by James Salter
“But John Bray, killed on the Eiger …”
Rand was silent. “Yes,” he admitted. “I mourn for Bray. Not really for him, for myself.”
“By that, you mean …?”
Ah, well, he couldn’t answer. “He died, but that’s not the end of it,” was all he could say.
“When you think that the guides of Chamonix,” Vigan said, “the gendarmes, the army, all of them …” He did not finish the sentence. He rose and stood watching the end.
“You love the mountains …,” they said.
“Not the mountains,” he replied. “No, not the mountains. I love life.”
Whoever did not believe him did not have eyes to see. People remembered. It gave him a name. “Bonjour, monsieur,” the woman greeted him at the douches. His honesty touched one. That worn, angelic face, filled with happiness, stayed in one’s thoughts.
That night he had no worries, no concerns. He let his glass be filled and relived the climb. Afterward he slept at Remy’s. He slept as he had the first time, long ago, as if all the earth were his and the night his chamber. He slept untroubled, with swollen hands.
When he woke he was famous. His face poured off the presses of France. It was repeated on every kiosk, in the pages of magazines, his interview read on buses by working girls on their way home. Suddenly, into the small rooms and houses, the ordinary streets, he brought a glimpse of something unspoiled. For two hundred years France had held the idea of the noble savage, simple, true. Unexpectedly he had appeared. His image cleansed the air like rain. He was the envoy of a breed one had forgotten, generous, unafraid, with a saintly smile and the vascular system of a marathon runner.
28
IN THE STREETS OF Paris drivers lowered their windows and called to him. It was phenomenal. His face alone made people turn. Someone would come up to him and in a few minutes there was a crowd. They took him as their own.
“Mon légionnaire,” Colette mocked. “How do you like having Paris as your garden?” she said. She was pleased by his fame. She took it as a matter of course. About Catherin she did not inquire. Most likely she knew.
Her apartment was on a top floor near the Place des Vosges. People had been invited for drinks—everyone was eager to meet him. Bottles and glasses on the table, the balcony doors open—how beautiful the city seemed, the elegant, worn buildings, the trees, taxis queuing up at the corner, the traffic, the evening light. Her friends were journalists, women, businessmen. They were talkative, well dressed. They had carved out lives.
“How does one climb alone?”
“Alone!” a woman cried. “Is that true?”
“Tell me, what protects you?”
He saw himself reflected in a mirror on the opposite wall among women’s bare arms, the backs of men’s heads. The smoke and murmur of conversation rose.
“Nothing actually protects you. It comes from within,” he explained. “It’s not like gambling. It’s not a matter of taking chances.” They assumed that a climber is courageous, that like a boxer there is latent in him the strength to kill. “You’re prepared for everything,” he told them. “If your foot slips you have your hand. You never try something unless you’re sure you can do it. It’s a question of spirit. You have to feel you’ll never come off.”
“Ne pas monter bien haut, peut-être,” a woman recited, “mais tout seul.”
“What’s that?”
“Rostand,” she said. She was wearing a silk shirt and ivory necklaces. There was something about these women, poised, calmly wise.
Later, an almost oceanic blue had covered the sky. The television was on. He sat drunkenly on a couch. People were still talking animatedly. Colette was running her finger along one of his.
“Am I going to spend tonight alone?” she asked. She was looking at his hand. Her face was astonishingly young.
Paris and triumph. In his pocket were two thousand francs for the rights to photographs of the rescue. How easily it had come. He remembered music playing, the soft air of night. Her bedroom had thick curtains, chairs, fish barely moving in a greenish, square tank. Her robe was half open. She took his hands.
“You’re not too tired?” she asked.
She had a clever face, a face that knew him. Her hair was rich, disorderly, it smelled like almonds. He fell asleep almost immediately, like a vagabond in a barn.
In the morning she picked up a bottle of Evian water from beside the bed and drank. She offered it to him. The bed was large. She slept, smoked, ate apples in it. Her face was naked, her breath a little stale. Her arms were faintly yellow near the armpits, otherwise she might have been thirty.
“You were quite a success last night,” she said.
“Is that so?”
“Though you wouldn’t go to dinner.”
“No,” he said, “I’m like an animal. I eat when I feel like it, I sleep when I feel like it.”
“Yes, I noticed.” A stumpy-legged cat with bitten ears was stepping back and forth across them. “Bonjour, Pilou.”
So, she would have two animals, she said genially. Despite the disappointment of the first night she was ready to accept him. This was morning: she sat up and combed her hair. The curtains remained closed, the maid opened them at noon.
Colette looked after him, she advised him, sorted out his clothes. He was lazy, basking in the warmth of self-approval without the ability to judge things for himself. An article he had written appeared in the paper. It was absolutely foolish, she said, it was affected, it didn’t sound like him.
“What do you mean?”
“You have to be more or less intelligent if you want to give opinions,” she said.
“And me …?”
