The birds wing about noisily in the trees outside of my window, settle themselves down on branches. One flock is feathered in green and yellow bands, another reminds me of sailors on leave or of boys in varsity sweaters, their wings navy blue and wrapped in white stripes. A lone bird with a bright white face and a red tufted cap slaps the glass where I stand and finds a thick branch to his liking midway up the maple. I wonder how birds agree on changing course when they swoop and turn, if they mate for life or are fickle, if some avian species mate permanently and others are Lotharios, as I would be in a heartbeat. I wonder what happens to a sick or injured baby bird, or to a baby bird that falls from its nest and is not easily found in the sinuous, vined tangle of jungle, or forest, or park. Do his parents send out a rescue party, or leave him be, to live out an abridged life, to die a natural death? So much of what I have learned from life, I have learned from birds. I love them so much. Their freedom, their songs, their clucking and cleaning, the way they own the sky. Sometimes I want to pop them all off, take a BB gun and shoot holes through their wings, see then how well they can fly. It seems unfair how life can be, stuck pining for what—for guts, for the soaring nature of bravery, for everything.
Willem looks at her when he finishes. She has not moved since he read the first sentence.
“That piece of writing spoke to me so intensely the first time I read it, and the thousands of times since. Of course, you recognize it.”
Joan nods.
“When I found you in the bookstore, I knew who you were. Darpan knew who you were the moment you walked in. Darpan called me and said, ‘Come now, immediately. You won’t believe who is in the store browsing through books, sitting down with a whole bunch.’ And when he told me, I came running.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read Other Small Spaces and Fictional Family Life over the years. Darpan is also a huge fan. Your books are in his store, or rather in his father’s store.”
It never crossed Joan’s mind to check whether a small bookstore in Dharamshala carried her work.
Willem leans down to the photographer’s bag under his chair and comes up holding the book he dropped into Joan’s hands hours ago.
“Kalpit Parvarik Jivan is Hindi for Fictional Family Life. I knew you were Joan Ashby when I asked you to join me for lunch. You have been my most favorite writer of short stories for a very long time. I’ve taken both your collections with me when I hike up the Dhauladhars and spend nights in a tent on a rock ledge. Your words keep me company until the birds take again to the sky with the sun. Your stories have been all over India, and have spent huge chunks of time with me in the Pong Wetland.
“Considering I photograph birds as both my passion and my profession, you would think I couldn’t imagine shooting a BB gun at any of those gorgeous creatures. But as free as I am, certainly compared to most people, I know I’ll never experience what they do. The first time I read that paragraph, I felt I was Simon Tabor, a screwed-up teenager pretending to be a hemophiliac just for some relief from himself. I could see myself as him, trying to kill myself by flying off a roof, and failing, and sticking myself into a coma just to buy time, and dreaming about watching those birds giving me such tantalizing hope, then throwing me into utter despair.
“And hopefully this will not insult you, but you are more beautiful now, and trust me when I say that I know the young you. I used to stare at your pictures on the backs of your books, in articles I found about you, so much so that my wife, who was never a jealous woman, used to make fun of me, poke me in the chest when I picked up one of your books to reread. ‘Oh,’ she would say, ‘you are nestling up to my competition again.’”
Joan feels faint, not because of a potential for romance, or sex, with Willem Ackerman, although she had been thinking about both before he pulled out that piece of paper, but because he sees her so vividly. Because to him she is still a vital writer, whose work he has returned to many times since her books were first published, because he has read her stories as a married man, father, widower, grandfather, birder, and photographer.
“I’ve always known you’d be fantastic, tremendous, and you are. And I always pictured you working at some great desk, putting such weird and wonderful stories together.”
She wishes he were completely right, that not one day had passed in her life without setting down her own words, and not a single line since putting down the shallowest of roots in Dharamshala. There is a rapid pulsing at the base of her throat, and even as Joan thinks it, she knows what she believes is ridiculous, that her splintered soul is sewing itself back together, one loop of thread through the skin at a time, because Willem, and Darpan, have been profoundly touched by the truest part of herself.
