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

clerks go to Europe. What is there in Europe?”
    “What are you talking about?” she said. Their daughter appeared in the doorway. She had lean arms, a lean body, small breasts. Her eyes were a riveting blue. “Hello, Kate,” Viri said.
    She was engaged in biting her thumbnail. Her feet were bare.
    “I’ll tell you what Europe has,” her father continued, “the detritus of failed civilizations. Night clubs. Fleas.”
    “Fleas?”
    “Jivan’s here,” Kate said.
    Nora Marcel-Maas pressed her face to the glass to see out. “Where?”
    “He just drove up.”
    They heard the front door open. “Hello,” a voice called.
    “In here!” Marcel-Maas shouted.
    They heard him come down the hall. The kitchen was the warmest room in the barn; the upper floors were not even heated.
    Jivan was short. He was thin, like the boys one sees loitering in plazas of Mexico and countries further south. He was one of those boys, but with manners, with newly bought clothes.
    “Hello,” he said, entering. “Hello, Kate. You’ve gotten so beautiful. Let me see. Turn around.” She did so without hesitation. He took her hand and kissed it like a bunch of flowers. “Robert, your daughter is fantastic. She has the heart of a courtesan.”
    “Don’t worry. She’s getting married.”
    “I thought it was just a trial,” Jivan complained. “Isn’t it?”
    “More or less,” she said.
    “Viri,” Jivan said, “I saw your car. That’s what made me stop. How are you?”
    “Are you driving your motorcycle?” Viri asked.
    “Would you like another lesson?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “That was nothing, that little accident.”
    “I’d like to try again,” Viri said, “but my side still hurts.” Jivan accepted some wine. His hands were small, the nails well cared for, his face smooth, like a child’s.
    “Where have you been, in the city?” Marcel-Maas asked.
    “Where’s Nora?”
    “She was here a minute ago.”
    “Yes, I just came back,” Jivan said. “I spent last night there. I went to a sort of reception … a Lebanese thing. It was late, so I stayed. They’re very strange, American women,” he said. He sat down and smiled politely. With him one was in cafés and drab restaurants warmed by the murmur of talk. He smiled again. His teeth were strong. He slept with a knife at the head of his bed.
    “You know, I met this woman,” he said. “She was the ex-wife of an ambassador or someone, blond, in her thirties. After the party we were near the place where I was going to stay. There was a bar, and I asked her, very matter-of-factly, if she’d like to stop there for a drink. You can’t imagine what she said. She said, ‘I can’t. I have the curse.’ ”
    “Haven’t you had enough of them?” Marcel-Maas said.
    “Enough? Can one have enough?”
    “They’re all like lukoum to you.”
    “Locoum ,” Jivan corrected. “Rahat locoum . That’s Turkish delight,” he translated. “Very fattening. Robert likes the sound of it. Someday I’ll bring you some rahat locoum . Then you’ll see what it is.”
    “I know what it is,” Marcel-Maas said. “I’ve had plenty of it.”
    “Not the real rahat.”
    “Real.”
    Jivan was his friend, Marcel-Maas used to say. He had no other friends, not even his wife. He was going to divorce her anyway. She was neurotic. An artist should live with an uncomplicated woman, a woman like Bonnard’s who would pose in only her shoes. The rest of it would follow. By the rest of it, he meant a hot lunch every day, without which he could not work. He sat down to the table like an Irish laborer, hands stained, head down, potatoes, meat, thick slices of bread. He was silent, he had no jokes in him, he was waiting for things to resolve themselves while he ate, to form into something unexpected and interesting like the coat of fine bubbles on one’s leg in the bath.
    “So where’s your mother, Kate?” he said. “Where’d she disappear to?”
    Kate shrugged. She had the