I looked around for Coal’s shortwave radio. “Can we listen to the BBC?”
“Afraid not. It’s in the shop. Yogini knocked it off the table. I tell you, it’s like being on a desert island without it. Ouch! Fuck.” Coal took off his glasses and disentangled a strand of hair from the nose guard. He had a melodious British accent and reassuring good looks, with thinning hair and an expression of faint amusement, as if his brain were supplying a constant stream of witticisms, only a fraction of which might find their way into speech.
“Amazing how one needs, one absolutely requires, that daily dose of panic and propaganda. It’s an addiction; it truly is.” He perked up. “Speaking of news, I hear you met Grace.”
“You know her?” I felt blindsided.
“Naturally. She’s shed her clothes for me on many occasions.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely. We’ve worked together on two of my catalogs. She’s also modeled my hats. Nice head, don’t you think? Or have you not found out yet?”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Not a wink.”
He beheld my distressed expression. “She’s not my type. I prefer the apsara look. You know: tall and leggy, narrow hips, breasts like ripe papayas.”
“Like Clarice.”
“Indeed.”
“Do you still see her?”
“Every night; she’s my wife.”
I ground my teeth. “Grace.”
“Of course. We’re good friends. Actually, it’s astonishing you’ve not met her earlier. Even more astonishing that we never introduced you. In any case, you can relax. We’ve never had sex. And I gave you a glowing endorsement.”
“When did you talk to her?”
“About two hours ago. She came by for tea, right after the strike.” His lips parted in mock amazement. “Why, she sat in the very chair you’re sitting in now. Uncanny, isn’t it?”
A series of beeps issued from the bedroom. “Finished,” said Coal. I got up to retrieve my fax. When I returned, he was leaning back in his chair with a distant expression. “I saw the most amazing thing at Boudhnath this morning,” he said. “It changed my life. I kid you not.”
“Tell me.”
“Do you know that gate—not the big gate that feeds onto the main kora, but the small, metal one that takes you up onto the shrine itself?”
I nodded. “It leads into a little courtyard, with the statues. Near that room with the giant prayer wheel.”
“Right. Well, I was strolling around the kora, minding my business, when a middle-aged Tibetan woman came out of the gate. She was dressed in her finery: gold and coral necklace, turquoise earrings, a lovely chuba, the works. She was with a friend. They were laughing loudly and walking very fast, when a guy on a bicycle came out of nowhere and ran right into her. Wham! Just like that. Bowled her over like tenpins. She went rolling into the gutter, and came to rest in a heap of cow shit and banana rinds.”
“Jesus. Was she okay?”
Coal stood up and opened the door leading into the yard. Yogini, a black Lhasa apso, trotted in. “That’s the amazing thing,” he said. “She simply picked up and carried on, as if it had never even happened. She’d been laughing when he hit her, and she was laughing when she stood up. And listen to this: She never even looked at the guy who hit her. Not once. Can you believe it? Can you imagine if the same thing had happened to me? I’d be livid, dragging the bloody idiot off his bike.” He lifted the Bushmills. “More whiskey?” He divided the last few inches of liquor between us.
“So I watched this whole scene. And when it was over I think I understood, for the very first time, what it means to be enlightened. Not as a rinpoche, not as the Buddha, but as an actual person who has to wash clothes and shop for onions and find a taxi when it’s pissing down rain.” He looked at me expectantly, seeking permission to finish his epiphany.
“And?”
“All right, here it is: Enlightenment is stability. That’s it. It means living so totally in the now, in the moment, that whatever misfortune befell you five days ago, or five seconds ago, is irrelevant. You just don’t hold on to it. I tell you, this woman . . . the moment the accident ended, it passed right out of her mind. She let it go and carried on. That, in my considered view, is enlightenment. Don’t you agree?”
I shrugged. “She’s probably just used to it. Out in the hills you get knocked down all the time. Yaks, mules, rock slides . . .”
“No. I’m telling you, she went rolling through shit. Totally ruined her clothes. No reaction at all.”
