This is Me, Jack Vance

by Jack Vance

  Leaving County Meath we returned to Shannon, where we turned in our car, boarded a plane and flew to Paris. There we rented another car and proceeded south through the wonderful French countryside, into Spain, and eventually arrived at Torremolinos, where we sought out our friends Ralph and Vicky Cruet, whom we had known before on Ibiza. They put us up in their apartment on the top floor of a tower which we called “The House of Many Winds”. After a week or so we drove westward into Portugal and ultimately to Lisbon, where we turned in our car and boarded another plane, this bound for Madeira.

  Madeira, as is well known, is a beautiful island and at this time was a favorite resort of British holiday-makers. We rented an apartment about a mile outside Funchal, where we remained for about a month. Needless to say, I occupied myself with writing, and occasionally taking tea at Reed’s Hotel, which during the days of the British Empire had ranked with the best in the world.

  When our sojourn on Madeira came to an end, we boarded the steamer Reina del Mar and set sail across the south Atlantic toward Capetown, South Africa.

  Our passage on this vessel was a dream-voyage. John made friends with six or seven other children of his own age, English émigrés to South Africa. When we landed at Capetown John was heartbroken to be separated from his new friends. Once ashore, we bought a white Volkswagen Beetle distinguished by a big yellow butterfly painted on its rear end. We also bought a tent and camping gear, and drove south to a campground at Fish Hoek. To say that this first camp was not a success is an understatement. It was almost a disaster. We had a terrible time getting the tent up; it had wooden stakes which broke, and the wind blew and flapped the fabric of the tent almost out of control. Moreover the campsite itself was unpleasant. Norma and John took a gondola up to the top of Table Mountain, but John was still disconsolate with the loss of his friends and did not much enjoy himself.

  The next day we struck camp and drove east to another campground at George. This site was far more pleasant than Fish Hoek. We remained there a week, made a few acquaintances and perfected our camping skills before moving on to other pleasant campgrounds, among these one near Graaff Reinet, a picturesque town distinguished by quaint old Dutch architecture.

  We pitched our tent under a tree and set up ‘housekeeping’; I wrote, and for recreation played my banjo ukelele. One morning we noticed that a baby bird, probably a sparrow, had fallen from its nest and lay on the ground. John took the bird into the tent and fed it milk, bread crumbs, bits of seed, and anything he felt would restore its health; in due course it convalesced and became a pet. John named the bird Dagwood. Dagwood eventually learned to fly, first around the tent, then outside, where we wished to see if he would fly away. Dagwood flew up into a tree, but whenever we had our breakfast or lunch, he would fly down, perch himself on the plate, and help himself to whatever suited his appetite. Dagwood had evidently identified us as his parents.

  One morning as I sat outside the tent playing my banjo uke, a gentleman approached and introduced himself as Bob Kok. He lived in Krugersdorp, a town near Durban on South Africa’s west coast, and identified himself as a jazz enthusiast. Upon hearing me play my ukelele, he felt compelled to approach us and pass the time of day. He said that he had once been instrumental in bringing Lionel Hampton and his band from the United States to Durban. Later, when we were in Durban we visited Bob in his home, met his wife Leone and their four beautiful daughters. They lived in a most pleasant house, with a swimming pool and a fine garden*.

  Departing the pleasant campground at Graaff Reinet, and reluctantly leaving Dagwood to carry on as best he could, we drove north through a game preserve, where we saw a rhinoceros and an elephant but no lions, then continued into Rhodesia, where we did not immediately camp but went to the city of Salisbury and took up residence in the hotel there.

  John needed a haircut, so I took him one of the town barbers. Before we entered the shop, Johnny halted me and instructed me to watch the barber very carefully, to make sure that he did not cut off too much hair and “make his ears stick out like seashells”. I assured him of my vigilance and he took his place in the barber’s chair. I seated myself where I could watch, but my attention became diverted by a magazine, possibly Playboy or something similar, and I forgot to guard John from the barber’s zeal. When I looked up, John had already received a good roaching, so that only a tuft stuck out on the top of his head. When the barber whisked off the cloth, John looked in the mirror and discovered that his fears had been realized. He turned me a look of death, glaring but saying nothing. I felt guilty as hell, but it wasn’t long before his hair grew out again.

