James Salter - A Sport and a Pastime

“Then it’s true?”

“No, I’m only kidding. Listen, how about asking Donna? She’ll lend you money, won’t she?”

“I suppose so,” she says.

“You’ve got to do it for me,” Dean tells her.

In the dusk at Orly they part. From the upper platform, Dean watches her mount the steps. She pauses at the top. A final wave. This long, polished tube with its comfortable seats is the jet to America. He feels a moment of great loneliness. He would like to be on board, sitting down beside them. He hates the thought of walking out to the car by himself. Life seems to be fleeing from him.

The door closes, is sealed. A period of deathlike silence, and the engines start. Inside they are unfolding newspapers. It begins to move. He tries to identify her at one of the windows. He’s too far off. The faces are indistinct. He watches as the plane follows a long, ceremonial path to the runway. It turns. It begins to flow. Once in the air it moves serenely, almost ominously, heeling over without warning, coming level again, following invisible courses into the sky.

He counts the money. Three hundred and fifteen dollars, almost none of it in francs. He folds it carefully and puts it back in his pocket. She’s promised to send him fifty more.

The Delage moves in long, steady thrusts, slowing only in towns. He’s not at all tired. The trip, it seems, is the shortest ever. He passes everything without even slowing, swinging out and rushing by, uphill and down. Finally he arrives. It’s just past eleven, the houses are dark. He runs up the stairs like a cat and knocks lightly. She is waiting.

IN THE STREET, IN the earliest morning, the car lies open, like a boat. The town is a harbor; the water is like glass. There is not a creak, not a cough as they ease along silent passages, the engine idling. In the country, luminous but still awaiting sunlight, the air is cool and sweet. They drive without speaking. They’re still sleepy. After twenty kilometers, Anne-Marie forms a single word.

“Alors.”

“What’s wrong?”

She’s forgotten the jacket to her suit.

“Oh, Christ,” Dean says.

It’s back in the room. He slows down and stops on the grass shoulder.

“No,” she says.

“You want to go back and get it?”

She shakes her head,

“No.”

He starts off again, slowly. She shrugs helplessly. She doesn’t want to look at him.

“Are you sure?” he says.

“Yes,” she says. “We are started.”

“It’s a great start.”

She begins to laugh. Finally Dean smiles. Their last trip. They flash down the tunnels of trees, and the towns unfold before them, flat at first and still sleeping but then with cats, a few people, and by the time they reach Orléans it’s full morning. A large, impressive city. The day is going to be hot. Dean runs across the square to buy some bread and butter. They eat parked in the sunlight, green busses rumbling past, the tourists strolling by in short pants. Bread crumbs are falling into her lap. She has never looked more pleased, more accustomed to seats of real leather, trips to the sea. She squints in the morning brightness. She moves her legs—the leather is hot.

They are really married. That night she will say as much to him: they have picked a good time, when it is safe to make love, and started life together that day. It is in Angers. They are walking the streets after dinner. The city seems foreign to Dean, redolent of Spain, dusty, smelling of trees. The sidewalks are laid between flats of bare earth. It doesn’t seem France. Even the cafés are strange, and the couples speak a language he cannot understand.

They have toured the châteaux that day. For two francs they can follow a guide who recites a little history as they pass through the great rooms. There are white-haired couples in the crowd, tourists in sandals, schoolteachers. An American woman and her two daughters in linen dresses. Someone is whispering in German. The guide promptly forces a translation of the tour into their hands, like a menu. They protest. They understand French, they say. The guide only smiles. Dean stands at the edge of the group. Anne-Marie has gone a little ahead.

“Phillipe,” she calls, “come!”

The guide is moving on. Everybody follows.

“Parle français!” Dean whispers when he is close.

“Why?”

She is being playful. They walk out on the balcony that runs the steep face of the building. They are at Amboise, far above the town. Dean refuses to talk. He doesn’t want to be taken for an American. He doesn’t want to be given a translation by the guide who is now explaining what was enacted here in centuries past. Anne-Marie winces.

“Awful,” she says. The road is hundreds of feet below. Protestants about to be hung would see a whole realm before them, sky, wide river, the roofs of the town. “They were more cruel in those days.”

