The insistent electronic beeping of my alarm clock jolts me from sleep.  Beep beep.  I see 4:30 in crimson digits.  Damn, it’s way too early.  I bang down the alarm button and soon the beep beep reawakens me.  What the hell.  I squint into the face of my lover, Larry, looking for some activity in his snoring stupor and then at the clock face.  Four-forty-five?  What’s going on?  I had set it for 9:00.  I fumble with the clock, adjust the alarm setting and fall back to sleep.  Beep beep.  I wake up and it’s now five o’clock in bright red.  What a bunch of crap I always seem to get from La Source, just like when it was Radio Shack.

I unplug the clock and then dismantle it.  Through the haze of my drowsiness, I realize it’s not the clock because…beep beep.  And the pitch of that beep makes it impossible to track the direction even though that sound that is somewhere in my house is traveling through the medium of my hallway to pierce my ear.

I can’t get back to sleep and I wish Larry was up with me for companionship, but that’s okay.  At least I won’t be late for my job interview at 11 am.

I get up, may as well get some work done, finish up those graphics that have been brewing on my computer.  As my expresso machine effervesces, I dress and beep beep.  I unplug the other three electric clocks and take out the emergency batteries in all four.  Coffee in hand, I ensconce myself before my computer, our modern deity, open up Photoshop and beep beep.  Where the hell is it coming from?  Sound travels out from a definite source shooting through space and that beep beep takes more energy than a mezzo-soprano.  In the kitchen I unplug the Danby microwave, the digital stove, the expresso machine, the dishwasher, the LG washing machine and Maytag dryer, I don’t have a set you see, the fridge and just in case, the electric kettle, the Cuisinart toaster and the can opener.

Back at the computer, ten minutes later, beep beep.  I turn off the hot water tank.  Moving down the hallway to the computer, beep beep.  This is unwarranted.  Aha, the smoke alarms.  Hauling out the step ladder, I take down the one in the hallway, another near the bedroom, a third in the shed and remove their batteries.

Beep beep.  I’m on the hunt.  I poise high on my ladder with my ear cocked.  Having an ear on each side of your head allows you to distinguish where the sound is coming from.  I cock both ears.  Sound coming from one direction will reach the ear furthest away approximately 1/500 of a second later than the closer ear.  And presumably, the brain can discern this time lag.  Beep beep.  Crouched on the top of the ladder looking for prey, I see my doorbell.  I remove the batteries and head down the ladder beep beep.

I disconnect my LCD Toshiba television, the Sony blue-ray, the Panasonic mini system, the Bose sound dock and for good measure my ’70′s ghetto blaster, Philips hair dryer, electric toothbrush and Miele vacuum.  I ponder disconnecting Larry who is inexplicably still sound asleep.  Beep beep.

My set of six cordless Viatek phones, supernumerary in a seven room flat.  Of course.  I unplug those telephone lines and electric cords and remove all the batteries from the handsets.

Beep beep.  This was beyond my brain’s capacity.  I could not tell where the sound was coming from.  Indications are that it is more difficult to tell direction with low frequencies.  Which was not the case of that infernal beep beeping.  But other factors need be taken into consideration.  Like sound reflects off objects.  The height of the sound is provided by a small amount of reflection off the back edge of the ear lobe.  I have teeny weeny ear lobes.  The elongated shape of the lobe causes the pitch to vary with the angle of the source of sound and the expert I found on Google says it takes years of experience to be able to judge how far away sounds are coming from.

Beep beep.  I close the electrical circuit breakers, pull all fuses and I hunch over in attack mode.

Beep beep.

I get my sledge hammer and crowbar, put on my construction gloves so I won’t blister, and I crack open the gyprock, demolishing the plaster and wood lathing, to yank out the electrical wiring.  Submerged in a cloud of fine white powder and despite the gloves, a small blister, I relax, slightly.

Beep beep.

I get my portable, battery-powered chainsaw, don my welding helmet and safety glasses and go into full attack.  It was coming close to interview time and I had to get going.

I raze through the walls and brickwork like the Amazon I would like to be.  As my home tumbles down, wood, stone and bricks landing in one glorious heap, I shut off the chainsaw and wait.  Other than the cacophonous settling of the debris, I hear nothing.  I have won.  I begin my victory dance.

I dust myself off  and pirouette in the direction of the metro for my interview. Beep beep.  I spot my cel phone vibrating under a piece of plaster and pick it up to see a text message had been sent at 4.30 am to notify me that my interview had been cancelled.  A muffled sleepy voice wafts towards me, honey, can you get the coffee going?

Moment © Ludmilla Armata

Tous les quelques jours, en marchand sur Quattro Venti, je croise un vendeur de bricoles itinérant. Ils sont pour la plupart Nigérian dans mon quartier. Je traverse via Raffaelo Giovagnoli, quand à ma droite au haut de la pente, je vois ce type à casquette me sourire. Il approche avec urgence et je ralentis légèrement le pas. Je lui rends son sourire en laissant comprendre que je n’ai besoin de rien. Je continue à marcher lentement et il fait quelques pas avec moi. _« mutandine? Non hai bisogno di mutande?» _« No Grazie. » Il insiste un peu pour que j’achète ses calçons, mais sans conviction. Il semble bien parler l’italien. Je lui demande d’où il vient. « Nigeria » me dit-il avec ses cils retroussés. Il a l’air sympa et engageant et je crois qu’on a tous deux envie d’un brin de conversation. J’explique que je suis du Canada et mon italien est limité. « I can hear you if you speak English. In my country we speak English and many dialects. » Dit-il avec un accent que je reconnais. On se présente, on se serre la main et l’on parle de choses et d’autres en avançant sans hâte. Il est en Italie depuis six mois, n’avait aucun italien en arrivant, pourtant il comprend tout ce qui se dit. Je ne peux pas en dire autant, malgré mes méthodes Berlitz et les dictionnaires que j’ouvre un peu tous les jours. La langue italienne lui vient plus vite et mieux avec la vente de caleçons. Un type sort du magasin devant lequel on s’est arrêté. Il fait signe à sa femme avant de s’adresser à David. Je ne saisis pas tout ce qu’il lui dit, mais il parle de tapage et que les carabinieri viendraient immédiatement. À son ton, je n’aurais pas deviné qu’il menaçait mon compagnon. « Se fai rumore come ieri, chiamo i carabinieri! » David explique qu’il n’était pas là hier. Le type se contente de cette explication et freine les accusations qu’il faisait, sans animosité il est vrai, mais s’excuse sans gentillesse. Il a confondu un noir pour un autre, ou pire, il a voulu confondre un noir pour un autre et s’éloigne sans remords, en chuchotant quelque chose à la femme à son bras. On se déplace de quelques pas pour ne plus être devant cette entrée, tandis que David continue à me raconter son histoire.

Ils étaient vingt à quitter Abuja dans une Jeep. Après le Niger, ils ont traversé le désert en s’accrochant tant bien que mal aux deux potos viscés sur la structure de la camionnette; vingt à éprouver les ressorts de l’essieu en alternant entre des positions plus ou moins précaires. Penchés dans le vide, ceux du bord s’agrippaient fermement avec une ou deux mains, parfois vingt minutes à la fois. Dans les positions plus sécuritaires du centre, on avait le désavantage d’étouffer entre deux corps suintants. Les huit places assises étaient tacitement réservées aux femmes qui cédaient volontiers leurs prérogatives pour laisser les hommes somnoler. C’est ainsi que jour et nuit ils ont roulé, passant d’une température extrême à l’autre. Deux chauffeurs alternaient. On ne s’arrêtait qu’à certains points convenus pour faire des provisions de gaz et d’eau. Un soubresaut violent sur la route les faisait parfois se bousculer comme dans un jeu de quilles et le dernier du bord tombait. D’autres fois, l’un d’eux somnolait debout amollissant sa prise; cédant à la fatigue et à l’implacable soleil, les doigts glissaient et il se retrouvait sur le chemin. Quand cela arrivait et que les autres réussissaient à alerter le chauffeur assez vite, ce dernier s’arrêtait et faisait demi-tour pour ramasser le malheureux. Si le blessé était encore vivant, on le soulevait à quatre ou cinq et on l’assoyait sur un des sièges sans le soigner. L’énergie des plus empathiques ne tenait qu’à un fil. Il fallait continuer à rouler et à garder l’équilibre bon an mal an. Lorsque la personne tombée d’épuisement avait moins de chance et semblait morte, le chauffeur prenait les autres à témoin pour confirmer qu’il n’y avait plus rien à faire. Musulman, il faisait une prière avant de la couvrir superficiellement de sable à quelques mètres de la route. On ne vidait les poches du trépassé que s’il était accompagné. Quand il s’était lié d’amitié avec un des passagers, ce dernier cherchait une adresse pour prévenir la famille du défunt, mais on n’insistait pas beaucoup là-dessus. Certains passagers, comme le chauffeur, marmonnaient une prière, mais personne ne versait de larmes pour le pauvre égaré. Pendant quelques heures suivant ces incidents tout le monde restait éveillé en silence. C’est le mieux qu’on pouvait comme marque de respect. Il y avait deux grands cylindres d’eau dont on se servait parcimonieusement, surtout quand le soleil était au plus chaud. L’eau s’évaporait si on laissait le contenant décapsulé trop longtemps. En tardant à refermer le couvercle, on se faisait regarder de travers par les autres. Au bout de deux semaines, on est arrivé en Lybie. Comme il y avait la guerre civile, on évitait tout contact avec les gens armées. Il s’agissait de rester là le moins longtemps possible pour éviter de dépenser le peu qu’on avait. Il n’était pas difficile de trouver le contact recommandé pour la suite du périple. Si on ne le localisait pas assez vite, on devait se fier à ceux qui nous approchaient. C’est un circuit fait de segments isolés mais interdépendants, ou chaque maillon a besoin du suivant et du précédent pour survivre. Les passagers de la Jeep s’étaient tous dispersés à l’arrivée, mais on avait pour la plupart la même destination : L’Italie. C’était chacun pour soi, mais on finissait par se croiser.

