by James Salter
They had Christmas at George Amussen’s—Beverly and Bryan were not there, having gone to visit his parents—and the next day was to be dinner at Longtree, Longtree Farm, more than a thousand acres running almost to the Blue Ridge. Liz Bohannon had gotten Longtree in the divorce. The house, that had burned down and been rebuilt, was named Ha Ha.
Late in the afternoon they drove through the iron gates that were posted with a warning that only one car at a time could pass through. The long driveway led upward with evenly spaced trees on either side. At last the house appeared, a vast facade with many windows, every one of them lit as if the house were a huge toy. When Amussen knocked at the door there was a sudden barking of dogs.
“Rollo! Slipper!” a voice inside cried and then began cursing.
In a mauve, flowered gown that bared one plump shoulder and impatiently kicking at the dogs, Liz Bohannon opened the door. She had once been a goddess and was still beautiful. As Amussen kissed her, she said,
“Darling, I thought it was you.” To Vivian and her new husband, she said, “I’m so glad you could come.”
To Bowman she held out a surprisingly small hand that bore a large emerald ring.
“I was in the study, paying bills. Is it going to snow? It feels like it. How was your Christmas?” she asked Amussen.
She continued pushing away the importuning dogs, one small and white, the other a dalmatian.
“Ours was quiet,” she went on. “You haven’t been here before, have you?” she said to Bowman. “The house was built originally in 1838, but it’s burned down twice, the last time in the middle of the night while I was sleeping.”
She held Bowman’s hand. He felt a kind of thrill.
“What shall I call you? Philip? Phil?”
She had beautiful features, now a little small for the face that for years had allowed her to say and do whatever she liked, that and the money. She was loved, derided, and known as the most dishonest horsewoman in the business, banned at Saratoga where she had once bought back two of her own horses at auction, which was strictly prohibited. Keeping Bowman’s hand in hers, she led the way in as she talked, speaking to Amussen.
“I was paying bills. My God, this place costs a fortune to run. It costs more to run when I’m away than when I’m here, can you believe that? No one to watch. I’ve just about made up my mind to sell it.”
“Sell it?” said Amussen.
“Move to Florida,” she said. “Live with the Jews. Vivian, you look so beautiful.”
They went into the study, where the walls were a dark green and covered with pictures of horses, paintings and photographs.
“This is my favorite room,” she said. “Don’t you like these pictures? That one there,” she said pointing, “is Khartoum—I loved that horse—I wouldn’t part with it for anything. When the house burned in 1944, I ran out in the middle of the night with nothing but my mink coat and that painting. That was all I had.”
“Woody won’t eat!” a voice called from another room.
“Who?”
“Woody.”
A man with his hair combed in a careful wave came to the doorway. He was wearing a V-neck sweater and lizard shoes. He had a look of feigned concern on his face.
“Go tell Willa,” Liz said.
“She’s the one who told me.”
“Travis, you don’t know these people. This is my husband, Travis,” Liz said. “I married someone from the backyard. Everybody knows you shouldn’t, but you do it anyway, don’t you, sweetheart?” she said lovingly.
“You mean I didn’t come from a rich family?”
“That’s for certain.”
“Perfection pays off,” he said with a practiced smile.
Travis Gates was a lieutenant colonel in the air force but with something vaguely fraudulent about him. He’d been in China during the war and liked to use Chinese expressions, Ding hao, he would say. He was her third husband. The first, Ted Bohannon, had been rich, his family owned newspapers and copper mines. Liz had been twenty, careless and sure of herself, the marriage was the event of the year. They had already slept together at a friend’s house in Georgetown and were wildly in love. They were invited and traveled everywhere, to California, Europe, the Far East. It was during the Depression and photographs of them in the papers, on shipboard or at the track, were an anodyne, a reminder of life as it had been and might be. They also went a number of times to Silver Hill to visit Laura, Liz’s younger sister, who worked as a club singer, usually on a small stage in a white or beaded dress, and was also an alcoholic. She took the cure at Silver Hill every few years.
One night during the war, the three of them were stranded in New York when there was trouble with the car. The hotels were all full but because Ted knew the manager they were able to get a room at the West-bury. They had to sleep three in the bed. In the middle of the night Liz woke up to find her husband doing something with her sister, who had the nightgown up under her armpits. It was the tenth year of the marriage that had begun to be stale anyway, and that night marked the end.
Meanwhile the telephone was ringing.
“Shall I get that, Bun?” Travis said.
“Willa will get it. I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
She had picked up Slipper and was holding her cradled against her breasts as she showed Bowman the view from the window, the Blue Ridge Mountains far off with only one or two other houses in sight.
“It’s starting to snow again,” she commented. “Willa! Who was that?”
There was no response. She called again.
“Willa!”
“Yas.”
“Who was that on the phone? What are you, going deaf?”
A lean black woman appeared in the doorway.
“I’m not going deaf,” she stated. “That was Mrs. Pry.”
“P. R. Y?”
“Pry.”
“What did she say? Are they coming?”
“She say Mr. Pry afraid of coming out in this weather.”
