by Todd Grimson
I was tired, and I yawned, without trying to cover my mouth, and just then, as I was yawning, my father opened his eyes and saw me there. He looked awful, his face swollen purple and red, white bandages around the crown of his head, some black stitches showing.
He finally said, “I told them it was you. I told them it was you in that damn car. You see what they did to me? How do you like it? I gave them your address.” The memory of this seemed to give him some vicious pleasure, and he smiled.
He was no one I’d ever known in my life.
My sister drove me sixty miles south down to Salem, though she was still shaky and sick from being so drunk the night before, and I took the Greyhound bus from there to Sacramento, then Reno, on to Denver and beyond.
I tried to think really hard about what I should do with myself. I didn’t want to be the same person as before.
But even when I made it to St Louis, there was really no escape. There was failure everywhere.
I learned to pretend I didn’t care. Like an actor, putting on an act, even when I was all alone. Or when I was with some other Crystal, helping her not look at herself in a mirror.
I lived in a house and had a lawn-mower after a while.
My life in Broward County Florida.
“You just about done?” Crystal said.
“Sure, babe.”
The sunshine was like a slow-motion black and white atomic bomb, destroying the houses, X-raying our bones, frying off our flesh. But we hardly knew. We didn’t want to think about what might have gone wrong with our lives.
There was a huge noise but we were all deaf. Soon we would be blind.
KANSAS
WE ARRIVED at the Western coast of India, not too far south of the mouth of the Indus River, and disembarked around noon. After an hour or so spent getting through customs, straightening out the usual misunderstandings, and so forth, we were escorted past a great mass of beggars, all with some wound or deformity to exhibit, some with Walkmans, and we boarded the air-conditioned tour-bus and made our way inland, through fertile countryside which is nevertheless made dangerous and virtually uninhabitable by certain plants which grow there in abundance and are difficult to root out. These bear little white flowers which constantly generate tiny, highly poisonous snakes. The same plant, you know, caused the death of many men and horses during the expeditions of Marco Polo and Alexander the Great.
What happened next?
Having made arrangements to continue on to Russia, we flew to the Greater Moscow Airport, which was some distance, as it turned out, from the metropolis itself. Our rental car awaited us. First we drove through a desolate, sandy, rocky area, then densely wooded hills, until we saw signs indicating that we were on the outskirts of the city at long last. The car took us down a long road between rows of tall stones tapered to their tops like pyramids, each with an open eye carved in the middle, which did give one, after all, a curious sense of being watched. Then came scattered huts of mud and rush-hurdles, all conical in shape. Little pebble walls, runnels of water, grass ropes and nopal hedges formed irregular boundaries between these dwellings. There were multi-colored cacti and brilliant flowers such as I’ve rarely seen.
How was the traffic?
Oh, there was no traffic as such. We were the only car. Very few children came to stare at us, fewer adults, though we saw some goats, a few sheep, and dogs. The dogs had black muzzles and did not bark. We were tired, and the twists and turns of the road, together with its rough grade, made it impossible to rest during the drive.
Describe Moscow.
There was coconut milk in the curry, and it was very spicy. For dessert there was an inventive selection of macaroons. Some slices of palate-refreshing lemon.
Go on.
Our business concluded, we booked passage on a ship, the Wanderer, and—
You’ve spoken of this before.
I have? What about Baltimore?
Yes. Baltimore. Continue.
Let’s see. After a short cab ride, in downtown Baltimore we were introduced to the Grand Vizier. He invited us to watch him carry out some of the duties of his office, such as dispensing justice, receiving petitioners, or overseeing some of the royal estates.
He was a thin man, with a toothpick in his mouth, wearing a somewhat rumpled off-white suit and two-toned shoes. He did not especially resemble other Grand Viziers we had known in the past, but he seemed to know perfectly well what he was about.
What did he say?
Nothing special. The usual things one in his station would say. Well, he mentioned that his favorite pet monkey had recently died, and he invited us to attend the funeral, but we could not stay.
Are you sure that this is true? Perhaps it’s something you saw someplace else, or in a film. Long ago.
A trick question. I see.
Answer.
Have we discussed the jungle? The steamy jungle, you must realize, is a myth. The jungle does not steam. Rather, as long as you are in the rain forest itself, and not exposed to direct sunlight, the temperature is reasonably cool. Very humid, and one perspires freely, but there is a feeling of freshness so long as you remain still and do not exert yourself.
Yes. Where are you now?
Right now, this very instant? Kansas of course.
Kansas?
NOTHING IN TANGIER
I.
THE FIRST DAY they were in Tangier, the 5th of June 1982, Lauren became ill. She was forced to go again and again into the bathroom, and after two hours of this told Patrick she didn’t want him around. “Please… just leave me alone for a while,” she said. “I’m not going to die. I just want to be quiet, by myself.”
