Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

by Henry Miller

  This was the grotesque side of Gilbert—by no means his least charming side. Another side represented the eternal student. He had specialized in the Romance languages and was thoroughly at home in French, Spanish and Italian. His translations from the French—Valéry, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Fernandez—were superb. He was the first to translate Lorca’s plays in this country. With Blood Wedding he started the vogue for Lorca’s plays. He also translated Ramon Sender, perhaps the greatest novelist of Lorca’s generation. The thing about Gilbert’s translations was that he not only revealed his deep knowledge of Spanish and French but, what is more important, his most excellent knowledge of English. Though I don’t believe he made any published translations from the Italian, the writer he often talked to me about was Giacomo Leopardi. It was hard to say which one he talked about with more fervor—Leopardi or the Duse. He could also talk about Charlie Chaplin and John Gilbert—particularly the latter’s performance in Flesh and the Devil—with touching eloquence.

  I should remark here that Gilbert had begun his career as a juvenile actor, in Colorado, I believe. Or perhaps it was in Kansas. He hated Kansas like poison. One could never tell, when he referred to that state, whether he had been born and raised there in this incarnation or a previous one. The actor in him was strong, and even in the Anderson Creek days, there were traces of the showman in his deportment. They would appear when he was sobering up and his voice returning, when he donned his shepherd’s plaid suit, pomaded his hair, faintly perfumed his breast-pocket handkerchief, polished his shoes, flexed his muscles and took to strutting the imaginary boards of the imaginary billiard parlor where he would while away an imaginary hour or two with Paderewski. Getting back into form, he would usually begin an unfinished discourse on the unique merits of Céline, Dostoevsky or Wassermann. If he felt slightly vitriolic, he would put André Gide through a bath of sulphur and ammonia. But I’m getting off the track….

  The music! One night, about two in the morning, the door of our shack was thrown open with a bang and, before I knew what was happening, I felt a hand gripping my throat, squeezing it viciously. I knew damned well I wasn’t dreaming. Then a voice, a boozy voice which I recognized instantly, and which sounded maudlin and terrifying, shouted in my ear: “Where’s that damned gadget?”

  “What gadget?” I gurgled, struggling to release the grip around my throat.

  “The radio! Where are you hiding it?”

  With this he let go his grip and began dismantling the place. I sprang out of bed and tried to pacify him.

  “You know I have no radio,” I shouted. “What’s the matter with you? What’s eating you?”

  He ignored me, went on pushing things aside, tearing at the walls with furious talons, upsetting chinaware and pots and pans. Finding nothing, he soon relented, though still furious, still cursing and swearing. I thought he had gone out of his mind.

  “What is it, Gilbert? What’s happened?” I was holding him by the arm.

  “What is it?” he yelled, and I could feel his glare even through the darkness. “What is it? Come on out here!” He grabbed my arm and started dragging me.

  After we had gone a few yards in the direction of his house he stopped suddenly, and gripping me like a demon, he shouted: “Now! Now do you hear?”

  “Hear what?” I said innocently.

  “The music! It’s the same tune all the time. “Its driving me crazy.”

  “Maybe it’s coming from your place,” said I, though I knew damned well it was coming from inside him.

  “So you know where it is,” said Gilbert, accelerating his pace and dragging me along like a dead horse. Under his breath he mumbled something about my “cunning” ways.

  When we got to his house he dropped to his knees and began sniffing around, just like a dog, in the bushes and under the porch. To humor him, I also got down on all fours, to search for the concealed gadget that was giving out Beethoven’s Fifth. After we had crawled around the house and under it as far as we could, we lay on our backs and looked up at the stars.

  “It’s stopped,” said Gilbert. “Did you notice?”

  “You’re crazy,” I said. “It never stops.”

  “Tell me honestly,” he said, in a conciliating tone of voice, “where did you hide it?”

  “I never hid anything,” I said. “It’s there … in the stream. Can’t you hear it?”

  He turned over on one side, cupped his ear, straining every nerve to hear.

  “I don’t hear a thing,” he said.