“The curry’s probably ready.” I didn’t want to argue with Coal about enlightenment; that would entail pretending I knew what the word meant. The exercise didn’t appeal to me. The truth was, I was getting sauced.
“Mark my words. You will exhaust many masters, my friend, but you will never find a more useful definition of the ‘awakened state.’” Coal rose beatifically to his feet, stability in action, and stepped on Yogini, who howled. I coughed Bushmills down the front of my shirt.
“Let it go, Yogini.” Coal tossed me a sponge and found two bowls. “Just let it pass.” He was stirring the curry, wearing a quilted mitt in the shape of a salmon, when the dogs began yelping. The front door opened and Clarice appeared, bending to tousle the hounds. Her face lit up when she saw us.
“Hello there.” She sniffed the air. “Smells fantastic. Oh, thank God for Saraswati. I have to say, the food at the baby shower was abominable. Inedible. Lots of little fried-up things with mystery meat inside. And deviled eggs. Ugh.” She came into the kitchen and pecked Coal on the cheek. “Is there enough?”
“I’m eating downtown,” I said. “Just give me a taste.”
Clarice walked over and kissed me as well. Coal’s wife wasn’t glamorously beautiful—she could sometimes look clerkish—but her laugh came so easily, and she smiled with such warmth, that I found her irresistible. “How fares our foreign correspondent?”
“Very well. It looks like things may finally be reaching the flash point around here.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Clarice, who counted a handful of well-to-do Nepalis among her yoga regulars, was a cynic. “There will be a few big strikes, a few noisy demonstrations, and just when it seems something might happen, the palace will rattle its saber. And everyone will go running home with their tails between their legs. Isn’t that right, Khumbu?” The white apso flew to her ankles, quivering with fealty.
Coal served the curry, and we sat at the cane table that filled half of the tiny kitchen. “I think you’re wrong,” I said. “The equation has changed. The king is making the people feel inferior—to the Filipinos, the Romanians, even the Indians. The Nepali people can put up with a lot of abuse, and a load of inconvenience, but they can’t stand being humiliated. Something’s gonna snap.”
“I agree,” Coal volunteered. “I’m sure that if you study it closely, the entire history of conflict, every revolution and crusade, was ultimately motivated by humiliation, or the fear of it. Humans are such a sensitive lot. Deny them fresh broccoli, take away their penicillin, but don’t laugh at their haircuts.”
“What a brilliant analysis.” Clarice rolled her eyes. “In my opinion, it’s all about testosterone . . .”
“Exactly the same thing.”
“. . . and when it comes to a dick-measuring contest, why, the king’s got to have the biggest one of all, doesn’t he?”
“That’s what the press releases say.”
“Ceaucescu,” said Coal, “had a big dick, too. As did Marcos. And Mussolini. And Louis XVI, no doubt. One might suggest,” he mused, “that the road to freedom is paved with big dicks.”
“No wonder the footing is so difficult.” Clarice stood up and collected the dishes. “I’ve got a class,” she said. “Beginning and intermediate. Jeff, are you coming? It would do you a world of good, you know.”
“Not today, sorry. I’m heading downtown.”
“Will we see you at Pashupati, the
n? On Shivaratri?”
“I’ll be there,” I said. “But you know what a mob scene that is.”
“I plan to spend the day at home,” announced Coal, “practicing yoga and counting my money.” He sighed with satisfaction. “The perfect blend of East and West.”
6
Make Me Laugh
AMERICAN EXPRESS WASN’T the most convenient mail stop in town—they kept sporadic hours—but using their service allowed me to avoid the slow-motion feeding frenzy at the downtown Poste Restante, where one could grow old and die waiting for the hash-addled backpacker at the front of the line to flip, envelope by envelope, through the endless expanse of G’s.
The clerk at AmEx clients’ mail, a sharp-looking engineering student with a pressed blue shirt, recognized me. “At least two items,” he said, pleased to convey good news. “Actually three. One arrived just today.”
He handed me the letters. There was a packet of recent clippings from my old college roommate, now a sportswriter for a Fairbanks newspaper. There was a postcard from Rachel, a filmmaker friend who hoped to visit California in the spring. And there was a letter from my younger brother, Jordan.