Le type qui a approché David pour la traversée en bateau l’a assuré qu’il l’avait faite plusieurs fois sans problème. Il fallait montrer les trois cents dollars U.S. que ça coûte. On nous fixait un lieu et une heure. Deux cents dollars à l’avance, et cent à l’embarquement; il n’y avait pas de négociations. Toute l’affaire était convenue en cinq minutes. À 4 :30h du matin, deux jours plus tard, David était surpris de voir qu’il y avait soixante personnes toutes prêtes à s’embarquer; des femmes, des enfants, quelques vieux mais surtout de jeunes hommes dans la vingtaine. On ne parlait pas beaucoup. Tous savaient le risque encouru de voyager en haute mer. On avait entendu des histoires de bateaux chavirés, mais il était trop tard pour reculer. Il faisait froid et certains n’avaient pas de quoi se couvrir. Tout ce qu’ils possédaient au monde était visible et mis à nu face aux éléments à la merci desquels ils se trouveraient bientôt. Malgré la sévérité de la situation, il y avait des boute-en-train sur le bateau et par moments on se serait cru dans un camp de vacance. Ceux qui blaguaient étaient jeunes et désinvoltes, mais même eux fronçaient souvent les sourcils. La traversée ne dura que deux jours. Beaucoup moins longue que le temps passé en Jeep, elle était pourtant beaucoup plus tendue. Dans les premières heures après le départ, les estomacs les plus fragiles ont capitulé. Bientôt, en haute mer, avec des vagues de plus en plus menaçantes, plusieurs tournaient la tête pour vomir. Comme il n’y avait pas de prise où se tenir, on risquait à chaque lame d’être éjecté hors de sa place. Le premier à tomber à l’eau était un gamin qui s’est penché au mauvais moment pour pisser. Avant qu’on ait pu le secourir, il était couvert par les ondulations marines. On le voyait émerger et essayer de nager vers le bateau, mais il s’éloignait petit à petit, inexorablement. On connaissait tous la consigne. En tombant à l’eau, on était perdu. Risquer la vie de plusieurs pour en sauver un était hors de question. En deux jours, on a vu plusieurs personnes chuter. On les regardait dans les yeux sans broncher alors qu’ils paniquaient en disparaissant dans les flots. Chacun à sa manière se recueillait ensuite pour prier son dieu. Impossible de savoir si on priait pour les disparus ou si on suppliait de ne pas être le prochain. Ici, il n’y avait pas de blessé. On était soit faible, soit mort sans autres options. Sur les soixante personnes entassées sur le bateau au départ, cinquante-quatre ont abouti sur la rive de Lampedusa. Aucun de ceux-là n’était particulièrement heureux parce que ce port achalandé n’était que le commencement.

Là-dessus, J’ai offert à David de prendre un café avec moi. À sa manière d’hésiter, j’ai compris qu’il préférerait avoir l’argent du café. Le camion de recyclage passait. Il faisait un boucan fou en ramassant le verre. On s’est déplacé un peu sans que David ne cherche des yeux de potentiels clients, même s’il n’espérait plus rien de moi. _« Mais qu’attends-tu de l’avenir? » Demandai-je. _« M’en aller d’ici, il n’y a pas d’argent en Italie. » _ « Où est-ce que tu veux aller? » _« Au Canada peut-être! » Il m’avait expliqué qu’il faisait juste assez d’argent pour payer son lit dans une chambre à la station Termini, qu’il partage avec d’autres réfugiés. Cent cinquante Euros par mois, plus les dépenses pour la bouffe quotidienne ne lui permet aucune économie. C’est ainsi un mois après l’autre. Mais comment pense-t-il s’en sortir? Ils ont organisé une loterie là où il habite. Ils mettent chacun cinq ou dix Euros quand ils peuvent et le gagnant emporte la cagnotte. Un ou deux mille Euros, avec quoi commencer une nouvelle vie! C’est la seule porte de sortie. Il est pourtant ébéniste de métier. Il dit que chez lui, il faisait de belles chaises solides et des meubles, mais ici personne ne l’engagera sans papier. Alors il continue d’acheter des caleçons et des chaussettes et de les vendre sur la rue. Face à l’impatience des passants, il ne se lasse pas de sourire. Je demande si la police le tolère sans lui coller d’amende. Il rit à voix haute en guise de réponse, n’ayant rien à perdre. « I cannot pay, I have no money. How am I going to pay? » Quand ils l’accostent, les carabiniers ne confisquent rien. Ils lui ordonnent de ranger son matériel dans son sac, puis lui tournent le dos. Il les laisse s’éloigner, change de rue et recommence sa sollicitation sans trop perdre de temps. Plusieurs heures sans vente signifient un repas en moins. Ce qui est frappant avec David, c’est qu’il n’est ni morose, ni démoralisé, ni fatigué, ni ne semble particulièrement envieux de la vie de ceux qui sont en règle. Malgré ce qui lui manque, il apprécie ce qu’il possède: sa jeunesse, sa force, sa santé. Il peut marcher, il peut apprendre, il peut rigoler. Chaque repas est une bénédiction et chaque journée un accomplissement. Il prie et la vie est devant lui. La force et l’espoir lui viennent sans doute de plus grandes misères qu’il a vues chez d’autres. Peut-être est-ce la cruauté de l’éphémère, ou la brutale et imprévisible fin qui guette à notre insu qui l’inspire, comme celle de cet enfant que David a vu plaisanter et rire un moment, et l’instant d’après basculer hors du bateau pour être avalé sans recours par les vagues impassibles.

They met at an art college in London, England, not at the posh Slade or arty Goldsmiths, but at what was actually listed as a charity, near Covent Garden. It was 1969. The college had one communal lavatory in the basement that was of Thomas Crapper’s vintage – a chasse d’eau – pulling the chain to the overhead tank sent it into a coughing and gargling spasm.

For all that, it was a good school, with few pretensions; a roster, half-comprised of English students and half of overseas origin, flocked to the former warehouse. The staff, dedicated to technical training and the freedom to experiment, gave lectures at the roomy topmost floor that had old factory planking and a skylight offering a grandiose view of dismal weather. Wintertime, with no central heating, students often wore caps or hats to class; only two rooms were cozy comfy, the office belonging to the pot-bellied principal, and the registrar’s alcove where a secretary hardly ever lifted her eyes from her typewriter. The registrar was his lordship’s matrimonial solvent; flinty-eyed, but rather attractive, and tough as nails when it came to students avoiding her summons for late payments.

After two years of this gloomy dampness, brightened with students winning prizes at festivals, he and she met during the spring of the graduating term; the two had been like phantoms, as they had bounded up and down the whitewashed brick-walled stairwells, without ever taking stock of each other. He had broken his ankle skiing in the Alps during the spring break, and she wondered, seeing him in the corridors hobbling with a walking cast and a cane, why he bothered coming in at all. Approaching the finals, they felt but little prepared for the professional vicissitudes that lay beyond the heavy wooden street door. The buzz in the poorly lit antechamber, where two young women recently returned from India sold tea and sandwiches, was all about the prospects of finding work when ‘liberation’ came.

She had told him she was already in the film technicians’ union, as a seamstress, and how she wanted to parlay that category into a design job at the BBC. He felt bright and energized, but beyond that, launching himself into the world meant returning home to Montreal.

After spending their first night together in his Golders Green bedsit room, she showed him an unseen part of London. Fortified with modest picnics they brought with them, she led him to the canals that spread like leaf veins through the urban core. As they ate on a sunny embankment, he had said to her, ‘This is my first dill sandwich.’ He liked its thin but gamey taste. ‘After two years, here?’ she asked. ‘It’s as English as the Queen.’ He laughed. People lined up every day at Buckingham Palace to catch a glimpse of the Royals.

She had a sewing machine, her pride and joy that she had lent to an acquaintance of hers, who let it stray from his possession. When she finally reached this person by going to a call box – mailed letters, more efficient, reached any destination inside Greater London the same day if posted before 10 a.m. – she was informed by him that he had tried leaving her a message, to say he’d lent it to someone else, but this other person was presently on holiday. How long? Her friend wasn’t sure, exactly. But he would send her news as soon as possible.

He watched her, as she returned from phoning at her pub around the corner, flushed from climbing the stairs to the fourth floor. She didn’t immediately announce the devastating news about her sewing machine. She made them both a cup of tea, and then explained the situation; her hand, trembling, jiggled the cup in the saucer as she stared out the window of her three-and-a-half overlooking workaday Camden Town. ‘I’ll get it back eventually,’ she announced firmly, but barely audible to him, averting his gaze. ‘It’s just, I’ve some new fabric and I wanted to try a pattern for a dress.’ He came and put his arm around her, ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, belatedly.