It has been so long since anyone has viewed her through the correct lens, properly calibrated to her singular nature. The husband who says how much he loves her, completely unaware that she had written Words for nine years. The son who took her seriously as a writer, look at his actions, how that played out.
The Nirvanic feelings evaporate when her lungs viciously deflate, her fingers twisting into dying flowers, then turning to stone. She hopes the pain presages something good, that when it fades away, it will leave behind a hollowed-out Ashby, ready to be filled up by new words and work.
Willem’s face is transforming into painterly cubist components. Despite the distortion, his eyes radiate. She sees kindness there, and a sort of love, love for the mind that strung together sentences that affected him so deeply. A strong arm is slung around her back, another strong arm wraps around her waist, and she is lifted down to the floor of the café, laid flat on her back, and Willem is yelling, “Yashvir, get water,” and Willem pulls something out of his bag, and then plunges it into her thigh. The pain is outrageous and she screams.
“It’s an EpiPen,” he yells. “You’re seriously allergic to something I fed you.”
40
“You feeling okay now?” Joan nods at him from the café floor. She doesn’t think it was a reaction to anything she ate, but to Fictional Family Life in Hindi, in a Dharamshala bookstore, in the hands of Willem Ackerman, hearing him read a paragraph of her own work written so long ago, before the choices she made affected the rest of her life.
“Why do you carry an EpiPen?” she asks as he helps her back into her chair.
“Because I’m usually far from civilization, and who knows when I might need a shot of adrenaline, or need to give one. You’re really okay?” and Joan nods.
“Really,” she says.
“I would hate to have killed you during our first meal. Let me walk you home. Buddhists, you know, can be a dangerous lot.”
* * *
It is just before six when they are huddled under Kartar’s red umbrella walking up the rocky-sloped road to Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise. Willem is tall, but not as tall as Martin, and Joan finds it easy walking next to him, fully protected by the umbrella, sharing a bright patch of nylon. When she and Martin share an umbrella, she is left scurrying to reduce the space between the umbrella and the top of her head.
The rain is falling lazily, and when the clouds skid away, the early moon casts its silvery light over the road.
At Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise, he insists on walking her up the stairs and into the lobby.
Kartar, as always, is at the low teak reception desk. Camille has been here, Ela too, but not Eric, and now she is walking into the hotel with Willem Ackerman, feeling scandalous for no good reason.
“Ashby, good evening,” Kartar says, his voice rising half an octave as he bounces on the balls of his feet. “And I know you, good sir. Ashby, this is Mr. Willem Ackerman. I have never met you, but you are my hero, sir. Ashby, do you know who Mr. Willem Ackerman is? He is the photographer who has made famous the birds of the Kangra valley. Because of him, tourist trade to our region has increased. He is greatly responsible for the birding expeditions that have become an international attraction. And an all-around good guy. Never does he ask for a percentage, eve
n though it is because of him that our locals are earning the serious kind of money.” Kartar raises a hand and rushes into his hidden alcove, returns with a battered National Geographic.
“Do you think you might sign this for me? To Kartar would be sufficient, along with your name, of course, Mr. Willem Ackerman.”
Willem laughs and signs the magazine for Kartar, who holds it carefully on his open palms, and says, “Excuse me, I must put this treasure safely away.”
“So, now that I have his seal of approval, and you know who I am, how about coming with me to the Pong Wetland. Repayment for saving your life. It’s really something to see, a huge sanctuary and reservoir nearly three hundred square miles, that attracts more than a million migratory birds. At least five hundred and fifty-five species of birds have been identified. For a long time, I was the only one out there. I’ve got a National Geographic commission and it would be fun to have company.”
Why not, Joan thinks. “Sure. What do I need to bring?”