It was his first communication to me in more than six months, and its appearance produced a slack sensation in my stomach. My brow furrowed as I pondered my brother’s narrow handwriting on the envelope. The letters slanted awkwardly to the right, as if rushing ahead of themselves.
During my early visits to Nepal I’d corresponded with Jordan frequently. Our letters were entertaining, but they weren’t much of a dialogue. I wrote about life in Kathmandu, heavy on the festivals and filth; he wrote back describing his discoveries in ancient Greek grammar, interjecting the occasional snippet from Thomas Mann or Friedrich Hölderlin. Between his titanic vocabulary and shameless use of foreign phrases, it took a shelf of reference books to get through each paragraph.
But it had been communication, even if between different worlds. And beneath it all, we’d understood each other. We were like far-flung space-ships that, inhabiting different orbits, respond to the same signals.
Recently, though, our bond had decayed. It had been a gradual process. During the past seven years, Jordan had spiraled into a depression. A mysterious malaise had warped his personality, crippling his spirit and eroding our long camaraderie. Last summer, during his visit to California, a confrontation divided us. We hadn’t spoken since.
I slipped the letters into my daypack and walked up Durbar Marg, past curio sellers and travel agencies, to the Nanglo Café. There were still some good seats on the rooftop patio.
As I scanned the menu, a Nepali family took a nearby table. The paunchy husband, about my age, was attired in a sports jacket and knock-off Ray-Ban Wayfarers. His frizzy-haired wife was wrapped in a yellow sari; their little girl sported pigtails and a neat pink blouse. The son, about ten, wore a Batman T-shirt.
The boy grinned at me, the sort of open smile that American children are warned never to bestow upon strangers, and as I smiled back it occurred to me that Westerners, as tourists and expats, were uniquely familiar strangers. For as long as this kid had been alive, he’d seen pale-skinned foreigners in all the popular restaurants. He’d watched us hailing cabs, riding rented bikes down the narrow streets, focusing elaborate cameras on the temples and rickshaws and cows. He’d seen us everywhere; we were part of the landscape.
The parents ordered dal bhat: the traditional dish of stewed lentils, rice, and vegetables. It was what the family ate, more than likely, almost every day of the year. The boy tacked on an order of fries.
There was no visible tension among them. They seemed at ease with each other. The marriage, likely arranged by hopeful parents, had succeeded. The couple laughed together; the girl hand-fed her mother french fries. The boy was clownish and assertive, but kept an arm around his sister’s waist. It was probable they lived in one or two rooms, in a multifamily building with a shared bath and toilet. Somehow, it had not driven them berserk.
But I’d visited Nepal too many times to see their apparent contentment as part of the Shangri-la myth. This kingdom, even if one ignored the political crisis, was no paradise. There were bad families here, too, saddled by alcoholism, abuse, and poverty. But if healthy families were not the rule, neither were they the exception. The very concept of family, in Hindu culture, carries more weight than it does in the West. Blood is thick in Asia. Children stay close to home. Roles are often oppressive, but they’re well defined.
I picked up the dull knife at my place setting and sliced open Jordan’s envelope.
Dear Jeff,
Forgive the long silence. I can no longer pretend to blame you for reclaiming your space spring last, even if it came at the cost of some hardship to me. Cohabitation with the likes of myself, mired in such a sorely oppressed state, must have confounded even the most well-meaning host. Please accept my apology.
After my return to New York, it needed but a day for me to comprehend the difference between San Francisco and our northeastern cities. This difference, I submit, consists not so much in “accidents” such as the humidity of Philadelphia in August, or the filth, noise and congestion of Manhattan, or the hostility and degradation of our urban blacks. It consists rather in this: that in the northeast there is a terrible sadness in the air. I think it is the sadness of a dying world.
I perceive this sadness, or at least an emptiness that makes one sad the moment one reflects, in the haggard faces, the slack step, the pointless frenzy of the streets; I perceive it in the billboards, in the movie marquees, in the headlines of the tabloids; I perceive it in the eyes of the stationer with the rounded shoulders, who cheated me out of a quarter; in the cashier at the grocery store who did not respond when I wished her well; and in the short laughter of the desiccated middle-aged women who, bent over pulp romances, share my bus-stop bench.
