James Salter - Light Years

She thought more than once of the woman Kandinsky had left behind. There are stories that win by their brevity. She had written the name on her calendar, above where the pages are turned: Gabriele Munter.

HE EARNED MONEY, HE WAS LIKED by his clients, he could draw beautifully. Ruskin said a true architect must first be a sculptor or painter. He was nearly that, and so absent-minded, so absorbed in work, that he once poured birdseed into his tea by mistake. He was talkative, witty; his handwriting was like print.

They went to dinner with Michael Warner and his friend. Nedra was their favorite, they adored her.

“Your daughter is so beautiful.”

“I like her,” Nedra admitted. “I find her a good friend.”

“She’s so inviolable. What will she do?” Michael asked.

“I want her to travel,” Nedra said.

“But she’ll go to school?”

“Oh, yes. Sometimes, though, I think the only real education comes from a single person. It’s like being born—you receive everything from one perfect source.”

“Well, she has that in you, doesn’t she?” Michael said.

“Nedra, that’s a very dangerous notion, really,” Viri protested.

“A person whose life is so exceptional that it nourishes the life around it,” she went on.

“Theoretically that might be possible,” Viri said, “but a single relationship, basing everything on that, could be very dangerous. I mean, there is the chance of being imprinted with the ideas of a very strong individual, and even though they might be interesting ideas, they could be absolutely wrong for someone like Franca.”

“Marina traveled for three years with Darin Henze when he was touring all over the world. It was a fantastic experience.”

“Darin Henze?”

“The dancer.”

“What do you mean by ‘traveled’?”

“She was his mistress, of course. She was interested in his work. But it really doesn’t matter what he did, he could have been an anthropologist. Specific knowledge is not education. What I mean by education,” Nedra said, “is learning how to live and on what level. And you must learn that or everything else is useless.”

Night in the city. They were at the bar of El Faro, packed among people waiting for a table. The noise of a crowded restaurant beat around them. In the back they were dragging in crates of food while customers wreathed in tobacco smoke shouted over drinks.

“You never know what’s going to happen to people,” Michael was saying. “I have a friend,” he said, “she’s very funny, very generous. She could have been an actress.”

“Morgan,” Bill said.

“You must meet her sometime.”

Just then they were given a table. The waiter brought the menus.

“We’re having the paella, aren’t we?” Michael asked them. “Yes.” He ordered. “She lives on Fifth Avenue, just across from the Metropolitan. She got the apartment in their divorce. It’s a fabulous apartment…”

In the small room, in darkness to which one’s eyes must become accustomed, where even a face being searched for can be missed a few tables away, Viri suddenly saw someone. His heart staggered. It was Kaya Doutreau.

“One night she was coming home from the ballet…”

He was frightened; he was afraid she would see him. His wife was stunning, the company polished, and yet he was ashamed of his existence.

“… Swan Lake. Now say what you like, but there is my all-time favorite.”

“So beautiful,” Bill said.

“When she opened the door to the apartment she found her dog lying there…”

He did not hear, he was aware only of the clatter of utensils, of the sounds that underlay everything, as if listening to the mechanism which moved it all. It seemed terrible that he should be so stricken by her presence, by simple characteristics of which she was completely unaware—her ease, the way in which she sat, the weight of her breasts within the pale, ribbed shirt.

“Well, they don’t know. They think someone pushed poison under the door. It was just awful. She didn’t know what was wrong. She took him downstairs in her arms, he died in the taxi.”

“Viri, are you feeling well?” Nedra asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.” He smiled briefly. He had forgotten how to eat, it seemed, as if it were a ceremony he had only memorized. His attention was directed toward the plate. He tried not to see beyond the table.

“I mean, here is the most interesting, warm person imaginable. She would never hurt anyone. An apartment filled with books. People are insane.”

“It’s an awful story,” Nedra said.

“I hope I didn’t upset you.”

“It must be the season,” Bill said. “February is like that. The only time in my life I’ve really been sick was in February. I was in the hospital for six weeks. On the death list for two. This is marvelous paella.”

“What was wrong?”

“Oh, I had a bad infection. My family even bought a coffin for me. It wasn’t even big enough. They didn’t want to spend the money. They were going to bend my knees.” He laughed.

“Viri, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Oh, yes. Yes.”

Throughout dinner he had glimpses of her. He could not evade them. She was alive; she was well. Suddenly she stood up. He felt a moment of utter panic, of physical fear. It was only that they were leaving. When she passed, making her way through the tables, he put his hand to his brow to conceal his face.

They drove home in a night that was cold and immensely clear. The blocks of apartments, great darkened hives, floated above them. In the distance the bridge was a line of light.

Across the river the road became empty. The moon was above it, the entire sky white. The car was filled with the faint aroma of tobacco, of perfume, like the compartment of a train. If one were standing in the darkness watching, they passed in an instant, the brilliant headlights pouring before them, a moment’s glimpse of them, no more. In the cold the sound vanishes, then even the distant red of tail lights is gone. Silence. Overhead perhaps the faint noise, brushing the stars, of a plane.

That same night Arnaud was near the Chelsea in the studio of a friend. When he left it was after midnight. He walked east. They had talked for hours, the kind of evening he liked best, intimate, rich talk that flows unending and of which one is never exhausted. He was a Dickensian man; he ate, he drank, he held up the tip of his little finger to show how big someone’s talent was, he swam in the teeming city. His overcoat collar was up. The sidewalks were empty, the stores dark behind their shutters of steel.

The traffic came up the avenue in isolated waves. The headlights of the cars rose and fell in ominous silence over the worn macadam. He looked for a taxi, but they drove with their signs reading OFF DUTY at this hour. The corner with its four bleak prospects was cold. He walked up the block. A cafeteria, the last lighted window, was closing. A wave of cars went by, most of them battered, driven by lone men, cars of the working class, every window up.

Around the corner, moving slowly, a motorcycle came. The rider was in black, plexiglass covered his face. A cab went by, Arnaud waved, it would not stop.

The cyclist had pulled to the curb a little way ahead, the engine was idling, he was looking down at his wheels. He had no face, only the curved, gleaming surface. Arnaud moved a few steps out in the street. He could see the lights of midtown, the great buildings. The cyclist had dismounted and was trying the doors of walk-ups, wrenching at the knobs. As he went from one to another he looked into empty stores, his hands pressed flat against the glass. Arnaud began to walk.