Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

by Miller, Henry

  But let me not forget! With the parsley always goes a bit of the Shilchan Aruch, the Kabbala, and the Book of Daniel. The parsley is thrown in at the last minute, as when making a good omelette. What really sustains me, fortifies me, guides my hand, whether for precipitations, sunbursts or sandstorms, is the crystallized wisdom of those huge, soaring birds—the anonymous prophets—who hovered for generations over the cosmological riddle.

  To make it still more clear, Doner will take me by the hand. “It’s like this, Henry….” Like this means that he is preparing to dive into the labyrinth. “A full answer,” he says, “is always in the nature of a riddle. If someone asks, ‘Why the Sphinx?’ the answer must contain the Sphinx as well as other things. Some people regard this sort of answer as evasive. The trouble with such people is, they never put the right questions. A full answer may omit facts and figures, but it always includes God. Now water-color problems are not cosmological problems. Nor even epistemological problems. Why waste time, then? More parsley! That settles it.”

  There is a self-portrait of Doner’s which will probably hang in a museum one day. It is a superb painting as well as a superb portrait. The shirt is as alive as the expression on his face, and the background is of a texture rich enough to support the sins of a saint—or an ephah of barley. Doner is there widespread, like the Pentateuch itself under the rays of the noonday sun. He is there agape, if I may put it thus, for he has caught that fugitive look which the mirror renders when we catch a glimpse of ourselves off guard. Doner sees himself looking at himself but without knowing that it is himself he is looking at. In this fleeting glimpse of his unknown self he has contrived to introduce an element of the cocasse. As if Jacob, waking from his dream, beheld a fly on the end of his nose. One ought not to say that he is looking at himself; but then neither is he looking at the world, for the world has dissolved momentarily. It is just a glance that he has given us, but in this glance is contained the wonder of life.

  A detail. … If you look closely you will observe that one ear is spread fan-wise. There is something verging on the ridiculous in the way this ear protrudes. Only an adept could have balanced the hypnotic glance with this bizarre appendage. It is an ear, however. An ear that has caught something from afar. What? The wheeling of the constellations? The croaking of a frog? Perhaps only the whispering of time babbling of eternity. Whatever it was, the owner heard it with his whole being. For an instant he was the sea shell. The mysterium.

  To do a good portrait, it goes without saying, one must be able to see into the soul of the sitter. To do a good self-portrait, one must look into the ashes. Man builds on the ruins of his former selves. When we are reduced to nothingness, we come alive again. To season one’s destiny with the dust of one’s folly, that is the trick. In the ashes lie the ingredients for portrayal of self.

  Now the spirit of Doner is large and boisterous. There is a roar to it, as the surf in an empty shell. It is the roar of the universe, the same which splits the soul of man in moments of revelation. And who, in his right senses, would attempt to make a canvas roar? Yet Doner has done just that. And he has done it with a cigarette glued to his lips.

  That cigarette! A link, not with reality, but with the art of badinage. Only with cigarette to lip does he really talk. Talk persiflage and camouflage. Pythagoras plus Aquinas equals Jonah and the whale. Or—Micah is to Isinglass what Job is to Jehovah. With that cigarette glued to his lips, Doner can take the measure of any man—and his ancestral tree to boot. To use his own language—“It was thus that Mordecai made a shambles of Belshazzar.”

  Ephraim Doner and Bezalel Schatz: of all my friends these are the only two whose educational background I envy. Schatz was educated in his father’s school, in Jerusalem: the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts. He learned nothing but arts and crafts; all the other subjects which we cram down our children’s throats he learned on the side, and learned them better that way. As for Doner, who was born and raised in Vilna, he had the fortune to have for a grandfather a famous rabbi, known not only as a great scholar but as a man of wisdom. They are blessed, these two friends. They are free spirits. They were not indoctrinated, they were taught to think for themselves. Theirs is still an insatiable curiosity—about everything. Coupled with a healthy disregard for mundane facts. As a reader, Doner is omnivorous. He reads with equal facility in Hebrew, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian. Every year he rereads Don Quixote. He is one of the half-dozen Americans I know who also reads everything that issues from the pen of Blaise Cendrars.