Standing by the window, her cheeks had a suffused glow, but he wasn’t sure how much was due to the slanting sunlight, or to her anger in the casual way her friend had taken liberties with her valued property. But instead of reassuring her of its imminent return, he went on a jag chiding the English as pusillanimous. She stood neutral, neither flinching nor disagreeing with his invectives against British inefficiency.

He made her chuckle over his story of Murphy, a classmate, an American draft dodger who had just married a sweet young English woman, and her parents had set them up in a cottage on the Northern Line, on which this Murphy commuted to school, intent as he was in getting his diploma in June. Murphy had explained to the principal as to why he was late for an exam. The morning train was late, and in arriving at the platform, was further delayed while the engineer and the conductor went into the station for a tea break. The portly principal, a former director of B films, and of whom the graffiti in the loo made passing remarks, such as ‘Bob should go to Hollywood, the walk would do him good,’ merely nodded at the imperious-jawed Murphy, and told him he would likely graduate just the same.

Murphy opened his mouth to say something more, about needing high marks to get a job at VizNews, but Bob raised his eyes levelly, and stared him down, like a Napoleon silencing an upstart general.

He imitated, to her, Murphy’s crowing to his classmates, ‘Everyone on the platform like a bunch of anxious penguins, and nobody says anything.’

And she nodded, in that puzzling way she had about her, often leaving him entirely confused. He had been meaning to tell her about this growth he felt inside her, during their love making, and he wondered how he might broach the subject to her, concerned that she should see a doctor, when one night, after they had awoken together and responded to their passion, he had heard a rubbery suction, that he passed off without mentioning it, and she had apologized for it the next day, in that endearing, quiet manner of hers, and said it was her contraception device, and that she would remedy the problem. Flummoxed, more than embarrassed, he had said, relieved, ‘Oh well, sure, so you’re all right, then?’

‘It’s a good thing,’ he had said to her during their ‘budding’ romance – it was spring and he made bad puns – ‘we’re not competitive. You’ve got talent. I’m not sure I do.’ He wanted to get into films but had no real idea how. He felt she knew what she was doing. Yet, she disdained the go-getter world of the professional arts.

Her mini-skirt slashed across her thigh. It was the height of Mary Quant’s bold fashions. He loved riding on the London busses and watching the matrons clucking over the risqué attire. And once, seated on a bus, he made her giggle by imitating her, squeezing his legs together (as modesty dictated for the mini-skirt), and he recognized that, though not high-spirited, she was adventurous just the same.

He couldn’t stay in England, not just because of the visa problem, but his attitude and lack of connections would have made it an arduous if not insurmountable task of landing a job. And she could get a one-year work permit to return with him, as they found out at Canada House, where he often went to lounge in the comfortable lobby, to read his home newspapers.

It was on a leisurely springtime walk at Kew Gardens – the rhododendrons were in a cascading bloom – when she had turned to him, and asked him, ‘What’s the equivalent in Canada?’ And he had described the subtle shades of lilacs and their deeply scented arbors. And she decided on the spot she would come to Montreal with him. They would leave just as soon as their year-end results were posted.

Once – and it amazed him how gentle she was, like a filly nuzzling his hand, expecting a treat, a carrot or a lump of sugar; at how she found the exact moment to tell him things – she had said to him, ‘I don’t get really turned on with you, not like I used to with this fellow I once went out with.’ And her comment felt like a silver rapier piercing his heart, hardly feeling the thrust but understanding the deeper implications. And he thought, ‘Uh oh. Trouble’.

Eventually, they talked about their intimacy, and the question was defused, of whether she enjoyed their love-making more, simply because he became more adept, or that she appreciated his concern for her pleasure. She would take his hand and squeeze it sometimes on a walk. ‘I like when it’s spontaneous,’ she had said about their flights of ardor.

And upon their arrival to Montreal, he immediately did well. He found a three-and-a-half on MacGregor Avenue, near the heart of town – a bit too glaring with arborite kitchen counters, but she softened the brightness with a few touches – just like she smoothed out his rough edges. A colleague in London had shown him the intricacy of loading an Éclair camera, used in news and sports reporting, and his newfound free-lance work as an assistant cameraman paid a king’s ransom, compared to the humble begging they were used to in London, hanging about fish-and-chip stands late at night, just before closing, and the good-hearted vendors giving away fresh leftovers, plaice and fries, in a large newspaper cornet – all you had to say was please, and that you were a student.

He bought an old Dodge Rambler. She marveled at the changing autumn leaves, quince and scarlet and brilliant yellow. They went on camping trips into the northern wilderness, and got caught out a few times – an unexpected overnight snowfall obliterating an unplowed logging road, or the panic of losing their bearings while bushwhacking. And she marveled at how he remained very collected; she tempered his other extremes, now his outpourings were all about Canadian ‘dorkiness’ – everything from CBC kitchen-sink dramas, to the ‘demolition derby’ going on with Montreal’s downtown heritage buildings. ‘Little boy,’ she would respond to his diatribes, half-amused, half-concerned about him.

He became extremely fond of her, and she appreciated his concern for her happiness. His friends bent over backwards to make her feel welcome. But no amount of February fairytale-like snowfalls can make up for the slog of March and endless slushy days. The man next door to their apartment sold Scott’s Industrial Directories over the phone, his gargly laughter in dealing with clients pierced the wall; they bit their lips laughing over his products and prices that they soon knew by heart; they rolled their eyes in mute derision at his oily manner in calling up airline stewardesses from a nearby apartment building that often saw them coming and going in their prim uniforms, sexy scarves and carry-alls.

But she soldiered on. She loved the needle trade, the vast, old-fashioned showrooms with their ogee windows and the offices with their ‘detective story’ transom corridor windows; the hearty, energetic, quickly calculating managers, and she found part-time work doing routine designs for lingerie. She also found an old tailor who taught her the art of sewing buttonholes. The tough-talking salesmen loved her British accent; it made her sound efficient.

Saturday mornings were dedicated to speaking French; she had learned a bit at her private school. But they invariably ended up giggling in mid-conversation, making up silly phrases – ‘Je vous demande le spoon en marriage pour le sucre.’  He remembered an anecdotal elementary school lesson about an Englishman staying with a friend at a Paris hotel, when rooms still had fireplaces, and on his way out, of having the misfortune to say to the concierge, ‘Ne laissez pas sortir le fou.’ And then his poor travelling companion confined to his room all day by a locked hotel door, and the concierge implacable to his plight.

Towards spring, she clarified what she missed the most about London. ‘I always get a buzz going out into the street, there.’ And which – understandably, he thought, as Montreal didn’t have as exotic-sounding places as Elephant & Castle, the south London Tube stop that meant Enfant de Castile, and referred to Henry VIII’s Catherine of Aragon – she didn’t get here in Montreal. ‘Perhaps St. Denis Street, a bit,’ she had relented. And to which he had no ready answer.

He felt he couldn’t compete with her English upbringing, but he could make her laugh. Once, when she had worn her mini-skirt on a cold spring day, he had walked alongside her pretending he was Groucho Marx, imitating the comedian’s crouched duck walk. ‘Little boy,’ she had said, blushing, but amused nonetheless.

He was waiting for her to say she would leave. Of course she could stay if she wanted to; she could re-apply at Immigration Canada. He watched with brooding calculation, as the mist and the rain drew winter to a close, while the slush melted in brown stews around the curbside drains, and the yellow mounds of dog pee and runlets of sidewalk sand disintegrated under lashing storms. And she appreciated that he had grown so attentive, they spent large swaths of time at home, reading, listening to music, and simply threshing old straw, about what had become of their classmates.

There was Tirosh, who blew an interview with Granada TV, that he’d obtained through pull, when he’d said he didn’t think much of Coronation Street, the network’s mainstay; or Aubrey, who had spent the summer at the hippie caves at Matala, the fabulous ocean beach on the far side of Crete, where one cave was the communal toilet, that stank to high heaven, where they all shat and then jumped into the water to clean their bums, and who had returned to London, convinced that enemas were a natural elixir, and through his enema-minded circle, had landed a job at Apple recordings; or of Luigi and Carla, who had started a modest casting office that had now picked up bigger productions – and yes, he couldn’t deny this was exciting, and to which she responded as if it were a magnet luring her back to London.

She had been very ‘open’ with her mail, the aerograms and finely printed envelopes that seemed like invitations to pop over for tea. And both they laughed heartily over a story of hers, that actually brought tears to his eyes: she’d recounted the recent marriage of a friend of hers, an old classmate from Lady Compton’s School for Girls. This friend had married a fellow her mother considered unsuitable to their social standing, and how, tipsy at the marriage ceremony, the mother had referred to her new son-in-law as a good ‘starter husband’.

And so he found himself on a late March day, blustery, walking west along Sherbrooke Street, with gales of east wind pouring in from the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, and rather than returning home right away, lugging his grocery bag up the hill to MacGregor, he entered the stone portal passing through the long fortification wall of the Sulpician college.

