James Salter - Light Years

VIRI WAS IN ROME, HAVING COME to it slowly, as a scrap of paper comes down to the street. He was living in the Inghilterra. His clothes were pressed, the maids brought his laundry, his shirts folded neatly on top. The maids were named Angela, Luciana, names of fabulous heroines. The room was small, the bathroom large, a strip of heavy darkened brass at its threshold. There was a narrow tub, a white tile floor, a red dot for hot water, blue for cold. In the hallway Angela called to Luciana. Doors were slamming. A porter sighed.

He had unpacked his things. His shoes were arranged beneath the bed, there were photos on the glass-topped table that served as a desk, the glass amplified the ticking of his watch where it lay. He was in exile in this country of waiters and lame serving girls. He had no real work. He pretended to be visiting, seeing at last all the things he had neglected. He was reading a life of Montaigne. Once or twice he talked of writing a book.

Dawn. The traffic had started. Already the day was filled with a flat, Italian light like the doors of a theater opened in the morning. He was alone. With the solemnity of a peasant, he broke the five-part rolls, faintly pale and dusted on the bottom, that came with breakfast. In silence he spread the soft curls of butter and drank the tea. The distant city was snarling with cars and the faint insistent tapping of workmen’s hammers on stone.

In the narrow, neglected streets that he liked to walk along, he looked in antique shop windows filled with reflections of passers-by. In the cool of the interiors, among huge chairs, the dealers sat talking as the morning passed, gesturing with their hands occasionally, unaware of his curious glance.

He was forty-seven. His hair was thin as he walked in the Roman sunlight. He was lost in the cities of Europe, pigeons huddled in every niche, asleep on the knees of saints. He was a man who waited for the Tribune to be delivered to the kiosks, who ate by himself. When he saw his face in windows, struck by light, he was shocked. It was the face of ancient politicians, of pensioners, the wrinkles looked black as ink. Don’t despise me for being old, he begged.

He had lunch in a restaurant, sitting near the window. Cold noon, a cold light. Outside the trees had already lost their leaves. It was in the Villa Borghese; the air of the great park was damp and still, the sound of things far off came through it like distant icefalls. Before him was a piece of paper on which he was writing, during the long intervals between courses, a list of those things which could even for a short while, save him, that is to say, pleasures which remained. Wood fires , he had written, The London Times, dinners with friends…

Time had spoiled for Viri. It reeked in his pockets. He had projects, somewhat vague, appointments, but nothing to do. His eye would not fix on things, it slipped off them like a dying insect. He was staggering, swaying between those times when he had no strength at all, no reason, no urge to struggle, when he felt, ah, if only he could run to death like a fanatic, a believer, delirious, dazed, on those quickened feet that run to love—and then, in the quiet of the early afternoon, seated somewhere, opening the newspaper, he was completely different.

He stood in the bathroom amid the white chair, the sill of gray marble, the huge frosted windows which seemed to intensify the light. The inward curve of the bidet’s edge, the smoothness of it gave him for a moment a sensation of deepest longing. The curve complemented the portion of the body meant to fit against it, and he weakened as one does at the sight of an empty garment or the underclothes, fresh and minimal, of a loved woman, tossed aside.

He could not see himself clearly, that was the thing. He knew he had talent, intelligence, that he was not going to perish like a mollusk washed up on shore. All the past, he told himself, all that had been so difficult, that he had struggled with like a traveler with too many bags—idealism, loyalty, all your virtues, your decency—they will be needed when you are old, they will preserve you, keep you alive; that is, they will interest someone. And then, a day later, the disease would strike; it was something he did not recognize or understand. Suddenly he had never been so nervous, frightened, depressed. He had a flash of realizing what a breakdown was: the act of life going out of control. His chest ached, his legs were cold, he kept swallowing, his mind raced foolishly. He looked out on the back courts in the winter afternoon, courts with glassed-in balconies and landings. His only contact with the world, beyond the faint sound of traffic, the voices in the hallway that never ceased, was the black telephone, a frightening instrument shrill as a nightmare and over which abrupt voices came, voices whose mood he could hardly guess. He had no strength, no desire to go out. The thought of people terrified him. He did not want to speak Italian; it was not his language, not his sensibility. He wanted to see his children again, only once, before the end.

The next day, in the sunshine, everything was better. The sky was mild, people were smiling and friendly. It was as if they could see he was an invalid, the survivor of a wreck.

He went to the office of two architects with whom he had corresponded. They were young and serious. One of them he had met in New York. The reception room was calm and luxurious, the luxury that is formed of infallible choices. It spoke of order, understanding, he felt immediately at home. The fever had passed.

The secretary looked up. “Buon giorno.”

“I’m Mr. Berland.”

“Good morning, Mr. Berland.” Her face was turned upwards, a small, intelligent face, short hair, black, like the wing of a bird. “We were expecting you,” she said. “Mr. Cagli has someone in his office; it will just be a few minutes.”

“That’s all right.”

They looked at one another. It seemed she nodded slightly, in the way of the East. “Have you been in Rome long?” she asked.

“Several weeks.”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s strange; I think I’m not quite accustomed to it yet.”

“Do you speak Italian?”

“Well, I’ve started.”

“Bene ,” she said simply.

“I’m a disgrace to it.”

“No, I don’t think so. Trova quale più facile, parlare o capire?”

“Capire.”

“Sì ,” she agreed.

She smiled. Her mouth was small as a child’s. Her name was Lia Cavalieri. She was thirty-three. She lived near the Protestant Cemetery. Had he been there? she asked. He was slow in replying. He recognized her. “No,” he murmured.

“Keats is buried there.”

“Is he? Here in Rome?”

“Then you haven’t seen his grave? It’s very moving. It’s off in a corner by itself. It has no name on it, you know.”

“No name?”

“A beautiful inscription, but no name.”

She was about to say, “I’ll take you there if you like,” but restrained herself. She said it on his second visit.

They walked toward the grave on a soft, winter day. The ground was dry underfoot. Far off, near a tree, he could see the two stones. Afterwards they went to lunch.

Like Montaigne whose life he was reading, he had met an Italian woman during a journey there and fallen in love. All that was missing was the baths of Lucca. Montaigne had been forty-eight. A freshet thought dead had burst forth.

LIA WAS FROM THE NORTH. HER father had been born in Genoa with its steep necropolis; her mother, more romantically, in Nice. She told him all this. He loved the details of her life, they electrified him. He had entered the period when everything in his own seemed to be repetition, occurring for the second or third time, a performance for which he knew every possibility. She made that forgotten.