“Intelligent,” she granted. “I don’t know about the ‘more or less.’”
There were offers to do advertising. He turned them down.
“Now that, you see, is definitely not intelligent,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong in it. People like your face, why not let them see it?”
It was against his principles. It was not only against his principles but more, it was something he despised.
“Ah, that.” She merely shrugged. “They know you’re accepting a little money, they don’t care. Nothing could pay you for what you did. The Romans rewarded their heroes,” she said. “In Genoa, they were given houses.”
“It still isn’t right.”
“You sold the photos to Paris Match,” she reminded him.
“They would have been published anyway.”
“Perhaps. Look, my darling, in ten years, who will know the difference?”
“And if it’s only me?”
She admired him. It was a question he was asking, he wanted her approval. “Yes,” she agreed, “that’s something. The only trouble, with your habits, you may not be here.”
She was the world, he realized, and he an outsider. Moreover, through a friend she even arranged it so he would be paid more. On the rue de Rivoli she bought him a beautiful jacket of soft leather. She had no particular reason—she felt like it, she said.
He tried it on in front of the mirror.
“Well?” she asked.
The illusion of distant traveler was vanishing. Concession was on his shoulders. “I look like one of your friends.”
“Is that bad?”
That night they dined at Lipp. A film star was across the room, annoyed by this boyish rival. At the end of the meal he came to the table and shook hands. His instinct was infallible—every eye in the restaurant was on him. He was making a film at Billancourt.
“Come out and visit me,” he said.
September passed. October. The splendor of fall. There is a season of life that lasts forever. Her taste, her telephone, her friends—he adopted all of these. There were nights he felt he’d been dancing too long, he yearned for a simpler life. But it was brief. It went away. The big disheveled bed was his and none other’s, the maid who came four times a week, the jacket of glove leather, the kisses on his hands as if he were
a priest. He could do anything, he could have anything.
“Would you like to go to Belle Isle?”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s an island. You take the train from Paris. In the morning you’re at the sea.”
“It’s fabulous,” Simone agreed. She was the woman who had quoted Rostand. “The ocean, the rocks, the air. It’s a paradise.”
“In November?” he said.
“It’s the best time!” they cried.
“Let me go with you,” Simone said. “I’ll find a place to stay.”
Colette made a slight, parental sound with her tongue. “Another time,” she commented.
As a friend, Simone accepted this faint cautioning. She understood. They were talking about the beautiful solitude, the sea, when there was a crash from below. Two cars had collided in the street. Colette went out on the balcony.
“My God!” she cried. Someone had hit her car which was parked in front. “Look at this! Can you believe it?”
She ran downstairs. They watched from above.
“That’s so awful,” Simone said, staring down. “Is that hers? That one? How could someone do it?” She felt a hand placed near the small of her back. She remained looking down. “I can’t understand it,” she continued.
Her profile revealed nothing, but her flesh beneath the fabric of her dress had changed: it was unknown but no longer forbidden. Her shoes, her stockings, the weight of her breasts, they were silently being collected. Colette was looking up with a shrug of annoyance, of pleading. She called out something.
“Quoi?”
“On ne peut pas imaginer!” she cried.
His hand moved slightly, possessively. She seemed unaware. She stood motionless, like a bird in cover. Not a word had passed between them, not a glance.
“A thousand francs, at least,” Colette said angrily as she returned, “and the color will never be right. Can you imagine? While we were sitting here!”
Her complaints, her misfortune seemed to isolate her. She didn’t want to go to dinner. She was too upset.
“You have to eat. Please, come,” Simone said.
“No, that’s all right.”
“Please.”
She failed to notice anything. They went down the stairs. They had barely turned the corner before they embraced.
One woman is like another. Two are like another two. Once you begin there is no end.
29
WOMEN ARE SENSITIVE, THEY are shrewd. In the morning there was something strange, perhaps it was a slight sense of distance or even a faint, undetected scent to his skin. Colette watched him sleep. She woke him as she left.
“What time is it?” he murmured.
“Nine o’clock.”
He turned over. She was looking at his bare shoulder, the side of his head, in calm appraisal.
“Where did you go last night?”
“Hmm?” He was wide awake but did not show it.
“Where did you eat?” she said.
“Daru,” he yawned. It was a lie.
“Was it pleasant?”
“Not bad,” he said.
“I’ll call you later.”
It seemed somehow threatening. When the front door closed he jumped up and went quickly to the phone. Simone’s number was in the address book. He dialed but there was no answer, she had already gone out. He paced around the apartment, a kind of panic hovering over him. It was a cloudy morning. Traffic sounds rose from the street.
That night they stayed at home. He was uneasy, he tried to seem calm. Whatever she said alarmed him. He knew she was patient, astute. He found himself somehow apprehensive of all that represented her, the apartment, the shop, the comfort surrounding her, the friends with the house on Belle Isle.
