James Salter - Cassada

“Hey, hold up!” he shouted, struggling to get his arm in the flight jacket sleeve. Exhaust was coming up in back of the car. He tried to open the door. It was locked. He beat on the window with his palm.

Cassada reached across and unlocked the door. Phipps slid in beside him.

“Thanks. I was afraid everybody had gone. Jesus, this seat’s cold.”

Cassada was working the choke to get the engine warmed up. Minutes went by, it seemed.

“We’re going to be late,” Phipps said.

“We’ll make it.” Cassada looked sleepy. His eyes were red.

“It’s four minutes till.”

“I know.”

He began to back up, rolling the window down to see. He pulled onto the road and rubbed at the frosted windshield with his fist. Hunched over, looking through a slit of clear glass at the bottom, the width of a pencil, he began to drive. Phipps, wiping at the windshield himself, said, “We’re not going to make it at this rate.”

Cassada speeded up a little.

“Can you see?” Phipps said.

“It’s the back I’m worried about. I can’t tell if anyone’s behind us.”

“Take a chance.”

Cassada shifted into third.

“I don’t want to get a ticket,” he said. “The major pulls your license.”

“You won’t need a license if we’re late.”

They began to go faster. Phipps looked at his watch.

“Open it up, Robert. We’ve got two minutes.”

The clear area on the glass was growing bigger. As they turned past the end of the runway they were doing forty-five.

“I’m just waiting to hear a siren,” Cassada murmured.

Phipps rolled down the window to look back.

“There’s nobody.”

They were going fifty.

“About a minute and a half,” Phipps warned.

“I know.”

“Come on.”

“They’ll throw us in jail. It’s a twenty-five-mile limit.”

“I tell you nobody’s behind us.”

The heater was finally beginning to work. Phipps sniffed the warming air.

“What have you been carrying in this car? Flowers?”

“What?”

“It smells like it.”

They had swerved in behind the hangar. The doors flew open and they ran for it. As they sat down, Isbell looked at his watch.

“That’s cutting it pretty close,” he commented.

Cassada was sitting at the end of the first row, head down. He glanced up but did not answer. His head was down later, too, when Wickenden gathered the flight. Cassada listened like a boxer between rounds, head bent forward, hands dropped loosely between his thighs, as if his manager were telling him things there was no sense paying attention to, in thirty seconds he’d be in there alone again. He yawned with his mouth closed.

It was perfume, thought Phipps suddenly. That was the smell.

“You must be making out all right in Munich,” he said to Cassada later.

“Munich? Yeah, it’s a good town.”

“Where do you go?”

“I’ll tell you sometime.”

The truth was he wandered around Munich at night. He went to the Regina Bar, the Bongo, the Coliseum once or twice. He hadn’t the money or time to cut a swath and in fact had not found a girl. The perfume was from a girl he’d driven home, a girl he would never want to be seen with.

Still, Munich freed him. He went in with Godchaux sometimes though usually Godchaux had a date. One night he met a woman who was divorced and had lived in the States and even for a while had a job there. She was a fabric designer and shared an apartment with her mother. The mother was not in the apartment that night. They sat on the couch—it was actually a daybed with small pillows—and talked. Suddenly she leaned over and kissed him as a man might do. Cassada was a little drunk—they’d met in a bar. He felt her hand slip inside his clothes. He said nothing.

“You’re very excited,” she whispered.

It was silent for a while. He began hurriedly to unbutton her dress but suddenly it was too late. She made a sound like inhaling and withdrew her hand.

“Do you have a handkerchief?” she asked.

He’d seen her several times after that though he was not really attracted to her—she talked only about her mother and herself—and then near the end of an evening in a place called the Elysée he stood near a girl at the top of the stairs that led down to the Damen and Herren. She had a Slavic face though he did not recognize it as such, wide across the cheeks, and cropped dark hair. He stared at her.

“You probably don’t speak English, but so what?” he said impulsively.

She looked at him.

“My name is Robert. I just thought you look great standing there and you have a terrific face.”

“You, too,” she said.

He was stunned into silence, but something had happened. It was as if they were at a dance, she seemed to accept his invitation, to nod yes. Her face was singular. It possessed a light or perhaps it was clarity.

“I didn’t know you understood what I was saying.”

“If you knew, what would you have said?”

“I’d say, I hope you’re not leaving. I… I’d like to listen to you for a while.”

“To listen to me?” She gave a slight smile. “That wouldn’t be so interesting.”

“I’ll make a bet.”

“A bet?”

“It’s too hard to explain. You live in Munich?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

“In Munich?”

“Well a little outside Munich. Fürstenfeldbruck.”

“So, you’re a pilot.”

They were words Cassada loved. Everyone that didn’t know anything about this.

“Yeah. I’m a fighter pilot.”

“Maybe I could guess it.”

“How could you guess it?”

She shrugged.

“So, listen. What’s your name?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“No, what is it, really? Tell me. I’m absolutely serious, you have the face I’ve been looking for.”

“It’s no good to tell you my name.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Karen.”

“Karen,” he repeated. “Are you married? You’re not married or anything?”

“You’re so intense.”

“No, tell me.”

“What do you want to know again?”

She was very good-looking, her cheekbones and white teeth.

“Where’d you learn to speak English?” he said and before she could answer, “That’s really lucky. But you know something?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes, what?”

“I know something.”

She smiled and Cassada did also. It was a pleasure to talk to her. She spoke the same language, exactly. It would go back and forth between them. He would know her. Someone was coming up the stairs then—Cassada barely noticed—until an arm was put through hers, a man’s arm.

“Hey,” Cassada protested and then saw in disbelief who it was. He was unable to speak.

“Ready?” Isbell said to the girl.

“Wait a minute,” Cassada said. “What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving.”

“I mean, what is this?”

“What is it? What do you think?”

“No, no. I was here. I met you, didn’t I?” he said to the girl. She gave a slight laugh.

“I’ll see you, Robert,” Isbell said.

“Hey, Captain. This is not on duty.”

“Duty?”

“You can’t pull rank.”

“I don’t have to.”

“Let her choose.”

“You’re out past where you should be,” Isbell said calmly.

“No, no. Oh, no.”

“Let’s go,” Isbell said calmly to the girl. “See you later,” he said to Cassada.

Cassada stood there. The one woman in Munich, he thought, the one woman in all that time. He felt sick. He could not believe it. He went out to the street after them, almost trembling, but too late, they were gone, the red taillights leaving him behind.