James Salter - Cassada

“The board’s going to give us a hundred percent pilot error. Supervisory error, too.”

“The weather was a big factor. Plus materiel failure. You never know.”

“That’s what I think they’ll give.”

“They may not be as tough judging as you are.”

“In a way I’ll be disappointed if they aren’t.”

“What are you talking about? The next thing you’ll be committing hari-kari. These things happen. The bad thing is it happened to us. The board may clear both of us.”

“Maybe. I know I could have stopped it from happening.”

“Some things you can stop, some you can’t. I’ve seen pilots get killed when a bolt wasn’t safetied the way it should of been.” Dunning turns his hand palm up and makes a sudden downward arc with it. “You’ve seen it. Hell, it’s easy to second-guess. Put your ass in the cockpit and we’ll see how much you know.”

“You wrote to his mother, I guess.”

“I’m doing that,” Dunning says. “I mean I have to do that.”

In the BOQ, Phipps, the summary court officer whose job it is to handle the personal effects, opens the door to Cassada’s room with a strange feeling. The air in the room seems unnaturally still. He has the regular instructions plus one additional one from the major, “Tear up any love letters.”

In a top drawer of the dresser he finds a benzedrine inhaler, a chit book from the club in Tripoli, flashlight batteries, shoelaces, a few coins, and a notebook. In the notebook there are details of flights and a folded IOU from a pilot in the 72nd for twenty dollars. In the lower drawers are the clothes. A flying suit and uniforms hang in the closet. As he goes through the pockets of them Phipps has a feeling like that of looking at someone while they’re asleep, they might suddenly open their eyes. He has the feeling Cassada might come through the door and find him there.

An inventory of belongings has to be made. Phipps begins to mark them down on a clipboard. Shirts, six blue, five khaki. He lifts them out and tosses them onto the bed.

“What are you doing? What’s going on?”

Ferguson, tall and hopeless, stands in the doorway in a flying suit.

“They made me summary court officer,” Phipps says. He dropped his pencil. “I’m inventorying his things.”

“Yeah, I was escort officer once.”

“What’s that?” Phipps says, picking up the pencil.

“You accompany the body. It’s not that much fun. It was when Vandeleur was killed, before you got here. His wife was still in the States with their kid, they hadn’t come over yet. When I went to the house she grabbed my hat, threw it in the street, and slammed the door. She wouldn’t even talk to me. She barred me from the funeral.”

He takes out a cigarette and tries to light it with the Monopol lighter that’s on top of the dresser. It doesn’t work. He taps it on the palm of his hand a few times and tries again. There is something about Ferguson—he is accepted, but there is a kind of invisibility that clings to him as if he’s begun to paint himself out of the picture. In just a few years he will be killed in a crash at night, mistaking a dark area for a notch in the mountains near Vegas at five hundred miles an hour.

“What is there?” he says. “Anything interesting?”

In addition to the notebook there is a black address book.

“What’s this?” Ferguson says, opening it and beginning to turn the pages. “Lommi. Who’s that?”

“I have no idea.”

“It’s a Munich number. You know her?”

“Me? I’m married.”

“So are a lot of people.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Captain Isbell.”

“Isbell?”

“Sure.”

“You’re kidding.”

“You don’t live in the BOQ. You don’t know what’s going on.”

“He has a girlfriend in Munich?”

“A prima one,” Ferguson says, never having seen her. “Cassada knew her.”

“Is her name in that book?”

“Maybe it’s Lommi. I don’t know. I was asking you.”

He turns the pages and the sound of it, faint, is the only sound. Phipps was with a German girl just once, in Heidelberg, before his wife came over. They stood naked together in front of the mirror. He can see it still, even now, eyes open. He can see it all the time though he cannot see it again.

“Addresses of people in Puerto Rico, looks like,” Ferguson says. He comes to something inside the back cover of the book and his face becomes baffled as he reads it. “Listen to this. Come gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men… ”

“Say it again.”

“What is it, Shakespeare?”

“It’s not Shakespeare.”

“Who knows what it is? Here.” Ferguson hands him the address book. Phipps is reading the lines when Ferguson says, “Hey, here’s something. What are you going to do with this?” He is pointing at the closet shelf.

A bottle of Puerto Rican rum, half full. Ferguson takes it and unscrews the top.

“Go ahead, take it if you want it,” Phipps tells him.

“You don’t want it?”

“No. Go ahead. Take it.”

“Come on down when you’re finished,” Ferguson says, “and we’ll have a blast of this.” He screws the top back on. “For old Roberto. Wherever you are, pal,” he says.

He leaves and Phipps sits down and goes through the address book. Most of the pages are empty. There is only that one mysterious name, the name of Isbell’s girlfriend, Phipps is certain. He copies the telephone number down and reads the prophecy or vow or whatever it is again. The flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men.

Among the things to be sent to the family will be a manila envelope containing the contents of the flying suit he was wearing. The address book with Lommi—she was in fact the fabric designer who lived with her mother—erased would go in there.

Two of them, well-fed, come through the inner doors and look around. The bar is empty but people are sitting at tables.

“What’s it look like?” Barnes says.

“There’s people here. It’s OK.”

“Have you been here before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been to every place in town.”

They sit down at a table not far in the near-darkness from a party of eight.

“Isn’t anything here,” Frank says, looking around for women.

“Let’s have one drink.”

“All right. One. I should have gone to the movie like I wanted to.”

“What’s wrong? Aren’t you having a good time?”

“Yeah, great. It’s always the same. You spend all your money and you got nothing to show for it.”

“Well, you get lucky sometimes.”

“They don’t hang around bars. You have to meet them in the daytime.”

A girl in the party looks over at them then glances away.

“I guess you’re right except it’s hard to get into town in the daytime.”

The girl is looking. She has short hair brushed back like a boy’s. After a moment she turns away again.

“Good evening,” the waitress says.

“What do you want, Frank?”

“I don’t want anything to drink. I’m on the early schedule.”

“Coffee?” the waitress says.

“Yeah, coffee.”

“I’ll have a cognac,” Barnes says.

“With Coke?”

“No, just cognac. What do I look like?”

“I beg your pardon?” the waitress says.

The girl is looking at him again, every time his eyes drift there. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t do anything. She probably doesn’t speak English.

“There’s just something about them, you know?” Barnes says.

“About who?” Frank says.

“The women. I mean, you see them walking along the street, they’re like horses.”