James Salter - All That Is

On Essex Road in a white house above a steep lawn lived the most unimaginable girl in town, Jackie Ettinger, who was a year or two older and too glorious to know. She hadn’t stayed, she’d gone away to school in Connecticut and become a model. She was eighteen when he was sixteen. Another world. She’d been taken to the Brook, a supper club—he had never been inside it. Later she had gotten married. Even now, were he to meet her, even with all he now was, he would have been at a loss for words. She had been a figure in his imagination for a long time. When he had been in midshipman’s school, he had thought of her and even later when he was living in the little room without a bath off Central Park West, a shabby room, and first heard that she was married. He was the boy left behind in some poem he had read that was in the form of a letter written by a girl who had gone off into society. Her father had become rich, and now, back from a dance she was writing a letter at midnight to a boy she once knew and had kept track of and who still had her heart.

What had become of all of them? They had gone into business. Several were lawyers. Richter was a surgeon. He wondered about his favorite teacher, Mr. Boose, younger than the other teachers, earnest and made fun of behind his back, Boozie, they called him. He would be retired by now if he had stayed at the school. He had written to Bowman several times during the war.

There was an afternoon when his mother did not recognize him. She asked him who he was.

“I’m Philip. Your son.”

She looked at him and then looked away.

“You’re not Philip,” she said, as if refusing to become involved in a game.

“Mother, I really am.”

“No. I’d like to see my son,” she said to Dorothy.

The incident, although unreal, was very disturbing. It seemed to cut the tie between them, as if she were renouncing him. He would not let her do it.

“I’m not Philip,” he said, “but I’m your good friend.”

She seemed to accept it. Her confusion was his, he realized, his to understand. She was becoming strange, unknowing, and she plainly felt alone. He thought of Vivian and her loyalty to her mother, whom he had liked. That had been a touching thing. He thought of his own mother and how he had loved her, what she had been like on the many mornings, the meals they had had together, that she had prepared for him. He knew they must take care of her and not leave her now.

But in November, Beatrice slipped and fell in the bathtub breaking her wrist and hip. Dorothy hadn’t been able to lift her out of the tub, they had to call an ambulance. The fall had been frightening. Beatrice was in pain and knew what had happened. She bore the routine of the hospital with some confusion but without complaint. The nurses were patient with her.

Bowman came immediately. The hospital had whispering hallways and closed doors to many of the rooms. He found his mother weakened and quiet. She was afraid that she might not leave the hospital.

“Of course, you’ll leave,” he assured her. “I talked to the doctor. You’ll be fine.”

“Yes,” she said.

They sat silent for a while.

“I’m having a lot of trouble,” she said. “I can’t seem to do things, I don’t know why. When you die,” she said, “what do you think happens to you?”

“You’re not going to die.”

“I know, but what do you think happens?”

“Something glorious.”

“Oh, Philip. Only you would say something like that. Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that whatever you believe will happen is what happens.”

He recognized the truth in it.

“Yes, I think you’re right. What do you believe will happen?”

“Oh, I’d like to think that I’ll be in some beautiful place.”

“Like what?”

She hesitated.

“Like Rochester,” she said and laughed.

Her attention span was shorter after she left the hospital and she was in reality only part of the time. She was also more fearful. Dorothy could only with difficulty take care of her at home, and it would inevitably become worse.

To Bowman, the idea of a nursing home was repellent, it meant he was abandoning her. The home was a place for the aged no one would care for any longer. Nothing was left for them as they lay waiting or shuffling along the corridors or were wheeled, head lolling, from place to place. They might live like this for years. Beatrice might be tired, she might be depressed, but she was not like them. She had grown old, but not to become that. It was worse than dying. As she had said, what happened was what you believed would happen. You were yourself until the end, until the very last moment. In the nursing home, what you believed was left behind.

In London, Bernard Wiberg looked more and more like a lord, which many in knowing circles said he soon might be. He was resplendent in his dark, bespoke suits, and his self-regard, while great, was no greater than his success. For books meant to be taken seriously he was the favored and hoped-for publisher, and for books written to make money, he had an unerring eye. If he bought a book, it was always at an advantageous price, no matter how high that might be. Books he paid little for managed to gain a following, and books that he was obliged to pay a great deal for always earned out. It didn’t matter what things cost, it was what they were worth.

He was soon to be married, so it was said, to a former ballerina who was often in photographs in glamorous magazines, at parties or dinners. She was a woman who seemed to live a superior life, and as Lady Wiberg she could expect this to continue. At the opera or ballet, Wiberg was a figure of style, in white tie when the occasion called for it, and his household retained its elegance. He’d dined with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in France, tremendous protocol, everyone had to be there before the royal couple entered. He was encouraged by Catarina, the ex-dancer, to give occasional after-theater suppers, soirées , she liked to call them, the dining table laid with plates of cold beef, pâté, and pastries, and wine with well-known labels. Intimately and just between them she called him her cochon . In his bathrobe or white braces he could be Falstaff or Figaro with her and she had an irresistible laugh.

Enid remained his friend, more so when his fiancée was in Bolzano visiting her family or was involved with a production somewhere, no longer as a performer, but she was developing a reputation as a consultant, even as a choreographer. Enid had become involved in films, first as an assistant to a producer, making reservations for him at restaurants and on airplanes and being present at dinners. She spent some time on location of a film being shot, learning about continuity and what a script girl did. The crew were friendly, but she was a stylish-looking outsider, also in the evening when they gathered and drank. At a pause in the conversation, the American director, in front of everyone, asked her offhandedly, “So, tell me, Enid, do you fuck?”

“I’d be a fool if I didn’t,” she cooly answered and in a way that seemed to exclude him.

He did not pursue it further. Her reply was often repeated.

Bowman had been in London for the Book Fair, and his homeward flight had been delayed. He landed in New York at nine in the evening. It was half an hour before he had his bags and went out to get a cab. There was a crowd, he had to share a cab with someone also going to the West Side, a woman with three or four pieces of luggage. She moved her legs to give him more room. She was sitting back in what might have been a coat with the sleeves lying as if open. They rode in silence. Bowman was prepared to keep to himself without looking at her again. In the city, strange women were not always as they appeared. There were women with grievances, disturbed women, women avidly seeking men.