James Salter - Dusk and Other Stories

“Are you a lawyer?”

“I run the office,” Cramner said. “You married? Is your wife here?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She couldn’t come,” Reemstma said.

His wife had met him when he was thirty. Why would she want to go, she had asked? In a way he was glad she hadn’t. She knew no one and given the chance she would often turn the conversation to religion. There would be two weird people instead of one. Of course, he did not really think of himself as weird, it was only in their eyes. Perhaps not even. He was being greeted, talked to. The women, especially, unaware of established judgments, were friendly. He found himself talking to the lively wife of a classmate he vaguely remembered, R. C. Walker, a lean man with a somewhat sardonic smile.

“You’re a what?” she said in astonishment. “A painter? You mean an artist?” She had thick, naturally curly blond hair and a pleasant softness to her cheeks. Her chin had a slight double fold. “I think that’s fabulous!” She called to a friend, “Nita, you have to meet someone. It’s Ed, isn’t it?”

“Ed Reemstma.”

“He’s a painter,” Kit Walker said exuberantly.

Reemstma was dazed by the attention. When they learned that he actually sold things they were even more interested.

“Do you make a living at it?”

“Well, I have a waiting list for paintings.”

“You do!”

He began to describe the color and light—he painted landscapes—of the countryside near the Delaware, the shape of the earth, its furrows, hedges, how things changed slightly from year to year, little things, how hard it was to do the sky. He described the beautiful, glinting green of a hummingbird his wife had brought to him. She had found it in the garage; it was dead, of course.

“Dead?” Nita said.

“The eyes were closed. Except for that, you wouldn’t have known.”

He had an almost wistful smile. Nita nodded warily.

Later there was dancing. Reemstma would have liked to go on talking but people drifted away. Tables broke up after dinner into groups of friends.

“Bye for now,” Kit Walker said.

He saw her talking to Hilmo, who gave him a brief wave. He wandered about for a while. They were playing “Army Blue.” A wave of sadness went through him, memories of parades, the end of dances, Christmas leave. Four years of it, the classes ahead leaving in pride and excitement, unknown faces filling in behind. It was finished, but no one turns his back on it completely. The life he might have led came back to him, almost whole.

Outside barracks, late at night, five or six figures were sitting on the steps, drinking and talking. Reemstma sat near them, not speaking, not wanting to break the spell. He was one of them again, as he had been on frantic evenings when they cleaned rifles and polished their shoes to a mirrorlike gleam. The haze of June lay over the great expanse that separated him from those endless tasks of years before. How deeply he had immersed himself in them. How ardently he had believed in the image of a soldier. He had known it as a faith, he had clung to it dumbly, as a cripple clings to God.

In the morning Hilmo trotted down the stairs, tennis shorts tight over his muscled legs, and disappeared through one of the sally ports for an early match. His insouciance was unchanged. They said that before the Penn State game when he had been first string the coach had pumped them up telling them they were not only going to beat Penn State, they were going to beat them by two touchdowns, then turning to Hilmo, “And who’s going to be the greatest back in the East?”

“I don’t know. Who?” Hilmo said.

Empty morning. As usual, except for sports there was little to do. Shortly after ten they formed up to march to a memorial ceremony at the corner of the Plain. Before a statue of Sylvanus Thayer they stood at attention, one tall maverick head in a cowboy hat, while the choir sang “The Corps.” The thrilling voices, the solemn, staggered parts rose through the air. Behind Reemstma someone said quietly, “You know, the best friends I ever had or ever will have are the ones I had here.”

Afterward they walked out to take their places on the parade ground. The superintendent, a trim lieutenant general, stood not far off with his staff and the oldest living graduate, who was in a wheelchair.

“Look at him,” Dunning said. He was referring to the superintendent. “That’s what’s wrong with this place. That’s what’s wrong with the whole army.”

Faint waves of band music beat toward them. It was warm. There were bees in the grass. The first miniature formations of cadets, bayonets glinting, began to move into view. Above, against the sky, a lone distinguished building, and that a replica, stood. The chapel. Many Sundays with their manly sermons on virtue and the glittering choir marching toward the door with graceful, halting tread, gold stripes shining on the sleeves of the leaders. Down below, partly hidden, the gymnasium, the ominous dark patina on everything within, the floor, the walls, the heavy boxing gloves. There were champions enshrined there who would never be unseated, maxims that would never be erased.

At the picnic it was announced that of the 550 original members, 529 were living and 176 present so far.

“Not counting Klingbeil!”

“Okay, one seventy-six plus a possible Klingbeil.”

“An im possible Klingbeil,” someone called out.

There was a brief cheer.

The tables were in a large, screened pavilion on the edge of the lake. Reemstma looked for Kit Walker. He’d caught sight of her earlier, in the food line, but now he could not find her. She seemed to have gone. The class president was speaking.

“We got a card from Joe Waltsak. Joe retired this year. He wanted to come but his daughter’s graduating from high school. I don’t know if you know this story. Joe lives in Palo Alto and there was a bill before the California legislature to change the name of any street an All-American lived on and name it after him. Joe lives on Parkwood Drive. They were going to call it Waltsak Drive, but the bill didn’t pass, so instead they’re calling him Joe Parkwood.”

The elections were next. The class treasurer and the vice president were not running again. There would have to be nominations for these.

“Let’s have somebody different for a change,” someone commented in a low voice.

“Somebody we know,” Dunning said.

“You want to run, Mike?”

“Yeah, sure, that would be great,” Dunning muttered.

“How about Reemstma?” It was Cramner, the blossoms of alcoholism ablaze in his face. The edges of his teeth were uneven as he smiled, as if eaten away.

“Good idea.”

“Who, me?” Reemstma said. He was flustered. He looked around in surprise.

“How about it, Eddie?”

He could not tell if they were serious. It was all offhanded—the way Grant had been picked from obscurity one evening when he was sitting on a bench in St. Louis. He murmured something in protest. His face had become red.

Other names were being proposed. Reemstma felt his heart pounding. He had stopped saying, no, no, and sat there, mouth open a bit in bewilderment. He dared not look around him. He shook his head slightly, no. A hand went up, “I move that the nominations be closed.”

Reemstma felt foolish. They had tricked him again. He felt as if he had been betrayed. No one was paying any attention to him. They were counting raised hands.

“Come on, you can’t vote,” someone said to his wife.

“I can’t?” she said.

Wandering around as the afternoon ended Reemstma finally caught sight of Kit Walker. She acted a little strange. She didn’t seem to recognize him at first. There was a grass stain on the back of her white skirt.