James Salter - Light Years

“What are the children doing, Alma?” she asks. The dog is leaping about at her feet. “Hello, Hadji. Be quiet.”

Drawing pictures upstairs, the Jamaica woman says. She has read to them; she has taken them on a walk.

“He is some dog,” she says. “A fine dog.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

“Oh, he like to bark.”

Her daughters are coming down the stairs. Mama, they cry.

“I brought something for you,” she says, kneeling in her coat.

“What is it?” they say. “Your face is so cold.”

“Yours is warm. What have you been doing?”

“We’re making something,” the younger says. “What did you bring?”

She names a French biscuit they love, LU’s.

“Oh, good!”

“What are you making?”

“We’re making an Egyptian temple,” Franca says. “Come and see.”

“But we have no more gold,” her sister cries. They call her Danny. Her name is Diane.

“Can you bring it down?” Nedra asks them. “Bring it to the kitchen. I’m going to have some tea.”

“BRUCE ETTINGER IS BEAUTIFUL,” Nedra whispered.

“Which one is he?”

“He’s there in the corner. He’s very tall.”

Viri looked over.

“You think he’s good-looking?”

“Wait till he smiles.”

The rooms were crowded. There were people they knew, people they might have known. Beautiful women, audacious clothes.

“He has a smile like a gangster,” Nedra said.

Eve was across the room in a thin, burgundy dress that showed the faint outline of her stomach. She was pale, elegant, slutty. Her eyes were bad; she could hardly see who she was talking to. She wore contact lenses, but not at a party. The man she was facing was shorter than she was. Behind them was a painting that seemed to be of a primitive jungle: blue, violet, sea-green.

“It matches your shirt,” Nedra said.

“Even Bruce Ettinger doesn’t have a shirt like this.”

“Oh, you have the best shirt. You have absolutely the best shirt.”

“I think so.”

“But he has the best smile.”

“I’ll get you something to drink,” he offered.

“Nothing too strong.”

She made her way slowly across the room, her face less animated than other women’s faces. She passed behind people, around them, nodded, smiled. She was that woman the first glimpse of whom changes everything.

“Saul Bellow is here,” Eve told her.

“Where? What does he look like?”

“He was in the hallway just a minute ago.”

They could not find him.

“I don’t think I’ve read anything he’s written.”

“Arthur Kopit is here,” Eve said.

“Well, he can’t even write.”

“He’s very funny.”

“Bruce Ettinger is here,” Nedra said.

“Who?”

“He’s a man who doesn’t have very nice shirts.”

“Shirts. Have you seen the shirts Arnaud had made?”

“Viri sent him.”

“Did he?”

“Are they nice?”

“He even sleeps in them.”

Arnaud was coming toward them at that moment, warm, unperturbed, his shoulders flecked with what looked like talcum powder. In each hand was a glass.

“Hello, Nedra,” he said. He leaned to kiss her. “Here you are, darling,” he said to Eve. “Where’s Viri?”

“He’s here.”

“Where?”

“You’ll recognize him,” Nedra said. “He’s wearing the exact same shirt.”

“Ah, you’re jealous.”

“Of course not,” Nedra said. “I think you deserve to have beautiful things…”

“You know, I’ve always adored you.”

“I mean, after all, you already have us.” She smiled at him, knowing, direct, her white teeth showing.

“You’re right,” he said. “Here’s Viri.”

“They had no Cinzano. I got you a sweet vermouth—” he didn’t finish; Arnaud was embracing him. “Wait, wait, you’re spilling my drink! You’re going to wrinkle my shirt!” he cried.

“You know, you’re strong,” he said when he was released.

“He’s strong as a bull,” Eve said.

Arnaud was strong in the manner of men who surprise you—math teachers, dentists. He was past his real strength, thirty-four, a pot-bellied figure already dark with cigar smoke. He was vague, cunning, clumsy. He could do fantastic tricks with cards.

“I used to wrestle,” he said. “I fought some big men…”

“Where, in college?”

“… some of them eight feet tall. The only trouble with it is that everyone smells so bad.”

He was drinking. He smiled when he drank; it didn’t affect him. It made him another man, a man who could not be offended, who swam in the warmth of life. Around him were women in gold dresses, women who once were models. They were the caryatids of a certain fashionable layer of New York. Arnaud, with his gray complexion, the dandruff on his collar, was their favorite. He was fond, irreverent, he loved to tell tales.

“You’re coming to the film?” the host asked them.

“Is there going to be a film?” Nedra said.

“In a couple of hours,” deBeque said. “It’s a film we’re distributing; it hasn’t been shown.”

“Do you know Eve Caunt?” Viri offered.

“Eve? Of course I know Eve. Everyone knows Eve.” His eyes were as pale as a glass of water. His stare was scalding.

“I don’t know half the people here,” he confessed to Viri. “Well, the women; I know all the women.” He lowered his voice. “There are some fantastic women here, believe me.”

He took Viri by the arm and led him off. “I want to talk to you,” he explained. “Wait, here’s someone you should meet.” He reached for a bare arm. “This is Faye Massey.”

The bad complexion of a girl of good family. A low-cut dress on which the watery stare lingered. “You’re looking very well, Faye,” he said.

“Is the film as bad as I hear?”

“Bad? It’s a ravishing film.”

“That’s not what I hear,” she said.

“Faye is a very interesting girl,” deBeque said, glancing down again into her dress. “A lot of people say so.”

“Stop it,” she said.

“I think this evening belongs to the women,” deBeque decided.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re all so good-looking.”

Beyond them Viri could see a girl sitting on the edge of a couch.

“Why are you always talking in the plural?”

“It’s natural for a man.”

“What’s natural and what’s not natural?” she asked. “We’re so far from being natural… that’s the whole trouble.”

Viri was waiting to excuse himself. “Do you think of yourself as natural?” she asked him.

“We all do, don’t we?” he said. “More or less.”

“You can think anything you like,” she said. “Just name me one.”

“Do you know Arnaud Roth?”

“Who?” Suddenly she smiled, a warm, unexpected smile. “Arnaud. You’re right. I love him,” she said. “I’ve known him for years.”

In the woman who overwhelms us there must be nothing familiar. Faye was telling a story about Arnaud buying an airplane; it wouldn’t fly, she said, wasn’t that typical? It was parked near a pond. The girl on the couch had risen and was talking to someone. Viri tried not to stare. He was helpless at gatherings like this where the conversation was rapid and cynical, the encounters remote as at dancing class. He found refuge, usually, with someone grotesque, out of competition. He resisted handsome faces, he had learned not to look at them, but she was that unknown creature to whom he was dazedly vulnerable, slim, with full breasts as if she were burdened by them. Even her thumbs were bony.

He could not keep sight of her. He could not, even for a moment, imagine her life. If she had turned to him, he would have been speechless or worse, saying inane things he instantly regretted, illustrating for her a certain kind of pathetic, ordinary man fit only to be what he was: a commuter, the head of a family. But that’s not what I am, he wanted to say, that’s not what I am at all. Anyway, she was gone. She was someone’s girl friend, obviously; a girl like that was never alone.