In the grounds lay a 500-foot long mediation pool, under an alley of spreading maples. Here, he and she had often come in the fall, while the ducks were gathering prior to migrating, and the days had grown grayer, and chillier. An old shambling priest brought the mallards crumbs – and the ducklings, grown like a spanking new football team, flocked around the man’s soutane, splashing out of the water as they hopped up onto the footpath, rising on their webbed feet, imploring him with their beady eyes for handouts. Only the mother duck stayed in the pool, summoning her brood back with an imperious quacking. Soon, they flew off, and the old Sulpician, his eyes grown dim, told them that the original pair had been returning for nine years.

‘I wonder if he married them,’ he quipped to her, as they went trudging up the hill to their apartment.

And so, on this spring day, laden with his food bags, going up the hill to MacGregor, he detoured to take a look at the long pool – banks of snow still lingering in the glade that had brought such welcome shade in the heat of summer, but the mallard pair had not yet returned.

And he knew that when the inevitable came, as he sensed it would, soon, he must be supportive of her, and her decision. And in his luckless way, he wondered at the supremacy of natural mating, how anonymous the pairing seemed, the wild yonder, and the return to mystical habitats.

He knew that they would think of each other, just as memories recede in time but do not grow dim, their defining elements sparkle in the worldwide orbit of goings and comings; they might even correspond by mail, or gossip heard via his milieu, or recall each other, as with the passing of geese overhead that summons a peculiar joy; they might even meet one another, if the occasion befitted the quick flutter of a lark, and they might – this would truly be a mistake – spend the night together if he happened to find himself in London while working on a film. Their bond, he felt, as haunting as the fluting call of a loon.

And tethered to no name.

He creeps through shadows, robed in dark colors to blend with his surroundings. Every breath he takes is measured, his feet tiptoeing along the edges of buildings and through royal courtyards. Henri Denjean is a stealthy man, overly cautious due to previous bad experiences. Some call him a thief, but he scoffs at their ignorance.

Is it stealing, when you are only providing for innocent people whose life prospects are being decided by the house they are born into? Is he taking something those rich scoundrels will not be able to replace? Does a loaf of bread make a difference in a parlor that looks like the marketplace? Henri forces himself to calm down, blood racing with righteous indignation.

Everything, from murder to love, can be twisted; this is something he has learned, though his life has barely spanned three decades. Treachery is in a human’s nature, as is compassion and hope. What one man considers deceit is another man’s truth, and with this reasoning Henri justifies his nightly raids.

It is late 18^th century, and France as he knows it is crumbling. The country’s debt falls to peasants – farmers, seamstresses, and tailors. His own closest friend, Jacques Louvre, who had studied alongside him with Monsieur Barron in their early years as fiery blooded young men, was forced to quit school in exchange for the farming trade. The loss of companionship in his studies was felt strongly, and even now Henri takes pains to visit his friend, attempting to help with small chores like feeding animals or heavy-lifting. All around him, he sees dark emotions growing in people’s hearts, ideas of revenge grasping onto them and not letting go. He feels their bitterness – from having responsibilities thrust upon them but no privileges to balance it out. When Henri sees lavish carriages roll by, he controls the urge to spit on the ground with disgust, as other peasants do.

Tonight, he tries to remember, is an especially dangerous night. The moon illuminates everything – alleys, streets, graveyards, churches, homes. He walks on his toes, a panther in disguise, brain racing forward and repeating each detail of his plan. Tonight – he wryly smiles, forcing all the nervous energy out of his limbs – will be the Dejean household’s turn. An influential family, to be sure, and the cause of his greatest distress. Eyes closing, forehead creasing, he thinks of his past and how it has brought him to this point.

Born into a noble family, he was raised to believe that family comes first, no matter what. Peasants are petty and squabble among themselves – noble families must always stick together, heads raised high as an example of family honor and pride.  He is named Henri, because Henri means householder and as the firstborn son of a noble family, as a Dejean, he will be the leader of his family one day. But how could he believe this, when even as his father lectured him, the view through the window showed smiling peasant families? When his own friend, Jacques, speaks warmly of his little sisters, mes petite soeurs, and happily works for the good of his whole family?

In Henri’s mind, there is no difference between nobles and peasants; people are people, despite how you might try to warp it. Their differences are all ones of the mind – a noble considers himself more worthy, but is a man always worth his weight in gold?

Henri is a philosopher, a noble, a thief, but most importantly he is a man. If he was a painting, every layer of paint stripped away would reveal a bare canvas, the soul of a man. A soul, he thinks, thrives in different ways – but every soul requires balance in its life, whether it is a man, a woman, a child, or a colored person. The balance of taxes, the balance of learning, the balance of peasants and nobles – all are necessary. Henri Dejean is drawn to this promise of balance, this taste of hope he drinks in every time he gives food to starving peasants and he holds this passion in his breast, letting it guide him through doors.

He takes one last look around, before slipping into the Dejean house, mind honing in on the pantry. One might call him a thief, but the passionate roaring beast inside him knew better.

Henri’s heart beats for France – it is his home, and he will continue to help it along with every creeping footstep and loaf of bread, bringing the dreams of France’s hard working citizens to life.

One usher insists on giving us, not just Ivor,  more rice…because Ivor’s so tall? How tall is he really? The other guests  watch us. Ah, Ivor finds the fare tantalizing, his English taste buds are now stirred, he tells me.  Alloo, pumpkin cooked with masala.

Ivor drools,  licking the dhal on his fingers mixed with rice.  He’s bound to tell his students it’s authentic fare.

But do I hear one feisty student, Miriam, asking: “Why are there no genuine Caribs left on the island?”

“Caribs?”

“Yes, Caribs.”

Ivor shrugs. And I must know more about everyday Britain, I figure. Another student: “Are there only Africans and Tamils on this coast with French history intact?”

Miriam is berating Ivor. Nothing’s ever real in the Caribbean, she says. Oh? Take my word for it, I was born there. The other students come on her side.

–You’re missing the point, Professor Ivor. You really are.

Ah, it’s again about race: black and white, in England or the USA.

What about South Africa with apartheid still at work despite a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Miriam waves with a tremor of her hands. Her language of life, she  calls it. Echoes are now everywhere. And does Ivor really want to go to South Africa to meet ANC  members, if Nelson Mandela himself? Not meet  Zulu Chief Buthelezi or  Cyril Ramaposa?

Ivor’s mouth is yellow-stained; he’s slurping, more like it.

“Eat up,” I say. And the sun’s heat begins to make us uncomfortable. I want the ocean to come closer.  “Yes,” Ivor says,  his “plate” still  primed. Rice falls like confetti, as the male ushers come to him again. Ah, curried goat–the same animal I’d earlier seen tied to a shrub and had seemed irritable on this the hottest day of the year. Who’s the real vegetarian now among the Hindus?

“Eat all,” a food-ladler urges with glee.

Ivor slurps once more.

“Eat all or they will  be offended,” I murmur. “It’s the custom to eat everything on your plate.”  It’s the way of the French in the Caribbean, no?

Ivor laughs at my deduction; he calls me Ravi, as everyone hails me.  Not call me Shiva?

“I am not from India,” I say.

One guffaws.

–What d’you think, Miriam, with your armful of books  weighing you down?

Ivor’s now just  the object of everyone’s  curiosity. One distinctly thin woman with truly dark features laughs loudest.

–Hey, Ivor, she isn’t the real thing, says Miriam.

Ivor scrapes at the edge of the banana leaf, his makeshift plate.

“I’m really enjoying it,” he says.

–You’re not.

“I’ve been looking forward to it, to Carib-creole food.” A gargoyle’s face; everything keeps overwhelming Ivor, if only because of his ingrained English ways.

Miriam laughs. Multi-coloured South Africa is also laughing?

Canada now…the same?  I hum to myself.

Believe me.

Ivor boasts that he will become the most “knowledgeable man”  in England, with knowledge of the authentic Caribbean. Oh? Now, though,  it’s really the  urge to eat more with such appetizing local fare around.  But the banana leaf-plate is bitter, it’s not  salad.  Christ!

Ivor burps.

The others watching him applaud.

Will he start eating the edges of the leaf, his way of complying with local custom?

“It’s the heat that makes you swelter so much,” I say.

Ivor scoffs, “Maybe not.”

Then, “You’re just exotic to them, Ivor.”

The word “exotic” has its own special appeal or resonance; and maybe he will again bite into the banana leaf, as the locals keep encouraging him…to eat all!  Hand-gestures, drama being acted out, I imagine. Ivor is playing along, isn’t he?

Ritual, more like it.

–Stop making a fool of yourself, man,  Miriam’s voice is in my ears. Ivor’s lips twitch. “Maybe we’re fated to be here,” he says, his   eyes lighting up against the umbrella-slanted sun.  He  points to my own empty leaf-plate; then he tells me that I am also a foreigner here.

Anonymity intact?

The surge-slap of water at Pointe des Chateaux, like a distant sea, I hear.  Buccaneering days, ah, long-gone in the Caribbean.

Now the crowd drools, one almost pulling Ivor’s hand.  Pulling him up. As the women make faces.  They really do!

I simply incorrigible Miriam’s voice again: Ivor, run for it. It’s your only chance.

“Eh?”        

–Run, man!

Cymbals clashing. Kali-goddess and Maria-ma–the twain meeting.

A Hindu and Catholic mix in Guadeloupe, see.  Where else are people  really changing everywhere around the world?  Ivor’s own Germanic tribe, in the mix, I imagine. The Madrasi-headed women in the market are yet laughing. Imagine someone coming at him with a crude spear. Heads being unceremoniously lopped off!

