James Salter - All That Is

“They’re not worth going into.”

“You don’t hate her?”

“No, no,” he said easily.

He was sitting with her daughter now, to whom he had always been careful not to show too much attention or false affection. He was able now to think freely about her.

“Who is that?” she asked.

It was a painting on the jacket of a book on Picasso that was on the coffee table, a disjointed portrait of eyes and a mouth out of place.

“Marie-Thérèse Walter,” he said.

“Who is Marie-Thérèse Walter?”

“She’s a famous model of Picasso’s. He met her when she was seventeen. He saw her outside a Metro station and gave her his card. He began to paint her and fell in love with her. They had a child. Picasso was much older than she was—I’m leaving out a lot of it—but when he died she committed suicide.”

“How old was she then?”

“Oh, she must have been in her sixties. I think she was born in about 1910. Picasso was 1881. I just read that again the other day.”

“Do you know what Sophie called you? Do you remember Sophie? She called you the professor.”

“Did she? Where is Sophie?”

“She’s at Duke.”

“You know what I have to say to Sophie?”

“What?”

“Oh, well, I don’t really have anything to say to her. Listen, do you want to do something?” he said. “Stay here a minute.”

He went into the kitchen. She could hear the refrigerator door open and after a few moments close. He came back with something in his hand, a small, folded piece of white paper. He put it on the table and began to unfold it. It was a packet with silver foil inside. She watched him open the foil and there was a lump of something dark, like wet tobacco.

“What is it?”

“It’s hash.”

There was the moment like the one at a dance when before taking your partner’s hand for the first time, you know without touching whether he or she can dance or be any good.

“Where did you get it?” she asked calmly.

“From Tony. The tall English fellow. He gave it to me. It’s Moroccan. Shall we try it? You use this little white pipe.”

He started carefully pushing some of the brown lump into the bowl of the pipe.

“Do you do this a lot?”

“No,” he said. “Never.”

“Don’t pack it too tight. You should have said you smoked it all the time.”

“You’d have seen right through me,” he said.

He lit a match and held it close to the bowl, sucking on the stem. Nothing happened. He lit another match and after a few tries drew in a little smoke. He inhaled it and coughed, handing the pipe to her. She drew on it and passed it back to him. They took turns without talking. In a few minutes they were high. He felt a gorgeous well-being and sense of ascent. He had occasionally smoked grass, not very often, sometimes at dinner parties, sometimes in the library afterwards with the hostess and one or another of the guests. He remembered a dizzying night in a divorcée’s apartment when he’d asked where the bathroom was, and she took him through a number of rooms into hers, her bathroom, and turned on the light and he was in a palace of mirrors, bottles, and creams, brightly lit. There were overlapped towels on the floor.

“Should I leave you alone?” she had said.

“Just for a minute,” he managed to say.

“Are you sure?”

And once he’d been given a couple of joints by a handsome Romanian he happened to meet. He smoked one of them with Eddins in the office, and they were laughing helplessly when Gretchen came in. They thought she had gone home.

“What are you guys doing?” she said. “I know what you’re doing.”

Bowman tried to keep from laughing.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said and broke out laughing again.

“You two are really stoned,” she said.

This was different. He felt things shimmering, shifting. He looked at her as she drew on the pipe, her brows, the line of her jaw. He was able to observe her closely. She had shut her eyes.

“Are you wearing perfume?” he said.

“Perfume?” she said vaguely.

“You are.”

“No.”

He took the pipe. The hash was almost gone. He drew in and looked to see if there was a glow. He touched the ash. It was cold. They sat for a while in silence.

“How are you?” he said.

She didn’t answer. The TV was playing without sound.

She smiled and tried to but couldn’t express something.

“We should go out,” she said.

“It’s too late. Too late. The museums will be closed. I don’t know if you want to do that anyway.”

“Let’s go out,” she said and stood up.

He tried to focus on the idea.

“We can’t. I’m too high.”

“Nobody will know,” she said.

“All right. If you say so.”

He composed himself. He knew he was incapable of going anywhere.

On the street there were few people. They went a little way down the block. He was too loose.

“No, I don’t want to walk,” he said. “Let’s take a cab.”

It seemed almost immediately that one stopped. As they got in, the driver said,

“Where to?”

“Anet.”

“Yes.”

“Where do you live? You want to go home? Oh,” he said to the driver, “just drive around.”

“Where do you want to go?” the driver said.

“Drive down, no, go across Fifty-Ninth to Park, no, don’t do that. Go to the West Side Highway and go uptown. Then I’ll tell you.”

They sat back as they drove. It was now dark and they were going along the river. On the far side was an almost continuous line of buildings, houses and apartments lit like hives, some of them very big, bigger than he seemed to remember. He was going to explain it, how there used to be nothing aross there, but it was of no interest. Light shone on the surface of the river. He remembered the ride with Christine, the night he first met her. Cars went past them. The necklace of the George Washington Bridge hung like a strand of jewels.

“Where are we going?” she said. “We’ve been driving and driving.”

He told the driver to turn around.

“You’re right, that’s enough of this,” he said to her. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

After a while he said,

“Driver, get off at Ninety-Sixth Street, will you? Go over to Second Avenue. We’ll go to a place I know,” he said to her.

They finally stopped at Elio’s. He managed to pay the cab driver, counting the money out twice. Inside there was a crowd. The bartender said hello. The tables in front that were the best were all filled. An editor he knew saw him and wanted to talk. The owner, whom he knew very well, told them they would have to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for a table. He said they would eat at the bar. This is Anet Vassilaros, he said.

The bar was equally busy. The bartender, Alberto—he knew him—spread a large white napkin on the bar in front of each of them and put down knives and forks and a folded napkin.

“Something to drink?” he asked.

“Anet, do you want anything? No,” he decided. “I don’t think so.”

He ordered a glass of red wine, however, and she drank some of it. Conversations were going on all around them. The backs of people. He was nothing like her father, she was thinking, he was in a different world. They sat side by side. People were edging past. The bartender was taking orders for drinks from the waiters, making them, and ringing up checks. He came towards them holding two dishes of food. The owner came while they were eating and apologized for not having been able to seat them.

“No, this was better,” Bowman said. “Did I introduce you?”

“Yes. Anet.”

The editor stopped by them on his way out. Bowman didn’t bother to introduce him.