James Salter - The Hunters

In the morning they reached Atami and the eastern coast. The town was built in a valley and along the sides of the mountains, all overlooking the cold, blue water. Cleve watched it from his berth. He was reluctant to get up. He would have liked to finish the trip this way, luxuriously. For a long while he did stay like that, the pillow propped beneath his head. From Atami north, they skirted little fishing villages and followed a perilous, narrow strip of coastal road. Finally he got up. He washed lightly. Not more than thirty minutes later they were pulling into Tokyo.

They were rattling across the city, away from the station, in a taxi; and the tempo of everything had changed. The train had clattered through a night of leisure, but suddenly time began to race. It seemed to be streaming from them. There was an overwhelming sense of the vastness of the city. A year would have been inadequate for it. The few days they had to spend were dwarfed, and already every minute seemed to be one in which they were late for something.

The first hotel they tried had no rooms available. Neither had the second. They called the Club Heights and the Hosokawa. It was the same, filled up. They had not made reservations anywhere, and somehow, illogically, it seemed as if these hotels should be empty—they did not cater to Japanese, and almost everybody else ought to have been in Korea. DeLeo knew of others, however.

“Where?” Cleve wanted to know.

“The Astor is the nearest.”

They drove there. It was a small, expensive hotel implanted on a hill and heavily walled like a castle or fortress. Despite this, there seemed to be something impermanent about it, as if it would not last any longer than the war did. A sign announced that the bar and restaurant were open twenty-four hours a day. The desk clerk bowed as they entered.

“Do you have any rooms?” DeLeo asked.

The clerk pushed a fountain-pen stand forward, without a word.

Their rooms were in front, with a commanding view of the neighborhood. They were neat though sparsely furnished; and a worn, flowered appearance made them seem very old. A humble odor that was nothing specific persisted in them even after the bellboy had opened the windows.

They left their bags and went down to the bar to have a drink in the gray, luminescent daylight. That early made it like being in a resort off-season. From the glass terrace they looked out across the low roofs of the city crowded beneath the sky. DeLeo called for a menu.

“What will it be for breakfast, Cleve?”

“I don’t know. What do they have?”

“Everything. I think I’ll order a steak.”

“A steak. That sounds good. Order me one, too. And let’s have another drink first, what do you say?”

“You’re only old once,” DeLeo grinned.

After eating, they went up to the rooms to bathe and go to bed. It was a good, free feeling to have had too many drinks before noon. Cleve decided to shower when he woke up. He took off his clothes and lay down on the soft, fresh-linened bed. He closed his eyes and felt sleep slowly come upon him, taking him down. He could hear faint hotel sounds through the floor and walls, and out in the streets the traffic, fainter still.

It was afternoon when they awoke. They took a taxi downtown. The city was enormous and teeming with life. Cleve could feel its vigor as they drove through it, down narrow streets, past the endless small, wooden houses with bedquilts hanging out over their upper windows to air and wash strung across their fronts. Schoolboys in simple black uniforms were strolling home in groups, and children in bright clothes, red mostly and sometimes plaid, ran past. A stream of bicyclists was always on both sides.

They stopped at the Gae-jo-en and went to the downstairs bar. DeLeo ordered martinis for them. It was still early, and the bar was empty. They were the only ones except for the bartender, polishing glasses. They finished two drinks apiece and went on to the Imperial. There, the first drinkers were just arriving, colonels of the staff, their ladies, and important-looking civilians. Cleve could feel the warmth of liquor spreading within him. As his eyes fell upon one person or another, he saw them with a clarity such that he would never forget what they looked like, and only seconds later as his glance moved on, he could not remember at all. He felt at once brilliant and doltish. He did not care. The only thing that bothered him was the grateful sense of well-being. It was good to be on firm land again, on earth, safe. His mortal knees had grown steady, but he was ashamed of it. He would have preferred not to have been so relieved and instead to have been uncomfortable, aching to return to combat.

He was not, though. He was happy, plungingly and briefly, like a runner who abandons a championship try halfway.

After a while, they walked outside into the mist. The blood was beating within them. Cleve gulped draughts of air. Down the wide, lighted boulevards and through the park they took a cab to the University Club. It was dark and reserved there. They went down a carpeted hallway, feeling the propriety of oak walls and the tall, carved doors. The cocktail lounge was livelier. A pianist was playing sentimental favorites. They sat at a table near this clear trickling of reminiscence that brought back forgotten years with each song.

“Another martini?” DeLeo said.

“Certainly There’s nothing like ten or fifteen before dinner.”

“And we’re here to enjoy civilization.”

A waiter took their order, and DeLeo disappeared to make a telephone call. Cleve waited, looking around the room openly in a mood that was between pleasure and intense longing. He saw two stunning Japanese girls enter with a group of Marine officers. The tables were thronged with couples. His nostrils took in the many perfumes.

Suddenly not long after DeLeo had come back, it was too late to eat. It was past nine o’clock. The time had fled silently Cleve lit a cigarette and watched its smoke as it was devoured. He felt himself racked by the sweetest of hungers. There was women’s laughter in the room, and the sound of it overcame him with a flood of desire. He had suppressed it for months. Now it overflowed. He could hardly contain it, sitting there in the torment of desperate hunger. That was all there seemed to be of life now, the need to satisfy the hungers of the spirit and the flesh. Before, in what had amounted to a childhood extended, he had hardly been aware of them.

“I’m getting tired of this place, Bert,” he said.

“Good. Let’s leave.”

“Where to?”

“Come on.”

“I don’t feel like drinking any more.”

“I don’t either. Come on. I made a call for us.”

“Miyoshi’s?” Cleve asked. He could hear his heart pumping within him.

“That’s right.”

They drove through the streets. Trains of lighted shops moved past. Trolley cars swayed in front of them, and bicyclists flashed among the traffic. They crossed a wide bridge and curved down a long grade, as if into another, more subdued plane of the city. A river gleamed black alongside the avenue. Cleve had lost track of where they were. He sat deep in the rear seat of the cab watching, as there streamed dizzily past the strange displays beyond which his thoughts had already gone. Everything was distorted except for the desire that held him completely in a way only fear could match. Finally they turned into an alleyway between plain shopfronts and came into a dark courtyard. Someone came running out to open the door of the cab and lead them further. They reached an entrance flanked by garden stones. They changed their shoes to sandals and went in. There was muted music, floating along hallways floored with shining hardwood. They followed down these passages to a large, clean room, where they sat on tatami mats and waited. A girl brought kimonos for them. They took their uniforms off. She folded them neatly when she returned, stacked them on separate trays and took them out.