James Salter - Light Years

It was the pâté maison . “Oh!” he moaned.

“What?”

“It’s brilliant!”

“Try it with mustard,” she said.

They were having Meursault, fromages , pastries from Leonard’s.

“It’s going to be a wonderful dinner,” he said. He thought for a moment. “Perhaps we won’t have to talk.”

Two weeks later they were having Viri’s client who had bought some old brick houses and land near Croton and wanted to make them over into a compound. The original structures would be included in a larger, more elegant whole, much as ancient sculpture embedded in villa walls. His name was S. Michael Warner; he was also known as Queen Mab.

“He’s bringing Bill Hale.”

“Oh, shit,” Nedra said.

“You don’t even know him.”

“You’re right. And he couldn’t be worse than Michael, could he?”

“Nedra, he’s my client.”

“Oh, you know I adore him.”

An entire day was consecrated to preparations. She shopped for hours in her favorite stores.

By evening the house was ready. There were flowers beneath the lamps, the curtains were drawn, the fire crackled behind the Hessians’ iron knees. Nedra wore a quilted dress of dark blue and rose. Her belt was sewn with small, silver bells, her hair was drawn back, her neck bare.

Her face was cool and gleaming. Her laugh was gorgeous, it was like applause.

Michael Warner was immaculate, a man of forty-five with the ease and smile of someone who notices every mistake. He was charmed by Nedra. He recognized in her a woman who would not betray him. She would never be banal or foolish.

“This is Bill Hale.”

“Hello, Bill,” she said warmly.

A strange, winter party. Dr. Reinhart and his wife were late, but they arrived at just the right moment. They were like the last players for whom the game has waited. They seated themselves as if knowing exactly what was expected. Reinhart had wonderful manners. This wife was his third.

“You’re a doctor, of medicine?” Michael confirmed.

“Yes.” He was in research, however, he explained. A form of research. In fact, he was writing.

“Like Chekhov,” his wife said. She had a slight accent.

“Well, not exactly.”

“Chekhov was a doctor, wasn’t he?” Michael said.

“There have been a number—who have become writers, that is. Of course, I don’t mean to include myself. I’m only writing a biography.”

“Really?” Bill said. “I adore biography.”

“Who is the subject of it?” Nedra asked.

“It’s actually a… it’s a multiple biography,” Reinhart said. He accepted a drink gratefully. “Thank you. It’s the lives of children of famous men.”

“How interesting.”

“Dickens, Mozart, Karl Marx.” He sipped his drink as a patient might sip a glass of juice, an educated patient, frail, resigned. “Even their names are fascinating. Plorn, that was Dickens’ last child. Stanwix, that was the son of Melville.”

“And what becomes of them?” Nedra asked.

“Well, there isn’t a fixed pattern. But perhaps it could be there are more misfortunes than with other children, more sorrows.”

“Somerset Maugham was a doctor,” his wife said. “Also Céline.”

“Yes, my dear, that’s right,” Reinhart said.

“An awful man,” Michael said.

“Nonetheless a great writer.”

“Céline great? What do you mean by great?”

Reinhart hesitated. “I don’t know. Greatness is something which can be regarded in a number of ways,” he said. “It is, of course, the apotheosis, man raised to his highest powers, but it also can be, in a way, like insanity, a certain kind of imbalance, a flaw, in most cases a beneficial flaw, an anomaly, an accident.”

“Well, many great men are eccentric,” Viri said, “even narrow.”

“Not necessarily narrow so much as impatient, intense.”

“The thing I really would like to know is,” Nedra said, “must fame be a part of greatness?”

“Well, that is a difficult question,” Reinhart answered finally. “The answer is, possibly, no, but from a practical point of view there must be some consensus. Sooner or later it must be confirmed.”

“There’s something missing there,” Nedra said.

“Perhaps,” he admitted.

“I think Nedra means that greatness, like virtue, need not be spoken about in order to exist,” Viri suggested.

“It would be nice to believe,” Reinhart said.

It was Michael that his wife was watching. Suddenly she spoke. “You’re right,” she said abruptly. “Céline was an absolute bastard.”

Nights of conversation that has faded, that rises to the ceiling and gathers like smoke. The pleasures of the table, the well-being of those around it. Here in a house in the country, comfortable, discreet, Viri suddenly knew as he poured the wine how foolish his statement had been, how wistful. Reinhart was right: fame was not only part of greatness, it was more. It was the evidence, the only proof. All the rest was nothing, in vain. He who is famous cannot fail; he has already succeeded.

Near the fire, Ada Reinhart was telling Michael where in Germany she came from. She had lived in Berlin. They were apart from the others. The white hair of her husband, his frail hand stirring the coffee, could be seen in the far room.

“I knew a lot then,” she said.

“Did you? What do you mean?”

She did not answer immediately. She was much younger than her husband.

“Do you want me to tell you?” she said. “If I had only done what I thought I should do…”

“What you thought you should do?”

“Instead of what I did.”

“That’s true for everyone, isn’t it?”

“When I fall in love, it’s with a man’s mind, his spiritual qualities.”

“I feel exactly the same.”

“Of course, one is attracted by a body or a look…”

Nedra could see them talking by the fire. At the table, Mrs. Reinhart had said almost nothing. Now she seemed passionately engaged.

“I’m not unattractive, am I?”

“Quite the opposite,” Michael said.

“You don’t find me unattractive?”

She hardly noticed the others entering the room. She continued to talk.

“What are you persuading Mr. Warner of?” Reinhart asked lightly.

“What? Nothing, darling,” she said.

After the Reinharts had gone, Michael sat back and smiled. “Fascinating. Do you know what she said?” he asked.

“Tell us,” Bill said.

“There is something missing in her life.”

“Is there?”

Michael paused. “Do you think I’m attractive?” he imitated huskily.

“My darling!”

“Oh, yes. And more. Do you think I should have taken her seriously?” he said.

“I’d love to have seen it.”

Michael began to peel a piece of fruit, careful not to stain his fingers. The fire was dying among the ashes, cigarettes had lost their taste.

Nights of marriage, conjugal nights, the house still at last, the cushions indented where people had sat, the ashes warm. Nights that ended at two o’clock, the snow falling, the last guest gone. The dinner plates were left unwashed, the bed icy cold.

“Reinhart’s a nice man.”

“He has no pettiness,” Viri said. “I think his book will be interesting.”

“What happens to children—yes, that’s what one longs to know.”

They lay in the dark like two victims. They had nothing to give one another, they were bound by a pure, inexplicable love.

He was asleep, she could tell without looking. He slept like a child, soundlessly, deep. His thinning hair was disheveled, his hand lay extended and soft. If they had been another couple she would have been attracted to them, she would have loved them, even—they were so miserable.