James Salter - All That Is

“You haven’t introduced us,” the editor said.

“I thought you knew one another,” Bowman said.

“No, we don’t.”

“I can’t do it right now,” Bowman said.

The owner came back and sat on a stool beside them. Things were becoming a little quieter. It had been a busy night—she hadn’t had time to eat dinner herself. People leaving paused to say good night.

“Let me buy you an after-dinner drink,” she said. “Do you like rum? We got in some really good rum. Let me get you some. Alberto, where’s that bottle of the good rum?”

The rum was strong but extremely smooth. Anet didn’t drink any and the three of them sat talking for a while. More people came in, and the owner left them. They went back to the apartment. They had left the party, and Anet curled up on the couch. He gently removed her shoes. He felt colonial for some reason, as if in Kenya or Martinique, the heat of the rum. She was asleep. He felt completely assured. He gathered up her legs, put an arm beneath her, and carried her into the bedroom. She hadn’t protested but as he laid her on the bed he felt she was not asleep. Nevertheless, he went out of the room for a few moments. He looked at the couch where she had been lying. It was all happening, it seemed, by itself. He went back into the bedroom and quietly, after taking off his own shoes, lay down beside her. Before he could consider anything else she half-turned and rolled against him, like a child. He put his arm around her and began slowly caressing her back, slipping his hand beneath her blouse. The feel of her bare skin was glorious. He wanted to touch her everywhere. Their heads were close as they lay there, and after a while they began to kiss.

From then it became more intense and also uncertain. He had pulled up her skirt rather than trying to remove it. Her legs were incredibly youthful. She was wearing panties and he began slipping them off, but she resisted. He caressed her. She was responsive, but when he tried once again she pressed her legs together.

“No,” she said. “Please.”

She moved from side to side and pushed his hand away, but he was insistent. Finally, not without relief, she gave in. She became his partner in it, more or less, and at length felt him climax, not realizing it at the time. They lay quietly together.

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

After a few moments,

“Where’s the bathroom?” she asked.

When she came back she had taken off her skirt. She got in bed again.

“You’re a great thing,” he said.

“I probably disappointed you.”

“No,” he said, “far from it. You didn’t disappoint me. You wouldn’t know how to.”

“Why is that?”

“You just wouldn’t,” he said and after a pause, “I have to go away later this week.”

It was a sudden inspiration. It came about simply.

“I have to go to Paris,” he said.

“Nice.”

“For three or four days. Have you ever been there?”

“When I was a little girl we went.”

“Do you want to come?”

“To Paris? Oh, I can’t.”

“Why is that? You’re not doing anything except looking for a job.”

“I’m supposed to go out to my mother’s this weekend.”

“Just say you can’t. Say that you have an interview.”

“An interview,” she said.

“Say that you’ll come the following week.”

Lying this close he could feel her complicity.

“Call her tomorrow and it won’t be at the last minute. You’ve done things like this before.”

“Not really. I wouldn’t want her to find out.”

“She won’t.”

Going home the next morning she wanted to shower and change clothes. She thought of what she had done, fucked her mother’s former boyfriend, Philip. She hadn’t intended to—she hadn’t seen him in almost four years—but somehow it had happened. It had been a surprise. She felt an illicit pleasure and entirely grown up.

They landed in the early morning and from the moment they got off the plane even the air itself seemed different, perhaps it was her imagination. They had only cabin baggage and there was no wait, the customs men lazily waved them through. In the big arrival hall while he changed some money, Anet noticed almost with surprise that all the newspapers were in French. They went out the door and found a taxi.

Paris, the legendary Paris, they were driving towards it at eight in the morning on a highway that became more and more filled with traffic as they drove. They didn’t bother to talk. They sat back in the seat as they had done the first night. His suit was slightly creased, his collar open at the neck. He sat looking out of the window like an actor after a performance. She was a little worn from the flight as well though excited. Occasionally they exchanged a word or two.

After a while the outlying houses of the banlieues began to appear, first separate and apart and then becoming groups and solid blocks with shops of some kind and bars. In long lines of cars they inched into the city and then sped along the streets. They went to a hotel on rue Monsieur le Prince down from the Odèon. The restaurant where he had once seen Jean Cocteau on his very first trip to Paris was up at the place . In the other direction was the boulevard with all that was going on.

Their room was on an upper floor and looked down on a large, enclosed space that was actually a school playground. Past the roofs at the far end were other roofs and chimneys and the myriad small streets, some of which he knew. They stood at the floor-length window, which had an ironwork railing outside.

“Seem familiar to you?”

“Oh, no. I was only five years old when I was here.”

“Are you tired? Are you hungry?”

“I am a little hungry.”

“Go ahead and get ready. I’ll take you to a wonderful place for breakfast.”

In a big brasserie on boulevard Montparnasse, half-empty in the morning, they had orange juice, croissants, fresh butter, jam, and the bread that is found only in France, along with coffee. From there they went walking to Saint-Sulpice and down the small streets, Sabot, Dragon, where the shops were just opening like flowers, to the famous Deux Magots though she had never heard of it. It was a beautiful day. They sat and had coffee and went on along narrow sidewalks with slender iron bollards, brushing shoulders with students and older women, down to the river to look at Notre Dame. He had shown her only a part of what he knew.

That night they went to dinner at Bofinger, a kind of palace, always crowded, the great cupola over the main room blazing with noise and light and colossal vases of flowers. There was not an empty table. People sat in twos, threes, fives, talking and eating. It was an astounding sight.

“I’m going to order the big fruits de mer ,” he told her. “Do you like oysters?”

“Yes. Maybe,” she said.

They came on a large round tray heaped with crushed ice on which rows of gleaming oysters lay, along with shrimp, mussels, and small black shellfish like snails. The lemon halves were covered with gauze. There was butter and thin, dark bread. The wine he ordered was a Montrachet.

She tried an oyster.

“You have to eat two or three to get the idea.”

He showed her. A little squeeze of lemon on them first.

She liked the second one better. He was ahead of her, he had eaten four or five. A woman with dark-blond hair at the next table leaned towards them.

“Pardon me, what is this, what you are eating?” she said.

Bowman had to show it to her on the menu. She said something to the man who was with her, then turned back.

“I’m going to have it,” she said to them.