Authors: James Salter
She would have liked to ask more but she shook her head.
— No, she said. I’ve just heard the name.
— He’s a poet, the woman said.
ON THE BEACH she sat by herself. There was almost no one. In her bathing suit she lay back with the sun on her face and knees. It was hot and the sea calm. She preferred to lie up by the dunes with the waves bursting, to listen while they crashed like the final chords of a symphony except they went on and on. There was nothing as fine as that.
She came out of the ocean and dried herself like the gypsy girl, ankles caked with sand. She could feel the sun burnishing her shoulders. Hair wet, deep in the emptiness of days, she walked her bicycle up to the road, the dirt velvety beneath her feet.
She did not go home the usual way. There was little traffic. The noon was bottle-green, large houses among the trees and wide farmland, like a memory, behind.
She knew the house and saw it far off, her heart beating strangely. When she stopped, it was casually, with the bike tilting to one side and she half-seated on it as if taking a rest. How beautiful a lone woman is, in a white summer shirt and bare legs. Pretending to adjust the bicycle’s chain she looked at the house, its tall windows, water stains high on the roof. There was a gardener’s shed, abandoned, saplings growing in the path that led to it. The long driveway, the sea porch, everything was empty.
Walking slowly, aware of how brazen she was, she went toward the house. Her urge was to look in the windows, no more than that. Still, despite the silence, the complete stillness, that was forbidden.
She walked farther. Suddenly someone rose from the side porch. She was unable to utter a sound or move.
It was a dog, a huge dog higher than her waist, coming toward her, yellow-eyed. She had always been afraid of dogs, the Alsatian that had unexpectedly turned on her college roommate and torn off a piece of her scalp. The size of this one, its lowered head and slow, deliberate stride.
Do not show fear, she knew that. Carefully she moved the bicycle so that it was between them. The dog stopped a few feet away, its eyes directly on her, the sun along its back. She did not know what to expect, a sudden short rush.
— Good boy, she said. It was all she could think of. Good boy.
Moving cautiously, she began wheeling the bicycle toward the road, turning her head away slightly so as to appear unworried. Her legs felt naked, the bare calves. They would be ripped open as if by a scythe. The dog was following her, its shoulders moving smoothly, like a kind of machine. Somehow finding the courage, she tried to ride. The front wheel wavered. The dog, high as the handlebars, came nearer.
— No, she cried. No!
After a moment or two, obediently, he slowed or veered off. He was gone.
She rode as if freed, as if flying through blocks of sunlight and high, solemn tunnels of trees. And then she saw him again. He was following—not exactly following, since he was some distance ahead. He seemed to float along in the fields, which were burning in the midday sun, on fire. She turned onto her own road. There he came. He fell in behind her. She could hear the clatter of his nails like falling stones. She looked back. He was trotting awkwardly, like a big man running in the rain. A line of spittle trailed from his jaw. When she reached her house he had disappeared.
THAT NIGHT in a cotton robe she was preparing for bed, cleaning her face, the bathroom door ajar. She brushed her hair with many rapid strokes.
— Tired? her husband asked as she emerged.
It was his way of introducing the subject.
— No, she said.
So there they were in the summer night with the far-off sound of the sea. Among the things her husband admired that Ardis possessed was extraordinary skin, luminous and smooth, a skin so pure that to touch it would make one tremble.
— Wait, she whispered, —not so fast.
Afterward he lay back without a word, already falling into deepest sleep, much too soon. She touched his shoulder. She heard something outside the window.
— Did you hear that?
— No, what? he said drowsily.
She waited. There was nothing. It had seemed faint, like a sigh.
The next morning she said,
— Oh! There, just beneath the trees, the dog lay. She could see his ears—they were small ears dashed with white.
— What is it? her husband asked.
— Nothing, she said. A dog. It followed me yesterday.
— From where? he said, coming to see.
— Down the road. I think it might be that man’s. Brennan’s.
— Brennan?
— I passed his house, she said, and afterward it was following me.
— What were you doing at Brennan’s?
— Nothing. I was passing. He’s not even there.
— What do you mean, he’s not there?
— I don’t know. Somebody said that.
He went to the door and opened it. The dog—it was a deerhound—had been lying with its forelegs stretched out in front like a sphinx, its haunches round and high. Awkwardly it rose and after a moment moved, reluctantly it seemed, wandering slowly across the fields, never looking back.
In the evening they went to a party on Mecox Road. Far out toward Montauk, winds were sweeping the coast. The waves exploded in clouds of spray. Ardis was talking to a woman not much older than herself, whose husband had just died of a brain tumor at the age of forty. He had diagnosed it himself, the woman said. He’d been sitting in a theater when he suddenly realized he couldn’t see the wall just to his right. At the funeral, she said, there had been two women she did not recognize and who did not come to the reception afterward.
— Of course, he was a surgeon, she said, and they’re drawn to surgeons like flies. But I never suspected. I suppose I’m the world’s greatest fool.
The trees streamed past in the dark as they drove home. Their house rose in the brilliant headlights. She thought she had caught sight of something and found herself hoping her husband had not. She was nervous as they walked across the grass. The stars were numberless. They would open the door and go inside, where all was familiar, even serene.
After a while they would prepare for bed while the wind seized the corners of the house and the dark leaves thrashed each other. They would turn out the lights. All that was outside would be left in wildness, in the glory of the wind.
IT WAS TRUE. He was there. He was lying on his side, his whitish coat ruffled. In the morning light she approached slowly. When he raised his head his eyes were hazel and gold. He was not that young, she saw, but his power was that he was unbowed. She spoke in a natural voice.
