James Salter - Last Night

I had met him at a party and only managed to say, — I read your beautiful poem. He was unexpectedly open in a way that impressed me and straightforward in a way that was unflinching. In talking, he mentioned the title of a book or two and referred to some things he assumed I would, of course, know, and he was witty, all of that but something more; his language invited me to be joyous, to speak as the gods — I use the plural because it’s hard to think of him as obedient to a single god — had intended. We were always speaking of things that it turned out, oddly enough, both of us knew about although he knew more. Lafcadio Hearn, yes, of course he knew who that was and even the name of the Japanese widow he married and the town they lived in, though he had never been to Japan himself. Arletty, Nestor Almendros, Jacques Brel, The Lawrenceville Stories, the cordon sanitaire, everything including his real interest, jazz, to which I only weakly responded. The Answer Man, Billy Cannon, the Hellespont, Stendhal on love, it was as if we had sat in the same classes and gone to the same cities. And there was Billy, swatting at his legs.

Billy loved him, he was almost a pal. He had an infectious laugh and was always ready to play. During the times he stayed with us, he made ships out of sofa cushions and swords and shields from whatever was in the garage. When he owned his car, the engine of which would cut out every so often, he claimed that turning the radio on and off would fix it, the circuits had been miswired or something. Billy was in charge of the radio.

— Oh, oh, Des would say, there it goes. Radio!

And Billy, with huge pleasure, would turn the radio on and off, on and off. How to explain why this worked? It was the power of a poet or maybe even a trick.

On Anna’s birthday, at about noon a beautiful arrangement of flowers, lilies and yellow roses, was delivered. They were from him. That evening we had dinner with some friends at the Red Bar, always noisy but the table was in the small room past the bar. I hadn’t ordered a birthday cake because we were going to have one back at the house, a rum cake, her favorite. Billy sat in her lap as she put her rings, one after another, carefully over separate candles, each ring for a wish.

— Will you help me blow them out? she said to Billy, her face close to his hair.

— Too many, he said.

— Oh, God, you really know how to hurt a woman.

— Go ahead, Des told him. If you don’t have enough breath, I’ll catch it and send it back.

— How do you do that?

— I can do it. Haven’t you heard of someone catching their breath?

— They’re burning down, Anna said. Come on, one, two, three!

The two of them blew them out. Billy wanted to know what her wishes had been, but she wouldn’t tell.

We ate the cake, just the four of us, and I gave her the present I knew she would love. It was a wristwatch, very thin and square with Roman numerals and a small blue stone, I think tourmaline, embedded in the stem. There are not many things more beautiful than a watch lying new in its case.

— Oh, Jack! she said. It’s gorgeous!

She showed it to Billy and then to Des.

— Where did you get it? Then, looking, Cartier, she said.

— Yes.

— I love it.

Beatrice Hage, a woman we knew, had one like it that she had inherited from her mother. It had an elegance that defied the years and demands of fashion.

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I’ve always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it’s transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it’s learned, and at a certain point it can’t be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn’t be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been.

The small things that could be overlooked at first but in time became annoying, we had a way of handling, of getting the pebble out of the shoe, so to speak. It was called a give, and it was agreed that it would last. The phrase that was over-used, an eating habit, even a piece of favorite clothing, a give was a request to abandon it. You couldn’t ask for something, only to stop something. The wide skirt of the bathroom sink was always wiped dry because of a give. Anna’s little finger no longer extended when she drank from a cup. There might be more than one thing you would like to ask, and there was sometimes difficulty in choosing, but there was the satisfaction of knowing that once a year, without causing resentment, you would be able to ask your husband or wife to stop this one thing.

Des was downstairs when we put Billy to bed. I was in the hall when Anna came out holding her finger to her lips and having turned off the light.

— Is he asleep?

— Yes.

— Well, happy birthday, I said.

— Yes.

There was something odd in the way she said it. She stood there, her long neck and blond hair.

— What is it, darling?

She said nothing for a moment. Then she said,

— I want a give.

— All right, I said.

I don’t know why, I felt nervous.

— What would you like?

— I want you to stop it with Des, she said.

— Stop it? Stop what?

My heart was skipping.

— Stop the sex, she said.

I knew she was going to say it. I had hoped something else, and the words were like a thick curtain tumbling down or a plate smashing on the floor.

— I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Her face was hard,

— Yes, you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

— Darling, you’re mistaken. There’s nothing going on with Des. He’s a friend, he’s my closest friend.

The tears began to run down her face.

— Don’t, I said. Please. Don’t cry. You’re wrong.

— I have to cry, she said, her voice unsteady. Anyone would cry. You have to do it. You have to stop. We promised one another.

— Oh, God, you’re imagining this.

— Please, she begged, don’t. Please, please, don’t.

She was wiping her cheeks as if to make herself again presentable.

— You have to do what we promised, she said. You have to give.

There are things you cannot give, that would simply crush your heart. It was half of life she was asking for, him slipping off his watch, holding him, having him in your possession, in indescribable happiness, in love with you. Nothing else could be like that. There was an apartment on 12th Street that we were able to use, the garden behind it, the dazzling chords of Petroushka —the record happened to be there and we used to play it — chords that would always, as long as I lived, bring me back to it, his pliancy and slow smile.

— I’m not doing anything with Des, I said. I swear to you.

— You swear to me.

— Yes.

— And I’m supposed to believe you.

— I swear to you.

She looked away.

— All right, she said at last.

A great joy filled me. Then she said,

— All right. But he has to leave. For good. If you want me to believe you, that’s what it takes.

— Anna. .

— No, that’s the proof.

— How can I tell him to leave? What’s the reason?