“Is Monroe back there in the kitchen? Tell him to bring out some ice. Come on,” she said to Bowman and Vivian, “I’ll show you some of the house.”
In the kitchen she paused to try to coax words out of a mynah bird that was missing some tail feathers. It was in a big bamboo cage where it had made a kind of hammock for itself. Monroe was working at an unhurried pace. Liz took an all-weather coat from a hook.
“It’s not that cold,” she said. “I’ll show you the stables.”
Amussen was seated on a large upholstered couch in the living room, leafing through a copy of National Geographic and occasionally reading a caption. A young girl in jodhpurs and a sweater came in and sat carelessly down at the far end of the couch.
“Hello, Darrin,” Amussen said.
She was named for an uncle but didn’t like the name and preferred to be called Dare.
“Hi,” she said.
“How are you feeling?”
She looked at him and almost smiled.
“Screwed out,” she said, stretching her arms lazily.
“You always talk like that?”
“No,” she said, “I do it for you. I know you like it. Did my father call?”
“I don’t know. Anne Pry called.”
“Mrs. Emmett Pry? Graywillow Farm? I went to school with her daughter, Sally.”
“I guess you did.”
“I rode all her horses and the grooms rode her.”
“How’s your momma?” Amussen said, changing the subject. “She’s a sweet woman. Haven’t seen her for ages.”
“She’s feeling better.”
“That’s good,” Amussen said, putting down the magazine. “I see that you’re feeling fine.”
“Up every morning, no matter what.”
“How old are you now, Darrin?”
“Why are you calling me Darrin?”
“All right. Dare. How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” she said.
He rose and got a glass fro
m a bar that was among the bookshelves. He continued looking for something.
“It’s in the cabinet underneath,” Dare said.
“How’s your daddy?” Amussen asked as he found the bottle he was looking for.
“He’s fine. Fix me one, too, will you?”
“I didn’t know you drank.”
“With some water,” she said.
“Just branch water?”
“Yes.”
He poured two drinks.
“Here you are.”
“Peter Connors is here, too. You know him, don’t you?”
“I don’t know if I do.”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
“Well, good.”
“He follows me around. He wants to marry me. I can’t think what he imagines that would be like.”
“I guess you’re old enough.”
“My parents think so. I’ll probably end up marrying some forty-year-old groom.”
“You might. I don’t think it would last long.”
“No, but he’d always be grateful,” she said.
Amussen made no comment.
“That’s a nice sweater,” he said.
The sweater was not snug, but still.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What is it, silk? It looks like the things they used to have in that little shop over in Middleburg. You know, the one Peggy Court ran, what’s the name?”
“Patio. You’ve probably bought a lot of things there.”
“Me? No. But your sweater looks like Patio.”
“It is. It was a gift.”
“Oh, yes?”
“But I prefer Garfinkle’s,” she said.
“Well, you don’t always get to choose where a gift comes from.”
“I generally do,” she said.
“Dare, now you behave.”
They sat drinking. Amussen looked down at his glass but could feel her eyes on him.
“You know, my daughter Vivian is older than you are,” he remarked.
“I know. And my father’s going to call here, probably, and want me to be getting home.”
“I guess you’ll have to do that.”
“I wish Peter’s father would call him.”
Amussen looked at her, the riding pants, her calm face.
“Where are you in school, now?” he said.
“I’ve quit school,” she said.
He nodded a little, as if agreeing.
“You knew that.”
“No, I didn’t,” he answered.
“Daddy’s after me to go back, but I don’t think so. It’s a waste of time, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t get that much out of school, I guess. Want a refill?” he asked.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Amussen said.
“Why not?”
Her boyfriend, Peter, who had red lips and crinkled blond hair came into the room just as she spoke, and smiled as a kind of admission of interrupting. He was a student at Lafayette and headed for law. He could sense that Dare was somehow annoyed. He knew little enough about her except for the difficulties she presented.
“Uh, I’m Peter Connors, sir,” he said, introducing himself.
“Nice to meet you, Peter. I’m George Amussen.”
“Yes, sir, I know.”
He spoke to Dare,
“Hi,” he said, and confidently sat down beside her. “It looks like it’s snowing.”
It was snowing, harder now, blowing along the fence rows, and the light was beginning to fade.
In the master bedroom with its oversized bed, medicines and jewelry on the night table, and clothes draped over the backs of chairs, Liz was talking to her brother, Eddie. The radio was playing and all the lights including the bathroom lights were on. Written in pencil on the wallpaper above the night table were various names with telephone numbers, first names for the most part, but also doctors and Clark Gable. Eddie lived in Florida, it was the first time she’d seen him since her marriage to Travis. He was her older brother, three years older, and had the handsome face of someone who had never done much. He had bought and sold cars.
“You’re getting gray,” she said.
“Thanks for the news.”
“It looks good.”
He glanced at her and didn’t reply. She reached over and rumpled his hair affectionately. There was no reponse.
“Oh, you’re still beautiful. You’re as good-looking as when you got all dressed up in your tuxedo for the DeVores’ party, remember that? You were there on the steps smoking a cigarette and hiding it in case Daddy was looking. You were hot stuff. That big car.”