— Come, she said.
She took a few steps. At first he did not move. She glanced back again. He was following.
It was still early. As they reached the road a car passed, drab and sun-faded. A girl was in the back seat, head fallen wearily, being driven home, Ardis thought, after the exhausting night. She felt an inexplicable envy.
It was warm but the true heat had not risen. Several times she waited while he drank from puddles at the edge of the road, standing in them as he did, his large, wet toenails gleaming like ivory.
Suddenly from a porch rushed another dog, barking fiercely. The great hound turned, teeth bared. She held her breath, afraid of the sight of one of them limp and bleeding, but violent as it sounded they kept a distance between them. After a few snaps it was over. He came along less steadily, strands of wet hair near his mouth.
At the house he went to the porch and stood waiting. It was plain he wanted to go inside. He had returned. He must be starving, she thought. She looked around to see if there was anyone in sight. A chair she had not noticed before was out on the grass, but the house was as still as ever, not even the curtains breathing. With a hand that seemed not even hers she tried the door. It was unlocked.
The hallway was dim. Beyond it was a living room in disorder, couch cushions rumpled, glasses on the tables, papers, shoes. In the dining room there were piles of books. It was the house of an artist, abundance, disregard.
There was a large desk in the bedroom, in the middle of which, among paper clips and letters, a space had been cleared. Here were sheets of paper written in an almost illegible hand, incomplete lines and words that omitted certain vowels.
Deth of fathr,
she read, then indecipherable things and something that seemed to be
carrges sent empty,
and at the bottom, set apart, two words,
anew, anew.
In a different hand was the page of a letter,
I deeply love you. I admire you. I love you
and admire you.
She could not read anymore. She was too uneasy. There were things she did not want to know. In a hammered silver frame was the photograph of a woman, face darkened by shadow, leaning against a wall, the unseen white of a villa somewhere behind. Through the slatted blinds one could hear the soft clack of palm fronds, the birds high above, in the villa where he had found her, where her youth had been bold as a declaration of war. No, that was not it. He had met her on a beach, they had gone to the villa. What is powerful is a glimpse of a truer life. She read the slanting inscription in Spanish,
Tus besos me destierran.
She put the picture down. A photograph was sacrosanct, you were excluded from it, always. So that was the wife.
Tus besos,
your kisses.
SHE WANDERED, nearly dreaming, into a large bathroom that looked out on the garden. As she entered, her heart almost stopped—she caught sight of somebody in the mirror. It took a second before she realized it was herself and, as she looked more closely, a not wholly recognizable, even an illicit self, in soft, grainy light. She understood suddenly, she accepted the fate that meant she was to be found here, that Brennan would be returning and discover her, having stopped for the mail or bread. Out of nowhere she would hear the paralyzing sound of footsteps or a car. Still, she continued to look at herself. She was in the house of the poet, the demon. She had entered forbidden rooms.
Tus besos . . .
the words had not died. At that moment the dog came to the door, stood there, and then fell to the floor, his knowing eyes on her, like an intimate friend. She turned to him. All she had never done seemed at hand.
Deliberately, without thinking, she began to remove her clothes. She went no further than the waist. She was dazzled by what she was doing. There in the silence with the sunlight outside she stood slender and half-naked, the missing image of herself, of all women. The dog’s eyes were raised to her as if in reverence. He was unbetraying, a companion like no other. She remembered certain figures ahead of her at school. Kit Vining, Nan Boudreau. Legendary faces and reputations. She had longed to be like them but never seemed to have the chance. She leaned forward to stroke the beautiful head.
— You’re a big fellow. The words seemed authentic, more authentic than anything she had said for a long time. A very big fellow.
His long tail stirred and with faint sound brushed the floor. She kneeled and stroked his head again and again.
There was the crackling of gravel beneath the tires of a car. It brought her abruptly to her senses. Hurriedly, almost in panic, she threw on her clothes and made her way to the kitchen. She would run along the porch if necessary and then from tree to tree.
She opened the door and listened. Nothing. As she was going quickly down the back steps, by the side of the house she saw her husband. Thank God, she thought helplessly.
They approached each other slowly. He glanced at the house.
— I brought the car. Is anyone here?
There was a moment’s pause.
— No, no one. She felt her face stiffen, as if she were telling a lie.
— What were you doing? he asked.
— I was in the kitchen, she said. I was trying to find something to feed him.
— Did you find it?
— Yes. No, she said.
He stood looking at her and finally said,
— Let’s go.
As they backed out, she caught sight of the dog just lying down in the shade, sprawled, disconsolate. She felt the nakedness beneath her clothes, the satisfaction. They turned onto the road.
— Somebody’s got to feed him, she said as they drove. She was looking out at the houses and fields. Warren said nothing. He was driving faster. She turned back to look. For a moment she thought she saw him following, far behind.
LATE THAT DAY she went shopping and came home about five. The wind, which had arisen anew, blew the door shut with a bang.
— Warren?
— Did you see him? her husband said.
— Yes.
He had come back. He was out there where the land went up slightly.
— I’m going to call the animal shelter, she said.
— They won’t do anything. He’s not a stray.
— I can’t stand it. I’m calling someone, she said.
— Why don’t you call the police? Maybe they’ll shoot him.
— Why don’t you do it? she said coldly. Borrow someone’s gun. He’s driving me crazy.
It remained light until past nine, and in the last of it, with the clouds a deeper blue than the sky, she went out quietly, far across the grass. Her husband watched from the window. She was carrying a white bowl.