So Patrick left the hotel. The street up here was gently twisting—all the streets were twisting—and notable for the large amounts of blond dust and fine sand. The sidewalk looked relatively new, molded in small smooth separate squares, but it was all broke up and incomplete, so you had to watch your step. Plenty of messy black electrical or telephone lines connecting the rather similar residences, many with yards behind high walls. Palm trees and flowering bushes, dry-seeming greenery… most of the buildings white, white, beige or pale gray, here and there pinkish tan unpainted brick, occasionally just a few daubs of white paint outside the window, as though someone had leaned out with a wet paintbrush but then become distracted and never finished. Dark window spaces leading to unknown interiors. Blue or turquoise-blue doors, again and again.
Patrick walked down Boulevard Mohammed V, then wandered away to the beach. But Muslim countries did not seem to encourage skimpy bikinis and the like. Street kids and “guides” or touts followed him around in this area, annoying him, interfering with him really getting a look at anything, until he abandoned the beach and walked back, up through downtown and towards the medina. The guides lost interest as he went into the Café de Paris. He ordered mint tea, but then found he didn’t like it very much. It reminded him of spearmint gum. He wanted a Coca-Cola. In context this both carried some nostalgia value and seemed safe. The waiter was a man in his late 40s, slender, with a thin mustache and pockmarked face, unsmiling but polite. He looked like he might have played an assassin in some old black and white film. Patrick watched the people go by. It was fascinating, now that he had a place to sit and not be bothered, a place where no one was paying particular attention to him, and so he was reasonably content.
Patrick would never carry a camera, or go on a tour-bus, or allow himself to be shown around by a guide. His idea of being a tourist was to pretend that this was where he lived, and so to blend in, in this way hopefully get to know the place more uniquely and thoroughly than if he saw the traditional sights. He was uninterested in “places of interest,” famous buildings and whatnot, unless he discovered them naturally, on his own.
Lauren didn’t agree with his approach. She told him he was fooling himself, that his pretending not to be a tourist was an affectation – and so, during this, their first trip together, they annoyed one another some of the
time, and often split up and spent the afternoon or much of the day apart. In Portugal and Spain, this had seemed to work out for the best. Lauren went to all the museums and old churches from her guidebook, and Patrick went off on his own unplanned excursions, and just hung out, and they reunited in the evening, going out together then to restaurants or whatever.
Patrick’s mind wandered. There were white metal latticework tables and chairs here, outdoors, but until he felt more at home he would remain inside gazing out through the window at the constant stream of people in the fresh sunlight of the day.
He finished his Coke and then walked down into the twisty-turny streets and alleys of the medina, trying to keep track of where he was and to look like he knew where he was going, blasé, like he’d seen it all before. Down here, it was so crowded, he was a little worried about having his pocket picked, but no one troubled him to be his “guide.” No one spoke to him. There was a great deal of activity all around. Patrick lent only the most cursory glances at the merchandise on display. There was no chance he would buy any of these hammered silver teacups, or any of this jewelry, leather goods, ironmongery, brasswork, slippers with pointed toes, or any of these cheap shirts.
Even though he wasn’t about to buy anything, he liked the medina. The crazily labyrinthine alleys of the marketplace, filled with souks and all kinds of exotic ware. He felt anonymous in the crowd, walking as if he had some errand to perform, in no hurry, highly aware of all the bustle, voices speaking in Arabic, French, Spanish, the young men in their simply cut takeoffs on Western clothes, many also in djellabas and turbans. Berbers in from the desert. Women in veils, or simply covering their hair, the chador. All the faces that might have come from ancient Carthage or the Moorish invasion of Andalusia. Phoenicians. The original settlers of Morocco came from there, from the city of Tyre, famous for its purple dye.
Patrick felt empty, but it was a satisfying emptiness, as he finally, after more than an hour, made his way back toward the central plaza and the Café de Paris. This time, he sat down outside, at the same table with a black man. There was no place else, and enough space so that he didn’t feel imposed upon or pressed. He needed to sit down for a few minutes, he was a little tired. He ordered café au lait, from a different waiter than before—who resembled the other in that he too looked like an assassin in some ancient black and white film.
There were capacities within him, Patrick believed, whole alternate personalities which he had never accessed or known and might in fact never make use of, but that dwelt within him, ready to take over in the right circumstance. This knowledge of his latent otherness, the potential vastness of his inner resources, a turbulent dark sea of possibilities—this knowledge soothed him, and he felt adventurous even while being content just to sit and watch the erratic circulation of the crowd.
The black man said, “Do you have a match?” He was American, tall and good-looking, with a low, resonant, expressive voice. He had glasses on, faintly reminiscent of some handsomer in-carnation of Malcolm X. Maybe he did not resemble Malcolm specifically, but he had something of that, or of someone who might have been a dedicated revolutionary in South Africa, back a few years. A comrade of Mandela. When he smiled, then, you felt somewhat graced. At first Patrick didn’t appreciate being interrupted, jarred from his reverie, but as a conversation developed he discovered—it was a surprise, and he was weary, a bit shy – how much he and this black guy seemed to have in common. Just in sensibility, little things, it was easy to linger there together, watching the Moroccans or the red or blond-haired Dutch and German tourists pass on by.
All the constraints and subtle complications of pondering one’s own racism, or wondering to what degree one was congratulating oneself on one’s lack of racism out of a mere refinement of essentially racist preconceptions—all of this could be forgotten for a little while, or you could pretend it was forgotten… they were just two Americans, discovering each other in a foreign land.
