James Salter - All That Is

In the end Bowman decided on journalism. There was the romance of reporters like Murrow and Quentin Reynolds, at the typewriter late at night finishing their stories, the lights of the city all around, theaters emptying out, the bar at Costello’s crowded and noisy. Sexual inexperience would be over with. He had not been shy at Harvard but it had simply not happened, the thing that would complete his life. He knew what the ignudi were but not the simply nude. He remained innocent and teeming with desire. There was Susan Hallet, the Boston girl he had gone with, slender, clear-faced, with low breasts that he associated with privilege. He had wanted her to go away for a weekend with him, to Gloucester, where there would be foghorns and the smell of the sea.

“Gloucester?”

“Any place,” he said.

How could she do it, she protested, how could she explain it?

“You could say you were staying at a friend’s.”

“That wouldn’t be true.”

“Of course not. That’s the whole idea.”

She was looking at the ground, her arms crossed in front of her as if somehow embracing herself. She would have to say no, though she enjoyed having him persist. For him it was almost unbearable, her presence and unfeeling refusal. She might have said yes, she thought, if there were some way of doing it, going off and… she was able only vaguely to imagine the rest. She had felt his hardness several times when dancing. She more or less knew what all that was.

“I wouldn’t know how to keep it a secret,” she said.

“I’d keep it a secret,” he promised. “Of course, you would know.”

She smiled a little.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You know how I feel about you.”

He couldn’t help thinking of Kimmel and the ease with which others did this.

“I’m serious, too,” she said. “There’s a lot more at stake for me.”

“Everything is at stake.”

“Not for the man.”

He understood but that meant nothing. His father, who had always had success with women, might have taught him something priceless here, but nothing was ever passed between father and son.

“I wish we could do it,” she said simply. “All of it, I mean. You know how much I like you.”

“Yes. Sure.”

“You men are all alike.”

“That’s a boring thing to say.”

In the mood of euphoria that was everywhere after the war it was still necessary to find a place for oneself. He applied at the Times but there was nothing, and it was the same at the other papers. Fortunately he had a contact, a classmate’s father who was in public relations and who had virtually invented the business. He could arrange anything in newspapers and magazines—for ten thousand dollars, it was said, he could put someone on the cover of Time . He could pick up the phone and call anyone, the secretaries immediately put him through.

Bowman was to go and see him at his house, in the morning. He always ate breakfast at nine.

“Will he expect me?”

“Yes, yes. He knows you’re coming.”

Having hardly slept the night before, Bowman stood on the street in front of the house at eight-thirty. It was a mild autumn morning. The house was in the Sixties, just off Central Park West. It was broad and imposing, with tall windows and the facade almost completely covered with a deep gown of ivy. At a quarter to nine he rang at the door, which was glass with heavy iron grillwork.

He was shown into a sun-filled room on the garden. Along one wall was a long, English-style buffet with two silver trays, a crystal pitcher of orange juice, and a large silver coffee pot covered with a cloth, also butter, rolls, and jam. The butler asked how he would like his eggs. Bowman declined the eggs. He had a cup of coffee and nervously waited. He knew what Mr. Kindrigen would look like, a well-tailored man with a somewhat sinewy face and gray hair.

It was silent. There were occasional soft voices in the kitchen. He drank the coffee and went to get another cup. The garden windows were vanishing in the light.

At nine-fifteen, Kindrigen came into the room. Bowman said good morning. Kindrigen did not reply or even appear to notice him. He was in shirtsleeves, an expensive shirt with wide French cuffs. The butler brought coffee and a plate with some toast. Kindrigen stirred the coffee, opened the newspaper, and began reading it, sitting sideways to the table. Bowman had seen villains in Westerns sit this way. He said nothing and waited. Finally Kindrigen said,

“You are …?”

“Philip Bowman,” Bowman said. “Kevin may have mentioned me…”

“Are you a friend of Kevin’s?”

“Yes. From school.”

Kindrigen still had not looked up.

“You’re from …?”

“New Jersey, I live in Summit.”

“What is it you want?” Kindrigen said.

“I’d like to work for the New York Times ,” Bowman said, matching the directness.

Kindrigen glanced at him for a brief moment.

“Go home,” he said.

He found a job with a small company that published a theater magazine and began by selling advertising. It was not difficult, but it was dull. The world of the theater was thriving. There were scores of theaters in the West Forties, one after another, and crowds strolled along deciding which to buy tickets to. Would you like to see a musical or this thing by Noël Coward?

Before long he heard of another job, reading manuscripts at a publishing house. The salary, it turned out, was less than he’d been making, but publishing was a different kind of business, it was a gentleman’s occupation, the origin of the silence and elegance of bookstores and the freshness of new pages although this was not evident from the offices, which were off Fifth Avenue in the rear of an upper floor. It was an old building with an elevator that ascended slowly past open grillwork and hallways of worn white tile uneven from the years. In the publisher’s office they were drinking champagne—one of the editors had just had a son. Robert Baum, the publisher, who owned the company together with a financing partner, was in shirtsleeves, a man of about thirty, of medium height with a friendly face, a face that was alert and somewhat homely with the beginnings of pouches beneath the eyes. He talked amiably with Bowman for a couple of minutes and, having learned enough, hired him on the spot.

“The salary is modest,” he explained. “You’re not married?”

“No. What is the salary?”

“One sixty,” Baum said. “A hundred and sixty dollars a month. What do you think?”

“Well, less than needed, more than expected,” Bowman replied.

“More than expected? I made a mistake.”

Baum had confidence and charm, neither of them false. Publishing salaries were traditionally low and the salary he offered was only slightly below that. It was necessary to keep overhead low in a business that was uncertain in itself as well as being in competition with larger well-established houses. They were a literary house, Baum liked to say, but only through necessity. They were not going to turn down a best-seller as a matter of principle. The idea, he said, was to pay little and sell a truckful. On the wall of his office was a framed letter from a colleague and friend, an older editor who’d been asked to read a manuscript. The letter was on a sheet of paper that had two fold marks and was very to the point. This is a very obvious book with shallow characters described in a style that grates on one’s nerves. The love affair is tawdry and of little interest, and in fact one is repelled by it. Nothing but the completely obscene is left to the imagination. It is utterly worthless .

“It sold two hundred thousand copies,” Baum said, “and they’re making a movie of it. The biggest book we’ve ever had. I keep it there as a reminder.”