  Almost every time we go to town we stop at the Doners for dinner. And whenever the Doners make their trip to the sulphur baths they invariably stop at our place for dinner. While waiting for the duck to brown we usually play a few rounds of ping-pong. By the time dinner is ready to be served Tasha has made a half-dozen pictures.

  When we are not talking books, food, education (the insanity of it), herbs or painting, we are talking and drinking wine. The leitmotif which runs through all our talk is France. It was in 1931 or ‘32 that I met Doner in Paris. Just once. We did not meet again until he took up residence in the Carmel Highlands, about seven years ago. To hear us talk, you would think that we had spent the greater part of our lives in France. We did, of course, spend the best years of our lives there. And we have never forgotten it.

  Doner’s acquaintance with France began at Villefranche. He was on a cruise of the Mediterranean, taking a fling with the last few dollars he had saved working as a furrier in a New York sweatshop. A friend of his who was playing the stock market had already lost half of Doner’s savings when, sailing down Broadway one day, he, Doner, espied a poster announcing that he too might enjoy a three months’ cruise in the Mediterranean—if he had what it took. He looked in his bank book and he found that he had exactly the right amount. When the boat put in at Villefranche he went ashore to have a drink. The spot so enchanted him that he decided then and there to forgo the rest of the trip. For a year he wandered on foot through France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Yugoslavia and neighboring countries. The few dollars he had cashed in on his ticket didn’t last very long. But he eked out an existence by sketching portraits in bars and restaurants. When he returned to New York he went back to the fur trade for another year, saving what money he could. At the end of that time he destroyed all his tools, so as not to be tempted ever again, and shipped to France where he was determined to live as a painter. He remained abroad four or five years, during which time he taught himself to paint. Today he is one of the best painters on the peninsula and, more than I can say about most painters, an artist from head to toe.

  Doner is one of the most gregarious individuals I have ever met. One can hardly ever go to his home without running into visitors. In spite of interruptions, he not only turns out a respectable number of canvases but also finds time to do the chores, run errands for his friends, listen to their problems, make trips to the beach, the desert, the wineries, the ranches, add wings to his house, build rock walls, care for the garden, lay tiles, give painting lessons, instruct his daughter, help his wife with the cooking and cleaning, do the shopping, go for abalone, mussels and snails, nurse his alcoholic friends, bail them out of jail when they run amok, borrow and lend money (he’s as good at the one as at the other), and a thousand and one things that would drive the ordinary artist raving mad.

  His talk reflects his protean activities. (He takes no vitamins, by the way, not even blackstrap molasses or brewer’s yeast.) He is just as alive and captivating when discussing the merits of a new sauce he has thought up as when talking chess, herbs, Napoleon or his beloved Cervantes. Like myself, he seems destined to attract misfits, neurotics, psychopaths, alcoholics, dope fiends, vagabonds, eccentrics and plain downright bores. Now and then he sells a painting; to seal the bargain, he generally forces the buyer to take one of my books. He also intercepts the “nuisances” who are en route to Partington Ridge and who, for unaccountable reasons, stop off to see him first. If it is someone who turns out to b
e interesting after all, he will drive him down to my place himself—a mere jaunt of seventy miles there and back. He always makes certain before they start that the newcomer load up with good things to eat and drink. A friend, what!

  These visitors he brings are usually fellows who have traveled far and wide. He knows that he has only to say—“Henry, this chap has just come back from Burma,” or “This man has been to Yemen”—to put me in my most receptive mood. Or just: “C’est un français, mon vieux!” (At the Big Sur Post Office, where visitors without “proper passports” are frequently turned back, it is understood that if the person seems like a Frenchman he is to be sent ahead with all the courtesy and attention due a visiting potentate.)

  Stay put and watch the world go round!

