Solo Faces by James Salter

past. Someone’s footsteps echoed in the street.
    This love was the act of one person, it was not shared. He was like a man in a boat on a wide lake, a perfectly still lake at dawn. There was no sound except that of oars in the oarlocks, creaking, creaking, a man alone in a boat that slowly begins to shudder, to cry. Afterwards they lay close, like comrades.
    His hair was like hers. His arm lay near her side, the muscle faint, sleeping, the light barely tracing it.
    “Are we going back to Chamonix?” she asked.
    “Never.”
    “I’d like to take you to Paris.” She was stroking the arm with her finger. “I want to show you off.”
    “Where would we stay?” He was filled with a complete weariness, as if he had just fallen into bed after an unforgettable party. “What about your job?”
    “Oh, Remy will give it back. It’s very slow now, anyway.” She seemed to drop off to sleep. “I have some money,” she said. “We’ll have a marvelous time.”
    They rose at noon to look for a restaurant. They were famished.
    The apartment was on a small street off the Avenue du Maine. They arrived in the evening, a blue evening the color of storms and drove along the river in streams of traffic, then through dense neighborhoods. The early darkness was lit by storefronts. The buses were roaring by. There is an electric thrill to the city seen at this hour and for the first time. He was dazzled. The trees still held their enormous leaves. Outside restaurants there were stands selling oysters, the baskets tilted forward for customers to see. The streets were crowded. The city was singing to him, flowing like a great, unimagined dream.
    Two rooms, strangely empty of furniture as if someone had just moved out. A kitchen, a long, narrow bath with red walls. The water limped into the tub, a gas heater roared to life when the hot was turned on. There were photographs and invitations stuck in the mirror. The refrigerator, there being no space elsewhere, was in the front room.
    The woman who owned it, Madame Roberts, came around the next day. She had a long mane of hair and shapely legs. She admitted to being forty-five. It was her daughter who lived here normally and was away.
    “In Rome,” she explained. “She’s decided to go to school. She took a lot of things. I hope you can be comfortable.” She had a very frank gaze. “But you’re used to sleeping in worse places, aren’t you?” she said to Rand. “Catherin has told me about you, your fantastic life. You’re not an intellectual, are you?”
    “An intellectual?” he said.
    “Good, I’m sick of them.” She had strong, white teeth, she brushed them with salt. She owned a shop across the river: imported clothing, accessories, things like that—she’d started it herself.
    “It’s very nice. I have a certain clientele. Catherin knows. I treat them very well. I have good things.” Her presence was rich, full of life. She rummaged in her handbag for a cigarette. Her legs, in stockings that had a metallic sheen, were crossed above the knee. She’d been a mannequin, that was how she started.
    “The first time I had absolutely no confidence. There was a woman in the dressing room who had experience. She saw how frightened I was. She took me aside. Just remember, she said, when you go out there—you are young and beautiful and they are shit. Everything I did, I did for myself,” she said. “No one gave me anything. My husband gave me half the apartment when we were divorced. He put up a brick wall. He kept the living room and kitchen and I got the bedroom and bath.”
    Her business she conducted like the famous courtesans. The men who came to her she classified as payeurs, martyrs or favoris. “As long as they don’t compare notes. Being a mannequin was a help; I developed a taste for luxury.” Her voice was powerful and flowing. She used it like a stream of water. Her laugh was hoarse, the laugh of a free woman. “I developed a taste for it, but I didn’t let