  While in Rhodesia we visited the Great Zimbabwe National Monument, an ancient city of mystery. Nobody is sure who built these spectacular ruins, but the latest theory holds that they are the work of native Africans. Rhodesia is now known as Zimbabwe; evidently the native people had no wish immortalize the name of Sir Cecil Rhodes.

  We continued north to Victoria Falls and pitched our tent on the adjacent campground. A trail led from the campground through the jungle to the falls, which were indeed stupendous. Watching them, we were soaked in spray and fog, but the spectacle was well worth a bit of moisture.

  Back at the campground, I entered a little shop where I found ebony logs for sale. These logs were perhaps a foot long, and four or five inches in diameter. The exterior was still sheathed in bark, and they showed a ring of white wood surrounding a core of black beautiful ebony. In the United States, of course, ebony is extremely expensive. Here at Victoria Falls, the price was something around a dollar apiece. I bought two logs, packed them into our suitcases and eventually brought them home.

  From Victoria Falls we drove south, through Durban to a beautiful campground at a place called Port St. John, on the coast. We settled down beside a little stream, and set to work, producing my regulation two or three thousand words a day, instructing John in his long-distance schooling. Norma went about her duties as well.

  After a time, we left Port St. John and drove north to Durban, where we took up residence in the inexpensive but surprisingly pleasant Lucy’s Hotel. At the American Express office, we learned of the Karanja, a ship which shortly would be putting in to Durban, then proceeding on to Karachi, with stops en route at Beira, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. The fare was most reasonable, so we booked passage.

  The Karanja turned out to be an old rustbucket, not at all handsome, yet still capable of making a coastwise trip, and so in due course we went aboard and sailed out of Durban. Aboard the ship drinks were 10¢ a shot. The cuisine was fair-to-middling, in general quite decent. They had two menus: one Indian, and the other Anglo-Saxon.

  We put in to Beira and saw the sights, then continued north to Mombasa, where the Karanja remained three or four days; during this interval Norma and I took occasion to visit a game park under Mt. Kilimanjaro. We rented a car to drive there, and found a beautiful hotel beside the water hole. During our stay we saw elephants, zebras and antelope, but no lions or anything alarming.

  We left the Karanja at Karachi, which, we decided, lacked charm. My most vivid recollection is the muezzin’s call at sunrise—one of the most mournful, lonesome sounds imaginable.

  From Karachi we traveled north by train. Halfway to Rawalpindi we left the train and, braving ferocious heat, explored the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, an ancient civilization coeval with Babylon, inhabited by a mysterious people about whom not much is known.

  At Rawalpindi we took up residence in Flashman’s Hotel, an old English establishment straight out of Kipling. Then we continued east into India, where we boarded an airplane and flew north to Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley beside Dal Lake, known for its hundreds of houseboats originally built for British officials during the days of the Raj. Despite the houseboats, Dal Lake was not a particular inspiring vista, so we went on to Nagin Lake, which was another story: smaller but more beautiful, surrounded by trees and mountains. There were fewer houseboats here, but these were much more attractive than those on Lake Da
l. We found the houseboat “Bluebird” to our taste and rented it, settling down for a period of work.

  The owner of the houseboat, Mr. Khan-Kashi, lived ashore and cooked our meals on an outdoor grill over a firepit. We spent three idyllic months at Lake Nagin, both Norma and I working hard. I sat at a chair in the window looking out across the water, while Norma kept a small desk nearby. Every day long flat-bottomed boats would ply the lake, each sculled by a pair of men who worked to harvest water-weeds which they used to fertilize their crop plots and gardens. They loaded the boats until they almost submerged, with the gunwales underwater! Only constant bailing kept the boats from sinking. Daily as I sat in my window, peddlers would drift by, selling fruits and vegetables, flowers and a few items of general miscellany.