“George Stuver in his daddy’s LaSalle.”
“I was so jealous.”
“The Stuvers’ LaSalle. I was with Lee Donaldson in the backseat that night.”
“Whatever happened to her?”
“She had a hysterectomy.”
“Oh, Christ. I hate doctors.”
“You can’t tell the difference from the outside. You have anything to drink up here?”
“No, I try not to have it around. I don’t want it to become a problem.”
“Speaking of that, where’s the fly-boy? And how’d you get involved with him?”
“Sweetheart, don’t start on that.”
“He’s a prize. Where’d you meet him?”
Eddie had liked Ted Bohannon, who he felt was his kind of man.
“We met in Buenos Aires,” she said. “In the embassy. He was the attaché. It just happened that he came along. I was lonely, you know I don’t like living alone. I was down there for three months.”
“Buenos Aires.”
“I got so sick of South America,” she said. “Nothing is clean there, no matter where you go. They’re so lazy, those people. It just burns me up to see the money we’re throwing away down there. They have enough money of their own, my God, they have money. You should see the ranches, they have a thousand people working for them. You have to see it with your own eyes. They told us that Perón made off with over sixty million. And then they ask us for money.”
She was silent for a moment.
“The man I really wanted to marry was Aly Khan,” she said, “but I never got close. I’d have been perfect for him, but he married that Hollywood cunt. Anyway, promise me something. Promise me you’ll try and get to know Travis. Will you promise that?”
Outside the window the snow was pouring down in the early darkness. The room was comforting and secure. She was reminded of feelings of childhood, the excitement of snowstorms and the joy of Christmas and the holidays. She could see herself in the mirror in the bright room. She was like a movie star. She said so.
“Yeah, but a little older,” Eddie said.
“Promise me about Travis,” she ordered.
“Yeah, but there’s something you could do for me.”
He was a little short of money, it being Christmas and all. He needed something to tide him over.
“How much?”
“Tit for tat,” he said pleasantly.
At dinner where they sat rather far apart at the big table the talk was about the storm that was raging and roads being closed. There was plenty of room for all of them to stay over, though, Liz said. She took it as a given that they would.
“There’s plenty of bacon and plenty of eggs.”
Eddie was talking to Travis.
“I’ve looked forward to meeting you,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“Where are you from?”
“California, originally,” Travis said. “I grew up in California. But then the war, you know. The army. I was overseas for a long time, almost two years, flying the Hump.”
“You flew the Hump? What was that like?”
“Rugged, rugged.” He smiled like a poster. “Mountains five miles high and we were flying blind. I lost a lot of good friends.”
Willa was serving. Monroe had been sent upstairs to make beds.
“Do you still fly?” Eddie asked.
“Oh, sure. I fly out of Andrews at the moment.”
“I hear you have a nigger general in the air corps,” Eddie said.
“It’s the air force now,” Travis said.
“I always heard it called the air corps.”
“They changed it. It’s the air force now.”
“Does it really have a nigger general?”
“Darling, shut up,” Liz said. “Just shut up.”
Willa had gone back to the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
“It’s hard enough keeping good help,” Liz said.
“Willa? Willa knows me,” Eddie said. “She knows I’m not talking about her.”
“What branch were you in, Eddie?” Travis asked him.
“Me? I wasn’t in a branch. The army wouldn’t take me.”
“Why was that?”
“Couldn’t pass the physical.”
“Ah.”
“I rode in the Gold Cup, that’s what I did,” Eddie said.
Afterwards they went in to have coffee by the fire. Liz sat back on the couch with her bare arms along the top cushion and kicked off her shoes.
“Slipper me, darling,” she said to Travis.
He stood up without a word and got them for her but stopped short of putting them on her feet. She bent with a slight groan to do it herself.
“You are the limit,” she said to Eddie.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the limit.”
Peter Connors, who had said very little during dinner, managed to speak briefly, alone, with Amussen. He was hesitant about it, he needed some advice. It was about Dare, he was in love with her but couldn’t be sure of where he stood.
“You were talking to her this afternoon, I mean she got quiet when I came in. I wonder if it was about me. I know she looks up to you.”
“We weren’t talking about you. She’s a spirited girl,” Amussen said, “they can be hard to manage.”
“How do you go about that?”
“I expect she’d let you know if she didn’t want you around. I’d say, be patient.”
“I don’t want it to seem I don’t have any backbone.”
“Of course not.”
In a way, that was the impression he was afraid he gave, at odds with his hopes and desires. And dreams. He didn’t imagine anyone having dreams like his. She was in them, they were about her. She was naked and sitting in an armchair, one leg thrown carelessly over an arm. He is near her in a cotton robe that has fallen open. She seems indifferent but accepting, and he kneels and puts his lips to her. He lifts her and holds her up by the waist, like a vessel, to his mouth. He can see himself as they pass a dark silvery mirror, her legs dangling, beginning to kick as he hardens his tongue. She is leaning backward as in one smooth movement he sets her, in the dream and to an extent in life, on his unholy hard-on and as he does, comes in a flood.
