James Salter - The Hunters

“Every day is a horiday with me,” she smiled.

It was like a musical comedy about shore leave, Cleve thought. There was a fountain bathed in rainbow lighting in the center of the dance floor. DeLeo was drinking and breaking the glasses. People at other tables turned around every time he smashed one, shouting, and the waiter charged him for a glass each round. The olives from martinis were lined up in soldierly rows on the tablecloth. There were twenty-five olives in a martini squadron, he explained.

“Sleep is a bad habit you get into as a baby,” he said, and they went on to the Bacchus.

The floor show there was unvarying, strip teases on a small dance floor closely surrounded by tables, and the girls took everything off but their high-heeled shoes. The last one stripped at the beginning of her act and danced naked to a tango for five minutes, pausing to sit on laps and drink from glasses held eagerly to her as she did. DeLeo was introducing Cleve as Professor Pell, the father of the famous flier.

“Can’t we get away from him for a few days?” Cleve said.

“Friendo!” a voice interrupted loudly. It was a second lieutenant with a face as flat as the sole of a shoe, leaning across the table. He was drunk. “Did I hear right? Are you in that fabulous Pell’s squadron?”

“It’s not exactly his squadron yet,” Cleve said.

The lieutenant threw back his head and laughed.

“Ha, ha,” he said. “It may be soon if I know the Doctor. How is he doing? I hear he has two MIGs already.”

“Yes.”

“That old son of a bitch. You know, I’m probably the best friend he has. I’ve known him for years.”

“Lucky you,” DeLeo said.

The lieutenant was heedless.

“He really is an old son of a bitch. Watch out for him. Especially at cards. He’s a terror.”

Cleve took a last swallow from his drink.

“Are you ready to go, Bert?” he asked.

“No, not yet.”

“So you’re in the same squadron with the Doctor,” the lieutenant said. “Goddamn me. Did I tell you about when we were in flying school together? He was cadet captain. You probably can’t believe that, knowing Pell, but it’s a fact. I don’t know how he did it. He was always in some mess, but damn me if they didn’t make him cadet captain.

“One time we were in the barracks, and he was looking out the window and saw this puss coming down the street. Man, you should have seen her. Built, you know what I mean. He gives a big whistle. Shake it, honey, he says, but don’t break it. She just turned around and gave him this hard look. Well, damn if it didn’t turn out to be the commandant’s wife. I mean it. The Doctor thought he’d had it, but she didn’t get a good enough look at him. They came around to the barracks five minutes later to find out who it was. Lined everybody up. The colonel, himself, and he was really mad, but Pell just looked him right in the eye. He was in some trouble like that all the time, but lucky, you know. He’d lie out of it some way, that son of a bitch. He’s really fabulous. He got to be cadet captain. Imagine that. I laughed myself sick. The Doctor. He really had them snowed.”

“Let’s go,” Cleve said, standing up.

“He’s a terrific guy, though. The best. You just have to get to know him.”

As they left, the lieutenant was telling them to give his regards to Pell, that son of a bitch, he said. They drove back to the hotel in a cab, through the riotous night of the city.

“Well, friendo,” DeLeo said, “how does it feel in Pell’s squadron?”

“You sound happy.”

“I am.”

“Well, don’t be so happy,” Cleve said. “I knew it all along. I knew it before you did.”

“You sure hid it then.”

“Yes.”

“Why the hell didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you get rid of him?”

“I don’t know,” Cleve replied. “It’s too late now, anyway. It’s gone too far, and I let it. You can’t just turn that over to somebody else.”

“Why not? That’s what I want to know.”

“It’s mine to finish,” Cleve said.

They stopped at the bar for one last drink before going to their rooms. The bar girl appeared noiselessly. She was pretty, with a bright complexion. Her smile seemed something from earlier, sunny hours.

“Two Scotches with a little water,” Cleve said.

She brought the drinks and turned the record player on. It was a type that took only one disc at a time, and she stood beside it and put records on for them, one by one. Soft, unidentifiable music filled the room.

While they sat there drinking in silence, a tall, exotic-looking girl came in. She was wearing the cotton wraparound that the hotel supplied for going to the baths, and slippers. She sat down. After a while, she started a listless conversation with the bar girl, in Japanese. Her head was down as she talked, and she looked at nothing but the polished wood surface of the bar. Suddenly she began to cry. It did not appear to be in reaction to anything that had been said, and as she sobbed, Cleve felt discomfort. It seemed he was obliged to say something.

“Don’t cry,” he said a little awkwardly. “What’s wrong?”

She did not lift her gaze.

“Can I be any help?”

She shook her head.

“What’s the trouble?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

There was a long, awkward silence. Cleve did not make a further advance. He sat watching her.

“My man is going,” she said at last. “He’s leaving Japan. He’s taking the train tomorrow morning early, to sail for the States.”

Cleve did not say anything.

“This is the last night we’re together. It’s not easy to know that. It’s not easy to say goodbye.”

“I guess not.”

“He is going to try to come back right away,” she said. “He thinks he can do it. There is some way he thinks he can arrange it. He says that, but he won’t be back. I know. After tomorrow morning, I don’t see him again.”

“Maybe you will. How long has he been stationed here?”

“Three years. Three years, and I’ve known him almost since the beginning, when he first came. Now he’s leaving. Do you know what that’s like?”

“I suppose so.”

She did not say anything for perhaps a full minute.

“How will it be when he’s gone?” she said. “I think of that. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Haven’t you got a home?”

“Home!” she laughed thinly.

“Don’t you have one?”

“Home? Yes, I have one. Do you know what it’s like? It’s an icebox. My mother and father wouldn’t speak to me. What would I do there? There’s nobody that cares anything about me now.”

“Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No. Not now.”

“Not even a dog?” Cleve asked. He meant it as a joke.

“I’ll never go back,” she said.

Cleve did not answer.

“I think I’ll go down south to one of the air bases and get a job there. Do you know anything about that?” She was suddenly interested and intense. “They have a lot of jobs at the airfields, don’t they?”

“I guess so. It depends on what kind of a job you want.”

“I think I’ll be a secretary. They make a good salary.”

“Can you type?”

“No.”

“You probably won’t get a job as a secretary then.”

“Oh, no? Well, I will.” She was proud. “What do they expect me to do? Be a maid and scrub floors? I’ve been married almost for three years.”

She did not say much after that. She began combing her hair. She asked for a glass of water. A few minutes later, a big, handsome young man came in, also in slippers and a robe which was too small for him. Its sleeves hit between his elbow and wrist. He sat down beside her. They talked quietly to each other, head to head. Cleve had become an intruder. They danced briefly to the music and then moved across the room to sit together on one of the couches. She leaned her head on his shoulder. The bar girl—he called her Mary—brought them drinks, but they left without touching them. There was only the music then, filling the empty room.