  “That’s strange,” said I. “Listen! It’s Smetana now. You know the one … Out of My Life. It’s as clear as can be, every note.”

  He turned over on the other side and again he cupped his ear. He held this position for a few moments then rolled over on his back, smiling the smile of an angel. He gave a little laugh, then said:

  “I know now … I was dreaming. I was dreaming that I was the conductor of an orchestra….”

  I cut him short. “But how do you explain the other times?”

  “Drink,” he said. “I drink too much.”

  “No you don’t,” I replied, “I hear it just the same as you. Only I know where it comes from.”

  “Where?” said Gilbert.

  “I told you … from the stream.”

  “You mean someone has hidden it in the creek?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  I allowed a due pause, then added: “Do you know who?”

  “No,” he said.

  “God!”

  He began to laugh like a madman.

  “God!” he yelled “God!” Then louder and louder. “God, God, God, God, God! Can you beat that?”

  He was now convulsed with laughter. I had to shake him to make him listen to me.

  “Gilbert,” I said, just as gently as could be, “if you don’t mind, I’m going back to bed. You go down by the creek and look for it. It’s under a mossy rock on the left hand side near the bridge. Don’t tell anybody, will you?”

  I stood up and shook hands with him.

  “Remember,” I said, “not a soul!”

  He put his fingers to his lips and went Shhhh! Shhhh!

  Everything unusual, be it said, originates at Anderson Creek. Because of the “artists,” most likely. If a stray cow is mysteriously killed and butchered, some one from Anderson Creek did the job. If a passing motorist kills a deer on the highway, he always brings it to some poor artist at Anderson Creek, never to Mr. Brown or Mr. Roosevelt. If an old shack is demolished overnight, for its doors and windowpanes, it must have been one of the Anderson Creek gang who did it. If there are moonlight bathing parties at the sulphur baths—mixed parties—it’s that Anderson Creek bunch again. Anything that’s borrowed, lost, stolen or used to better purpose can be traced to Anderson Creek. That’s the legend, at least. As one of the natives remarked in my presence one day—“They’re just a bunch of morphodites!”

  Just the same, it was at Anderson Creek that the first flying saucer made its appearance in Big Sur. The chap who told me the story said it happened early one morning. In shape it was more like a dirigible than the lamp-shade variety. It hovered close to shore, plainly visible, took off and returned two more times. Shortly after this two more sightings, one at dawn, another at twilight, were made by people staying at the sulphur baths. Then one day my friend Walker Winslow woke me up out of a sound sleep to witness a strange phenomenon just above the horizon, looking seaward. We observed the strange activity of what seemed like twin stars gyrating about an invisible pivot for about twenty minutes, after which the light grew too strong and it faded out. But it was reported—as a saucer phenomenon—next day by the government station along the coast. Soon thereafter a number of friends reported saucers, lights that followed their cars, and so on. None of them were drunks or dope fiends. Some of them were, or had been, downright sceptics about “this saucer business.” One of the most vivid accounts was given by Eric Barker, then living at the Hunt Ranch near the Little Sur. In b
road daylight, about four in the afternoon, he saw six small disks flying above his head at a brisk but not phenomenal speed. They were going out to sea. Eric swore that they were not buzzards, balloons or meteorites. Moreover, he is definitely not the type that “sees things.” A few weeks later a visitor from Carmel was witness to a similar phenomenon. She was so moved by the sight that she became almost hysterical. Tom Sawyer and Dorothy Weston reported lights dancing in front of their car on the way home from Monterey one night. The performance continued for over five minutes and was repeated subsequently. Ephraim Doner, whose two feet are definitely planted in the earth, was escorted for over five miles by mysterious brilliant-colored lights one evening on leaving our home. His wife and daughter were with him and corroborated his words.