Her face looked suddenly older. He could see it clearly, the dryness, the lines around the mouth. He resented her knowledge, her assurance. At the same time, he didn’t want to give her up. The evening news was on. The room was filled with a flow of soft French he was barely listening to and the crackle of wood in the fireplace. He must have yawned.
“Tired?”
“A little.”
“You can go to bed early tonight,” she said.
“I probably will.”
“I’m going to Geneva this weekend. Would you like to go?”
“Geneva?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Just until Monday.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll probably stay here.”
“You won’t be bored?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?” She was regarding him.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Um.”
“Look,” he said unconcernedly, “I think you know this already. I went home with Simone last night.”
She admired the coolness of his confession, the brevity. She could not have improved on it herself. “Yes, I know,” she said, matching it.
He was slightly thrown off. “I don’t believe in hiding things.”
She did not reply.
“You’re not angry?”
“I’m just curious why you did it.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You’re tired of me already,” she said somewhat wistfully.
“No, that’s not it,” he said.
“It didn’t bother you that it might hurt me?”
“Annoy you.”
She gave a brief, mirthless smile, “But what is the philosophy behind it?”
“Philosophy?” The word surprised him. What was the reply to that?
“What is the reason?” she asked. “When someone trusts you, you mean you don’t feel any regret if you betray them? Going from woman to woman, from place to place like a dog in the street, that fulfills you? The hero with gorgeous ideals, beautiful ideals, you turn your back for a minute and he sleeps with your friend. It’s disgusting.”
He was silent.
“Say something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Say: Colette, forgive me, you gave me too much, somehow I resented it, I had to do something. Or, Colette, this woman was helpless, foolish, I wanted to find out if she was even the same kind of creature as you, is she really a woman, I thought? Or you could say, Colette, I forgot who I was. I forgot I am really an American, the kind one detests, stupid, ungrateful.”
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s ugly,” she said somewhat wearily. “I’m going to bed.”
On Friday she went to Geneva, to a comfortable hotel on Place Longmalle where she usually stayed. The city seemed fresh, the weather clear. She attended to her business, had dinner and settled down with new magazines in a smooth, white bed. Unhappy, yes, but she was familiar with it. She knew the medicine for it, she knew it would pass. Further, she knew she would forgive him and they would begin again, much as it was before.
She was wrong.
He had left the apartment and gone to Simone’s. He was there only a short time. Simone was nervous, high-strung, she ground her teeth in her sleep. Her pubic hair was harsh.
“You’re grinding your teeth.” He shook her.
“What?” she said, dazed.
He told her again.
“Why did you wake me up?” she complained. Now she would not be able to go to sleep again.
After Colette, she seemed careful, dull. The sexual attraction did not disappear—she carried that with her despite herself—but it was too much trouble to isolate among all the medicines, real and figurative, that cluttered her life. She was a drama critic for small, Catholic journals. The shelves were piled with books leaning against one another, her table was covered with papers. There was none of the casual comfort of Colette’s. These were three rooms where the mind was at work. The only thing she said that made him like her was once, in exhaustion,
“You make love like someone in a novel.”
After three days he left.
“Where is he?” Colette asked calmly as they were having a conciliatory lunch. She had already forgiven Simone. They were like two patients who have had the same illness.
“I found him extraordinary,” Simone admitted. “But he also made me nervous. I never really knew what to talk about with him. He’s not exactly a polymath. He knows nothing about politics, art, and yet I found myself perfectly willing to believe in him. Whatever it is, he has it despite himself.”
“I think it’s mainly an ability to look good in old clothes.”
“I don’t know where he’s gone,” Simone said. “He was very unsettled. Actually I felt sorry for him. I knew he would leave, it was only a matter of time. His ambition, as far as I can see, is very unclear.”
“His ambition?”
“You know him better. Don’t you agree?”
“I’m not sure what his ambition is. There’s no question, though, where he’s going. He knows exactly.”
“Where is that?”
“Oblivion,” she said. It was not so much a prophecy as a dismissal. She was casting him out of their lives. He would wander elsewhere exiled, a vanishing figure. “You know, he has a child in Grenoble, a son.”
“He’s married?”
“No, no. She’s one of his many wives. He has greater and lesser wives.”
“Original,” Simone said dryly though the idea intrigued her.
They were not wives, they were not meant to be wives. They were witnesses. For some reason he trusted only women and for each of them he assumed a somewhat different pose. They were the bearers of his story, scattered throughout the world.
30
HE WAS DRIFTING DOWNWARD, from the world of cafés and lights to another of dismal streets and long walks home after midnight when the Métro had closed, a city of chance encounters in the company of a girl he first saw outside American Express who also had no place of her own. She was blonde, clean-faced, an heiress.
“I think I read about you somewhere,” she said.
It was at a party in someone’s apartment. A thin-legged dog with a coat of beautiful brown ran ceaselessly from window to window looking out. There was endless striking of matches to light a small pipe.