But some people do take it a little too hard. It’s just a birthday, after all.
There is an old Arabic story about a man who hears Death is coming for him, so he sneaks away to Samarra. And when he gets there, he finds Death in the market, and Death says, “You know, I just felt like going on vacation to Samarra. I was going to skip you today, but how lucky you showed up to find me!” And the man is taken after all. Arthur Less has traveled halfway around the world in a cat’s cradle of junkets, changing flights and fleeing from a sandstorm into the Atlas Mountains like someone erasing his trail or outfoxing a hunter—and yet Time has been waiting here all along. In a snowy alpine resort. With cuckoos. Of course Time would turn out to be Swiss. He tosses back the champagne. He thinks: Hard to feel bad for a middle-aged white man.
Indeed: even Less can’t feel bad for Swift anymore. Like a wintertime swimmer too numb to feel cold, Arthur Less is too sad to feel pity. For Robert, yes, breathing through an oxygen tube up in Sonoma. For Marian, nursing a broken hip that might ground her forever. For Javier in his marriage, and even for Bastian’s tragic sports teams. For Zohra and Janet. For his fellow writer Mohammed. Around the world his pity flies, its wingspan as wide as an albatross’s. But he can no more feel sorry for Swift—now become a gorgon of Caucasian male ego, snake headed, pacing through his novel and turning each sentence to stone—than Arthur Less can feel sorry for himself.
He hears the balcony door open beside him and sees the short waiter, returned from his smoke break. The man points to a cuckoo on the railing and speaks to him in perfectly understandable French (if only he understood French).
Laughable.
Arthur Less—he suddenly stands very still, as one does when about to swat a fly. Don’t let it go. Distractions are pulling at his mind—Robert, Freddy, fifty, Tahiti, flowers, the waiter gesturing at Less’s coat sleeve—but he will not look at them. Don’t let it escape. Laughable. His mind is converging on one point of light. What if it isn’t a poignant, wistful novel at all? What if it isn’t the story of a sad middle-aged man on a tour of his hometown, remembering the past and fearing the future; a peripateticism of humiliation and regret; the erosion of a single male soul? What if it isn’t even sad? For a moment, his entire novel reveals itself to him like those shimmering castles that appear to men crawling through deserts…
It vanishes. The balcony door slams shut; the sleeve of the blue suit remains snagged on a cuckoo’s beak (a tear lies seconds in the future). But Less does not notice; he is clinging to the one thought that remains. AH ah ah ah! comes the Lessian laugh.
His Swift isn’t a hero. He’s a fool.
“Well,” he whispers to the night air, “happy birthday, Arthur Less.”
Just for the record: happiness is not bullshit.
Less Indian
For a seven-year-old boy, the boredom of sitting in an airport lounge is rivaled only by lying convalescent in bed. This particular boy, one-six-thousandth of whose life has already been squandered in this airport, has gone through every pocket of his mother’s purse and found nothing of interest but a keychain made of plastic crystals. He is considering the wastepaper basket—its swinging lid holds possibilities—when he notices, through the lounge’s window, the American. The boy has not seen one all day. He watches the American with the same detached, merciless fascination with which he has watched the robotic scorpions that circle the airport bathroom drain. Epically tall, brutally blond, the American stands in his beige wilted linen shirt and pants, smiling at the escalator-regulations sign. The sign, so scrupulously unabridged that it includes advice on pet safety, is longer than the escalator itself. This seems to amuse the American. The boy watches as the man pats every pocket on his person, then nods in satisfaction. He looks up at a closed-circuit television to follow the fleeting romances between flights and gates, then heads down to join a line. Though everyone has already passed through at least three checkpoints, a man at the head of the line has everyone take out their passport and boarding pass once more. This superfluous verification also seems to amuse the American. But it is warranted; at least three people are about to board the wrong flight. The American is one of them. Who knows what adventures awaited him in Hyderabad? We will never know, for he is shown to another gate: Thiruvananthapuram. He becomes absorbed in a notebook. Soon enough, a worker is rushing over to tap the American on the shoulder, and the foreigner pops up to rush for the flight that he is yet again about to miss. They disappear together down a foreshortened corridor. The boy, already attuned to comedy at his young age, presses his nose against the glass and awaits the inevitable. A moment later, the American springs back to grab the forgotten satchel and vanishes again, this time surely for good. The boy tilts his head as boredom begins to flood. His mother asks if he needs to wee, and he says yes, but only so he can see the scorpions again.
