James Salter - Dusk and Other Stories

“Not exactly.”

“It’s the most disgusting thing. I can’t believe it.”

“Of course, she didn’t write them,” Ned said.

“She kept them, that’s worse.”

He had them all in his hand. If you came to Europe it would be great , one said. We would travel and you could help me. We could work together. I know you would be very good at it. The girls we would be looking for are between 13 and 18 years old. Also guys, a little older .

“You have to go in there and tell her to leave,” Gloria said. “Tell her she has to be out of the house.”

He looked at the letters again. Some of them are very well developed, you would be surprised. I think you know the type we are looking for .

“I don’t know… Maybe these are just a silly kind of love letter.”

“Ned, I’m not kidding,” she said.

Of course, there would be a lot of fucking, too .

“I’m going to call the FBI.”

“No,” he said, “that’s all right. Here, take these. I’ll go and tell her.”

Truus was in the kitchen. As he spoke to her he tried to see in her gray eyes the boldness he had overlooked. There was only confusion. She did not seem to understand him. She went in to Gloria. She was nearly in tears. “But why?” she wanted to know.

“I found the letters” was all Gloria would say.

“What letters?”

They were lying on the desk. Gloria picked them up.

“They’re mine,” Truus protested. “They belong to me.”

“I’ve called the FBI,” Gloria said.

“Please, give them to me.”

“I’m not giving them to you. I’m burning them.”

“Please let me have them,” Truus insisted.

She was confused and weeping. She passed Ned on her way upstairs. He thought he could see the attributes praised in the letters, the Saudi letters, as he later called them.

In her room Truus sat on the bed. She did not know what she would do or where she would go. She began to pack her clothes, hoping that somehow things might change if she took long enough. She moved very slowly.

“Where are you going?” Christopher said from the door.

She did not answer him. He asked again, coming into the room.

“I’m going to see my mother,” she said.

“She’s downstairs.”

Truus shook her head.

“Yes, she is,” he insisted.

“Go away. Don’t bother me right now,” she said in a flat voice.

He began kicking at the door with his foot. After a while he sat on the couch. Then he disappeared.

When the taxi came for her, he was hiding behind some trees out near the driveway. She had been looking for him at the end.

“Oh, there you are,” she said. She put down her suitcases and kneeled to say good-bye. He stood with his head bent. From a distance it seemed a kind of submission.

“Look at that,” Gloria said. She was in the house. Ned was standing behind her. “They always love sluts,” she said.

Christopher stood beside the road after the taxi had gone. That night he came down to his mother’s room. He was crying and she turned on the light.

“What is it?” she said. She tried to comfort him. “Don’t cry, darling. Did something frighten you? Here, mummy will take you upstairs. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

“Good night, Christopher,” Ned said.

“Say good night, darling.”

She went up, climbed into bed with him, and finally got him to sleep, but he kicked so much she came back down, holding her robe closed with her hand. Ned had left her a note: his back was giving him trouble, he had gone home.

Truus’ place was taken by a Colombian woman who was very religious and did not drink or smoke. Then by a black girl named Mattie who did both but stayed for a long time.

One night in bed, reading Town and Country , Gloria came across something that stunned her. It was a photograph of a garden party in Brussels, only a small photograph but she recognized a face, she was absolutely certain of it, and with a terrible sinking feeling she moved the page closer to the light. She was without makeup and at her most vulnerable. She examined the picture closely. She was no longer talking to Ned, she hadn’t seen him for over a year, but she was tempted to call him anyway. Then, reading the caption and looking at the picture again she decided she was mistaken. It wasn’t Truus, just someone who resembled her, and anyway what did it matter? It all seemed long ago. Christopher had forgotten about her. He was in school now, doing very well, on the soccer team already, playing with eight- and nine-year-olds, bigger than them and bright. He would be six three. He would have girlfriends hanging all over him, girls whose families had houses in the Bahamas. He would devastate them.

Still, lying there with the magazine on her knees she could not help thinking of it. What had actually become of Truus? She looked at the photograph again. Had she found her way to Amsterdam or Paris and, making dirty movies or whatever, met someone? It was unbearable to think of her being invited to places, slimmer now, sitting in the brilliance of crowded restaurants with her complexion still bad beneath the makeup and the morals of a housefly. The idea that there is an unearned happiness, that certain people find their way to it, nearly made her sick. Like the girl Ned was marrying who used to work in the catering shop just off the highway near Bridgehampton. That had been a blow, that had been more than a blow. But then nothing, almost nothing, really made sense anymore.

At ten-thirty then, she arrived. They were waiting. The door at the far end opened and somewhat shyly, trying to see in the dimness if anyone was there, her long hair hanging like a schoolgirl’s, everyone watching, she slowly, almost reluctantly approached…. Behind her came the young woman who was her secretary.

Great faces cannot be explained. She had a long nose, a mouth, a curious distance between the eyes. It was a face open and unknowable. It pronounced itself somehow indifferent to life.

When he was introduced to her, Guivi, the leading man, smiled. His teeth were large and there existed a space between the incisors. On his chin was a mole. These defects at that time were revered. He’d had only four or five roles, his discovery was sudden, the shot in which he appeared for the first time was often called one of the most memorable introductions in all of film. It was true. There is sometimes one image which outlasts everything, even the names are forgotten. He held her chair. She acknowledged the introductions faintly, one could hardly hear her voice.

The director leaned forward and began to talk. They would rehearse for ten days in this bare hall. Anna’s face was buried in her collar as he spoke. The director was new to her. He was a small man known as a hard worker. The saliva flew from his mouth as he talked. She had never rehearsed a film before, not for Fellini, not for Chabrol. She was trying to listen to what he said. She felt strongly the presence of others around her. Guivi sat calmly, smoking a cigarette. She glanced at him unseen.

They began to read, sitting at the table together. Make no attempt to find meaning, Iles told them, not so soon, this was only the first step. There were no windows. There was neither day nor night. Their words seemed to rise, to vanish like smoke above them. Guivi read his lines as if laying down cards of no particular importance. Bridge was his passion. He gave it all his nights. Halfway through, he touched her shoulder lightly as he was doing an intimate part. She seemed not to notice. She was like a lizard, only her throat was beating. The next time he touched her hair. That single gesture, so natural as to be almost unintended, made her quiet, stilled her fears.