–Run while you can, Ivor. This is no National Geographic special, you better believe it.

Palm trees thrash and hurl,  like another hurricane coming. There’s no denying what occurred here not so long ago.  Trade winds literally kept  brandishing swords.

Nothing to deny?

Ivor looks at the thin but attractive swarthy women with their  particular allure.  Miriam makes a face, a genuine Caribbean face, eh?

Oh, to live in England…longer. But I unconsciously long for Canada’s cold. Do I really?

Gosh, we are multicultural everywhere.

***

A mixed-race TV crew, all American, with media link-ups across America and Europe, who will buy their “feed”–who tell us there’s always interest in people of the Caribbean, don’t we know?

A tallish woman with sallow skin forces the tripod in place. She looks through the lenses, eager for magnification.  The interviewer, a handsome  male mulatto, smooth or just glib in his manner, first addresses Ivor. Not me?

–What d’you think is the importance of this festival you’re attending here? You’re a professor of cultural anthropology in Britain, aren’t you?

–I am.

–What brought you here?

Go on, tell the truth, Ivor.

–My students want me to be here. What I mean to say is that this is a good opportunity for the people in the region, all the races, as I will tell everyone back in Sussex.

– About the real Caribbean? But how real?

–Well, er…. Asia.

– Go on, please.

–The European powers have had a long history in this region, which can’t be denied or ignored. But…

–Continue in this vein, Professor.

–I mean, there’s an interest in ideology, too. Your American audience will understand that.

–Ideology?

–Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about terrorism only we should be interested in.

– Muslim fundamentalism, or drug-pushing, eh?  Tell us, Professor.

–I believe all the races are one…before the time of slavery and  indentured labour. Indeed sugar is the Caribbean’s only legacy, nothing else. Here now it’s a wonderful mixing of people, I mean…blending. It’s  why I am here, so I can tell my students.

–What about the Natives, have they disappeared?

–Natives?” Ivor’s eyes rove around. Where are the swarthy-complexioned females now?

–D’you feel any responsibility, Professor Ivor Jones, as an Englishman, I mean?

–Not at all. But, er…the Natives, they’re still around; they will be eager to talk about their ancestry, if you ask them.

–Arawaks, d’you mean?

Ivor contemplates; as Miriam and the other students seem to be  urging him to it. My own inner ear at work.  Do I next see a  man astride a horse with whip in hand in a slave plantation…somewhere?

Do I really?

–It’s always a  question of race, isn’t it, if it’s what you’re asking, no? Ivor is taking his time, bemused as he is.

Slowly the camera shifts away from Ivor, and turns to me. The tallish TV woman before her tripod smiles.

–You are from Canada, are you not?

I nod.

She wants me to articulate, to keep on talking.

–You’re considered, er …a black Canadian, are you? And is the Caribbean a place you feel you must return to?

–The last time I came here was eight years ago.

–Seen many changes as you look around:  the music, the food, Indian lambada?

Really lambada?

A crowd comes around; they  expect me to tell it as it is.

What?  The TV  tape will soon be played around the world; but not in Canada? Space and time, for students only, who will want to hear everything…about actually being here, no?

Ivor looks at me.

What about South Africa that you want to visit next, mate?

The TV tripod starts unfolding. Oh, the matronly Madrasi women in the market are in the background, but coming closer.

A close-up shot with more magnification, only. What’s now more exotic in a tropical island-place with drums beating everywhere …pounding.  Echoic sounds I hear. A special journeying now.

And who will eat what next? Another goat tethered not far away, in the sun, waiting to be “sacrificed”  by Hindus here in Guadeloupe. Oh, again the ushers will ladle out food on banana leaves spread out under the zinc-roofed tent. Ivor will keep a careful eye on everyone one, you see; he will want me to fo the same because we are indeed two of a kind.

The heavy aroma will begin to be oppressive in the heat: sounds and smells, which the TV camera will never capture, I know.

My heart starts beating faster.

(It’s not fair that you should do this, for what’s to be edited out, you know.)

–So Professor Ivor, tell us what d’you really feel being here in the  Caribbean? Waves come crashing down on all sides now.  And, you see,

I will conjure up winter, with ice-crystals  coruscating in the sun.

But beaches I want to be on, as I will go once more to Pointe Chateaux, then wander around Guadeloupe, including to Marie Galante.  All the while Ivor will contemplate visiting South Africa as Miriam keeps being at his heels. Will he want to shake Nelson Mandela’s hand  because of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearing?

–Do not go there, Ivor. Nothing’s authentic anymore.

Why not?

Indeed the  races will mingle,  I say to myself. And I will  keep thinking about  ancestry, if only about the Tamils in Pondicherry, and then about the first Indian man or woman who came here.

Who? Now natives all.

Bones, relics.

*

Voices keep calling out, like twittering sounds I will keep hearing everywhere; as Ivor will also relive his genuine experience of the Caribbean,  with creole food in him…as he also thinks of Asia and Africa being less  exotic, won’t he?

His students like now laugh louder, some indeed dark-hued in Sussex and others coming from across England.  Coming from Canada too? Tabla sounds again beating, and a crowd is marching…being ready to embrace Ivor and me, I know. A close-up snapshot…the Caribbean, indeed.  Then it’s also South Africa we’re talking, aren’t we?

Will you really go there too, Ravi?

Because of where I might have come from, you see. Come from other parts of India too, like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, or some place else…now being originally from Guyana.

Ah, I know I will head back north again, where I watch Ivor’s face on the TV screen from time to time and dwell on more authentic meeting ground, everywhere. But never mine.

Soledad ( 4' x 6') by Ludmila Armata, Oil, from series entitled "misfits" exposed in June 2011 at the Gallery d'Este, Montreal.

Il était une fois un petit monstre très laid et très méchant, qui portait en lui des pensées si tristes et si funestes qu’il n’avait aucune envie de grandir pour devenir un grand monstre avec des pensées encore plus tristes et plus funestes que celles qui le tourmentaient déjà.

Très vite, il avait envisagé le suicide, mais ne trouvait ni le courage, ni n’avait développé l’ingénuité de mettre fin à ses jours. Le seul espoir de murir suffisamment pour former des idées sûres et achevées, lui permettant de concevoir un moyen efficace de s’enlever la vie, l’emplissait de joie et l’engageait à persévérer dans l’attente de cette maturité.

Les jours passaient bercés par cet objectif, au point qu’il en oubliait l’aboutissement fatal. Chaque soir devant le miroir, le spectacle de sa laideur et le reflet de ses intentions involontairement perfides déclenchaient d’insupportables maux de ventre. Mais les nœuds dans ses entrailles semblaient se défaire aussitôt que le traversait la pensée que bientôt, il cumulerait la force et le moyen de supprimer l’horreur dont il était le supplicié. Cet espoir de réconfort, était son seul refuge de grandeur et de beauté.

Ainsi, l’avenir était devenu son échappatoire et le baume unique contre son état détestable. La vie se déroulait devant lui comme un tapis, où chaque jour lui offrait un nouvel espace où poser le prochain pas, qui le rapprochait d’un lendemain enivrant et d’une perspective avenante.

Orpheo ( 4' x 4') by Ludmila Armata, Oil, from series entitled "Misfits"

C’est en descendant de la montagne que je l’aperçus pour la première fois. Mon premier réflexe eût été de m’en éloigner en ignorant sa présence. Mais plutôt que de le fuir, je m’approchai sans crainte et m’assis calmement à quelques pas de lui. J’en avais beaucoup entendu parler autrefois, mais depuis quelque temps, je sentais que la communauté évitait d’en faire mention. On insinuait involontairement son existence à travers des gestes, des dessins ou parfois des interjections dont la référence semblait échapper à la plupart d’entre nous. Ceux qui, comme moi, s’en rendaient compte, levaient à peine les sourcils et laissaient couler la conversation dans un mode dénué de controverse. Les enfants questionnaient, mais les adultes cachaient leur agacement et détournaient l’attention des plus petits en chantant une chanson ou en faisant quelques pas d’une danse familière qui les distrayaient invariablement.

Moi, j’étais là, assis à côté de lui, si près que j’aurais pu allonger le bras et le toucher si j’en avais eu l’audace. À l’inverse de ma nature engageante et animée, je restais muet avec le regard fixe, respirant l’essence qu’il dégageait. Cela m’emplissait d’une extase et d’un bien-être qui ne m’étaient pas inconnus; qui rappelaient l’éveil des sens pendant la copulation. Je n’étais aucunement troublé. Le respect que j’éprouvais me gardait de le regarder directement ou de tenter un geste de rapprochement. Je restais inerte, comme il était inerte et cependant, on communiait par la voie de l’immobilité et du silence. J’aurais voulu que cela dure éternellement.

Soudain, avec lenteur et détermination, sans crainte et sans hostilité, il se dressa. Du coin de l’œil, je devinais qu’il me faisait un signe. Je sentis qu’il souffla dans ma direction, et avec une sérénité profonde, sans la moindre agitation, sans aucune brusquerie, il entama un premier pas pour s’éloigner de moi. Lorsque je levai la tête, il n’était plus qu’un point dans l’horizon qui disparut dans le tremblement de la distance. Je ne le revis plus.