  Listening to the fascinating tales of these globe-trotters, I often think of my father, who virtually never set foot outside the place he was born in. Marooned in his tailoring establishment, he nevertheless gave the impression that he had seen all the strange places which his customers had visited and loved to talk about. He had a retentive memory, a passionate interest in all that was alien, and an ability to identify himself with the person to whom he was listening. He could reel off the names of streets, bars, shops, celebrities, monuments and so on, belonging to the most unheard of places. Now and then he would fib about these towns, villages and cities which he had never set foot in: I mean, aberrate in an elaborate way. No one ever took it amiss. He was a genuine voyageur imaginaire. And I am very much like him in this respect. A picture postcard of some remote place is sufficient to make me think I know the place intimately. (Sometimes I surprise myself making strange and acute observations about these far off places. True things, which I only discover later through chance references in books.) With regard to certain cities in China, Burma, India, I have such strong mental pictures of them that, if I do visit them one day, I doubt that the real picture will be strong enough to erase the imaginary one.

  But to come back to Doner…. Because of his background, because of his blood, because of his trials and tribulations, and perhaps mostly because he is an artist first and foremost, he is and always will be an incorrigible giver. The first thing he asks, when we meet, is if I am in need of anything. “I just sold a sketch,” he will say. “Can’t I lend you something?” If I don’t say No promptly, he will add: “I can make it twenty, if you like.” (As if he feared I thought he intended to hand me only a measly five spot.) “I can always borrow,” he says. “That is, if you need more. … By the way, don’t forget to let me give you some wine before you leave. I’ve got four cases of the most delicious….” and here he will mention a wine he knows I adore.

  Sometimes I come across him standing on the highway beside the Chevron gas station near his home. What’s he doing? Waiting. Just waiting. Waiting and hoping that someone will come along whom he can touch for a few bucks. He’s never depressed about lack of funds. Simply active and alert. Taking a stand beside him, to lend him moral support, it has happened more than once that a “friend” just happens along … and what has this good friend brought for Maître Ephraim but a beautiful salmon fresh caught or a fine Italian salami with an equally gorgeous, savory Italian cheese, sometimes a case of French wine into the bargain. All this without even rubbing the kmeya which I gave him expressly for use in such emergencies.

  Aside from his generosity, Doner is just about the most indulgent person I have ever known, particularly where children are concerned. (We have a secret understanding, the two of us, that visitors who pay no heed to children or animals are taboo.) Rosa, his wife, is even more indulgent where children are in question. She absorbs children just as blood absorbs the oxygen in the air. The degree to which she caters to them is almost alarming. It is her profession to instruct mothers and teachers in the art of handling children. A most difficult profession, needless to say, particularly in a community which nurtures spoiled brats.

  To see to it that Tasha’s little friends have all the advantages which (theoretically) they deserve, Rosa unwittingly puts a burden on Doner’s shoulders which most men would resent. Their household centers around children—noisy children, demanding children, spoiled children, most of them. Fortunately, Maître Ephraim’s studio is some twenty yards from the house; here Doner locks himself in every morning to work until late noon. (It seems to be the common routine among artists hereabouts to get as much done as possible by noon each day; after that hell is apt to break loose.)

  The school which Tasha attends is located near a beautiful cove opposite a Carmelite nunnery. It is probably one of the last of its kind in America. There are only a handful of pupils, and what learning they receive is painless. During recesses they play on the beach, only a stone’s throw away from the schoolhouse. Here the nuns often come to frisk and scamper, piously. The more daring ones occasionally wet their feet in the sea. Paddling about in full mourning, they give the impression of demented haddocks trained to stand upright.

  The contrast between this country school and the typical city school is remarkable. Here the children are happy, carefree and eager to be taught. They are not drilled, disciplined and mechanized. Indeed, they behave as if they owned the school. The atmosphere of the concentration camp is completely missing. Should a pupil desire to bring a pet to school with her, she may, provided it’s not a horse or cow. If she brings a little friend along, the friend is made welcome by pupils and teachers alike. In fact, they may stop everything and do a sing in her honor.