  Two flower-vendors visited us at regular intervals. They were Mr. Marvelous and Mr. Wonderful. Mr. Marvelous would come aboard the houseboat, throw out everything Mr. Wonderful had left for us and replace it with flowers of his own. The next day Mr. Wonderful would arrive and do the same, vice-versa. Norma and I found their activities amusing, and didn’t interfere with them—especially because their prices were so moderate.

  In Srinagar we bought three rugs and arranged to have them shipped home to Oakland. We also ventured into a woodworker’s shop owned by a Mr. Peer, with whom we struck up what would become a very pleasant association. I ordered a hundred or so urn-shaped objects which I intended to put around our buffet at home as a kind of rail; this idea was later realized and turned out as beautifully as I had envisioned. I also made arrangements with Mr. Peer for some further woodwork which I would order by mail as soon as I got home. When we made our departure, Mr. Peer saw us off at the airport, and he wept to see us go. He was truly a charming gentleman.

  Upon leaving Kashmir we made our way south to Jaipur to see the Taj Mahal, which we viewed at midnight as well as by day. From Jaipur we went further south to Udaipur, where we stayed the night in a palace converted into a hotel on an island in the middle of the lake, a famous tourist attraction. From Udaipur we proceeded to Bombay for a few days, then further south to Kerala. We put up in a splendid hotel and dined in a table which was about fifty yards distant from the hotel itself, so that the waiters had to cross an expanse of lawn in order to serve us. However, they made no complaints about this peculiar distance.

  We made a number of expeditions into the surrounding countryside. We saw pepper trees and a teak plantation. Teak trees are planted very densely, only about three feet apart, so that they grow straight up without any branches. This way they achieve great heights and yield teak timber of straight grain and devoid of knots and other imperfections.

  During our stay in Kerala, we failed to visit two of the most impressive and romantic locales in India. The first of these is a jungle interlaced by canals; tourists can hire a boat which is sculled through these canals by a boatman. It is said that these canals are overhung by orchids and other beautiful flowers and that this is a wonderful experience. The second is one of the hill-stations, which during the days of the Raj, the British would visit to avoid the heat of summer. There are two principal hill-stations: one is Simla in the north, and in the south, in Tamil Nadu there is Ootacamund. Access too Ootacamund is either by road or air, and also by railroad. The train route is said to be extremely beautiful.

  To my endless regret we neglected to visit Ootacamund and instead flew south to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon. There we lodged ourselves in Colombo, the capital, at the Galle Face, a grand old colonial hotel overlooking the ocean. Arthur C. Clarke was a resident of Colombo, and I took occasion to call on him. We had lunch at his house, and he showed us the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. He enjoyed building complicated structures using erector set components. He built bridges, buildings, machinery, and anything else his fertile imagination might conceive. Clarke was also interested in diving, and he gave John a book he had written containing information as to the best places to dive in Ceylon, including a coral reef across the island, where we later did some snorkeling.

  After a week in Colombo we moved down the coast to a resort called Hikkaduwa, where we lodged ourselves in a hotel which happened not only to be very pleasant but also astonishingly inexpensive. John, exploring the reef, saw a lionfish in a pool and was much impressed. Norma and I worked. However, our stay was truncated because our visas stipulated a visit of only one month.

  We next flew east to Singapore, where naturally, like homing pigeons, we went to the Raffles hotel. To maximize the romance, we went directly to the bar, where Norma and I put down Singapore Slings. Johnny had an orange soda. After a day or so we changed our lodgings to a much less expensive Chinese hotel, which was austere but extremely clean and well managed. In town, I found that musical instruments were astonishingly inexpensive, so I bought two banjos, one long-neck, one short-neck, for $40 apiece. One of the squares in town served a double purpose: by day it functioned as a market, while at night foodsellers gathered, and by the light of lanterns and candles served all manner of delicacies, among the most memorable of which was satay.