“Here are the black ants; they are your neighbors. Nearby there is Elizabeth, the yellow rat snake, who is the parson’s special friend, although he says he is happy to kill her if you want him to. But then there will be rats. Do not be afraid of the mongoose. Do not encourage the stray dogs—they are not our pets. Do not open the windows, because small bats will want to visit you, and possibly monkeys. And if you walk at night, stomp on the ground to scare off other animals.”
Less asks what other animals could there possibly be?
Rupali answers, quite solemnly: “Let us never know.”
A writer’s retreat on a hill above the Arabian Sea, on Carlos’s suggestion half a year ago—it has been a long journey, but Less has arrived at last. The dreaded birthday, the dreaded wedding, are both behind him now; ahead is the novel, and with an idea of how to go forward, he will finally have a chance to conquer it. Gone are the cares of Europe and Morocco; present still are the cares of the Delhi airport, the Chennai airport, and those of Thiruvananthapuram. In Thiruvananthapuram, he was met by a seemingly delighted woman, the manager Rupali, who graciously led him across a steaming parking lot to a white Tata driven, he was later to learn, by a relative. This driver was proud to show Less a TV set in the dashboard of his car; Less was alarmed. And off they went. Rupali, a slim and elegant woman with a neat black braid and the refined profile of a Caesar on a coin, tried to engage him with conversation about politics, literature, and art, but Less was too enchanted by the ride itself.
It was nothing like he expected, the sun flirting with him among the trees and houses; the driver speeding along a crumbling road alongside which trash was piled as if washed there (and what first looked like a beach beside a river turned out to be an accretion of a million plastic bags, as a coral reef is an accretion of a million tiny animals); the endless series of shops, as if made from one continuous concrete barrier, painted at intervals with different signs advertising chickens and medicine, coffins and telephones, pet fish and cigarettes, hot tea and “homely” food, Communism, mattresses, handicrafts, Chinese food, haircuts and dumbbells and gold by the ounce; the low, flat temples appearing at regular intervals like the colorful, elaborately frosted, but basically inedible sheet cakes displayed at Less’s childhood bakery; the women sitting roadside with baskets of shimmering silver fish, terrifying manta rays, and squid, with their cartoon eyes; the countless men standing at tea shops, variety stores, pharmacies, watching Less as he goes by; the driver dodging bicycles, motorcycles, lorries (but few cars), moving frenetically in and out of traffic, bringing Less back to the time at Disney World when his mother led him and his sister to a whimsical ride based on The Wind in the Willows—a ride that turned out to be a knuckle-whitening rattletrap wellspring of trauma. Nothing, nothing here, is what he expected.
Rupali leads him down a path of red dirt. The ends of her pink scarf float behind her.
“Here,” she says, gesturing to a purple flower, “is the ten o’clock. It opens at ten and closes at five.”
“Like the British Museum.”
“There is also a four o’clock,” Rupali counters. “And the drowsy tree, whi
ch opens at sunrise and closes at sunset. The plants here are more punctual than the people. You will see. And this plant is more alive.” She touches her chappal to a small fern, which instantly shrinks from her touch, folding in its leaves. Less is horrified. They arrive at a spot where the coconut trees part. “Here is a possibly inspiring view.”
It certainly is: a cliff overhanging a mangrove forest, at the edge of which the Arabian Sea flogs the coast as mercilessly as an Inquisitor, foaming up in white crests against the pale and impenitent sand. Beside him, at the cliffside, the coconut trees frame a view of birds and insects, as filled with living creatures as the waters of a coral shelf: eagles, red- and white-headed, floating in pairs high above, and covens of irritated crows massing on the treetops, and, nearby, yellow-black biplane dragonflies, buzzing around in a dogfight at the entrance of a little house.
“And here is your little house.”
The cottage, like the other buildings, is made in the South Indian style: all brick, with a tile roof over an open wooden lattice that lets in the air. But the cottage is pentagonal, and, curiously, rather than leave the space whole, the architects have divided it, like a nautilus shell, into smaller and smaller “rooms,” until it reaches the end of its ingenuity at a tiny desk and an inlaid portrait of the Last Supper. Less stares at this curiously for a moment.