“I’d love to have seen it,” Dean says.

“Don’t. It makes me sick.”

One of the daughters has heard them. Her head turns. He sees her whisper to her mother. He tries to lag behind, but Anne-Marie will not let him.

“Phillipe, come on,” she says.

“I’ll kill you!” he whispers.

She only smiles.

They arrive in Angers tired, in the midst of evening traffic. People are shopping and driving home from work. A cool smell of foliage fills the air, the trace of flowers. They find a small hotel. The entrance is on a narrow street—after they unload their luggage, he must go somewhere and park.

Dean feels a slight chill as he draws the bedspread over him. Perhaps it was the sun. He lies quite still. The room is bare. He recognizes nothing in it, not a color, not a line. Suddenly he becomes frightened. He begins to count his money mentally. He’s left some of it behind, five hundred francs, and there was a garage bill for tuning the engine. They bought some clothes. He adds it up. He decides to put two hundred francs under the floormat of the car. That will leave about seven hundred—he adds it again—it will be close. It’s forty or fifty every time they get gas. He tries to calculate the mileage. Perhaps they shouldn’t try to go so far.

His eyes open a little at the sound of the key. Anne-Marie has been taking a bath. She’s wearing his cotton robe. When she stands near the bed she unties it. It opens, falls away. The sight of her fresh nakedness frightens him even more. Suddenly it is quite clear how acrobatic, how dangerous everything is. It seems not to be his own life he is living, but another, the life of some victim. It will all collapse. He will have to find work, pay rent, walk home every day for lunch. He is weak suddenly, he doesn’t believe in himself. She slips into the bed. A virtual panic comes over him. He lies motionless, his eyes closed.

“Tu dors?” she says softly. He doesn’t know what to answer.

“No,” he breathes. After a moment he adds, “I have a little headache.”

“Poor child.” She strokes his cheek. He manages a papery smile.

The dinner revives him somewhat. She even has two glasses of wine, but then, it’s an occasion. Afterwards they walk along the avenue, beneath the dark trees. They come to a large store, closed, of course, but fully lighted. Couples linger before the displays, refrigerators, rows of them, doors open, cardboard arrows pointing out their features.

“Are they more expensive in America?” she asks.

“I’ve never bought one.” His eyes move uncertainly. The model numbers are cabalistic, the prices seem terrifying.

“But you must know.”

“Let’s go,” he says.

“This one I find nice,” she says, pointing.

“It’s too small.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“It’s big enough,” she says.

“Baby, please stop this.”

“Attends.”

“I don’t want to look at them any more. It’s boring,” he says.

“There’s nothing else to do. Where do you want to go? Do you want to go and dance?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Ah!” she cries.

“Sure. Come on.”

They begin to walk and in the end have come back to the hotel. The dining room is dark. The desk seems empty.

“Do you want to ask?” he says.

“No,” she says. “It’s late.”

He takes their key from the little board, and they walk up the carpeted stairs. The room seems plainer than before. He brushes his teeth. He is ready to sleep.

“Non,” she says. One doesn’t begin a married life like that.

“I’m really tired.”

“Maybe for dancing,” she says.

He may not be interested, but she knows what is best for him. It’s like a bowl of hot soup. She makes him undress and lie down with her. She starts to caress him, he cannot escape her hands. Finally he begins, obediently, to make love, working himself in from side to side like a lever. It’s a little dry, this prescription, but she suffers it. She knows a woman must be prepared for that.

In the morning light enters through the thin curtains. She has hold of his prick. She kisses it sweetly to start the day. It is hers now, she says.

DAYS OF MARRIAGE. They live in connubial bliss above the sea. The room is small, but there is a balcony and beneath it the water breaking softly. The hotel is more than they can afford.

Morning. Her hair streamed across the pillow, the covers drawn up to her chin. Outside, the cries of seabirds float in the still air. Mon mari, she calls him. He smiles.

In the dining room they sit near a family with two sons. The mother is strict with them—they are fifteen years old, sixteen, it’s hard to say. They’re allowed a little wine, that’s all. Most of the time they sit stiffly while the parents talk. She would like a son, Anne-Marie says. The room is filled with the sound of forks, the smell of bread. A son.