Maintenant, sur le point de m’éteindre, tous les noms, les images et les souvenirs deviennent des taches informes qui se dissolvent graduellement, sauf cet instant passé avec lui, que je peux solliciter à tout moment et qui semble si tangible. Chaque respiration me ramène cet effluve que j’ai sentie une seule fois et que j’emporterai avec moi quelle que soit ma destination, après que mes fluides auront cessé de circuler.

Los Angeles, February 1972

Dear children:

When I myself was a child, in Italy, and toured the country with my parents, we would visit churches, basilicas, and cathedrals. Either for religious fervor or as a cultural duty I was always compelled to enter those dark cold buildings, smelling of pungent incense, and stand in front of ancient paintings which looked to me all the same, admiring painted glass and mosaics with vibrant colors and listening to boring speeches (only later did I learn that they were “sermons”). If I had to do the same thing with you, I would take you instead to tour banks. Do not laugh! First of all because nowadays the bank is the venerated temple of the materialistic society, but also because it is inside and in front of banks that one can find the art treasures of our time; those institutions can afford to pay any price for a masterpiece, mostly if it is tax deductible.

I am back at Westwood, ready for my lecture at U.C.L.A. tomorrow, and my retina is still impregnated with vivid images of gorgeous façades along Wilshire Boulevard. I took a bus heading to downtown to do some research in the Public Library. On my right, for almost one hour, I saw beautiful modern buildings, mostly banks. I decided to ride the same bus on my way back and this time I started rating those buildings like one would do with restaurants in France: three stars for Crocker Bank, two stars for the Bank of California, and so on.

Wilshire Boulevard is one of the largest avenues in the world, it could be one of the nicest if there were some more benches for pedestrians to rest, some cafés to sit at, sip an apéritif and look at the passerbys, and a little less garbage in the non-built zones (flowers, fountains, and children playing instead). Here finally is an American town with sidewalks (and broad ones) made on the human scale!! Unfortunately people use cars to drive on it instead of walking. But one day I will still come back and walk along it from downtown to Santa Monica!

The jewel was a sculpture in front of a bank with iron bushes, extended like crooked arms, and water cascading with an interesting and beautiful play of lights. It looks like one of those modern sculptures of Brazilia by Bruno Giorgi or Maria Martins.

I wish I could come back here with you someday, to run altogether along Wilshire Boulevard, the future Via Appia Antica (or Moderna) of America, up to Santa Monica where your mother would be waiting for us on the large, clean, sandy beach in front of the deep blue ocean.

I kiss you,

Father

Los Angeles, November 1973

Dear children:

I left San Francisco last evening and upon my arrival at the International Airport I rented a car (despite the warnings to the contrary of Richard who was afraid that I would get lost in those “complicated” freeways) and went immediately to Wilshire Boulevard to see “my banks” at night. I know that you are going to laugh as you did last year when I sent you a letter about my pilgrimage to the Mecca of capitalism. Later, when you will be older, I am sure that you will understand either the wisdom or the humor of my observations, Anyway, I was very disappointed last night because I could not find “my” water—sculpture, although I went twice over the long avenue in both senses, although it was 1:00 AM. My only consolation was to rent a room in a motel near the Ocean Beaches and smell the sea.

But this afternoon I unraveled the mystery, and discovered my “poor” sculpture. I call it that because, deprived of light and of water (the energy crisis!) it has become an arid bush, undecorative, lost in a corner, abandoned like a blind paralytic stray dog. I went to console it and talk to it (in Italian, of course, the only language that birds, pets and wild animals understand, as Saint Francis proved). When I asked her her name she didn’t even know, I wanted to take a picture, but I had forgotten my Polaroid. I decided that I would ask somebody in the bank the name of the sculptor and of his (her?) artwork. Unfortunately California banks close earlier than Oregon’s and I was about to give up when I noticed that there were people entering by a door in the middle of the building.It gave access to upper floors. I entered. A security guard stopped me, I felt like a thief but I stammered the information I was looking for. The man looked at me even more suspiciously (the damn accent!) but gave me a telephone number and indicated to me a public booth in the same corridor. A very kind feminine voice answered that I was talking to the wife of the President of the Bank, that her husband was still in his office, and that I could reach him at such and such a number. I was so intimidated that I felt that she must have thought that I was a bank robber and should have hung up the phone on me or, at least, not volunteer so much information on her husband’s habits. It might though be that she was so intelligent and intuitive that she understood what it was all about. I dialed the second number. The secretary said that Mr. Sheehan was at an important meeting of the Board of Directors of the Bank and could not be disturbed. All I wanted to know was the name of the artist, and perhaps she herself could answer. She couldn’t. She had me talk to half of the people in the buildings nobody seemed to care or even know about the sculpture, much less the name of the artist. Therefore the same secretary had to admit that only Mr. Sheehan (still in his meeting) would be able to satisfy my curiosity. Can you imagine the conversation between her and her boss? “Mr. President, there is a crazy nut, down here, with a strong accent, who lives in Oregon and wants to know the name of a statue. What should I do?” She certainly expected him to say “send him to hell” but probably Mr. Sheehan was bored with his figures and stockholders and even a brief distraction was welcome. He came to the phone. The sculpture had been made ten years before by Clair Falkenstein and was worth one million dollars. Why was I so interested? I don’t like to lie, even to my wife or to the police, but was Mr. Sheehan going to be able to understand that a romance languages professor was in love with a piece of metal? Nobody would see me blushing and saying immodestly, “Well! I am a college professor up in Portland and deal with art…” “But… Do you really like that sculpture?” “Oh yes, very much. I discovered it last year…” and I told him the whole story. “Well, if you like it so much YOU CAN HAVE IT!” I can’t tell you how long my silence lasted. Was he joking? Was he crazier than I was? Was he so rich and so generous that he was moved by my odyssey? After all we were near Hollywood, where all dreams become true…. The explanation came very logically: “Due to energy problems we have been considering offering the sculpture to a College or University. We have two or three institutions interested but they are all in California and go through the same difficulties with energy. Your College has a chance. Of course, you would have to pay for the transportation. Talk to the people who administer your college and let us know.” I was laughing and trembling and visibly emotional (the security guard was watching me more and more suspiciously through the panes). I could swear he had his hand on his gun ready to pull it out and he was talking all the time on the telephone while tracing all my movements on the TV screen in front of him. Was he talking to the police? To the insane asylum? Perhaps I was being bugged. (It was anyway before Watergate) but I dared ask Mr. Sheehan if he had a picture of the sculpture. I figured that a man who would play Santa Klaus and offer you a one million dollar sculpture, could also offer a photograph. Yes he had a post­card, and if I would come up to the 11th (?) floor the secretary would give it to me. He was sorry not to be able to meet me but he had to return to his meeting.

I have the picture, you will see, although it is not as impressive as the original.

Useless to say that after all this I was in such a good mood that I danced in the car while driving and ignoring all the red lights.

Love to all of you.

Father

December 1973

Back home. My son receives me with a skeptical shaking of the head: “You should have used your American Express credit card, take a U-Haul truck and loaded the fountain!” Although born in Switzerland and raised in Brazil, the little brat had quickly acquired the pragmatic mentality of his rich peers at Jesuit High School. My wife does not see any fun in the situation. For her it is more a confirmation of my day­dreamer’s attitudes: “You were never able to make an extra buck, how do you think you can make a deal with bankers? Are you so ‘naive’ (censorship impedes me of using the real terms of the conversation) that you think somebody is going to offer you a one million dollar present? How can I go on living with a Utopian like you? Why don’t you pay the telephone bill instead of running after your delusions of grandeur?” And so on. My daughter gave me a little more comfort with one of her enigmatic smiles which nobody at home ever knows what they mean (like Mona Lisa’s): condescendence, derision, sympathy? My close friend, an art historian, said that after all that piece of art was not so marvelous and that I would have a “lot of trouble” with the propulsion engine and so on, but that it was worth pursuing the matter, for the fun of it (with cynicism, I thought).

Where should I start? Chairmen? Deans? None of them would dare to take the responsiblity of making a decision. I should hit right at the top. I asked an appointment with the President. Fifteen days after the Big Man received me. He doesn’t share my taste or my enthusiasm for the sculpture but admits that it would enhance the aspect of our campus. Where would I install it? Under the library in the space where stones, gravel and plants form a small patio in front of the first floor exit. The President sees it looking better where the Kiosk is. I am easily convinced: there it would be more visible, more central, more decorative.

My task, before leaving for a long Overseas assignment, is to make sure that the deal is feasible, his to study mechanical condition: how many horse—power has the motor, how much energy and water are needed. Very experienced in administering funds the President tells me “To a given horse I do look in the mouth!”, And tells me the story of a gift received by a University he was administering before. It was a huge computer worth one million dollars. It looked like a luxurious present. But it took two years to approve funds in order to construct a building to house the computer. Two years and two million dollars. Plus, the Japanese industry, in the meanwhile, had invented the pocket computer that could perform the same task. The masthodontic device was obsolete. What would be the trick behind the fountain?

I called Mr, Sheehan who was vacationing in Acapulco until after New Year. The secretary recognized my voice and my “case”. Yes we are serious about the deal. Yes your application will be given proper consideration, Yes your interest has been discussed.

Before leaving for France I wrote them a letter confirm­ing my conversation with the President and asking them to deal directly with him and, if possible, to send me a copy of all correspondence.

