impossible Klingbeil,” someone called out.
There was a brief cheer.
The tables were in a large, screened pavilion on the edge of the lake. Reemstma looked for Kit Walker. He’d caught sight of her earlier, in the food line, but now he could not find her. She seemed to have gone. The class president was speaking.
“We got a card from Joe Waltsak. Joe retired this year. He wanted to come but his daughter’s graduating from high school. I don’t know if you know this story. Joe lives in Palo Alto and there was a bill before the California legislature to change the name of any street an All-American lived on and name it after him. Joe lives on Parkwood Drive. They were going to call it Waltsak Drive, but the bill didn’t pass, so instead they’re calling him Joe Parkwood.”
The elections were next. The class treasurer and the vice president were not running again. There would have to be nominations for these.
“Let’s have somebody different for a change,” someone commented in a low voice.
“Somebody we know,” Dunning said.
“You want to run, Mike?”
“Yeah, sure, that would be great,” Dunning muttered.
“How about Reemstma?” It was Cramner, the blossoms of alcoholism ablaze in his face. The edges of his teeth were uneven as he smiled, as if eaten away.
“Good idea.”
“Who, me?” Reemstma said. He was flustered. He looked around in surprise.
“How about it, Eddie?”
He could not tell if they were serious. It was all offhanded—the way Grant had been picked from obscurity one evening when he was sitting on a bench in St. Louis. He murmured something in protest. His face had become red.
Other names were being proposed. Reemstma felt his heart pounding. He had stopped saying, no, no, and sat there, mouth open a bit in bewilderment. He dared not look around him. He shook his head slightly, no. A hand went up, “I move that the nominations be closed.”
Reemstma felt foolish. They had tricked him again. He felt as if he had been betrayed. No one was paying any attention to him. They were counting raised hands.
“Come on, you can’t vote,” someone said to his wife.
“I can’t?” she said.
Wandering around as the afternoon ended Reemstma finally caught sight of Kit Walker. She acted a little strange. She didn’t seem to recognize him at first. There was a grass stain on the back of her white skirt.
“Oh, hello,” she said.
“I was looking for you.”
“Would you do me a favor?” she said. “Would you mind getting me a drink? My husband seems to be ignoring me.”
Though Reemstma did not see it, someone else was ignoring her, too. It was Hilmo, standing some way off. They had taken care to come back to the pavilion separately. Friends who would soon be parting were talking in small groups, their faces shadowy against the water that glistened behind them. Reemstma returned with some wine in a plastic glass.
“Here you are. Is anything wrong?”
“Thank you. No, why? You know, you’re very nice,” she said. She had noticed something over his shoulder. “Oh, dear.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It looks like we’re going.”
“Do you have to?” he managed to say.
“Rick’s over by the door. You know him, he hates to be kept waiting.”
“I was hoping we could talk.”
He turned. Walker was standing outside in the sunlight. He was wearing an aloha shirt and tan slacks. He seemed somewhat aloof. Reemstma was envious of him.
“We have to drive back to Belvoir tonight,” she said.
“I guess it’s a long way.”
“It was very nice meeting you,” she said.
She left the drink untouched on the corner of the table. Reemstma watched her make her way across the floor. She was not like the others, he thought. He saw them walking to their car. Did she have children? he found himself wondering. Did she really find him interesting?
In the hour before twilight, at six in the evening, he heard the noise and looked out. Crossing the area toward them was the unconquerable schoolboy, long-legged as a crane, the ex-infantry officer now with a small, well-rounded paunch, waving both arms.
Dunning was bellowing from a window, “Hooknose!”
“Look who I’ve got!” Klingbeil called back.
He was with Devereaux, the tormented scholar. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders. They were crossing together, grinning, friends since cadet days, friends for life. They started up the stairs.
“Hooknose!” Dunning shouted.
Klingbeil threw open his arms in mocking joy.
He was the son of an army officer. As a boy he had sailed on the Matson Line and gone back and forth across the country. He told stories of seduction in the lower berth. My son, my son, she was moaning. He was irredeemable, he had the common touch, his men adored him. Promoted slowly, he had gotten out and become a land developer. He drove a green Cadillac famous in Tampa. He was a king of poker games, drinking, late nights.
She had probably not meant it, Reemstma was thinking. His experience had taught him that. He was not susceptible to lies.
“Oh,” wives would say, “of course. I think I’ve heard my husband talk about you.”
“I don’t know your husband,” Reemstma would say.
A moment of alarm.
“Of course, you do. Aren’t you in the same class?”
He could hear them downstairs.
“Der Schiff ist kaputt!” they were shouting. “Der Schiff ist kaputt!”
AKHNILO
It was late August. In the harbor the boats lay still, not the slightest stirring of their masts, not the softest clink of a sheave. The restaurants had long since closed. An occasional car, headlights glaring, came over the bridge from North Haven or turned down Main Street, past the lighted telephone booths with their smashed receivers. On the highway the discotheques were emptying. It was after three.
In the darkness Fenn awakened. He thought he had heard something, a slight sound, like the creak of a spring, the one on the screen door in the kitchen. He lay there in the heat. His wife was sleeping quietly. He waited. The house was unlocked though there had been many robberies and worse nearer the city. He heard a faint thump. He did not move. Several minutes passed. Without making a sound he got up and went carefully to the narrow doorway where some stairs descended to the kitchen. He stood there. Silence. Another thump and a moan. It was Birdman falling to a different place on the floor.
Outside, the trees were like black reflections. The stars were hidden. The only galaxies were the insect voices that filled the night. He stared fro
m the open window. He was still not sure if he had heard anything. The leaves of the immense beech that overhung the rear porch were close enough to touch. For what seemed a long time he examined the shadowy area around the trunk. The stillness of everything made him feel visible but also strangely receptive. His eyes drifted from one thing to another behind the house, the pale Corinthian columns of the arbor next door, the mysterious hedge, the garage with its rotting sills. Nothing.
Eddie Fenn was a carpenter though he’d gone to Dartmouth and majored in history. Most of the time he worked alone. He was thirty-four. He had thinning hair and a shy smile. Not much to say. There was something quenched in him. When he was younger it was believed to be some sort of talent, but he had never really set out in life, he had stayed close to shore. His wife, who was tall and nearsighted, was from Connecticut. Her father had been a banker. Of Greenwich and Havana the announcement in the papers had said—he’d managed the branch of a New York bank there when she was a child. That was in the days when Havana was a legend and millionaires committed suicide after smoking a last cigar.
Years had passed. Fenn gazed out at the night. It seemed he was the only listener to an infinite sea of cries. Its vastness awed him. He thought of all that lay concealed behind it, the desperate acts, the desires, the fatal surprises. That afternoon he had seen a robin picking at something near the edge of the grass, seizing it, throwing it in the air, seizing it again: a toad, its small, stunned legs fanned out. The bird threw it again. In ravenous burrows the blind shrews hunted ceaselessly, the pointed tongues of reptiles were testing the air, there was the crunch of abdomens, the passivity of the trapped, the soft throes of mating. His daughters were asleep down the hall. Nothing is safe except for an hour.
As he stood there the sound seemed to change, he did not know how. It seemed to separate as if permitting something to come forth from it, something glittering and remote. He tried to identify what he was hearing as gradually the cricket, cicada, no, it was something else, something feverish and strange, became more clear. The more intently he listened, the more elusive it was. He was afraid to move for fear of losing it. He heard the soft call of an owl. The darkness of the trees which was absolute seemed to loosen, and through it that single, shrill note.