James Salter: All That Is

One of the lost images of Bowman’s boyhood was of the mansion—he’d been taken to see it when he was five or six—a great, ornate, gray granite building with, as he remembered it, a moat and latticed windows near the park somewhere but not to be found, like streets in that familiar city that repeatedly appears in dreams. He never bothered to ask his mother about it and if it had been torn down, but there were places along Fifth where it seemed it might have been.

Beatrice, perhaps because of her father’s death, which she remembered clearly, had a certain lingering dread of the fall. There was a time, usually late in August, when summer struck the trees with dazzling power and they were rich with leaves but then became, suddenly one day, strangely still, as if in expectation and at that moment aware. They knew. Everything knew, the beetles, the frogs, the crows solemnly walking across the lawn. The sun was at its zenith and embraced the world, but it was ending, all that one loved was at risk.

Neil Eddins, the other editor, was a southerner, smooth faced and mannerly, who wore striped shirts and made friends easily.

“You were in the navy,” he said.

“Yes, were you?”

“They wouldn’t have me. I couldn’t get into the program. I was in the merchant marine.”

“Where was that?”

“In the East River, mostly. The crew was Italian. They could never get them to sail.”

“Not much danger of being sunk.”

“Not by the enemy,” Eddins said. “Were you ever sunk?”

“Some people thought we were.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s too long a story.”

Gretchen, who was the secretary, walked by as they talked. She had a good figure and an attractive face marred by three or four large inflamed blemishes, some unnameable skin trouble, on her cheeks and forehead that made her miserable though she never betrayed it. Eddins gave a slight moan when she had passed.

“Gretchen, you mean?”

It was known she had a boyfriend.

“Oh, my God,” Eddins said. “Forget the acne or whatever that is, we can clear that up. Actually I like women who look a little like boxers, high cheekbones, lips a bit thick. What a dream I had the other night! I had three cute girls, one after the other. It was in a little room, almost a stall, and I was starting in with the fourth and someone was trying to come in. No, no, damn it, not now! I was shouting. The fourth one’s ass was right up against me as she bent over to take off her shoes. Am I being too disgusting?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you have dreams like that?”

“I usually only dream about one at a time,” Bowman said.

“Anyone in particular?” Eddins said. “What I really like is a voice, a low voice. When I get married, that’s the first thing I’m going to tell her, speak in a low voice.”

Gretchen passed on her way back. She gave a slight smile.

“Jaysus,” Eddins said, “they know what they’re doing, don’t they? They love it.”

After work they sometimes went up to Clarke’s for a drink. Third Avenue was a street of drinkers and many local bars, always in the shadow of the elevated and the sound of it passing overhead, rocking by tenements and daylight dropping through the tracks after it had gone by.

They talked about books and writing. Eddins had had only a year of college but had read everything, he was a member of the Joyce Society and Joyce was his hero.

“But I don’t normally like a writer to give me too much of a character’s thoughts and feelings,” he said. “I like to see them, hear what they say, and decide for myself. The appearance of things. I like dialogue. They talk and you understand everything. Do you like John O’Hara?”

“Somewhat,” Bowman said. “I like some O’Hara.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He can be too nasty.”

“He writes about that kind of people. Appointment in Samarra is a great book. It just swept me away. He was twenty-eight when he wrote it.”

“Tolstoy was younger. Tolstoy was twenty-three.”

“When he wrote what?”

“ Childhood, Boyhood, Youth .”

Eddins hadn’t read it. In fact he’d never heard of it, he admitted.

“It made him famous overnight,” Bowman said. “They all became famous overnight, that’s the interesting thing. Fitzgerald, Maupassant, Faulkner, when he wrote Sanctuary , that is. You should read Childhood . There’s a wonderful short chapter where Tolstoy describes his father, tall and bald and with just two great passions in his life, you think it’s going to be his family and his lands, but it’s cards and women. An amazing chapter.”

“You know what she told me today?”

“Who?”

“Gretchen. She told me the Bolshoi was in town.”

“I didn’t know she was interested in ballet.”

“She also told me what Bolshoi means. It means big, great.”

“So?”

Eddins made a cupping gesture with each hand.

“Why is she doing this to me?” he said. “I wrote a little poem to her, like the one Byron wrote to Caroline Lamb, one of the many women including countesses he put it to, if I may use the term.”

“He was in Dionysian flux,” Bowman said.

“Flux. What is that, Chinese word? Anyway, here’s my poem: ‘Bolshoi, Oh, boy.’ ”

“Referring to what?”

“Are you kidding? She’s flaunting them every minute.”

“What’s Byron’s poem?” Bowman said. “I don’t know it.”

“It’s said to be the shortest poem in the English language, but mine is actually shorter. ‘Caro Lamb, God damn.’ ”

“Is she the one he married?”

“No, she was married. She was a countess. If I knew a countess or two, I’d be a better person. Especially if she were leaning a little towards beauty, the countess, I mean. In fact she doesn’t even have to be a countess. That’s a word that invites vulgarization, doesn’t it? In high school I had a girlfriend—of course we never did anything—named Ava. Anyway a beautiful name. She also had a body. I wonder where she is now, now that we’re grown up. I should get her address somehow unless she’s married, ghastly thought. On the other hand, not too ghastly if you think about it a certain way.”

“Where did you go to high school?”

“The last year I went to boarding school near Charlottesville. We ate our meals together in the dining hall. The headmaster used to light dollar bills to show the proper attitude toward money. He ate a hard-boiled egg every single morning, shell and all. I never quite got around to that although I was always hungry. Starving. I was probably there because of Ava and what they were afraid might happen. My folks didn’t believe in sex.”

“What parents do?”

They were sitting in the middle of the crowded bar. The doors to the street were open, and the noise of the train, a loud crashing like a wave, drowned out what they were saying from time to time.

“You know the one about the Hungarian count?” Eddins said. “Anyway, there was this count, and his wife said to him one day that their son was growing up and wasn’t it time he learned about the birds and the bees? All right, the count said, so he took him for a walk. They went down to a stream and stood on a bridge looking down at peasant girls washing clothes. The count said, your mother wants me to talk to you about the birds and the bees, what they do. Yes, father, the son said. Well, you see the girls down there? Yes, father. You remember a few days ago when we came here, what we did with them? Yes, father. Well, that’s what the birds and the bees do.”

He was stylish, Eddins, wearing a pale summer suit, slightly wrinkled, though it was a little late in the year for it. At the same time he managed a carelessness about his person, the pockets of his jacket were filled with various things, his hair needed cutting in back. He spent more than he could afford for his clothes, the British American House was his favorite.