by James Salter
She helps herself. Her mouth glistens. Across from us is an English couple. They’re both very young. He has dry, red hair. She is thin-faced and shy. Her dress looks like wallpaper, and they sit in an utter, English silence reading the menu as if it were a contract. In an accent so perfect it surprises me, Anne-Marie whispers,
“Did I hurt you, darling?”
“What?”
It’s a line from a joke Dean’s told her. Her face is full of a mischievous joy. But I don’t know the original story. She delivers it with the assurance of a clown. That’s what he says, she explains. They’re in bed together. Then she says: no, why? And he says: you moved. Her smile is questioning.
“Do I tell it right?” she asks. She looks to see if I am amused. I love her contempt for the sexual life of the English.
Dean is at the Calais, his car parked in the huge square past the corner with a white violation slip already tucked under the wiper. He’s sharing a room with his sister and being very agreeable. He desperately needs money–everything depends on it–and she wants to talk about his life, his future life, that is. She knows he’ll be touchy.
“Now don’t get angry…” she says.
“Oh, Amy…” he begins. He knows exactly how. She plays every card face up like a woman surrendering to love. He’s perfectly ready to face this future life, Dean says. More than that, it’s already appearing before him. These months have made an enormous difference. They’ve been like the wilderness for him, how can he explain it? Suddenly she wants to embrace him. She feels relieved and a little guilty.
“Do you mean it?”
“It’s changed my life,” he says. “It’s changing my life.” He smiles. He loves her. Sometimes she is like a toy.
“But what have you been doing?”
“Seeing no one,” he says. “Living the life of a little town. It’s like saying: stop all this, stop the noise; now, what should it all look like?”
“Yes…” she agrees.
“Life is composed of certain basic elements,” he says. “Of course, there are a lot of impurities, that’s what’s misleading.”
He has always instructed her. She listens gravely.
“What I’m saying may sound mystical, but in everybody, Anne, in all of us, there’s the desire to find those elements somehow, to discover them, you know? Sometimes I think they’re the same for all of us, but maybe they’re not. I mean, we look at the Greeks and say, ah, they built this civilization, this whole brilliant world, out of certain, simple things. Why can’t we? And if not a civilization, why can’t each of us, properly directed, build a life, I mean a happy life? Believe me, the elements exist. When you enter certain rooms, when you look at certain faces, suddenly you realize you’re in the presence of them. Do you know what I mean?”
“Of course, I do,” she says. “If you could achieve that, you’d have everything.”
“And without it you have…” he shrugs, “a life.”
“Like everybody’s.”
“Just like everybody’s,” he says.
“I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I.”
“I can never tell when you’re conning me,” she says.
He shakes his head slowly.
“I’m not,” he promises. “Because I want you to do me a tremendous favor.”
“What?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Later,” he says.
She goes into the bathroom to finish dressing. Dean reads a magazine. She comes out to comb her hair.
“Where shall we go?” she says.
“Shall we have a good dinner?”
“All right. But not too expensive.” The phrase worries him. He tries to ignore it.
“It’s on me,” he says.
“Do you have any money? Daddy said you were desperate.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“No,” he says. “I have a job.”
“You have? What?”
“Tutoring,” he says.
“You never said anything about that.”
“Well, it’s not exactly making me rich.”
“He made me promise not to give you any money, no matter what. He was sure you were going to ask me for some.”
“He acts like I’m your no-good husband.”
“No. He worries about you.”
“His methods are curious,” Dean says. “Besides, I hate lessons about the value of money. What’s the point? Everybody knows it’s valuable. I don’t want any lessons imposed on me. I don’t like people that give lessons. We’re all free. We were meant to love and help each other, not to give lessons.”
“No,” she says, “I think he just wants you to…”
“What?”
“Have a more regular life,” she decides.
Dean smiles.
“Come on,” he says. “Are you ready?”
They go down one floor in the elevator and walk along the corridor.
“Money,” Dean says. “I’ll tell you it’s very hard to think clearly when you don’t have any. That’s one of my discoveries. Of course, it’s hard when you have too much.”
“It certainly is.”
“One has to be very careful,” Dean says wryly.
His sister knocks on a door.
“Donna? Can we come in?”
“Sure.”
It’s her roommate at college. Dean finds her very good-looking. A thrilling, wide mouth, grey eyes. A slim girl, like a runner. She’s interested in him. She knows he went to Yale. Did he know Larry Troy, she asks? Questions like that. He responds with soft, almost uncertain no’s.
“What class were you?” she says.
“Several.”
When he tells her he never finished, she emits a small: oh. But it takes courage to do that, she adds, to set out on your own. Only a real individual … Dean nods. He’s heard all this before.
They walk down the street together. The sidewalk is very wide. The place itself, filled with parked cars, seems tremendous. Lost in these rich dimensions, they cut across towards the Delage. Dean takes the ticket from the windshield and begins to read it.
“What’s that?” his sister asks.
He shrugs.
“Is it for parking?” she says. “You don’t have to pay it. You’re only visiting.”
