by James Salter
“Maybe.”
“You want a good address?”
“Okay.”
He glanced over, “I mean, really good.”
“Sure,” Rand said.
“The Louvre!” he burst out and began to laugh. He reached into his pocket. “You smoke cigars? Here. Hey, why don’t you drive with me to Seattle? Ever been there? I bet you haven’t. Great place. That’s where I live.”
“What do you do there?”
“I’m an architect. Here’s a card.”
He dropped Rand off on the highway at Santa Barbara.
“See you around,” he said. He sped off.
The day was warm. The sea horizon shimmered. Birds were singing as he walked uphill.
The house was a white Victorian or somewhat influenced by the period. It was low, only one story high, and set back from the street.
He rang the bell. There was a sound of footsteps, a pause, and Carol opened the door. She was in a shirt and pants. Her face was bare as if she had just gotten up or washed.
“Rand!” she cried. She embraced him. “I’m so glad to see you. You look wonderful. Did you just get in?”
“This morning,” he said. “How are you?”
“Not bad. Really not bad. We’ve had wonderful weather. Come in.”
He followed her into the hall.
“Nice house.”
“It’s very nice. Wait till you see the garden. Just leave your things there. Let’s go in back.”
She led the way through the kitchen and opened the screen door. There was a porch and two wooden steps.
“Darling,” she said, “look who’s here.”
A man was seated by a glass table in the shade of the trees. He turned his head. He was wearing a blue sport shirt with a bamboo pattern. His arms were as powerful as ever. He raised one.
“Well, finally.” It was Cabot. He was sitting in a wheelchair. He turned himself around and extended his hand. “Hello, you bastard,” he said. “I thought it was time you appeared.”
“How’ve you been?” Rand asked.
“What a question.”
“You look fine.”
“Oh, don’t mind all this,” Cabot indicated. “You’ll get used to it. When did you get in? How long can you stay? We’ve got a room for you, did Carol show it to you?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“It’s the best room in the house. It’s the room I’m going to die in. Come on”—he started off in his wheelchair—“follow me, as they say.”
He was paralyzed from the waist down, his legs in the limp cloth of a cripple’s pants. The fall had almost killed him; he had been in a coma for a week. At first they thought he would never come out of it and only half of him did. For days he lay while they conducted tests and treated him. He was engaged in a secret, a crucial effort of his own, he was trying by any means, even by force of will alone, to make some movement with his toes. He could almost see them do it but they never did. He would start again and continue until he was exhausted, lie quietly for a while and begin once more. He had no pain, no feeling, nothing at all. His legs might have belonged to someone else.
“His spine was broken,” Carol explained when they were alone. “The nerve doesn’t regenerate, I guess you know that. Almost any other nerve they can patch together, but this one they can’t.”
“And that’s it?”
“I’m afraid. He’ll never get out of his chair.”
“What else does it affect? The inner organs?”
“Everything below the waist.”
Outside birds were singing in the full heat of afternoon. The sound seemed to cover the house. Rand felt drowsy. Looking out at the haze-covered hills, he felt he had come to a kind of hospital himself, that he had an illness they would not yet divulge.
That evening Cabot’s lawyer dropped by. She was a woman, no older than Rand, aggressive, confident. Her name was Evelyn Kern.
“Glad to meet you,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
They were filing a suit against the insurance company. The settlement after the accident had been small.
“We have to get him some money to live on,” she explained, “not to mention medical expenses.”
It was very easygoing and casual. They sat and drank. They talked about the past.
“I hear you tried the Walker,” Cabot said.
“That’s about all you can say—I tried.”
“What happened?”
Rand shrugged.
“Your glass is empty. Carol, get him a drink, will you? How high did you get?”
“I could have gone higher.”
“A lot higher, as they used to say.”
“What is the Walker?” Evelyn asked.
“It’s part of the Grandes Jorasses, a ridge that goes straight up.”
“It sounds terrifying.”
“It’s a classic. I always wanted to do the Walker,” Cabot remarked.
“Maybe you will,” Rand said.
There was an awkward silence.
“You going to carry me up that, too?”
“Who knows?”
So began his visit. The garden was filled with pines and a pair of huge palms. Past the back fence was cane grass, tall and rustling. Carol often worked outside, weeding and watering the plants. She knelt on the ground, the nape of her neck bent forward, bare. Her legs were lean and tanned. She sat back, aware of Rand’s presence. She did not look at him.
“This is my green tent,” she explained. The branches met over her head. Sunlight filtered through.
On the other side of the hedge a neighbor, Mrs. Dabney, was watering. She was in her sixties. She had a kerchief over her head and wore a halter which gave glimpses of ruined flesh. Her husband had had two heart attacks.
Rand sat sunning himself on the steps, shirtless.
“You’re going to frighten her,” Carol warned.
