James Salter - Light Years

“We are your Eskimo guides,” Arnaud said.

“What good luck.” He was putting on the coat.

“This is Nushka, my woman,” Arnaud said.

“Ah.”

“Of course you know the Eskimo custom regarding wives.”

“It is truly civilized,” Viri agreed.

“Nushka, rub noses with our friend.”

Nedra performed the act gravely, sensually.

“She is yours,” Arnaud said.

“She doesn’t speak?”

“Rarely. She who speaks does not nose,” he said, “she who nose does not speak.”

Hadji lay flat in the deepening snow, half buried: black eyes—mascaraed eyes, Danny said—tall, intelligent ears. He would not move when they called.

For dinner there arrived Jivan and, back from life with her boyfriend, Kate Marcel-Maas. Her face was sunburned, her arms lean.

“Do you know Kate?” Nedra asked.

“I don’t think so,” Arnaud said. He smiled. “Are you living in New York?”

“No, I’m just here for two weeks.”

“Oh, really? Where have you come from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Where’s that?” he murmured.

“Where’s Los Angeles?” she said.

“I think I remember. What were you doing there?”

“We have a little house there, with a garden. Most of the time I was growing lettuce.”

Jivan was in a cotton shirt open at the neck. He seemed filled with energy, almost impatience.

“Come, I want to show you something,” he told her. He led her to the kitchen where, before the fascinated eyes of Franca and Danny, he had been carving the celery into birdlike shapes.

“Where did you learn that?” Kate said.

“Do you like it?”

“Fantastic.”

“You should grow some celery,” he said. “Here, now I’m going to make a swan. Will you have some wine?”

It was retsina. He poured her a little. She tasted it. When he was close to her, he seemed slightly shorter than she was. On his finger was a ring with a dark stone.

“It’s bitter,” she complained.

“You’ll get used to it. Franca, would you like to try it?”

“Yes, I’d love some.”

“You’ll grow to like it,” he told Kate. “In the end the things that were bitter are always the best.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said.

Night had fallen. The house was illuminated as if for a ball, the lights on everywhere. Nedra was cooking. She was at her most beautiful: a slim, camel skirt, her sleeves pushed up, her wrists bare. Nearby stood a glass of wine she sometimes paused to sip.

Arnaud was talking to Viri. They were at ease amid the cushions of the largest couch. They laughed, their smiles appearing at the same time. They were like directors of a gallery seen through the clear, tinted glass of their window at the end of the day; they were like publishers, owners of shares.

Nedra brought them the St. Raphael. “What are they doing in the kitchen?” Viri asked.

“Jivan is trying to seduce her.”

“Before dinner?”

“I think he’s a little nervous,” Nedra said. “He senses danger.”

“Nedra, don’t you think—I mean, in principle—that we have a certain responsibility to her parents?”

“What are you talking about, Viri? She’s been married.”

“That’s not strictly true.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Isn’t she a little young?” Arnaud asked.

“Ah, you forget,” Nedra said.

The dinner, she announced when they were seated at the table, was Italian. Petti di pollo . Jivan poured the wine. This time Kate refused it.

“Have some,” he urged.

“What is petti di polio?” she asked.

“Pollo is chicken,” Arnaud said.

“What’s petti?”

“Breasts,” he said. “You know what they say about chicken.”

“No.”

“Every part strengthens a part.”

“I can use it,” she said.

Arnaud was vague, amusing. He told stories of Italy, of towns on the sea that had no hotels and you went along the street knocking at doors to find a room, of Sicily burning in sunlight, of Ravenna and Rome. Franca sat beside him drinking wine.

He had an ear for language. He lapsed into Italian and wove in and out of it as if they all shared the power. “In Sicily everyone has a lupara —that’s a shotgun. In the paper there was an article about a man who shot another man for making too much noise under his window. He went before the judge, he was furious at being brought there. ‘You mean to say I can’t shoot someone beneath my own window?’ he asked.”

“Is that true?” Franca asked.

“Everything is true.”

“No, really.”

“Either that,” he said, “or it comes true later. I’ll tell you another story. There was a father who gave his son a shotgun. It was very small. It was a luparetta . So the son went to school, and he met another boy with a wrist watch. It was a beautiful wrist watch, he fell in love with it. He wanted it, so he traded; he gave his luparetta to the boy and he got the watch.”

“Is this a true story?”

“Who knows? When the son came home that afternoon, his father said, ‘Where’s your luparetta—Dov’è la luparetta?’ And the son said, ‘I traded it.’ ‘You traded it!’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I traded it for this watch.’ ‘Fantástico ,’ the father said, ‘ meraviglioso , you traded it for a watch. Now when someone calls your sister a whore, what are you going to do, tell them the time?’ ”

They ate like a family, noisy, devoted, they passed plates freely. Kate was drinking from Arnaud’s glass. Later, in the other room, she played the guitar. The table was left uncleared. Nedra lit the fire which had been carefully laid, dry pieces of kindling, paper beneath. It soared into life, blooming like those beneath martyrs. She sat beside Jivan. They were drinking pear brandy. Kate, the guitar across her lap, was singing for Arnaud in a faint, high voice.

“You’d better get her out of here,” Nedra whispered.

“Don’t worry.”

“He’s going to get her into bed, I can see it.”

“She’s had a little too much to drink,” Jivan said.

“Yes, but nothing that you gave her.”

“She told me she didn’t like the wine.”

“Why are you whispering, Nedra?” Viri called.

“It’s fun,” she said, smiling.

She poured more brandy. She was like a silver Christmas helix, a foil decoration turning slowly, the dazzle descending only to reappear time after time.

“You play beautifully,” she said.

She excused herself to say good night to the children. Viri went up afterwards. He kissed his daughters. Sitting on their beds, he felt the warmth of their rooms, the chambers in which they slept and dreamed, were secure. Their books, their possessions filled him with a sense of accomplishment and peace. On the stairs he heard voices, the sensual chords from below. Kate was sitting near Arnaud. Her teeth had a bluish cast to them, the blue that flourishes on pure white, in diamonds. He had a moment of concern for her—no, not concern, he realized, but covetousness. He was like a sick man as he thought of her, stricken and unhappy. The pain he felt was a phantom pain, like that in the toes of a missing leg. It was only desire, which he hoped would leave him, which he prayed would not.

Nedra was talking to her. “I wish I’d had your courage when I was your age,” she said.

Kate shrugged. “I don’t really like California.”

“At least you’ve lived there. You’re seeing what it is.”

“My mother doesn’t like the idea. She’d like us to be married.”

“Yours is a better way,” Nedra said.

She poured them each a little more brandy. Jivan and Viri were listening to the music; Arnaud sat sprawled near the fire, his head back, his eyes closed. The snow was still falling, even the roads had disappeared.