“Say, what kind of great car is this?” Donna says.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” she says. “It’s very you.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely,” she says.
The glittering night of Paris receives them. Darkness has restored the old car’s elegance, and down the boulevards they float to a restaurant near the Invalides. The dinner costs eighty-five francs. Dean’s last money. He nevertheless leaves a large tip. He does it mechanically, without caring, pure as a gambler who has lost. They walk along the Champs, have a coffee, and end the night above the city at Sacré-Coeur. At her floor, Donna says,
“It was such a great evening. It’s the best evening we’ve had on the whole tour.”
“I wish I could have shown you more of Paris.”
“Oh,” she says, “I do, too.”
“Next time.”
“I just wish we were staying,” she says.
She walks slowly down the hallway, the key dangling like an ornament from her hand.
In the morning everything seems different. His confidence has gone cold. They are talking, over breakfast, of how they will spend the day. Everybody’s going to Versailles, but if they decide to go, too, she’d rather drive out in his car. Or perhaps they should just go off by themselves, the two of them. And take Donna, if he likes. Dean wants to ask for money, now–he can’t go through the day otherwise–but the beginning of her reply terrifies him. He can hear her saying: you know how much I love you … I’d do anything…
“Amy,” he says, “all kidding aside…”
“What?”
“I am desperate.”
She looks at him, a little uncertain.
“I need money,” he says.
“Oh.”
“I sold my ticket.”
“You really did?”
“I had to.”
“Daddy will give it back to you,” she says.
“I don’t want him to find out. I need three hundred and fifty dollars.”
She seems embarrassed by her reply.
“I don’t have it,” she says.
“How much do you have?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“Listen, forget that. I’m serious. I mean it, Amy, my need is…I need the money. I need it to get home.”
“How much do you really need?”
“Three hundred and fifty dollars,” he says.
“I only have a hundred. I only have traveler’s checks.”
“I have to have more than that, baby.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Can you borrow it?” he says.
“Be honest. Are you in trouble?”
“No, no.” He sighs. He looks at her and then at the table. “Do you think you can borrow it? How about Donna?”
“Are you ever going to pay it back?”
“Certainly.”
“I just can’t ask her for two hundred and fifty dollars, just like that.”
“She may have part of it,” Dean says.
“You’re not in any trouble?”
“No, I deeply, sincerely need some money, but I’m not in any trouble. I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get it.”
“Then it’s true?”
“No, I’m only kidding. Listen, how about asking Donna? She’ll lend you money, won’t she?”
“I suppose so,” she says.
“You’ve got to do it for me,” Dean tells her.
In the dusk at Orly they part. From the upper platform, Dean watches her mount the steps. She pauses at the top. A final wave. This long, polished tube with its comfortable seats is the jet to America. He feels a moment of great loneliness. He would like to be on board, sitting down beside them. He hates the thought of walking out to the car by himself. Life seems to be fleeing from him.
The door closes, is sealed. A period of deathlike silence, and the engines start. Inside they are unfolding newspapers. It begins to move. He tries to identify her at one of the windows. He’s too far off. The faces are indistinct. He watches as the plane follows a long, ceremonial path to the runway. It turns. It begins to flow. Once in the air it moves serenely, almost ominously, heeling over without warning, coming level again, following invisible courses into the sky.
He counts the money. Three hundred and fifteen dollars, almost none of it in francs. He folds it carefully and puts it back in his pocket. She’s promised to send him fifty more.
The Delage moves in long, steady thrusts, slowing only in towns. He’s not at all tired. The trip, it seems, is the shortest ever. He passes everything without even slowing, swinging out and rushing by, uphill and down. Finally he arrives. It’s just past eleven, the houses are dark. He runs up the stairs like a cat and knocks lightly. She is waiting.
[30]
IN THE STREET, IN the earliest morning, the car lies open, like a boat. The town is a harbor; the water is like glass. There is not a creak, not a cough as they ease along silent passages, the engine idling. In the country, luminous but still awaiting sunlight, the air is cool and sweet. They drive without speaking. They’re still sleepy. After twenty kilometers, Anne-Marie forms a single word.
“Alors.”
“What’s wrong?”
She’s forgotten the jacket to her suit.
“Oh, Christ,” Dean says.
It’s back in the room. He slows down and stops on the grass shoulder.
“No,” she says.
“You want to go back and get it?”
She shakes her head,
“No.”
He starts off again, slowly. She shrugs helplessly. She doesn’t want to look at him.
“Are you sure?” he says.
“Yes,” she says. “We are started.”
“It’s a great start.”
She begins to laugh. Finally Dean smiles. Their last trip. They flash down the tunnels of trees, and the towns unfold before them, flat at first and still sleeping but then with cats, a few people, and by the time they reach Orléans it’s full morning. A large, impressive city. The day is going to be hot. Dean runs across the square to buy some bread and butter. They eat parked in the sunlight, green busses rumbling past, the tourists strolling by in short pants. Bread crumbs are falling into her lap. She has never looked more pleased, more accustomed to seats of real leather, trips to the sea. She squints in the morning brightness. She moves her legs–the leather is hot.
