Read Online Light Years by James Salter - Free Book Online Page A

surprise.
    “Kennif,” the Chinese confirmed.
    “Ah, yes. Kenneth, what is there for dessert? Do you have fortune cookies?”
    “Oh yes, sah.”
    “Kumquats?”
    “No kumquat,” Kenneth said.
    “No kumquat?”
    “Jerro,” he said appeasingly.
    “Just the cookies, then,” Viri said.
    In clean pajamas he lay in bed waiting. His shoes were in the closet, his clothes put away. The coolness of the pillow beneath his head, the sense of weariness and well-being that filled him, he examined these things as if they were forewarnings. He lay resigned and cautious, ready for the blow.
    Nedra took her place beside him. He lay there silent; he could not close his eyes. Her presence was the final pledge of sanctity and order, like those great commanders who were the last to sleep. The house was quiet, the windows dark, his daughters were in their beds. On Nedra’s finger, somewhere near him, was a gold band of marriage, an ink-stained finger possibly, a finger that he longed to stroke, that he had not the nerve to touch.
    They lay beside one another in the dark. In a drawer of the writing table, buried in back, was a letter composed of phrases clipped from magazines and papers, a pasted letter of love with jokes and passionate suggestions, a famous letter sent from Georgia before they were married when Viri was in the army, aching, alone. There were bees nesting in the greenhouse, erosion along the river shore. On a child’s bureau, in a box with four small legs, were necklaces, rings, a starfish hard as wood. A house as rich as an aquarium, filled with the rhythm of sleep, limbs without strength, partly open mouths.
    Nedra was awake. She suddenly rose on one elbow.
    “What is that ungodly smell?” she said. “Hadji? Is that you?”
    He was lying beneath the bed.
    “Get out of there,” she cried.
    He would not move. She continued to command. At last, ears flat, he came forth.
    “Viri,” she sighed. “Open the window.”
    “Yes, what is it?”
    “Your damned dog.”

10
     
    MARCEL-MAAS LIVED IN AN UNFINISHED stone barn, much of it built with his own hands. He was a painter. He had a gallery that showed his work, but he was largely unknown. His daughter was seventeen. His wife—people found her strange—was in the last years of her youth. She was like a beautiful dinner left out overnight. She was sumptuous, but the guests were gone. Her cheeks had begun to quiver when she walked.
    A thick beard, wartiness of nose, corduroy jacket, long silences: that was Marcel-Maas. His effort was all on canvas now; the window frames of the barn were flaking, the inside walls were stained. He repaired nothing, not even a leak; he seldom went out, he never drove a car. He hated travel, he said.
    His wife was a mare alone in a field. She was waiting for madness, grazing her life away. She went to the city, to Bloomingdale’s, the gynecologist, to art supply stores. Sometimes she would see a movie in the afternoon.
    “Travel is nonsense,” he announced. “The only thing you see is what’s already inside you.”
    He was in his carpet slippers. His black hair lay loose on his head.
    “I can’t agree, somehow,” Viri said.
    “The ones who could gain something from travel, who have sensitivity, they have no need to travel.”
    “That’s like saying those who could benefit from education have no need to be educated,” Viri said.
    Marcel-Maas was silent. “You’re too literal,” he said finally.
    “I love to travel,” his wife remarked.
    Silence. Marcel-Maas ignored her. She was standing at the window, looking out at the day, drinking a glass of red wine. “Robert is the only one I’ve ever heard of who doesn’t like to,” she said. She continued to look out the window.
    “Where have you ever traveled?” he said.
    “That’s a good question, isn’t it?”
    “You’re talking about something you don’t know anything about. You’ve read about it. You hear about these doctors and their wives who go to Europe. Bank