The paper trail has been lost, so it is hard to know whether, in his haste, Less missed a crucial piece of information, or whether it was delicately withheld by Carlos Pelu, but it turns out that, rather than a typical artist residency at which to finish a novel, a place full of art, providing three vegetarian meals a day, a yoga mat, and Ayurvedic tea, Arthur Less has booked himself into a Christian retreat center. He has nothing personal against Christ; though raised Unitarian—with its glaring omission of Jesus and a hymnal so unorthodox that it was years before Less understood “Accentuate the Positive” was not in the Book of Common Prayer—Less is technically Christian. There is really no other word for someone who celebrates Christmas and Easter, even if only as craft projects. And yet he is somehow deflated. To travel to the other side of the world—only to be offered a brand he could so easily buy at home.
“Services are Sunday morning, of course,” Rupali tells him, gesturing to a small gray church that, in the midst of these lively outbuildings, sits as humorless as a recess monitor. So here he will rewrite his novel. With God’s happiness.
“And a note arrived for you.” An envelope on the miniature desk, below the image of Judas. Less opens it and reads: Arthur, contact me once you arrive, I’ll be at the resort, I hope you arrived in one piece. It is on business stationery, signed: Your friend, Carlos.
After Rupali leaves, Less takes out his famous rubber bands.
“Have you noticed,” Rupali asks him a few mornings later, at breakfast, in the low brick main building, a kind of fortress above the ocean, “how the morning sounds so much sweeter than the evening?” She is talking about the birds, awakening in harmony and bedding down in discord. But Less can think only of that racket particular to India: the spiritual battle of the bands.
It seems to begin before dawn with the Muslims, when a mosque at the edge of the mangrove forest softly announces, in a lullaby voice, the morning call to prayer. Not to be outdone, the local Christians soon crank up pop-sounding hymns that last anywhere from one to three hours. This is followed by a cheerful, though overamplified, kazoo-like refrain from the Hindu temple that reminds Less of the ice cream truck from his childhood. Then comes a later call to prayer. Then the Christians decide to ring some bronze bells. And so on. There are sermons and live singers and thunderous drum performances. In this way, the faiths alternate throughout the day, as at a music festival, growing louder and louder until, during the outright cacophony of sunset, the Muslims, who began the whole thing, declare victory by projecting not only the evening call to prayer but the prayer itself in its entirety. After that, the jungle falls to silence. Perhaps this is the Buddhists’ sole contribution. Every morning, it starts again.
“You must let me know,” Rupali says, “what we can do to help with your writing. You are our first writer.”
“I could use a freestanding desk,” Less suggests, hoping to liberate himself from writing in the heart of his nautilus. “And a tailor. I tore my suit in Morocco, and I seem to have lost my sewing needle.”
“We will take care of these. The pastor will know a good tailor.”
The pastor. “And peace and quiet. I need that above all.”
“Of course of course of course,” she insists, shaking her head, and her gold earrings sway from side to side.
A writer’s retreat on a hill above the Arabian Sea. Here, he will kill his old novel, tear out the flesh that he wants, stitch it to all-new material, electrocute it with inspiration, and make it rise from the slab and stumble toward Cormorant Publishing. Here, in this little room. There is so much to inspire him: the gray-green river flows below him among the coconuts and mangroves. On the other bank, Less can make out a black bull in the sun, sleek and glorious, with two white markings like socks on its hind legs, more like a person transformed into a bull than an actual bull. Nearby, white smoke rises from a jungle blaze. So much. He is remembering (falsely) something Robert once told him: Boredom is the only real tragedy for a writer; everything else is material. Robert never said anything of the sort. Boredom is essential for writers; it is the only time they get to write.
Looking around for inspiration, Less’s eyes fall upon his torn blue suit hanging in the closet, and he decides this is the priority. The novel is set aside.
The pastor turns out to be a tanned and miniature Groucho Marx in a cassock that buttons at one shoulder like a fast food uniform, friendly and eager, as Rupali mentioned, to kill his friend the snake. He also possesses a genius for invention adults only have in children’s books: a house with rain collectors and bamboo pipes, bringing water to a common cistern, and a way to turn food waste into cooking gas, with a hose that leads directly into his stove. And there is his three-year-old daughter, who runs around wearing nothing but a rhinestone necklace (who wouldn’t, if they could?). She is able to count, in English, methodically as a cart climbing uphill, up to the number fourteen—and then the wheels come off: “Twenty-one!” she screams in delight. “Eighteen! Forty-three! Eleventy! Twine!”