They are really married. That night she will say as much to him: they have picked a good time, when it is safe to make love, and started life together that day. It is in Angers. They are walking the streets after dinner. The city seems foreign to Dean, redolent of Spain, dusty, smelling of trees. The sidewalks are laid between flats of bare earth. It doesn’t seem France. Even the cafés are strange, and the couples speak a language he cannot understand.
They have toured the châteaux that day. For two francs they can follow a guide who recites a little history as they pass through the great rooms. There are white-haired couples in the crowd, tourists in sandals, schoolteachers. An American woman and her two daughters in linen dresses. Someone is whispering in German. The guide promptly forces a translation of the tour into their hands, like a menu. They protest. They understand French, they say. The guide only smiles. Dean stands at the edge of the group. Anne-Marie has gone a little ahead.
“Phillipe,” she calls, “come!”
The guide is moving on. Everybody follows.
“Parle français!” Dean whispers when he is close.
“Why?”
She is being playful. They walk out on the balcony that runs the steep face of the building. They are at Amboise, far above the town. Dean refuses to talk. He doesn’t want to be taken for an American. He doesn’t want to be given a translation by the guide who is now explaining what was enacted here in centuries past. Anne-Marie winces.
“Awful,” she says. The road is hundreds of feet below. Protestants about to be hung would see a whole realm before them, sky, wide river, the roofs of the town. “They were more cruel in those days.”
“I’d love to have seen it,” Dean says.
“Don’t. It makes me sick.”
One of the daughters has heard them. Her head turns. He sees her whisper to her mother. He tries to lag behind, but Anne-Marie will not let him.
“Phillipe, come on,” she says.
“I’ll kill you!” he whispers.
She only smiles.
They arrive in Angers tired, in the midst of evening traffic. People are shopping and driving home from work. A cool smell of foliage fills the air, the trace of flowers. They find a small hotel. The entrance is on a narrow street–after they unload their luggage, he must go somewhere and park.
Dean feels a slight chill as he draws the bedspread over him. Perhaps it was the sun. He lies quite still. The room is bare. He recognizes nothing in it, not a color, not a line. Suddenly he becomes frightened. He begins to count his money mentally. He’s left some of it behind, five hundred francs, and there was a garage bill for tuning the engine. They bought some clothes. He adds it up. He decides to put two hundred francs under the floormat of the car. That will leave about seven hundred–he adds it again–it will be close. It’s forty or fifty every time they get gas. He tries to calculate the mileage. Perhaps they shouldn’t try to go so far.
His eyes open a little at the sound of the key. Anne-Marie has been taking a bath. She’s wearing his cotton robe. When she stands near the bed she unties it. It opens, falls away. The sight of her fresh nakedness frightens him even more. Suddenly it is quite clear how acrobatic, how dangerous everything is. It seems not to be his own life
he is living, but another, the life of some victim. It will all collapse. He will have to find work, pay rent, walk home every day for lunch. He is weak suddenly, he doesn’t believe in himself. She slips into the bed. A virtual panic comes over him. He lies motionless, his eyes closed.
“Tu dors?” she says softly. He doesn’t know what to answer.
“No,” he breathes. After a moment he adds, “I have a little headache.”
“Poor child.” She strokes his cheek. He manages a papery smile.
The dinner revives him somewhat. She even has two glasses of wine, but then, it’s an occasion. Afterwards they walk along the avenue, beneath the dark trees. They come to a large store, closed, of course, but fully lighted. Couples linger before the displays, refrigerators, rows of them, doors open, cardboard arrows pointing out their features.
“Are they more expensive in America?” she asks.
“I’ve never bought one.” His eyes move uncertainly. The model numbers are cabalistic, the prices seem terrifying.
“But you must know.”
“Let’s go,” he says.
“This one I find nice,” she says, pointing.
“It’s too small.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“It’s big enough,” she says.
“Baby, please stop this.”
“Attends.”
“I don’t want to look at them any more. It’s boring,” he says.
“There’s nothing else to do. Where do you want to go? Do you want to go and dance?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Ah!” she cries.
“Sure. Come on.”
They begin to walk and in the end have come back to the hotel. The dining room is dark. The desk seems empty.
“Do you want to ask?” he says.
“No,” she says. “It’s late.”
He takes their key from the little board, and they walk up the carpeted stairs. The room seems plainer than before. He brushes his teeth. He is ready to sleep.
“Non,” she says. One doesn’t begin a married life like that.
“I’m really tired.”
“Maybe for dancing,” she says.
He may not be interested, but she knows what is best for him. It’s like a bowl of hot soup. She makes him undress and lie down with her. She starts to caress him, he cannot escape her hands. Finally he begins, obediently, to make love, working himself in from side to side like a lever. It’s a little dry, this prescription, but she suffers it. She knows a woman must be prepared for that.