In Paris, the story amused my friends very much as being symptomatic of what they called “the energy hysteria in the USA”. They were more receptive to my Californian adventure than my Oregonian friends or my own family had been. New worries made me forget the whole story. No letter ever came, neither from Mr. Sheehan, nor from my President.

Nine months later I returned to campus: no visible fountains. After interviewing the President I learned that he had gone to Los Angeles, had seen the sculpture, had talked to the responsible party. The energy crisis ended and the wave of panic was over. They were not concerned anymore. They would keep the fountain.

The sculpture is still there. My last pilgrimage was the saddest one: energy is back, water is back, but “my” fountain is still an arid plant, forgotten in a corner, a dusty, occasional refuge for ants, birds, leaves, pieces of paper. Once a year a crazy nut deposes a bouquet of flowers at its feet, But the fountain does not know. She does not know her own name, she does not know who her father or mother was. Is Clair a masculine or a feminine name in English?

Their love was banned. He was secular and she was religious.

Mais l’amour était profond comme un puit dans le desert, un puit avec tous les permutations de l’eau qui coule. . .

Lui et elle/l’amour/les gens qui voyagent/qui traversent tous les frontieres.

He had been a card carrying communist on the streets of Cairo/Kabylia (you choose the generic place, though each of these places is of course important and profoundly significant) but he had drifted from the party line and that world to wander into the professional world (engineering) yet still met his cronies in cafés, on rooftops, guerilla fighters emerging from the hills and mountains, brandishing Kalashnikovs.

She was religious, but not orthodox, and was quite a rebel. Bespectacled, and called shrewd by some, she had a poet’s soul and heart and strode through life intensely and profoundly.

(They had met by chance at a rally near a bookstore she had wandered into and kept meeting intermittently at various cultural affairs and on the streets of their city.)

They were lovers over a saga of years and had ridden horseback on the beaches of their youth. Their fights were furious and histrionic and their love burned deeply. They had wandered across borders and countries and had fled in flamefilled currents to Bedouin villages and to the heart of a romance both passionate and stormy.

Kos e mok, he yelled at her once and she vowed never to speak to him again, but after a month they met in a square and resumed talks and declarations.

Their lovemaking was at first awkward and uneasy due to her guilt and shame, but then was transformed into passionate moments in hotels, across cities and continents and later became quite fervent. She had thrown off the figurative veil of her youth to journey in the waves of political maelstrom and secular chaos and remained forceful and volatile and too had a wicked sense of humour.

They journeyed together and fought together and merged their separate worlds into one.

They haven’t lived happily ever after and have fought and seperated and fought again but still continue to travel symbolically and concretely in each other’s hearts and lives.

His days went relatively quickly as a routine that was almost infallible. A very early wake-up call by the nurse. She would invariably find him deeply asleep, and wouldn’t believe his claims to have spent an interminable sleepless night. How could he make her understand that he did not want to be caught by death in the dark, abruptly? That he superstitiously or fearfully waited until dawn before closing his eyes and telling himself: “I survived one more night”?

The nurse would take his temperature and give him a blue pill, the first of a  dozen multicolored tablets he was obliged to ingest every day, weekends included: pink, yellow, many that were white — all of different shapes. They looked like candies. Yes, the nurse was like a mother, like the mother of his childhood that would bring him mint, lemon and orange candies to placate his restlessness when he had to stay in bed for a full day or more. But the nurse did not smile, was not affectionate, and was very matter-of-fact.

Then it was time for his bathroom routine. At first, they shaved him and washed him in bed, but he was very uncomfortable being touched by a human being other than his wife, and insisted that he could make an effort and get up to groom himself. The room was spacious because he was alone and he enjoyed his own private bathroom. The matter was debated by the family: could they afford paying a small supplement in exchange for comfort? They said “yes”,  (perhaps?) because they knew he would not last long.

Then it was time for breakfast, and, with it, more  medication. Coffee or tea were both undrinkable and were accompanied by unappetizing canned fruits swimming in a barrel of syrup, eggs that he hated, cereals immersed in milk (cream, for some reason, was not available). He hardly touched any of it.

After the ceremony it was time for therapy. He had to sit in a wheelchair and was pushed through a labyrinth of corridors to the “Blue Room”. Perhaps that was not the real name of the place, but he called it that because of the color of the lamp that had ultraviolet rays which would burn his stomach for exactly 60 minutes. At least, he had a tan, but the heat was worse than the hot August sun of his younger days partly spent lying on the beach.

When the session was over, he usually would run to the bathroom; his breakfast was then eliminated, one way or another.

After that came the massage session, which he hated because the big, muscled woman turned him around like a pawn and rubbed him energetically with her heavy, vulgar hands, trying to make jokes to which he did not laugh at all. Next came the “socializing” session. All the guests of the clinic were pushed into a big salon when they could play chess (everybody would beat him because he knew only one opening move or one defense strategy), cards (he had never learned that kind of game), sing (which he abhorred) or chat (nonsensical small talk about their state of health), TV programs or sad whisperings about fellow inmates (if that was not a prison, why couldn’t they go home?). It was even murmured that some were betting on who would die next. Everyone was spying on everyone else’s appearance, visible loss of weight or hair, hand trembling and anything else, including things that were imperceptible to the “normal” people (visitors, doctors, staff). The “happy hour” was not conducive to better humor on his part. Soon it was noon and time to return to bed for lunch, another excruciating moment: he expected a better choice of cooks in such an expensive private clinic, but no matter how hard they tried, the food was bland. There was a complete inversion of value: everything that needed to be well cooked was undercooked, while what was best eaten “al dente” was overcooked. The gravies were ugly and tasteless, the color of meat or poultry was always grayish. Happily, his son would occasionally bring him a Camembert with a baguette and a flask of Médoc. On those days, he could even take a nap. Otherwise he would try to watch some stupid program on TV, which had the effect of a soporific. He was amazed at the idiocy of television – an international phenomenon because even the more culturally ambitious countries did not fare better. He always thought that television would be visible only when it would work as a short-wave radio and one could zap for some specific country and channel. This was technically possible but against the interests of too many multinational companies.

That day, his son came and brought the usual presents. The giver was as happy as the receiver. The conversation was brief, as usual. His son could not stand the atmosphere of a hospital. Moreover, he always had an appointment, a telephone call, an urgent meeting. Such was his life, and he had to watch time nervously in order to be punctual for the imminent commitments. If he only had a little more time, he could listen to his father’s premeditated confession. He would be the only man left in the family, and the one in charge of taking care of all the details: the life insurance, the safety boxes, the personal library, the correspondence, the manuscripts. Perhaps they could have a talk during next weekend, but he didn’t want to postpone his decision too long. Why did he hesitate? His destiny was marked, it was only a question of months, perhaps less. Why shouldn’t he take charge of his own life himself? Why wait for the big event? Why not decide when to finish it?

He had already inquired, had written to Dr. K. who agreed to assist him during his last moments. Why remain attached to this vegetative, non-productive existence? Why not die with dignity, having made an independent and mature choice? There was nothing he could do anymore for anyone. At times, he regretted not seeing one more time his far away daughter, but, why? After all she shouldn’t see him in this condition. It was much better to lie to her as he had done so far: signing letters that had been typed by his son. She had called, occasionally, long-distance, but they were able to hide the truth: “no, your father is not home tonight, he is gambling until late”, or, if earlier in the day, “he just went to a concert”, or, in the morning, “he just left  to go to a dental appointment”. It was much better that she kept an image of her father like he was in their last photo together when he was still smiling. Suddenly,  he realized that his son was no longer there: had he fallen asleep? The TV was on but silent; only a succession of colored images, very indefinite, since he was not wearing his eyeglasses.

It’s amazing how his life, at the end, was so colorful! As a matter of fact, the best abstract paintings he ever saw was the projection of the slides containing a reproduction of his malignant cells. Seen with polarized light, they looked like paintings by Ginna, Kupka, Pollock or Mathieu. Had the electronic microscope been invented earlier, one would suspect that the artists were inspired by those cancerous images. The film on TV — which was it? — reminded him of the ten beautiful last minutes of the Rickasha Man, the Japanese movie showing the final visions of a perishing man. He was in the same state. He was dying. It could happen at any moment. He should send that letter to Dr. K., the one setting the ultimate appointment. Meanwhile, he thought of what would remain of him once gone. Very little, indeed: he didn’t change society as he had hoped to do when still an adolescent, he was unable to create a big, harmonious family, the trees he planted gave no fruits, the books he wrote went unsold or unnoticed, he was unable to give joy to his companion. Not even a decent failure: a banal, useless, sterile life!

And what would he carry with him to the grave? A lot of bitterness, frustration, anguish and a few flashes of happiness: the sweet voice of his mother, the strong hands of his father, a weekend in the Alps caressing his wife’s belly bearing their first child, the first cry of his son coming out of his mother’s womb, a choreography by Béjart, a short story by Borges, some shots of Antonioni, Kieslovski, Bergman, Vajda’s films, scattered notes from his wife’s piano playing: Corrette, Böhm, Bach; Rostropovitch cello music in a Menton square on a summer night; Clara Haskil curved on her piano in a Lutry’s church; Gades dancing Carmen; Liberation Day’s joy in April 1945; Felix Ayo playing Vivaldi; Cesco Baseggio as Sior Todaro Brontolon in the Goldoni play; Jean Vilar as Pirandello’s Henry IV; some of Botticelli’s women figures.