  After about a week in Singapore we flew to Sumatra, where we visited a batik factory, then to Java, where we visited that ninth-century Buddhist monument known as the Borobudur, beside which stands an enormous and ancient banyan tree. From Java we went on to the enchanted island of Bali.

  The tourist brochures describe Bali in perhaps rhapsodic terms, but this cannot be anything but understatement. Bali is indescribable. I won’t try to disprove that statement, because I would just go on for pages and pages. I will only mention one afternoon when we sat drinking some Balinesian concoction of passionfruit juice and gin, and listening to the gamelan music. This is an ancient music of mysterious origin, strange to western ears and sensibilities. Eight or ten musicians sit with gongs, bells and instruments of the sort, making a sound that ripples like water. To western ears this music has no form; no melody can be made out—and yet, the musicians know precisely what they are doing. They all stop at the same instant, seemingly without cue. I found gamelan music intensely beautiful, even though I did not understand it.

  Among the other wonderful aspects of Bali are the Balinese themselves. We found them to be utterly kind, pleasant people, again worthy of any superlatives I might be inclined to use.

  Leaving Bali we flew back to Singapore, and then to Borneo, and here we embarked on what I can only call an adventure. A young lady, acting as our guide, took us to a river where we boarded a dugout about twenty-five feet long, powered by an outboard motor, and set us off up the river. We went through jungle, saw monkeys swinging through the trees, and finally—after six or seven hours!—arrived at a Dayak longhouse.

  Dayaks are the native inhabitants of Borneo, and in those times were still considered somewhat savage. Leaving the boat, we climbed into the longhouse, where our guide spoke at length with the chief, apparently making arrangements. The longhouse was a single room lacking all furnishing, floored with matting. We were instructed to sit on this. As we did so we noticed a number of shrunken heads hanging from the rafters. The guide noticed our apprehension and reassured us that we had nothing to fear; these were the heads of Japanese captured during the war. We were shown to particular mats on the floor upon which we would sleep, covered by mosquito netting. Here we sat, watching these presumably savage Dayaks going about their daily business, the children laughing and joking, the women talking together about heaven knows what.

  An hour or two passed while we sat marveling at this remarkable adventure in the wild interior of Borneo. We heard a noise outside, and up the steps into the longhouse came a girl leading a party of five or six German tourists, all chattering at once. Our bubble of wonder was rudely broken.

  The next day we returned downriver and flew back to Singapore, then to Hong Kong, and finally back to Oakland.

  Chapter 10

  I love this little house because

  It offers, after dark,

  A pause for rest, a rest for paws,

&n
bsp; A place to moor my bark.

  Arthur Guiterman, Motto for a Doghouse

  One summer, after we had been home for a while, we thought that John might enjoy visiting the Molloys in Ireland by himself for a period. John was a little dubious, but nevertheless we communicated with Mary Molloy, who said she would be glad to have him, and we put John on an airplane. He spent a month in Ireland, during which time we had some letters from him which were rather woebegone and sad; he was not having a good time. So we arranged to fly him back, and there down the runway came John with an expression on his face which was indescribable. Of course we were delighted to see him. We took him to Spenger’s Fish Grotto, which was at that time a great restaurant, where John ordered his favorite dish, shrimp scatter. Then we went home, and learned that John had homesick and lonesome, and that the whole episode had been a very grim failure. Of course Norma and I felt like dogs.

  During this period of my life I was often invited to science fiction conventions. Every year there would be one important grand convention and a number of lesser ones. For the most part I was disinclined to participate in these conventions, except when I was invited as guest of honor and therefore could not decline gracefully. My duties were to sign books, to be polite to people, and sometimes to give a speech.

  At first I prepared my speeches and memorized them, only to find at the podium that I had forgotten the speech and was forced to improvise. In due course I discovered a method to avoid this embarrassment. It is the simplest, easiest way to address an audience. To wit: the speaker prepares no speech whatever. He announces that he has prepared no speech but will take questions from the audience. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may raise his hand and the speaker will answer. This tactic, so I have found, seems to satisfy everybody.