James Salter - All That Is

“I’ve never been to Venice,” Ann said.

“You haven’t?”

“No, I just never have.”

“The time to go there is January. No crowds. Also, bring a flashlight to see the paintings. They’re all in churches without real lighting. You can put in a coin and get some light, but it only lasts about fifteen seconds. You have to have your own light. Also, don’t stay on the Giudecca. It’s too far from everything. If you go there, tell me, and I’ll tell you what to see. The cemetery is the best thing, Diaghilev’s grave.”

Ann seemed fascinated by every word.

“Diaghilev’s grave is not the best thing,” Bowman said.

“Well, it’s close to it. I’ll play a game with you, best thing in Paris, best thing in Rome, best thing in Amsterdam. The winner gets a prize.”

“What’s the prize?”

The prize would be Ann Hennessy, Wells thought to himself but was far from being drunk enough to say it.

It was a very congenial dinner. The Amarone was substantial and they ordered another bottle. Ann’s face shone. She was a catalyst for the evening. Bowman hadn’t noticed the gracefulness of her hands before. He saw that she certainly had been Baum’s mistress though she had the quality of resisting suspicion. He could tell by looking at her that she had been. Later he saw that he was wrong when they all stood on the dark street bidding an extended good-bye and she had her hands clasped together in front of her like a young girl and something—the animation—had gone out of her. He flagged a cab and she got in ahead of him without a word.

“I enjoyed the evening,” he said as they drove.

She said nothing.

“You were wonderful tonight,” he said.

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

After a while she began looking in her handbag for her keys.

Her apartment was on Jane Street. The building had no doorman, just two sets of locked glass doors.

“Would you like to come up?” she said unexpectedly.

“Yes,” he said. “For a few minutes.”

She lived on the third floor, and they walked up. The elevator was out of service. She turned on the lights as they came into the apartment and took off her coat.

“Would you like something to drink?” she said. “I don’t have much here. There’s a little scotch, I think.”

“All right. I’ll have just a little.”

She found the bottle and a glass but didn’t get one for herself. She poured him a drink and sat down almost at the other end of the couch. She was a little drunk, he then saw, but she had regained some simple glamour in the pants and ruffled shirt. She sat looking at him. She wanted to talk. There were some things she wanted to say, but she did not. She sat silent. Bowman felt uncomfortable, and for want of anything to do moved close to her on the couch and calmly kissed her. She seemed to consider it.

“I should go home,” he said.

“No, don’t,” she said. “You can…,” she didn’t finish it. “Don’t go.”

She reached down and slipped off her shoes. Her instinct was to not embrace him. She would not have felt comfortable doing it. She stood and went unhurriedly into the bedroom. He felt she was going to lie down and pass out. After a few minutes he went to the bedroom door.

“Will you lie in bed with me?” she said.

On the platform at Hunters Point, where he caught the early train on most Fridays in the spring and fall, he walked back to where the rear cars would be when the train arrived. It was quarter to four and few other people were there yet. There was an old man in a linen suit with a handkerchief in his breast pocket and a blue shirt and tie reading the folded page of something with a magnifying glass, a widower who lived alone or perhaps a man who had never married, but what man at that age had never married? He’d be getting off at Southampton as he had probably done for many years. Walking off into the evening dark.

The train had pulled in. Passengers were clattering down the stairs from the street. Bowman got aboard and took a seat by the window. It was consoling, going into the country. The weekend lay ahead. The conductors in their hard blue caps were checking their watches. Finally, with a slight jolt, the train began to move.

For a while he read and then closed the book. The commercial suburbs and warehouses were left behind. At crossings there was evening traffic, lines of waiting cars with their headlights on. The boulevards were jammed. Houses, trees, unknown places flowing past, embankments, mysterious ponds. He had passed through it many times. He knew nothing about it.

He had left Tivoli the year before—the professor had come back from Europe—it had only been an interlude in any case. He promised to see Katherine in New York, but his life was separating from hers. He rented a house not far from the one he had first rented in Wainscott. His former life, he felt, was being returned to him. Ann Hennessy came for a weekend. There was a certain awkwardness, but it vanished over dinner.

“I have a bottle of Amarone at the house,” he mentioned.

“Yes, I noticed it.”

“You did? What else did you notice?”

“Very little. I was too excited.”

“Well, the Amarone will calm you.”

“Hardly.”

But it led to the subject of Venice.

“I’d love to go there,” she said.

“There’s a wonderful guidebook on Venice—I think it’s out of print—by a man named Hugh Honour. An historian. It’s one of the best guidebooks I’ve ever read. I may have a copy. He has a companion named John Fleming. They’re known as the Honour and the Glory. They’re En glish, of course.

“I dislike the word ‘gay,’ ” he said. “They’re too eminent to be called gay. Perhaps in private they call themselves gay. The Roman emperors weren’t gay. They swam naked in pools with young boys trained for pleasure, but it seems strange to call them gay. Depraved, pleasure-addicted, pederast, but not gay. It destroys the dignity of perversion.”

“I hadn’t thought of Roman emperors.”

“Well, Cavafy then. It doesn’t seem right to call him gay. Or John Maynard Keynes. It’s too colloquial. Cavafy was a deviate. I think he uses the word himself. Gay doesn’t seem right. But there are certain gay practices. You’re familiar with them?” he said offhandedly.

“I suppose so,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

“I don’t mean to suggest anything,” he said.

“That’s all right.”

Though she waited, he did not continue.

It was the first of many weekends. They became a kind of informal couple. It was not in evidence at work where they preferred not to show it, but in the evenings and in the country. There they had leisure and no encumbrances. She slept in a simple white gown that he gently pushed upward from her hips, where it remained halfway or she pulled it over her head and off. Her bare skin was cool. Her arm was placed alongside her, her hand open. He laid himself in her narrow palm.

In June the water was still too cold for swimming. If after a minute he had the courage to dive in, in a split second he regretted it. But the days were beautiful and long. The beaches were still empty. Sometimes the sun, because of clouds, lay on only a section of the water, turning it almost to white while the rest remained deep blue or gray.

By July the ocean was warmer. They went to swim early in the day. In the parking lot a white van with its side cut away sold coffee and fried-egg sandwiches and later, cold drinks. A few kids were already lounging around and walking barefoot on the asphalt. The beach was uncrowded at that hour and stretched out of sight in both directions. Ann’s bathing suit was a dark red. Her arms and legs had lost the city paleness.

The temperature of the water was perfect. They swam together for fifteen or twenty minutes and then came out to lie in the sun. There was little wind, the day was going to be hot. They lay with their heads not far apart. Once, she opened her eyes for a moment, saw him, and closed them again. Finally both of them sat up. The sun felt heavy on their shoulders. More people had come, some with umbrellas and chairs.