What else? Lust, applause, scenery, metropolises. . .all forgotten.

A new interruption by the nurse, more pills. Did they really cure him? No, he knew that no cure was possible. Did they alleviate his pains? He wouldn’t know, since he was always in pain, if pain would be even stronger without those drugs.

Time for phlebos. Why all those cables going up and down, those needles penetrating his veins? He could find no answer to all of that.

Another interminable hour.

His wife came unexpectedly, earlier than usual. There was no more conversation between them. Strangely enough, since she was very loquacious in the past. She had become pale and silent as she never was. They would hold hands and cry. Look into each other’s eyes for hours, or for what seemed like long hours. Silent, and crying. Perhaps each one regretted one’s sins, or was it a presentiment of a sudden definitive separation?

Dinner came, more abundant but even more obnoxious than lunch, if that was possible. He shared most of it with his wife, who could digest no matter what and would eat anything provided she didn’t have to cook it. More pills, but the pain was always there. It was as if someone dilacerated his skin, his stomach, his bowels, like pouring rubbing alcohol on an open wound. This was not life. He couldn’t endure that anymore. He hugged his wife more closely than usual and walked her to the elevator.

Yes, right now, it was time to write to Dr. K. The letter need not be long, nor flowery. A few essential words, an appointment, and that would be the end of it. He would not give it to the night guard, but would wait until the following day, at 11:27 a.m. when the carrier would arrive punctually to empty the yellow box at the main door of the clinic entrance. He had done this once after having timed the postman’s arrival for days. The mail delivery man came invariably at the same time, rain or shine, in the middle of his certainly complex but well chronographed itinerary. The letter would be placed in the large bag, right at the moment of his departure: no one would notice the fact, or they would not attach any importance to it. Anyway, a letter is a letter, as long as no one could read the name of the addressee, who is known and controversial enough to be easily recognized. So, tomorrow at 11:27, or a few seconds after, there would be no way back.

He compiled a short but dignified text, sealed the envelope. He would buy the stamp the day after, at the vending machine, in the foyer lounge.

He felt relived, sighed deeply and took the last pill, the sleeping pill that never worked, just to obey the doctor.

He started dreaming, or daydreaming, or dreaming of dreaming, whether asleep or partially awake or in a state of wake. First, he dreamt of being in a garden (his backyard?) with a cutting instrument in his hands. Was it a tree pruner? There was a long worm, like a snake, in the middle of his flowers. Instinctively, he cut the long worm into two shorter worms. Something strange happened: the front part (or what looked like the upper part of the worm’s body) first rose toward him as if it wanted to threaten him, then disappeared into a hole (to die? to lick its wounds? To hide from further aggressions?) while the lower part started a series of long convulsions. Was it agony or did worms have seven lives like cats? Perhaps it was only the miracle of life: animals didn’t have a conscience, didn’t have a soul, didn’t have metaphysical dilemmas — they just lived as long as they could. Their only essence in life was life itself.

The dream changed suddenly. In front of him was Dr. K., or someone who resembled the photograph he had seen of that controversial man in a magazine. Dr. K. was holding his arm and was pronouncing indistinct but reassuring words. But someone put a mask on Dr. K. and it was the face of the actor who plays the owner of the clinic in Frankenheimer’s Seconds. At this point, a dozen or so naked women started flying around him. No, they were not flying, they were floating around, as if gravitating into space in slow motion. He seemed to recognize some of them as women he had known or desired in his youth, but before he could see better, there came a monstrous gnome who chased them with a whip. “I can read your mind. You think I am the devil. How naïve can you be? The devil cannot look like the devil, otherwise how could he seduce his victims? Did it ever occur to you that the devil could disguise himself as a temptress woman or even as a Saint? The devil has to make believe he is someone else, and for sure trustworthy. Did you ever notice that serial killers are all handsome? Otherwise, how could they attract their victims so easily? The killer or the devil disguise themselves as priests, as policemen, as father figures, or even as Christ himself.”

Here, his dream returned to his garden, his flowers. The half worm was still there, debating whether or not to die. How long ago had he cut him? He looked for his watch, on the night stand. As light in a tunnel he saw some clarity. It was the torch of the nurse who, from the dark, murmured “time to sleep!”. Was it a nightmare? How long did that last? At some point, he awoke: he was all sweaty and his alarm clock marked 5:45 a.m. Soon they would wake him up anyway. Dream or not, nightmare or not, he had slept for many hours. Perhaps with some  interruptions, but longer than he could remember since he had been at the clinic. He felt no pain, or he thought that he had become abruptly insensitive to pain. Perhaps that was a sign of the end. Death was approaching and giving him some respite. He shaved himself with joy, took a full bath, indulged in spraying some cologne on his body.

He tore up the letter. He had decided that he wanted to confront death face to face. He was ready to die, but let it not be there, let it be in his garden, like a worm, cut down by destiny or by a superior force.

He left the “Blue Room” and the “Massage Parlor” and went straight to talk to his doctor who could not care less if he wanted to leave, empty rooms were rare in the clinic, and someone else would replace him the same day, chosen from the waiting list, as long as he signed a release form, that’s all they requested. Everything else would be taken care of by his son, later. After all, he was a lawyer. His son was surprised at his request, but not shocked. He couldn’t disapprove; after all, that might mean fewer expenses and a larger estate.

If you can pick me up before noon, we’ll leave today. Don’t tell your mother until it’s done!”

His wife, who didn’t want to remain alone in the large house, had retired to a hotel room where she could remain if she wanted to. He planned to be self-sufficient and didn’t want any witness to his agony.

At 12:30 they were already home. The house had not changed, only the garden had been neglected.

He did not feel like eating, but gave a shopping list to his son, telling him that there was no hurry. As for the medications prescribed for him by the doctor, he decided to buy none. “Let nature take its course!” He told his son that no matter how many days he clung to life, he wanted to live them in peace.

He found his favorite armchair and sat in it, not before surrounding himself with pounds of correspondence that had accumulated — mostly junk mail and some neglected bills. There were also lots of “Get Well” cards dating from his surgery. He would call his friends one by one, for a last farewell. Fell asleep again. He was awakened by the noise of the car entering the garage. It was his son with the items from shopping and a cellular phone. He was not opposed to new technologies, but cellular phones seemed a bit exaggerated for a house where there was a telephone in almost every room. But he understood that his son wanted to make sure that he could call at any time from anywhere. His mobile phone could be pre-programmed to call certain numbers for emergencies, so he and his son selected a dozen: hospital, doctors on call, police, fire, ambulance, taxi, family members and intimate friends.

Everything seemed functional in the house: water, electricity, radio, TV, doors, windows and heating. There was a walker, a pair of crutches, canes of all sizes, boots and slippers. He could wander around the house and even go outside to get the newspaper and the mail (eventually).

Because the house was empty, he could occupy any room he wanted to. He chose the bigger bedroom, in case his wife decided to leave the hotel room (but she had her own ailments) and to be more comfortable. He asked his son to bring in empty boxes — lots of them — so he could sort out his clothes (he had lost so much weight that all his shirts and pants were too big for him now) and get rid of all kinds of heteroclite objects, dusty, distasteful and useless.

He gave himself a task to do: clean, redecorate, refurbish and/or embellish one room every day. This would keep him busy and would improve the look of the house for whoever would come to rent or buy it when he was gone.

A month passed and nothing had changed. The doctor had given him from zero to four months to live. He felt the same amount and type of pains as at the clinic, but he was not taking any drugs. And at least one thing was better — his digestion.

His dwelling was now comfortable. He had filled two trucks (he counted 96 boxes) of “garbage”, replaced pieces of furniture and moved things around.

There was a music corner prepared for his wife’s always possible return. The grand piano in the living room with a shelf of books and another for sheet music and a table with several small instruments: piccolo, pan flute, recorder, small drums, metronome, etc. His absent daughter’s room had become a studio: file cabinets, shelves, desk, computer, index cards and an armchair for relaxation.

The corridor had been transformed into an art gallery with paintings hanging on the walls. His son’s former room had a TV with multi-system VCR, a collection of  cassettes representing all videographic standards (PAL, SECAM, NTSC, etc.), a turntable and piles of vinyl records and CDs.

The dining room was, at last, a dining room and no longer an office. The kitchen had all the necessary utensils and lots of vases and pots for spices and herbs. The family room had become a combination library-bar. He could venture into neither the attic nor the shack — but, who knows, maybe some day?

Meanwhile, he had started experimenting with all kinds of herbs, tree barks and bitter rots. Not that he had anything against allopathic medicines, but he could not abide most drugs. Besides, he could get along just fine with infusions and natural products.

The laboratory analyses to which he had been subjected earlier in the clinic indicated some improvement in his condition, and he had gained back some of the lost weight. But his doctor was not at all optimistic. In other words, the state of his health was not worsening but was not improving either. He spent hours looking outside the bay window from the living room. The snow had melted and the rain had tired of being incessant. He was looking at the apple tree that hadn’t produced fruits in years.

“There is too much foliage” he told himself, “it needs to be pruned. If I survive until spring, that will be my next chore.”

“Spring, yes, spring.” Until then, why not keep a diary?

“April 2. Spring is late, but it is on its way. Tomorrow I will prune the apple tree. Yes. Tomorrow. . .