  When Tasha was a very young child she took a fall from a second-story window. That was the beginning of the special education which she has been receiving ever since. There is little likelihood that Tasha will take another fall, even from grace. She is guided, counseled and directed from both ends with all the skill, tact, cunning and superior insight which her loving parents can muster. Sooned or later she gets most everything she asks for. If she is a little spoiled in the process, no one gets hysterical. Time will unspoil her. If Tasha wants liver and onions for breakfast, she gets it. Why not? Whose stomach is it? If she wants a shoulder bird, she gets it. Once she wanted a beautiful goat, and she got it, but abandoned it shortly in favor of a horse. As a supplement, she gets all the milk she can down, all the vitamins, brewer’s yeast and blackstrap molasses. To say nothing of herbs! At present she has a bike which Tony has his eye on and which we all pray she will abandon in favor of an M.G. or a Jaguar.

  In any other household such tactics would produce a monster. With any other parents Tasha’s demands would smell of blackmail. But Ephraim and Rosa are more than equal to the test. They have freedom in their blood and a recklessness for consequences which can only spring from a firm belief in the triumph of love. The problems which arise from their indulgence, and of course problems do arise, they dismiss as transitory. The are never concerned with what Tasha may demand of them next, but only what she may grow into in response to love, understanding and forbearance. They observe and direct her growth much as an expert gardener would a delicate plant. They shield her only to give her strength.

  The interesting thing about this experiment is that it works. The mother is not a nervous wreck, as most mothers are, but flourishing. As for the father, he becomes more and more creative every day. It is as if the more they lavished on the child the more is lavished on them, in unexpected ways. “Free flow” is the unwritten motto above their door. The result is that the reservoir (of natural affection) is always full. From this hub of bedlam, indulgence and indiscriminate hospitality there filters through to friends, neighbors and playmates a current of sanity, joyousness and prodigality which acts like a leaven.

  Is it not somewhat strange that two immigrants of lowly origin should have such an effect upon their surroundings? Whatever they may owe to America, America owes much more to them. Whatever was worth while in the American tradition they have accepted and exploited to the fullest. They remain—Americans in the. making. For the American is only an American when he perpetuates the experiment begun by his
forefathers. He is only an American if he carries on the work of making his country the melting pot which it was destined to be. Ironically, it is in the American home today, not the immigrant’s, that we find prejudice and intolerance rampant. It is in the household of the Hundred Percenter that we find a spirit of inertia, a lack of healthy curiosity and native enthusiasm, to say nothing of a frightening tendency to conform for the sake of ease and comfort. It is Mr. Slivovitz, not Mr. Mayflower, who is nearer to Daniel Boone, Thomas Paine, John Brown and their ilk.

  The extraordinary indulgence which the Doners manifest does not spring from weakness or mere compliance. It is born of superabundant spirit. It is directed towards everything capable of growth, whether plant, creature, child, artist or idea. In obeying this impulse to nurture and sustain the life spirit, they grow in like measure and are nurtured, sustained and fortified by the very powers they have called into play.

  I said of Doner a while back that he is the type who, if asked to go a mile, goes with you twain. This attitude is hardly one of indulgence. True, there is in it sympathy and compassion, and an understanding which surpasses the ordinary. But the essence of it is reverence for life. Or perhaps simply—reverence. Those who do more than is asked of them are never depleted. Only those who fear to give are weakened by giving. The art of giving is entirely a spiritual affair. In this sense, to give one’s all is meaningless, for there is no bottom where true giving is concerned.

  Now and then I take Doner to task for spreading himself too far afield. One might as well reprove Niagara Falls for shedding so much water! It is both the weakness and the virtue of the Jew to spill over in all directions. What seems chaotic to the Gentile appears normal to the Jew. He has a superendowment of energy, a superabundance of enthusiasm. He is strikingly interested in others. His innate love of justice, his compassion, his gregariousness and his burning desire to be of service, mark him as a firebrand in any community of Gentiles.