“Frighten her?” Mrs. Dabney was keeping up a spray of water on her jade trees to show she was occupied. “She comes a little closer every day. Those are beautiful hibiscus, Mrs. Dabney,” he called.
“They’re the state tree of Hawaii,” she answered, “did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“We were just there for a two-week visit,” she said. “My husband and I.”
“Is that right?”
“We went to all the islands,” she said with a friendly smile.
Blue Pacific days. In the morning, mist, the sound of birds. The dark, shadowy fronds plunged down from the heights of the palms. Carol’s footsteps in the hallway. Sometimes, lying in his room, Rand imagined they were lingering.
He knew she was watching him. He could feel her glance in the kitchen or at the table. At times, without deliberation, their eyes would meet—she would not look away. He had always admired her. She was returning this admiration.
Cabot drank. He had two or three before dinner and then wine, he couldn’t sleep otherwise. If he came to the surface in the predawn hours the same thoughts kept passing through his mind. The wheelchair with its chrome glinted in the moonlight near his bed.
He had never slept well, even before the accident. In those days when he woke he would dress in darkness and go out and walk. Sometimes he was gone for hours. When dawn came he would be on the highest point around, watching the sky lighten and then turning homeward.
That had been taken from him. He lay now staring into the dark. He’d prayed to God, he’d read poetry, philosophy, trying to force his life into a new shape. During the day it seemed to work but at night it was different, it all leaked away and he was a boy again imagining the world and what he would do in it, except that his legs lay soft as rags.
He raised himself on his elbow. One at a time, he lifted his legs to the floor. He pulled the wheelchair close and lowered himself into it. Silently he went down the hall.
“Vern.” He pushed open the door. “Are you awake?”
“What is it?”
“I can’
t sleep.”
Rand fumbled with the light.
“If I have a couple of drinks I’m usually all right, but tonight I just couldn’t sleep. It’s funny, I used to watch my father pouring it down. Had nothing but contempt for him in those days. Some nights he couldn’t even talk.”
“What time is it?” Rand asked sleepily.
“About three.”
“Come on in.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No.” He sat up. “No, I’ve been wanting to talk.”
Cabot was grateful.
“I’d like to find out what really is wrong,” Rand said.
“What’s wrong? I’m a lousy cripple.”
“Is that true?”
Cabot stared at him.
“I’ve been watching you. You’re sitting there reading. Evelyn comes by, you have a few drinks. You’re taking it very calmly.”
“Calmly?”
“Carol is, too.”
“You just don’t know,” Cabot said.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t have any idea. I’m not calm. I’m just waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“The truth is, I was planning to shoot myself. I told that to someone at the hospital, another paraplegic. I thought I was going to show him how a man behaves or some damn thing. All he said was, make sure you don’t miss and paralyze your arms.”
“How is it you still have strength in your arms?”
“Didn’t Carol explain it to you?”
“She tried to.”
“My arms …” He reached over for Rand’s hand. He began to press it to one side, his other hand holding a wheel of the chair. They struggled against one another. The sinews of his neck stood out; slowly he was forcing Rand’s arm down. Finally he released it. He was breathing hard. “It’s down here I’m a little weak,” he said.
“I was going to ask about that.”
Cabot said nothing. He seemed almost disinterested.
“What exactly do you have left?”
“Below the waist, nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Absolutely zero,” Cabot said amiably.
“I was right. You’re taking it calmly.”
“Well, you try it.”
“And your wife is, too.”
“She hasn’t got much choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“She hasn’t left yet, if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh, she’s not going to leave …”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“ …not as long as you’re in a wheelchair.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Rand shrugged.
“Because I’m not,” Cabot said.
“She wouldn’t leave a cripple.”
“You think that’s what’s keeping her here?”
“Ah, Jack, I don’t care about that. I’m thinking about something else. You know the first thing I heard was that you were probably going to die. But you didn’t, you fought your way back. Then I hear that you’re crippled …”
“Go on.”
“Do I believe that?”
“That’s not really the question,” Cabot said quietly. “The question is: can I somehow believe it?”
Until morning, when the pale green tendrils of Mrs. Dabney’s star pine waved dreamily as if beneath the sea, they talked, their voices sometimes raised in argument but more often quiet, confiding. There was an understanding between them, the kind that has its roots at the very source of life. There were days they would always remember: immense, heartbreaking effort and at the top, what rapture, they shook each other’s hand with glowing faces, their very being confirmed.
36
CAROL HAD GONE FOR the evening. The house was still, it was the chance Rand had been waiting for. He sauntered into the room and sat down.
“Evelyn was here earlier. You missed her,” Cabot said. He was watching the evening news as usual, a glass in his hand.
“What did she have to say?”
“Oh, legal stuff. She wanted to talk about you. She’s very interested in you.”
Rand had gotten up and was pouring a drink.
“It probably doesn’t surprise you,” Cabot said.
“No.”