  It was also at Anderson Creek that Gerhart Muench used to practice—on an old upright that Emil White had borrowed from someone. Now and then Gerhart gave us a concert, on this same “distempered” clavichord. Motorists would occasionally pull up short in front of Emil’s cabin to listen to Gerhart practise. When Gerhart was broke and discouraged, often in a suicidal mood, I would urge him (seriously) to move the piano out, put it alongside the road, and do his stuff. I had a notion that if he would do it often enough some impresario would happen along and offer him a concert tour. (Gerhart is known all over Europe for his piano concerts.) But Gerhart never fell for the idea. Certainly it would have been vulgar and showy, but Americans dote on that sort of thing. Think of the publicity he might have had, had some enterprising soul discovered him sitting by the roadside hammering his way through Scriabin’s ten sonatas!

  But what I want to say about Anderson Creek—aside from the house that Jack built, complete with shower and toilet for less than three hundred dollars—is this…. Not only writers and artists live there, but ping-pong and chess players. (It was at Anderson Creek, let me say, that I rediscovered that curious book by a Chinese on the relation between the strategy employed by the Japanese at the Battle of Port Arthur and the Chinese game of chess. A most curious book, and if not as singular as the I Ching or Book of Changes, which Keyserling described as the most unique book ever written, it is nevertheless worth having a look at.) To begin with, I want to say that I have been playing chess ever since I was eight years old. I must add immediately that my game has improved but little in the last fifty-five years. Now and again my interest in the game is rekindled, sometimes through conversations with an expert like Ephraim Doner or through conversations with a man like Norman Mini, when he is talking military strategy. The last time it happened was as a result of talking with Charley Levitsky—of Anderson Creek.

  Charley is one of those amiable, flexible, lovable persons who can play any game well, a man who plays for the love of playing, not merely to win. He will play any game you like—and beat you at it. It isn’t that he tries so hard to win, he just can’t help winning. After I had played a few games with him he suggested one day that it might prove more interesting if he were to give me a Queen. “A Queen and anything else you wish,” is the way he put it. He won hands down, of course, and in short order. The experience promptly discouraged me. The following day, recounting the affair to my friend Perlès, who was then staying with us, I almost fell off my chair when he said: “A Queen and a rook, that’s nothing! I’ll give you all my pawns—and beat you.” And by God, he did! He did it three times in succession. Thinking that perhaps there was an unsuspected advantage in making this kind of sacrifice, I said: “The next game we play I’ll give you all my pawns.” I did and lost in ten moves.

  The moral of this story is: “Don’t be gay when you’re full of shit!”

  3.

  Inch Connecticut was the name of the leading character in a day-by-day serial which Paul Rink cooked up for the kids on Partington Ridge. It began of itself, the serial, one morning while he and the kids were waiting for the school bus to appear. It was a fantastic yarn, by all accounts, which Paul managed to drag out over a period of a year or more.

  When I heard the name—Inch Connecticut—I was full of envy. So much better than Isaac Dust or Saul Delirium! I wondered if it was really his own invention.

  The Inch Connecticut business was somewhat of a spur to me inasmuch as I had just begun a serial of my own by way of entertaining the kids at dinner every evening. Mine had to do with a little girl called Chama. (Pronounced Chah-ma.) Chama was the real name of a real girl, the daughter of Merle Armitage. Merle and his family had been to visit us one day, and his little girl, Chama, who was about Valentine’s age, had cast a spell over everyone. She was very beautiful, quite self-possessed, and had the air of an Indian princess. From the time she left until weeks later I heard nothing but Chama, Chama, Chama.

  One night at dinner Val asked me where Chama was. (“Right now.”) We were having a delicious meal, the wine was of the best, and the usual friction was absent. I was in fine fettle.

  “Where’s Chama?” I repeated. “Why, in New York, I guess.”

  “Where in New York?”

  “At the St. Regis, most likely. That’s a hotel.” (I gave the St. Regis because I thought the name was colorful.)

  “What is she doing there? Is her mother with her?”

  Suddenly I had an inspiration. Why not give them a spiel about this beautiful little girl all alone in a swanky hotel in the middle of New York? Nothing to it! And with that I began what, all unknowingly, turned out to be a serial for the next few weeks.

  Naturally they wanted me to serve it up at every meal, not just at dinner. But I squelched that idea quickly. I said that if they behaved themselves—what a loathsome expression—I would continue the story every evening, at dinner.

  “Every evening?” queried little Tony, strangely moved.

