James Salter / Bangkok

Illustration by Simon Birch

Bangkok

By James Salter

BIOGRAPHY

Hollis was in the back at a table piled with books and a space among them where he was writing when Carol came in.

Hello, she said.

Well, look who's here, he said coolly. Hello.

She was wearing a gray jersey sweater and a narrow skirt as always, dressed well.

Didn't you get my message? she asked.

Yes.

James Salter / Am Strande von Tanger

Mujeres en la playa, 1920
Pablo Picasso

Am Strande von Tanger

by James Salter

BIOGRAPHY

Barcelona at dawn. The hotels are dark. All the great avenues are pointing to the sea.

The city is empty. Nico is asleep. She is bound by twisted sheets, by her long hair, by a naked arm which falls from beneath her pillow. She lies still, she does not even breathe.

In a cage outlined beneath a square of silk that is indigo blue and black, her bird sleeps, Kalil. The cage is in an empty fireplace which has been scrubbed clean. There are flowers beside it and a bowl of fruit. Kalil is asleep, his head beneath the softness of a wing.

James Salter / Last Night

Last Night

BY JAMES SALTER

BIOGRAPHY

NOVEMBER 18, 2002 ISSUE

James Salter / La última noche

Walter Such was a translator. He liked to write with a green fountain pen that he had a habit of raising in the air slightly after each sentence, almost as if his hand were a mechanical device. He could recite lines of Blok in Russian and then give Rilke’s translation of them in German, pointing out their beauty. He was a sociable but also sometimes prickly man, who stuttered a little at first and who lived with his wife in a manner they liked. But Marit, his wife, was ill.

He was sitting with Susanna, a family friend. Finally, they heard Marit on the stairs, and she came into the room. She was wearing a red silk dress in which she had always been seductive, with her loose breasts and sleek, dark hair. In the white wire baskets in her closet were stacks of folded clothes, underwear, sport things, nightgowns, the shoes jumbled beneath on the floor. Things she would never again need. Also jewelry, bracelets and necklaces, and a lacquer box with all her rings. She had looked through the lacquer box at length and picked several. She didn’t want her fingers, bony now, to be naked.

James Salter / Comet

Comet
Jackson Pollack

COMET

by James Salter
BIOGRAPHY

James Salter / El cometa

Philip married Adele on a day in June. It was cloudy and the wind was blowing. Later the sun came out. It had been a while since Adele had married and she wore white: white pumps with low heels, a long white skirt that clung to her hips, a filmy blouse with a white bra underneath, and around her neck a string of freshwater pearls. They were married in her house, the one she’d gotten in the divorce. All her friends were there. She believed strongly in friendship. The room was crowded.