She is thinking a sweater in case it gets cold, shoes she might not care about throwing away afterward, a slicker and a rain hat of some sort. Tomorrow, she will buy what she needs in the marketplace, or at the Kotwali Bazaar farther down the road. When Willem rattles off items she doesn’t expect, like several pairs of socks, changes of clothes, she wonders what she’s agreed to, and learns, too late, that they will be out in the Pong Wetland Reservoir for three days, cooking their meals over a campfire, doing their business behind trees.
“You’ll have your own tent and my assistant will be there as well. He helps me in my work and he’ll make our meals. All you need to bring is your good eyesight, your imagination, and your open heart. Nature will take it from there.”
* * *
In her pine suite, stretched out on her bed, she thinks about engaging for three days in birding, something she’s never thought about, with a man she does not know, has only just met, a stranger with whom she drank a bottle of good red wine, who used as a reference for his honesty and solidity, the copy of Kalpit Parvarik Jivan, which she inscribed to him at his request, his love of her work, her paragraph in his pocket, the ownership of camera lenses and binoculars that he showed her in the hotel lobby.
Suddenly, she is thinking about the old man she and Martin saw when they began taking their meandering neighborhood walks in late January, observing details they had missed somehow over the years—that certain streets were confusingly named Peachtree Street, Peach Drive, and Peaches Court; that three houses on one block had full-grown apple trees out front, thick trunks, twisted boughs, wizened apples in the snow that hung red and heavy months before—and the old man in the apartment addition over a two-car garage was always staring out from behind the panes.
Their walks shifted days and hours, but there he stood, dressed in a shirt and tie, his nose pressed to the glass, binoculars gripped in his fingers, ready to be raised to his eyes. Someone’s father, perhaps with early-stage dementia, was what Joan thought the first time she spotted him and pointed him out to Martin. He seemed prepared to search for approaching enemy aircraft, but unless their local paper had failed to report it, small-town Rhome, in northern Virginia, was not under imminent attack.
Watching him from the street, Joan had remembered the phrase ineluctably sad, a phrase that made her sob when she was young and read it in a novel. In her own writing, she had never found a place where those words might belong, but the old man in the window with the binoculars, he struck her as ineluctably sad, and Joan found herself down on the sidewalk, her head to her knees, trying to catch her breath, which seemed suddenly to have disappeared. Martin, kneeling at her side, asked what was wrong, and she hadn’t known. He had waited until she held out her hand, then lifted her to her feet, and they walked on, to the halfway mark of their walk, a lamplight at the end of a cul-de-sac piled high with snow.
On the way back, the old man was still in his place, looking out into the distance, unaware of the woman who had crumpled to the icy curb because of him, and Martin said, “You know, maybe he’s an avid birdwatcher.” Her chest was still tight, but she had smiled up at her husband, because even though it was winter and she didn’t think it was true, it might have been, and his ability to find an innocent pastime for that lost old man had made her happy.
She is out of bed and researching Willem Ackerman on her computer. He is a giant in the world of nature photography and photojournalism. Five books of his photographs have been published by Taschen, a sixth by Abrams, a seventh by Rizzoli. He has given lectures at universities throughout Europe and in America about photographing birds. Should she feel guilty that she is going to be camping with Willem, that she finds him very attractive, that she, who missed out on the years of being girlish, giddy, and flirtatious, was instead the intense young writer, is feeling those very things now, that she has not talked to Martin on the phone in weeks, that her emails to him have not moved into serious territory, remain well-crafted travelogue stories?
* * *
Joan is waiting outside of Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise at six two mornings later when Willem drives up in a bright orange jeep. The back of the jeep is piled high with equipment and rucksacks, but there is no assistant sitting in a seat.
“Jinpa’s girlfriend came for a visit, and Jinpa, throwing out all manner of apologies, begged me to let him sit out this trip.” This is what Joan learns at dawn.