Patrick wasn’t very successful describing this to Lauren later on. He had brought her two large heavy cookies, redolent of cardamom, and another large bottle of Sidi Ali. She felt rather better than she had earlier on. She had taken all kinds of medication to this end.
“You told him our names? Where we’re staying?”
“Lauren, he’s a reporter for the Wall Street Journal… he’s not some hustler or something.”
“What’s his name?”
“Anthony Pendergraph.”
Lauren was contrary, and cynical, and melting that disdainful expression had always been a challenge. She represented a different kind of sophistication, sexual as well as East Coast and cultural. She had come out to Seattle a year ago to run the local installation of a prestigious New York art gallery, while Patrick was a molecular geneticist, doing research at the University of Washington Medical Center. It was always hard to explain his work to her or anyone else.
Patrick’s younger sister was an art student, working on her thesis project; she had talked him into going to an opening one night. One of her teachers, an artist of some regional renown, introduced them to Lauren, and Patrick thought nothing of it, yet for some reason he went back the following afternoon. Lauren talked to him, it interested and somehow amused her that he was a scientist—she wanted to know all about the project he was working on. Lauren was from a rich family in Brooklyn Heights. She had a trust. She’d gone to Sarah Lawrence. Within three years, she would open her own gallery in New York. She knew people. She had friends.
“This is perfect,” Lauren said now, beginning to slowly eat one of the cardamom cookies, washing it down with the Sidi Ali mineral water, the most popular local brand. The label on the bottle was appealing. “I’m so full of pills,” she said. “I just want to go back to sleep, and hope by tomorrow I’m cured.”
Patrick caressed her shoulder, up under her dark hair to the nape of the neck. Lauren tolerated this, adjusting herself in a feline manner to his touch.
The next morning, she was still sleeping at 10:00, so he left her a note and went for a walk downtown, to have café au lait on the Grand Socco Square. Anthony was there, his glasses on, looking refreshed, along with some others who spoke English: a British couple, and two American males who seemed to be gay.
The conversation, led by Ian, with his British accent, concerned a certain psychoanalyst who would do such things as count money at his desk while the patient spoke, and who had introduced the “short session,” sometimes cutting patients off after only ten or fifteen minutes, showing them the door.
“That sounds simply sadistic,” said Jay, and Ian faintly nodded, but then said: “Some people found it concentrated their minds wonderfully, so that if they wanted his attention they would seek to tell the truth directly, without the usual evasions, swiftly get to what was really bothering them rather than dancing around it with idle chat.”
“Well,” Jay’s friend said, smiling, “I can see how it would cut down on the transference.”
Ian nodded, and drank more café au lait. Fiona, his wife, began to talk about her own analysis. Jay seemed fascinated, leading her on. As soon as it was reasonably polite, Anthony leaned over to Patrick, murmured, “Wanna split?,” and upon receiving an assent, Anthony announced to the others that they had to leave, they were going up to see a certain half-completed mosque. Once it had been blessed, the infidels would no longer be allowed in.
As they walked away from downtown, Anthony said, “Did I tell you, yesterday, why I’m hanging out here? No, I don’t think so. It’s my fucking brother Eric, man. We came over together, parted company in Paris. He said he was going to Rome, he’d meet me in Cadiz, then we’d cross at Gibraltar, spend a few days here then go on to Marrakesh. That was the plan. So now, he sends me a postcard from Milan, says he ran into some babe he knew in the States. She’s a model. He’ll be along when he can. He’ll catch up. Like hell he will. My brother and some fucking airhead model. Can you believe that? He’s just about to enter med school. It’s unbelievable.�
�� Anthony didn’t really seem all that outraged. It was more like he was ironically amused.
“Do you think he’ll ever show up then?” Patrick asked, and Anthony laughed and said, “Fuck no. I’ll see him back in New York. What do they say? Poorer but wiser, right? Except forget the second part in his case.”
The sky above was magnificently blue, huge, without a single cloud. This sky, it struck Patrick, had a different flavor, it was different somehow from the sky over the U.S. There was no barbarity you could perpetrate that would amaze it, no grand philosophy that would engage it, no emotion that could ever move its cerulean expanse. It was older, more jaded, it reminded you of how unknowable everything was.
“The sky looks different here,” he said to Anthony.
“What do you mean? Different than in America?” Anthony stopped to contemplate it for a few moments. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Supposedly… I can’t remember where I read this, where it comes from… some commentary on Xenophon or something… but it’s possible the sky used to be more violet than it is now.”
“Really?”
“That—or our idea of what is blue has changed.”
They explored the unfinished mosque. Nobody was working today. There was a guard, however, a young man with a rifle, similar to the soldiers who had stared at Patrick and Lauren when they came through customs.
Blue tiles in an intricate pattern, then white flowing Arabic calligraphy on the same perfect blue. The effect of the light made Patrick feel something, he couldn’t deny it, but he was impatient, he didn’t want to feel it, whatever it was it was foreign, it wasn’t a part of him, it had no sympathy with his rational life.