Read Online Light Years by James Salter - Free Book Online

going to tell you all that,” she promised. “Today, all day, I was drawing this eel. Do you like the flowers?”
    “Yes. Very much.”
    “You’re much better than I am, yours will be fantastic. Besides, you’re right, the eel is a male thing, but women understand it, too. It fascinates them.”
    “I’ve heard that,” he murmured.
    “Listen …”
    He was empty, at peace. The darkened windows made the room seem bright. He had come in from the sea, from a thrilling voyage. He had straightened his clothes, brushed his hair. He was filled with secrets, deceptions that had made him whole.
    “The eel is a fish,” she read, “of the order Apode . It is brown and olive, its sides are yellow, its belly pale. The male lives in harbors and rivers. The female lives far from the sea. The life of the eel was always a mystery. No one knew where they came from, no one knew where they went.”
    “This is a book,” he said.
    “A book or a story. Just for us. I love the descriptions. They live in fresh water,” she continued, “but once in their life, and once only, they go to the sea. They make the trip together, male and female. They never return.”
    “This is accurate, of course.”
    “The eel comes from an egg. Afterwards it is a larva. They float on the ocean current, not a quarter of an inch long, transparent. They feed on algae. After a year or longer they finally reach the shore. Here they develop into true young eels, and here, at the river mouths, the females leave the males and travel upstream. Eels feed on everything: dead fish and animals, crayfish, shrimp. They hide in the mud by day and eat at night. In the winter they hibernate.”
    She sipped her drink and went on. “The female lives like this for years, in ponds and streams, and then, one day in autumn, she stops and eats nothing more. Her color changes to black or nearly black, her nose becomes sharper, her eyes large. Moving at night, resting by day, sometimes crossing meadows and fields, she travels downstream to the sea.”
    “And the male?”
    “She meets the male who has spent all his life near the river mouth, and together, by hundreds of thousands, they return to the place where they were born, the sea of weeds, the Sargasso Sea. At depths of uncounted feet they mate and die.”
    “Nedra, it sounds like Wagner.”
    “There are common eels, pike eels, snake eels, sharp-tailed eels, every kind of eel. They are born in the sea, they live in fresh water and they go to the sea to spawn and die. Doesn’t it move you?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t know how to end it.”
    “Perhaps with a beautiful drawing.”
    “Oh, there’ll be drawings on every page,” she said.
    “I want it filled with drawings.”
    His eyes felt tired.
    “I want it to be on pale, gray paper,” she said. “Here, draw one.”
    The children were coming downstairs.
    “An eel?” he said.
    “Here are a lot of pictures of them.”
    “Are they allowed to see what I’m doing?”
    “No,” she said. “No, it should be a surprise.”
    They ate in a Chinese restaurant that was crowded on weekends but this night rather empty. The menus were worn and coming apart at the fold. He had two vodkas and showed his children how to use chopsticks. The dishes were set on the table and uncovered: shrimp and peas, braised chicken, rice. Two lives are perfectly natural, he thought, as he picked up a water chestnut. Two lives are essential. Meanwhile he was talking about China: legends of emperors, the stone pleasure boats in Peiping. Nedra seemed watchful, quiet. He suddenly grew cautious and became almost silent, afraid of betraying himself. There was something he had overlooked, he tried to imagine what it was, something she had noticed by chance. The guilt of the inexperienced, like a false illness, bathed him. He tried to remain calm, realistic.
    “Would you like some dessert?” he asked.
    He called the waiter, who wore a name tag on his jacket.
    “Kenneth?” Viri said in