Last Night - James Salter [13]
— 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