“I don’t know what you said to her. You told her something about climbing …”
“Too much,” Rand commented.
“Anyway, it floored her.”
The hour was tranquil. In the dusk a bat flew recklessly above the dark pines, changing direction like a bird that has just been hit.
“I decided to see if I could shock her,” Rand admitted. “So I told her the truth.”
“Such as?”
“I told her I’d been climbing for fifteen years. For most of that, ten years anyway, it was the most important thing in my life. It was the only thing. I sacrificed everything to it. Do you know the one thing I learned about climbing? The one single thing?”
“What?”
“It is of no importance whatsoever.”
“Is that what you told her?”
“Whatsoever,” he said.
“What is?”
“I don’t have to tell you: the real struggle comes afterward.”
Sometimes when they talked it seemed as if they had arranged themselves casually—Cabot had merely sat down in a wheelchair that happened to be there. It was as if he might stand up at any moment, discarding his incapacity like throwing off a blanket. Sometimes he actually seemed on the very point of rising and then, as if warned, he relented. Rand had noticed this. It’s difficult to know what convinced him, perhaps something hidden. Truth lay beneath the surface.
The California night was falling, the ocean darkness. Another day had passed. He sipped his drink and reflected quietly,
“Something’s happened to us, Jack.”
“Has it? I hadn’t noticed.”
“It’s happened to me, too. I’ll tell you something I bet you’re going to try and deny.”
“What?”
“You’re being betrayed.”
“Ah, that.”
“I mean it.”
“We never are but by ourselves betrayed …,” Cabot recited.
“That’s only half of it. Do you want to know the rest?”
There was a silence. Cabot waited.
“The people who claim to be helping you, Carol, Evelyn, the doctors, they want to keep you in that chair.”
“Oh, have a drink.”
“I mean it.” He was silent for a moment. “You know, I always believed in you, I did from the first.”
“So?”
“In your strength, desire. Your will to succeed.”
Cabot made some vague reply.
“I still believe in you.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You’ve surrendered. I’ve seen you though, when you weren’t aware of it, start to stand up.”
“It’s a reflex.”
“I know you can do it,” Rand said.
Cabot wheeled himself to the table near the door to turn on the lights.
“I know you can do it, but you’re not going to. You’ve given up.” He was speaking to Cabot’s back. “And if you’ve given up, where does that leave me?”
“You?”
Rand waited.
“I don’t know,” Cabot admitted. He was filling his glass. “I know where it leaves me. I’m not a victim of hysteria or some destructive urge. I know you think that, but there are such things as physical problems. No amount of belief can overcome them. I mean, death is an example. Do you believe in death?”
“I suppose so.”
“Me too.”
“But you’re not dead.”
“No.”
There was a dedication in Rand’s voice, a seriousness that would not be put aside by indifference or drink. He was trying to force out the truth or some form of it, difficult because truth was reluctant and could alter its appearanc
e. It was one thing in the high reaches of the Alps. It was another in a house in Montecito lighted against the darkness where Cabot was sitting on a rubber cushion in a gleaming chromium chair with something twisted in him, some crucial part that could not be touched.
“You were always ahead of me,” Rand said. “I’d never have gone to Europe except for you.”
“You might have.”
“Do you remember the nights we camped at the foot of the Dru?”
“ …Infallibly bringing rain.”
“You gave me all that. You made me do the greatest things of my life.”
Cabot didn’t know what to reply. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” was all he could say.
“Now just do one more thing …”
“You know, you’re like my aunt. She says if I only pray, if I pray hard enough, then who knows what will happen? She won’t stop telling me that, she’ll never stop believing it. She’s a nice woman, I’ve always liked her, but she’s not a doctor. God’s a doctor, I know, but Auntie, listen to me, even God can’t make me walk. I’ve tried. I really have tried.” He looked at Rand openly. He was too proud to beg but he was asking for understanding. “Believe me,” he said.
“I’ve talked to your doctor.”
“Have you?”
“He told me something I can’t understand: there’s nothing physically wrong with you. Something is keeping you in that chair.”
Cabot in the confusion of drunkenness was hearing things he knew were untrue. They seemed to swim crazily, daring him to refute them.
“All right, something’s keeping me in this chair,” he said wearily.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you lost your courage? Like me?” Rand said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you prove it?” Rand said. He poured his glass half full like an adversary prepared to spend the night and at the same time raised his hand from between his legs. In it, blue and heavy, was a pistol.
Cabot stared at it. “That’s mine,” he remarked.
“There’s a bullet in it. You don’t have to do anything I don’t do.”
A car turning up the driveway, the telephone ringing, Cabot was waiting for a summons back to reality.
“If you’ve lost your courage, you’ve lost everything. It doesn’t matter after that.” Rand drank. “I’ll go first.”
Cabot suddenly reached for the gun.
“Don’t,” Rand said holding it away from him. He cocked it and spun the cylinder. “The leader never falls.”