James Salter - Last Night

— Is it broken, Daddy?

— It’s just someone taking their time.

He could hear the couple talking. The woman, blond and smooth-browed, was in a glittering silver top. They were going out for the evening, into the stream of lights, boulevards, restaurants brimming with talk. He had only a glimpse of them setting forth, the light on her hair, the cab door held open for her, and for a moment forgot that he had everything.

— Here it comes, he heard his daughter call, Daddy, here it comes.

In late April was Michael Brule’s fifty-eighth birthday. For gifts he had asked only for things to eat or drink, but Del, Eva’s husband, had carved a beautiful wooden seabird for him, unpainted and on legs thin as straws. Brule was deeply touched.

Brian was in the kitchen cooking. It was noisy. The children were playing some kind of game, to the annoyance of the dog, an old Scottie.

— Don’t frighten her! Don’t frighten her! they cried.

It was risotto Brian was making, adding warm broth in small amounts and stirring slowly, to the rapt attention of one of the girls hired to help serve.

— It’s almost ready, he called. He could hear the family voices, the dog barking, the laughter.

The girl, in a white shirt and velvety pants, was watching in fascination. He held out the wooden spoon on which there was a sample.

— Want to taste it? he asked.

— Yes, darling, she said.

Ssh, he gestured playfully. Not looking at him, she took the portion of rice between her lips. Pamela was her name. She wasn’t really a caterer; she worked at the U.N. She and the other girl were hired by the hour.

Her legs Brian saw when she came into the bar at the U.N. Hotel and sat down beside him with a smile, completely at ease. He had been nervous, but it left him immediately. From the first moment he felt a thrilling, natural complicity. His heart filled with excitement, like a sail.

— So, he began, Pamela. .

— Pam.

— Would you like a drink?

— Is that white wine?

— Yes.

— Good. White wine.

She was twenty-two, from Pennsylvania, but with some kind of rare, natural polish.

— I must say, you are. . he said, then felt suddenly cautious.

— What?

— Definitely good-looking.

— Oh, I don’t know.

— It’s unarguable. I’m just curious, he said, how much do you weigh?

— A hundred and sixteen.

— That’s what I would have thought.

— Really?

— No, but anything you would have said.

She had told them she had a doctor’s appointment and needed extra time for lunch. She told him that. As she entered the hotel elevator he could not help but notice her fine hips. Then, incredibly, they were in the room. His heart was uncontrollable and everything was prepared for them, the sleek furnishings, the chairs, the thick fresh towels in the bath. There had been four murders in Brooklyn the night before. The brokers were going wild on Wall Street. On Fourteenth, men stood in the cold beside tables of watches and socks. The madman on Fifty-seventh was singing arias at the top of his voice, buildings were being torn down, new towers rising. She rose to draw the drapes and for a moment stood in the space between them, in the light and looking down. The splendor and newness of her! He had known nothing like it.

Her apartment was borrowed, from someone on assignment. Even at that, it was sparsely furnished. He wanted to give her something every time he saw her, a gift, something unexpected, a chrome and leather chair that he showed her in the window before he ordered it delivered, a ring, a rosewood box, but he was careful to keep nothing that came from her— note, e-mail, photograph — that might betray him. There was one exception, a picture he had taken as she half sat up in bed, from over her bare shoulder, breasts, smooth stomach, thighs, you would not know who it was. He kept it at work between the pages of a book. He liked to turn to it and remember.

In those days of desire so deep that it left him empty-legged, he did not behave unnaturally at home — if anything he was more loving and devoted although Lily, especially, was beyond increased devotion. He came home filled with forbidden happiness, forbidden but unrivalled, and embraced his wife and played with or read to his children. The prohibited feeds the appetite for all the rest. He went from one to the other with a heart that was pure. On Park Avenue he stood on the island in the middle, waiting to cross. The traffic lights were turning red as far as he could see. The distant buildings stood majestic in the monied haze. Beside him were people in coats and hats, with packages, briefcases, none of them as fortunate as he. The city was a paradise. The glory of it was that it sheltered his singular life.

— Am I your mistress? she asked one day.

— Mistress? No, he thought, that was something older, even old-fashioned. He knew of no word to truly describe her other than probable downfall or perhaps fate.

— What’s your wife like? she said.

— My wife?

— You’d rather not talk about her.

— No, you’d like her.

— That would be just my luck.

— She doesn’t have quite your ideas of how to live.

— I don’t know how to live.

— Yes, you do.

— I don’t think so.

— You have something not a lot of people have.

— What’s that?

— Real nerve.

When he came home that evening, his wife said,

— Brian, there’s something I want to talk to you about, something I have to ask you.

He felt his heart skip. His children were running toward him.

— Daddy!

— Daddy and I have to talk for a minute, Sally told them.

She led him into the living room.

— What’s up? he said as calmly as he could.

Grace and Harry, it turned out, wanted to come with their children and share the gardener’s cottage during the two weeks in August that Lily would be off at sleepaway camp and some arrangement could be made for Ian so that Sally and Brian could have some time to themselves. Now that would be impossible.

She went on talking, but Brian barely listened. He was still hearing her first words that had been so frightening. He was rehearsing replies to a far more serious question. He would tell her the truth, could he do that? The truth was essential, yet it was the thing least wanted.

— We should do this over a drink, he would say. We should do it when we’re calmer.

— I’m not going to be calmer.

He had to somehow put it off until she was the way she often was, clever and understanding. He would say something about perspective.

— Just speak in plain English.

— You can’t say it in plain English.

— Try, she said.

— You know these things happen. You’re a smart woman. You know something about the world.

— Yes, tell me about it.

Her mouth was turned down, a corner of it trembling.

— There’s been someone, but it’s not important. Can’t you see that it’s not important?

— Get out of here, she said, and don’t come back. Don’t try to see the children, I won’t let you. I’m going to change the locks.

— Sally, you can’t do that. I could never live like that. Don’t be melodramatic, please. That’s not our kind of life. The words were beginning to jam up in his mouth. This is nothing unsolvable. You know very well that Pascale was your father’s mistress, I won’t guess for how long.

— They got married.

— That isn’t the point.

He was beginning to stutter.

— What is the point?

— The point is there’s a superior way of living we should be intelligent enough to understand.

— Which means you having some other woman?

— You’re making this caustic. Don’t, please. It’s beneath us just to play roles. We’re above that. You know that.