“What could I do?” Willem says. “Love is love. Though I have met this girlfriend and I think Jinpa is in for a hard crash. She’s much more worldly than he is, not from Dharamshala. I doubt the two of them will last beyond this week. But until she cuts him down, at least he’ll have a good time.”
What should Joan make of Jinpa’s absence? Will she find herself rolling around with Willem in the dirt, zipped up together in a double sleeping bag? It is a very intriguing thought. When Willem starts the engine, she pulls closed the flimsy jeep door. What does it matter that she hasn’t reclaimed her life yet? She is still a brave woman, with courage, she is here in India, sitting next to a world-famous photographer she’s never heard of, but when Willem Ackerman turns the bright orange jeep around in front of Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise, she is ridiculously nervous.
The jeep barrels down the road, past the Dalai Lama’s complex, past the Namgyal Monastery, where Joan and Camille have made dozens of koras together. There goes Namgyal Monastery in the wing mirror on her side.
They fly past Kotwali Bazaar and Willem Ackerman is making pleasant conversation about the weather, telling Joan that, according to the weather reports, the late monsoon season is taking a breather. They will be lucky at the reserve.
“The formal name of the Pong Wetland is Maharana Pratap Sagar Sanctuary. Named after a patriot who lived in the sixteenth century,” he says.
“A patriot of what?” Joan asks, and Willem looks over at her and grins.
“I never thought to find out. But I can tell you when it was created in 1974, it swallowed up homes, communities, fertile fields, people who had lived there since the dawn of time. They were all resettled away from the lake, or in Rajasthan’s Thar Desert. Very tough on those affected. But it’s a really beautiful place.”
What has she gotten herself into, bouncing in a racing jeep with handsome Willem Ackerman, on a three-hour drive to some sanctuary to see birds?
She’s here now and she might as well see where it all ends up. “Tell me more,” she says, shifting in her seat to face him. And he does.
“Those are the Shivalik Hills, a primeval mountain range older than the Himalayas.” All she can see from this distance are tall brown plains, and she wonders if her eyesight is starting to go.
“The Shivaliks turn green when the rainy season really gets going. See out there? That’s the Dhauladhar range. The Kangra valley sits between the two. The Pong Wetland is just thirty kilometers from the foot of the Dhauladhar.”
When Willem’s geography lesson comes to an end, he presses a button and music mixes with the rushing win
d. Shaking bangles and chanting falsetto voices—it sounds to Joan like an Indian pop tune stripped of its lyrics. Willem is quiet for the next couple of hours, intent on driving, and Joan thinks how nice it is to be in a car with a man who does not require the constant flow of conversation to signal that everything is all right.
* * *
Though her eyes are shut, Joan is not asleep when the jeep slows, then turns off the main road. She looks around, at the waterline far out in the distance, at the unpaved road that follows monsoon-carved bends. A pink stone building, six stories high, appears like an obelisk in the middle of nowhere. A balustrade encircles the roof. Large windows, like square spectacles attached to the stone, go from roof to ground.
Willem pulls the jeep up alongside the quirky building and cuts the engine. The sign at the front reads THE LODGE @ PONG. She laughs at how that @ sign spells futurity on the shore of a wetland of international ecological importance.
Willem looks up. “I know. Talk about confusing your guests. I’ve never figured out whether that’s actually the name of the hotel, or the owner’s attempt to advertise their Web site. When I’ve asked, no one seems to know.
“Listen,” he says. “Without Jinpa, I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, so we won’t be camping out. I booked us rooms here. There’s a good restaurant on the roof, with a tremendous view of the reservoir. You can come with me while I work, as much or as little as you want. Or you can do anything at all that you desire.”
She is so pleased by the existence of the lodge, so pleased she will be sleeping in a bed, in her own room, with her own bathroom, she hopes, and not in a tent on the ground, having to pee behind trees. She is grateful that Willem Ackerman has made such arrangements, has let her know she can do as she pleases. She smiles at him and thinks maybe it’s time to try something completely different.
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby Page 44
