A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter

Author:James Salter [Salter, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, classics, C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9781453243817
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 1967-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

[18]

SLOWLY THE LIGHT CHANGES, day by day, reflected from countless old surfaces of the town. A new quality appears in it, an intensity that means death for the season. The winter months have grown weary. They are ready to be over-thrown. In the streets one can sense the imminence of this. The skies have grown bright, have freshened. The past is melting like ice.

Dean sits waiting while she makes herself up. It’s still fairly light outside. People are strolling after work, happy to have days that end before darkness. He looks through a cheap magazine while she makes the last touches. Her face is close to the mirror.

“You know, you shouldn’t read this junk,” he says, leafing through it.

She turns to see. Then she continues with the mirror.

“It’s just stories,” she says.

“They’re terrible. What do you see in them?”

She shrugs. He tosses it aside.

“I should read more books,” she says, as if to her reflection.

“That’s right, you should.”

“I like Montherlant,” she says. “And Proust.”

“You haven’t read Proust.”

“Of course,” she says.

“Really?”

Turning, she asks,

“How do you find me?”

“Too much lipstick,” he says.

She turns her head this way and that before the mirror, considering herself.

“I find it good,” she says.

“No, it’s not.”

“Si,” she insists. Nevertheless she wipes a little from the corners.

Dean sits on the bed, his head leaning back against the wall. He looks around the room. Everything seems ordinary, everything seems poor. Sometimes he is depressed by her imperfections. They should not be important, perhaps, but they often become so real, so ready to take control of her, these plain qualities hidden by the brilliance of a language and life the taste of which he has only just begun to grasp. He waits for her to put on her coat. She avoids his eyes. In silence they descend to the street. He is waiting for her to say something.

“We go to the shops?”

Dean doesn’t reply. He merely stares at her.

“Come,” she insists.

It’s chilly at this hour, the end of the day. Her cheeks are reddened, like an urchin’s. The tiny slits in her earlobes seem a mark of low caste. They walk towards the center of town. She has linked her arm in his. He seems not to notice. He has turned into lead.

“Tu es fâché avec moi?” she asks.

He shrugs. They walk along cheerlessly. Her face has the helplessness of someone who is no longer believed in.

“Phillip, tu es fâché?” she repeats.

“No.”

There are only women in the shop, mothers and daughters, wives. The owner moves among the flutter of merchandise. She is waiting on two or three customers at once. She reaches for boxes on various shelves and lays them open on the counter. Dean is uncomfortable. He stands against the wall like a shadow. He has a pose of disinterest, but although they glance at him upon entering, nobody seems to pay him any attention.

“Phillip,” she calls.

He looks up for an instant, uncertain. She had gone to the back.

“Phillip,” she calls again, “viens.”

She beckons from one of the booths.

He starts back.

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