James Salter - Cassada

“Since when?”

“I don’t know. A long time.”

“I must of missed hearing about it.”

Harlan continued to pick his teeth. He had figured out Cassada. It was written all over him. He followed Grace through a couple of rolls on that first ride and got the idea he could fly. You could tell what he was thinking about just by looking in his eye, like a bull.

When Cassada was assigned to Wickenden’s flight, Harlan had thought: perfect. Sometimes they show a little sense.

In with Wickenden and them was where he belonged. They could sit around when the ceiling went below a thousand feet and go over questions from the handbook. He’d fit in fine.

“What time is it?” Godchaux asked.

“Five to one.”

“Come on, I’ll give you a ride. We’d better be getting on back.”

The phone was ringing. From the bedroom Isbell called, “Can you get that? I’m busy.”

“I’m sure it’s for you,” his wife said. She got up, keeping her place with a finger, and went over to the phone. “Marian Isbell.” She had never learned and refused to say, “Captain Isbell’s quarters.”

It was Dunning.

“That husband of yours still up?” he asked.

“He’s in the other room, Bud. Hold on.”

“Listen,” Dunning said, “don’t bother getting him to come to the phone. Ask him if he’ll pick me up in the morning.”

“Who is it?” Isbell called.

“Bud Dunning.” She had her hand over the mouthpiece. “Can you stop by for him in the morning?”

“Sure, what time?”

“What time, Bud?” she said, removing her hand.

“Oh, something like seven,” Dunning said.

“Seven,” Marian said to her husband.

“I’ll be there,” Isbell called.

“I heard him,” Dunning said. “How are things going, Marian? Are you getting him all ready?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“Well, that’s good.”

After Dunning hung up, she returned to her chair and began reading again. She could hear her husband moving about in the next room—the steps and pauses—packing. There was not a sound or a silence she could not identify, not only in her own apartment but in a hundred others. Feet were creaking on the ceiling. Water ran at certain times. There was the quiet at mealtimes, not to mention the smell of cooking, the familiar odors.

Isbell came into the hallway between the rooms. “Hey, honey, where are my socks?”

“They must be in the drawer.”

“There’s only four pairs in there.”

“Don’t shout, you’ll wake them up. How many should there be?”

“I had lots of socks.”

“Not so loud.”

“It’s just a normal tone of voice. I’m not going to go around whispering all the time. Where are the rest of them?”

“I don’t know. In the wash, I guess.”

“In the wash? You knew I was going to need them.”

“Can’t you buy some when you get down there?”

“Jesus, I must own twenty pairs already.”

“All right. Just buy a few more. You can do that, can’t you?”

“Sure. You know I have all the time in the world. I could probably even knit them if I have to. I just thought I’d take some of the ones I already have. That’s one of the reasons I bought them.”

“Not so loud. Please.”

“They’re not going to wake up.”

“Well, you can try getting them back to sleep if they do.”

After a pause Isbell said calmly, “Marian, you knew we were going a month ago.”

“I forgot them,” she said, “that’s all. I didn’t mean to. I just forgot.”

Without saying anything more, Isbell turned away. After a while he brought two large bags, their side compartments bulging, into the hallway and set them down with a faint click of the metal studs on the bottom that helped them stand upright. Marian continued to read when he came into the living room.

“I set the alarm for six,” he said. “If the weather’s good we should be getting off first thing.”

“It’s supposed to be good, isn’t it?” she said, still reading.

“The forecast is good.”

“Six. Well, you’d better get to bed then. You’ll need your sleep.”

“What about you?”

“I think I’ll finish this chapter,” she said.

“How long is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She held apart about thirty pages. “That much.”

Isbell walked into the kitchen. There was the sound of ice being broken out of a tray. “You want a drink?” he called.

“Not really.”

She knew the moment it started, what he would say and the way he would walk and act. It was the awful familiarity of it, of everything, the sound of him brushing his teeth and spitting in the sink, the moment when that stopped and light flooded the dark hall as he opened the bathroom door and with ominous weight lay down beside her. And afterwards when she lay awake looking out the window at other apartments, dark too, and seeing a bathroom light come on, just as they saw hers. They knew what was happening. She had asked him once not to turn it on.

“What’s wrong?”

“People see it.”

“Well, so what?”

“They know what’s going on,” she said feebly.

“No, they don’t. That’s absurd. How do they know? It could be the children. It might be anything.”

“But it’s not just anything.”

Isbell came out with a drink and after a moment sat down and started to read a magazine. Marian found herself going over the same sentence two or three times. Her mind would not do what she wanted. She could hear him lazily turning the pages, moving in his chair, yawning.

“You sure you don’t want a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on.”

“I don’t feel like one.”

He turned a few more pages.

“We’re going to be down there for almost five weeks,” he said.

“I know.”

“That’s more than a month.”

She did not say what she felt which was, what difference does one time make? She simply didn’t feel that way. It was a cold act, there was something selfish at the heart of it. Why was it that important? It wasn’t; just some kind of male itch. But in the morning, she knew, he would be brief and irritable, even with all that lay ahead, Rome, crossing the Mediterranean, the islands, the North African shore. It would all be her fault. Why couldn’t he just accept it, she thought? What did the other husbands do?

“It’s getting late,” Isbell finally remarked.

“I guess so.”

“How much longer are you going to read?”

“Oh, a little while,” she said.

“Come on.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You can read all the time I’m gone. You’ve got five weeks.”

“Just one more chapter,” she said.

“What’s wrong, Marian?”

“Nothing, really. I don’t feel very well,” she added.

“Stomach again?”

“I don’t feel well, that’s all.”

He hated the whine in her voice. He went out on the balcony then. It was small, four or five paces long, and he stood there, leaning on the railing and looking out at the housing area. Lights were still on in many apartments. Only a few floors had dark stretches. The night was cold. The roads had ice on them and there was snow on the ground. The wind was whipping the shirt against his shoulder and back, but he stood as if not aware of it. The bitterness was warmth enough. On the floor below were Phipps and his wife, good-looking Carolina girl, nice legs. Every apartment had a wife in it, his included. You chose your wife yourself, that was the thing, but of course you didn’t know what you were choosing. He had known after the first week, the deadness that lay between them, but he believed it might be overcome. He thought she would change through their being together, grow, reveal a hidden person, the one he had wanted and thought she might be. After five or ten minutes he went in to the bedroom and began undressing without a word.