“Mr. Arthur, you are a writer,” the pastor says to him as they stand outside his house. “I want you to ask, Why? Everything that seems strange here, or foolish, ask, Why? For instance, motorcycle helmets.”
“Motorcycle helmets,” Less repeats.
“You have noticed everybody wears them; it is the law. But nobody fastens the strap. Yes?”
“I haven’t been out much—”
“They won’t fasten it, and what’s the point? Why wear it if it will fly off? Foolish, yes? It looks typically Indian, typically absurd. But ask, Why?”
Less can’t resist: “Why?”
“Because there is a reason. It’s not foolishness. It’s because a man can’t make a phone call if it’s fastened. During his two-, three-hour trip home. And you’re thinking, why talk while driving? Why not just stop on the side of the road? Foolish, yes? Mr. Less. Look at the road. Look.” Less sees a line of women, all in saris of bright-colored cloth edged in gold thread, some carrying purses, some metal bins on their heads, making their way through the rocks and weeds beside the crumbled asphalt. The pastor spreads his arms wide: “There is no side of the road.”
From the pastor, he learns the way to the tailor, whom he finds asleep beside his treadle, smelling distinctly of Signature whiskey. Less deliberates whether to wake him, but then a stray dog trots by, black-and-white, and barks at them both, and the man awakens of his own accord. Automatically, the tailor picks up a stone and throws it at the dog, who vanishes. Why? Then he notices Less. His smile tilts up toward our protagonist. He explains his unshaven chin by pointing to Less’s own: “Money comes in, we will shave.” Less says yes, possibly,
and shows him the suit. The man waves his hand at the ease of the repair. “Come back this time tomorrow,” he says, and he and the famous suit disappear into the shop. Less feels the brief pang of separation, then takes a deep breath and aims himself downhill toward town. He means to meander for fifteen minutes or so and then get straight back to work.
When he passes the shop again, two hours later, he has sweated through his shirt, and his face is aglow. His hair is clipped quite short, and his beard is gone. The tailor grins, pointing to his own chin; he has indeed himself purchased a shave. Less nods and nods and trudges up the hill. He is stopped multiple times by neighbors trying out their English, offering him tea, or a visit to their home, or a ride to church. Once back in his room, recalling there is no shower, he wearily fills the red plastic bucket, disrobes, and drenches himself in cold water. He dries himself, dresses, and sits down to write.
“Hello!” comes a call from outside his cottage. “I am here to measure you for your desk!”
“To what?” Less yells.
“To measure you for your desk.”
When he emerges, in damp linen, there is indeed a portly bald man with a teenager’s faint mustache, smiling and holding out a length of cloth tape. He has Less sit in the rattan porch chair as he takes his measurements; then he bows and departs. Why? Next comes a teenager with a grown man’s mustache, who announces, “I will take your chair. There is a new chair in half an hour.” Less wonders what is at work here; surely some misunderstanding, and some difficulty for the boy. But he cannot puzzle it out, so he smiles and says of course. The boy approaches the chair with the caution of a lion tamer, then grabs it and takes it away. Less watches the sea as he leans against a coconut palm. When he looks back at the house, the black-and-white dog is at the entrance, hunched over and about to excrete. It looks at Less. It takes a shit anyway. “Hey!” Less yells, and it bounds away. Deskless, he is of course unable to compose, so he watches the entertainment provided: the sea. In exactly half an hour, the boy returns…with an identical chair. He sets it on the porch with pride, and Less accepts it with bewilderment. “Be careful,” the boy says earnestly. “It is a new chair. A new chair.” Less nods, and the boy departs. He looks at the chair. Cautiously, he sits himself down, and it creaks as it takes his weight. It feels fine. He watches three yellow birds battling it out on a nearby roof, cackling and squawking and so involved in their tussle that, in a moment of unexpected slapstick, they fall together off the roof and onto the grass. Less laughs aloud—AH ah ah! He has never seen a bird fall before. He stands up; the chair comes up with him. It is indeed new, and the lacquer, in this climate, has not yet managed to dry.
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