Light Years by James Salter

she said, “I’ve met the most marvelous man.”
    “Yes? Who?”
    “You don’t know him,” she said. “He’s a writer. He’s French.”
    “French …”
    An evening a week giving work as an excuse, sometimes twice a week, whenever he could, he stayed late in town. Slowly his life was being divided. It was true he seemed the same, precisely the same, but that is often all one sees. Collapse is hidden, it must reach a certain stage before it breaks the surface, the pillars begin to yield, façades pour down. His infatuation with Kaya was like a wound. He wanted to look at it every minute, to touch it. He wanted to speak to her, to fall on his knees before her, embrace her legs.
    He sat by the fire. Two cast-iron Hessians held the burning logs, the glow of coals at their feet. Nedra was curled in a chair.
    “Viri,” she said, “you must read this book. When I’m finished, I’m going to give it to you.”
    A book with the edge of its pages dyed mauve, the title in worn letters. She began to read aloud to him, the wood erupting softly in the fireplace like shots.
    “What is it called?” he said finally.
    “Earthly Paradise.”
    He felt weak. The words made him helpless; they seemed to describe the images that overwhelmed him, the silence of the borrowed apartment in which she slept, the width of the bed, her pure, lazy limbs.
    In the morning he went early. The sun was white and glancing, the river pale. He drove in long, smooth curvings, straight-aways, the fever of expectation making him blind. The great bridge gleamed in the morning light; beyond it lay the city, wide as the sea, its trains and markets, its newspapers, trees. He was composing lines, speaking to her, whispering into her ear, I love you as I love the earth, white buildings, photographs, noons  …  I adore you , he said. Cars drifted alongside him. He looked at his face in the rear-view mirror; yes, it was good, it was worthy.
    He began to be silent. The city streets were bare. They gave evidence in their stillness and desolation of the night that had passed, they confessed to it like a weary face. He began to be uneasy. It was like an anteroom that led to a place where something terrible had happened; he could smell it as beasts smell the killing house. Suddenly he became frightened. He would find the apartment empty. It was as if he had caught sight of her shoe outside a building; he could not bear to imagine more.
    A white, winter morning. The street was cold. He unlocked the front door and ran up the stairs. At her apartment, not knowing why, he knocked lightly.
    “Kaya?”
    Nothing. He knocked again, softly, repeatedly. Suddenly, like a blow, he understood. It was true; she had spent the night elsewhere.
    “Kaya.”
    He unlocked the door and opened it. It stopped abruptly against the night chain.
    “Who is it?” she said.
    He had a glimpse of her, nothing more. “Viri.” There was a silence. “Open the door,” he said.
    “No.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Someone’s here.”
    For a moment he could not think what to do. It was early morning. He was ill, he was dying. The walls, the carpets were drinking his life.
    “Kaya,” he pleaded.
    “I can’t.”
    He was staggered because he was innocent. Everything was the same, everything in the world was still in its place, and yet he could not recognize it, his existence had vanished. Her nakedness, late dinners, her voice on the phone—he was left with these, like scraps she had left behind. He started down the stairs. I am dying, he thought. I have no strength.
    He sat in the car. I must see him, he decided, I must see who he is. A postal truck went down the street. People were going to work. He was too near the door. There was a place to park further on. He started the car and drove to it.
    Suddenly someone came out, a round-faced man with an attaché case, wearing a loden coat. No, Viri thought, impossible. The next moment there were two more emerging—was it going to be a