  “Yes, every evening,” I repeated. That is, if you behave your-selves!”

  They didn’t, of course. What kids do? And of course I didn’t serve it up to them every evening, as I said I would, but that wasn’t because they misbehaved.

  We always resumed the yarn by having Chama ring for the elevator. For some reason that elevator—I suppose the St. Regis has elevators!—intrigued them more than any other detail in my graphic description of scenes and events. It used to irritate me sometimes, the elevator business, because in working up the story I took pride in inventing the craziest sort of situations. Just the same, we always had to start the session with Chama ringing for the elevator.

  (“Make her go up and down the elevator again, Daddy!”)

  The angle which never ceased to puzzle them was—how did Chama, who was just a little girl, manage all by herself in a great big city like New York? To be sure, I had laid the ground for this by giving them a bird’s-eye view of New York. (Tony had never been farther than Monterey and Val had been to San Francisco just once.)

  “How many people are there in New York, Daddy?” Tony would ask over and over.

  And I would say, over and over: “About ten million.”

  “That’s a lot, ain’t it?” he would say.

  “You bet! A hell of a lot! More than you can count.”

  “I bet there’s a hundred million people in New York, aren’t there, Daddy? A thousand million million.”

  “That’s right, Tony.”

  Then Val: “There are not a hundred million people in New York, are there, Daddy?”

  “Of course not!”

  To get them off the subject… “Listen, nobody knows how many people there are in New York. That’s the truth. Where were we, anyway?”

  Then one of them would pipe up: “She’s in bed having her breakfast, don’t you remember?”

  “Yeah, she just rang for the bellhop to come so she could tell him what she wants for breakfast. He has to take the elevator from the bottom, don’t he, Dad?”

  Of course I had endowed Chama with the most elegant, sophisticated manners. Had she been anything like the girl I described, in real life, her father would have disowned her. But Val and Tony thought she was real smart. Real cute, if you
know what I mean.

  “What did she always say, Daddy, when the boy knocked at her door?”

  “Entrez, s’il vous plaît!”

  “That’s French, ain’t it, Daddy?”

  “It sure is. But Chama could speak several languages, did you know that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Spanish, like Italian, like Polish, like Arabic….”

  “That’s no language!”

  “What ain’t no language?”

  “Arabic.”

  “O.K., Tony, me lad, what is it then?”

  “It’s a bird … or somethin’.”

  “It is not a bird, is it, Daddy?” pipes Val.

  “It’s a language,” I said, “but nobody speaks it except the Arabs.”

  (Nothing like giving them correct information right from the cradle.)

  “We don’t really care what she spoke,” said Val. “Go on! What did she do after breakfast?”

  That was a good lead. I had been wondering myself what Chama was to do after breakfast. Now I had to think fast.

  Maybe a bus ride wouldn’t be so bad. Up Fifth Avenue to the Bronx Zoo. The Zoo ought to hold them for three nights in a row….

  Getting Chama showered and dressed, ringing for the maid to do her hair and that sort of thing, telephoning the manager to find out which bus to take and, above all, waiting for the elevator to climb to the 59th story, took considerable time and ingenuity. By the time Chama hit the sidewalk, dressed like a starlet and ready to do the sights, I was beginning to weaken. My desire was to transfer her to the Zoo as quickly as possible, but no, they insisted on learning what caught Chama’s eye (she was on the top deck) as the bus slowly wended its way up Fifth Avenue.

  I gave them as good a description as I could of the streets and the sights I loathe. I didn’t start from Fifty-ninth Street either, but from the Flatiron Building at Twenty-third Street and Broadway. To be exact, I started from the Western Union office there, from the ground floor, where I once had my headquarters, my last headquarters. They weren’t much impressed, I must say, by the news that a new life had begun for me the day I walked out of that office and strolled up Broadway feeling like an emancipated slave. They wanted to look at the stores and shops, the signs, the crowds; they wanted to know all about that fruit juice stand at Times Square where for a dime one could get the tallest glass of delicious ice-cold fresh fruit juice, any and all flavors. (California, the land of milk and honey, of nuts and fruit, has no such stands.)