James Salter - All That Is

“You know, back home there was a girl in the neighborhood, good-looking girl, who was a little retarded…”

“Retarded,” Bowman said.

“I don’t know what was wrong, a little slow.”

“Don’t tell me anything criminal now.”

“You’re such a gentleman,” Eddins said. “You’re the type they used to have.”

“Have where?”

“Everywhere. My father would have liked you. If I had your looks…”

“Yes, what?”

“I’d cut a swath through this town.”

Bowman was feeling the drinks himself. Among the brilliant bottles in the mirror behind the bar he could see himself, jacket and tie, New York evening, people around him, faces. He looked clean, composed, somehow blended together with the naval officer he had been. He remembered the days clearly though they had already become only a shadow in his life. Days at sea. Mr. Bowman! Yes, sir! The pride he would never lose.

In the doorway then, just coming in, was the girl Eddins had tried to describe, with a boxer’s face, flat-cheeked with a somewhat wide nose. He could see the upper half of her in the mirror as she passed, she was with her boyfriend or husband, wearing a light dress with orange flowers. She stood out, but Eddins hadn’t seen her, he was talking to someone else. It didn’t matter, the city was filled with such women, not exactly filled but you saw them at night.

Eddins had turned and caught sight of her.

“Oh, lord,” he said, “I knew it. There’s the girl I’d like to make love to.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I don’t want to know her, I want to fuck her.”

“What a romantic you are.”

At work, though, he was a choir boy and even seemed or tried to seem unaware of Gretchen. He handed Bowman a folded sheet of paper, somewhat offhandedly, and glanced away. It was another poem, typed in the middle of the page:

“Shouldn’t that be cara ?” Bowman said.

“What do you mean?”

“The feminine.”

“Here,” Eddins said, “give it back, I don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”

St. Patrick’s Day was sunny and unusually mild, men were in shirtsleeves and from the appearance of things work was ending at noon. The bars were full. Coming into one of them from out of the sunlight, Bowman, his eyes blinded, could barely make out the faces along the bar but found a place to stand near the back where they were all shouting and calling to one another. The bartender brought his drink and he took it and looked around. There were men and women drinking, young women mostly, two of them—he never forgot this moment—standing near him to his right, one dark-haired with dark brows and, when he could see her better, a faint down along her jawbone. The other was blond with a bare, shining forehead and wide-set eyes, instantly compelling, even in some way coarse. He was so struck by her face that it was difficult to look at her, she stood out so—on the other hand he could not keep himself from doing it. He was almost fearful of looking.

He raised his glass towards them.

“Happy St. Patrick’s,” he managed to say.

“Can’t hear you,” one of them cried.

He tried to introduce himself. The place was too noisy. It was like a raging party they were in the middle of.

“What’s your name?” he called.

“Vivian,” the blond girl said.

He stepped closer. Louise was the dark-haired one. She already had a secondary role, but Bowman, trying not to be too direct, included her.

“Do you live around here?” he said.

Louise answered. She lived on Fifty-Third Street. Vivian lived in Virginia.

“Virginia?” Bowman said, stupidly he felt, as if it were China.

“I live in Washington,” Vivian said.

He could not keep his eyes from her. Her face was as if, somehow, it was not completely finished, with smouldering features, a mouth not eager to smile, a riveting face that God had stamped with the simple answer to life. In profile she was even more beautiful.

When they asked what he did—the noise had quieted a little—he replied he was an editor.

“An editor?”

“Yes.”

“Of what? Magazines?”

“Books,” he said. “I work at Braden and Baum.”

They had never heard of it.

“I was thinking of going to Clarke’s,” he said, “but there was all this noise in here, and I just came in to see what was going on. I’ll have to go back to work. What… what are you doing later?”

They were going to a movie.

“Want to come?” Louise said.

He suddenly liked, even loved her.

“I can’t. Can I meet you later? I’ll meet you back here.”

“What time?”

“After work. Any time.”

They agreed to meet at six.

All afternoon he was almost giddy and found it hard to keep his mind on things. Time moved with a terrible slowness, but at a quarter to six, walking quickly, almost running, he went back. He was a few minutes early, they were not there. He waited impatiently until six-fifteen, then six-thirty. They never appeared. With a sickening feeling he realized what he had done—he had let them go without asking for a telephone number or address, Fifty-Third Street was all he knew and he would never see them, her, again. Hating his ineptness, he stayed for nearly an hour, towards the end striking up a conversation with the man next to him so that if by chance they did finally come, he would not seem foolish and doglike standing there.

What was it, he wondered, that had betrayed him and made them decide not to come back? Had they been approached by someone else after he left? He was miserable. He felt the terrible emptiness of men who are ruined, who see everything collapse in a single day.

He went to work in the morning still feeling anguish. He could not talk about it to Eddins. It was in him like a deep splinter together with a sense of failure. Gretchen was at her desk. Eddins smelled of talcum or cologne, something suspicious. Bowman sat silently reading when Baum came in.

“How are you this morning?” Baum said easily, the usual overture when he had nothing particular in mind.

They talked for a bit and had just finished when Gretchen came over.

“There’s someone on the phone for you.”

Bowman picked up his phone and said, somewhat curtly,

“Hello.”

It was her. He felt a moment of insane happiness. She was apologizing. They had come back at six the night before but hadn’t been able to find the bar, they couldn’t remember the street.

“Yes, of course,” Bowman said. “I’m so sorry, but that’s all right.”

“We even went to Clarke’s,” she said. “I remembered you said that.”

“I’m so glad you called.”

“I just wanted you to know. That we tried to come back and meet you.”

“No, no, that’s all right, that’s fine. Look, give me your address, will you?”

“In Washington?”

“Yes, anywhere.”

She gave it and Louise’s as well. She was going back to Washington that afternoon, she said.

“Do you… what time is the train? Do you have time for lunch?”

Not really. The train was at one.

“That’s too bad. Maybe another time,” he said foolishly.

“Well, bye,” she said after a pause.

“Good-bye,” he somehow agreed.

But he had her address, he looked at it after hanging up. It was precious beyond words. He didn’t know her last name.

In the great vault of Penn Station with the light in wide blocks coming down through the glass and onto the crowd that was always waiting, Bowman made his way. He was nervous but then caught sight of her standing unaware.