Supremely important to me these days is the lustrous surface of the Pacific and the motion of its waters, the light of foggy mornings, the parkland meadows that on weekday afternoons, unpopulated, resemble English gardens, and on weekends could be so many scenes from Watteau.
Be that as it may, earlier this week I spent a wretched hour on my bed in that disturbing state of half-sleep when familiar thoughts visit one with new, sometimes terrifying force. In particular I reflected that, at 32, I have accomplished precisely nothing, and—this was the crux of the horror—by electing to return hither, have in effect declined an opportunity to make my own way in the world, favoring instead a prolonged adolescence. Indeed, as I later walked across campus I seemed to myself as hideous as the superannuated reveler whom Aschenbach spies on a quay in Death in Venice.
Why, in the end, did I return to university? Perhaps because I surmised that only under the stress of academic obligations am I likely to produce any of the theoretical or belletristic works that I have long nursed.
And yet, as I sit in this rather comfortable room of mine, the air cool this evening, before me the prospect of a tolerable living in return for mere study—as I sit here, I say, I feel quite certain that I erred. On the one hand, I suspect that, had I stayed in San Francisco, I could have made my fortune. Too (and this I saw too late, while gazing over the city, over Golden Gate Park and the land on either side as far as the ocean, from a third-story apartment halfway up Ashbury Street), San Francisco offers a thousand possibilities in point of love. The life of a graduate student promises little in that regard.
It occurs to me that my happiness here turns upon whether I can enroll in the Classics program. Interest in theoretical problems of linguistics beyond my own theory, that is, of the genesis and operation of language, I have none. Indeed, I undertook graduate study initially because I wished to internalize the particular timbre and rhythm, as well as the rhetorical devices and general sensibility, of the Greek and Latin tongues. I derive immeasurably more pleasure from reading the ancients than ever I shall from linguistics.
Wishing you every success on your Eastern odyssey I close thus,
with the promise of further reflections as they offer.
Yours faithfully,
Jordan
I folded the letter away.
THERE IS A scene in Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs where Clarice Starling asks Hannibal Lecter if he ever wonders what “happened” to him. “Nothing happened to me,” Lecter replies. “I happened.” The line reflects a scary truth. America, with its power, narcissism, and chaotic freedoms, is a petri dish. Social tumors grow uncontrolled. Things “happen” in the United States that do not happen elsewhere. Charles Manson happens. Disneyland happens. Moonwalks happen. Thomas Jefferson, Lizzie Borden, Dr. Seuss, and the Grateful Dead happen. Inspiration, depression, and mania, nurtured by mixed genes and infinite choices, weaned on junk food and the Interstate Highway System, drive people into lives unimaginable in Himalayan valleys ringed by golden-tiered temples and ash-painted holy men.
Could Jordan, I wondered, have happened in Nepal? Or did it require a place like America, with its double-edged affluence and fragmented families, to create a person as brilliant and tortured as my little brother?
WE WERE CHILDREN of the ’50s: that strange, suspended period between Korea and Vietnam, bee-bop and the Beatles, highballs and Thai stick. Me first, in 1954; Jordan, three years and three months later (our sister, Debra, would follow in 1963). My earliest memories are of a warm, small apartment on Ryer Avenue, in the Bronx, a year before my brother was born. We lived near my mom’s parents: Bella, originally from Baltimore, and Sam, a Russian immigrant and kosher butcher. We were never short of meat.
Our dad had grown up in Hell’s Kitchen and told stories about how the kids in his neighborhood doused cats with gasoline, set them on fire, and swung them around their heads like shrieking censers. Wise guys were stuffed headfirst down the curbside sewers. This practice became a childhood myth, invoked by our father when a bully chased one of us home from school: Where I grew up, we stuffed kids like that down the sewer. I wondered, then and now, if this was really true, or if it was my father himself—born by accident in 1930, the runt of the litter—who fell victim to these thugs.
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