James Salter - Light Years

“Providing it isn’t too far.”

“I like to visit botanical gardens, actually. Sometimes a nice ruin. They’re all right if no one is there. You see, the thing is, I don’t drive. Claire does all the driving, and we like to go along slowly. We might go fifty miles in a day.”

“In a day!” Nedra said.

“That’s all.”

“Imagine.”

“Well, we like to stop,” he explained.

Claire was pouring coffee.

“What’s your life like in America?” Alba asked. “What do you do there?”

“Well, I have my family,” Nedra said.

“Apart from that.”

“Oh, I study things.”

“Isn’t that strange,” he said.

“What?”

“American women always seem to be studying things.” Nedra did not protest. She liked Alba, his candor, his faded hair.

“Actually, we talk frequently about America. We even read your newspapers,” he said. “I’m more or less obsessed with the idea of your country which has, after all, meant so much to the entire world. I find it very disturbing now to see what’s happening. It’s like the sun going out.”

“You think America is dying?” Viri asked.

“Darling, could we have a bit of cognac in the coffee?” Alba said. “Is there any?”

He offered the bottle she brought back. “I don’t really think nations can die,” he said. “A place and a history as vast as America cannot disappear, but it can become dark. And it seems to be slipping toward that. I mean, the utterly blind passions, the lack of moderation—these things are like a fever. Well, it’s more than that. Perhaps we’re alarmed over something we just hadn’t noticed before, something which has always existed, but I don’t think so. Do you know the history of the Spanish Civil War? I don’t mean the military aspect.”

“We’re very worried ourselves,” Viri said. “Everyone is.”

“The thing is, we depend on you so. We’re quite small now. It’s over for us.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Of course, we have our memories.”

They sat together afterwards, talking on. Alba and his wife were side by side. Her arm lay along the back of the sofa, a long, fine arm, well-shaped, white as bone. Their faces too were white, alike, Standing out against the density of shadowed books, curtains, windows of night. Their life was calm and well-arranged; there was no passion in it, at least not on the surface, but there was great good-nature, almost laziness, as in beasts that are resting.

“We have our little jokes,” Alba said, “don’t we, Claire?”

“Occasionally.”

They were man and woman. They seemed at that moment like an unimprovable photograph, the pear trees invisible in the garden, the seeping gravel of the drive, the problems with her grown daughter all were held suspended, at peace within the regency of this pair.

Viri sat stunned by the image, one with which he had so often stunned others, of conjugal life in its purest, most generous form. He was suddenly vulnerable, helpless. It seemed he knew nothing, had forgotten all. He tried to see the blemishes in their contentment, but the surface blinded him. Her fingers which bore no rings, their slim nakedness confused him, the shape of her cheeks, her knees. He became terrified, that moment of terror which cannot be confessed when one realizes one’s own life is nothing.

Nedra saw it, too, but to her it meant something else: the proof that life demanded selfishness, isolation, and that even in another country a woman utterly unknown to her could confide this so clearly, for the Albas, she was sure, insisted on a certain life and no other, and they had found it—luckily together. On Porto Bello Road, in London, she bought a beautiful Lalique crystal flask, the color of hay. She sent it to Claire as a gift.

It was summer, the blue exhaust from automobiles tinted the airless city. They had cucumber sandwiches at tea. They dined at Italian restaurants. They visited Chelsea and the Tate. In a section of New York that was deserted after five, Danny sat with her god. The streets were empty. The terrible sadness of abandoned days had fallen over everything, but this sadness did not touch them, it was their empty stage. They sat alone at a table, drawing on a paper napkin: inscriptions, an initial, a name. He drew her mouth. She drew his. He made a D that was all leaves and vines, a thicket, and within it she drew the two of them, a sexual Adam and Eve.

“You’re flattering me.”

“That’s how it feels,” she murmured.

They made their way past closed warehouses and pathetic figures slumped in doorways, hands filthy, clothes soiled. The sky was exhausted, bled by the heat. At its bottom edge the gulls sat in rows, the roofs beneath their feet white as chalk.

The room was always cool and dark. It smelled brackish, like the hold of a ship. He had built a table, he had painted the wall near the bed. She was a young girl stunned by love. They were the same age, they were nearly the same. You cannot imagine the depth of those summer days, the silence. She came to his room almost daily. He employed her with the greatest pleasure on earth.

Her parents dined in Marlow, a town an hour from London. The restaurant was crowded. The heat of the day was ebbing at last. They had a table in the corner. Beyond the windows the Thames, narrow here, was filled with pleasure boats. They read the long menu. The waitress appeared. Viri looked up at her. She was fresh-faced, even freckled, with large, blue eyes. She did not seem to notice him, she moved with a deep self-involvement, her hand a bit jerky as she carefully placed the spoons before them—she had memorized all her acts—and folded the napkins into cones before their eyes.

“Do you take our order?” Viri asked.

A long pause while she continued to work. She looked at him vacantly. “No,” she said.

She left them, the faint smile still on her face. Her legs were shapely, she wore a very brief skirt. Near the hem was a spot of whipped cream.

“Did you see that girl?” Nedra asked.

“Yes. This promises to be quite a meal.”

In the end it turned out she merely served and poured the wine. The headwaiter, a foreigner whose jaws had a dark sheen, took the order. Every table was filled. There were silent older couples, girls with outrageously painted eyes. The interval between courses was long. They drank the white wine.

“Have you noticed these people?” Viri said. “Look around. Isn’t it incredible?”

“How ugly they are?”

“But every one of them. If their noses aren’t long, their teeth are bad. If their teeth aren’t bad, they have dandruff on their collar. Can you believe they come from the same clay as the Albas? That it’s all one race?”

“I was very impressed by Alba,” Nedra said. “Did you see his hands? They were very strong.”

“It’s strange how you feel right away that some people are your friends, isn’t it?”

“Yes, very strange.”

The waitress, in slow bewilderment, was serving other tables. One could see above her stockings when she leaned forward. At last she brought the fish.

“You know, this has really been the most wonderful trip,” Nedra said. “It’s just the way I always knew it would be, I’ve loved every minute. Look at the river. Everything is perfect. And whatever we’ve seen, it’s only been a glimpse. I mean, you realize that England has so much; endless riches. I love that feeling.”

“Would you like to try and get tickets for the National Theatre tomorrow night?”

“I don’t think you can get them.”

“We can try.”

“No, I don’t think so. Anyway, it’s our last night here and I don’t want to spend it at the theater.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I just want to thank you for a wonderful trip.”