My Other Life

by Paul Theroux

  Near the pool, pale as marble, what I took to be another statue was a woman whom Lazard roused with a shout.

  "Fayette—over here!"

  The woman frowned at him as though irritated, then saw me, and seemed to count to ten before she smiled and sat up.

  "This is Paul Theroux," he said, "the fellow I was telling you about."

  She did not move. She watched us walk nearer, waiting with a kind of queenly restraint while we circled the pool, making us do all the work. All the while she was dangling something from her finger, moving it like a pendulum.

  "You have a lovely place here," I said. And added, coyly trying to compliment her, "It must be an awful lot of work."

  "It's no work at all." The pendulum was green, a carved piece of luminous jade on a gold chain.

  "I meant all the landscaping."

  "We have four gardeners." She smiled and swung the piece of jade.

  She was a bony, attractive, sharp-featured woman, quite a bit younger than Harry, probably in her forties, blond, with pinched gristly nostrils that might have been the result of a botched nose job, freshly reddened lips, perfect teeth, and very pale skin, slack at her arms. Here she was outside by the pool, yet she obviously spent no time at all in the sunshine. And her pallor, which was almost that of ill health, set off her jewels—earrings, bracelets, necklace—and gave her a languorous sensuality.

  She said, "Isn't Singapore marvelous?"

  Again I thought how these people, just across the island from me and behind a wall, lived in a different Singapore. I liked traveling to this country; I wanted badly to live in it. The flowers, the trees, the temperature, even the air was different here.

  "Will you have something to drink?" Harry said.

  "I don't want to impose," I said.

  Holding the piece of jade to the side, Fayette jammed the heel of her free hand against a push button. In that same instant I heard a servant's squawk; then I saw him, a Chinese man in white jacket and pants, carrying a tray, emerging from the far end of the arbor.

  "What do you have?"

  "Anything you want," the woman said.

  "Orange juice will be fine," I said.

  "It's real fresh. Mr. Loy squeezes it himself," Harry said. After the servant had gone for the drinks, Harry Lazard said, "There is something I'd like to ask you, Paul."

  But before he could continue, Fayette let out a sharp cry of pain that startled me, and when I turned she was on her knees by the side of the pool.

  "It jumped off my finger," she said, peering into the pool. "I can't even see it. Oh, God!"

  Harry looked suddenly stricken and helpless, and he tottered as though his indecision made him physically unsteady.

  "Harry can't swim," Fayette said with surprising satisfaction.

  "I'll get it. I just need a bathing suit," I said.

  "In the changing room."

  Most of the spare bathing suits were large, making me think that everyone they knew was fat and prosperous; we were all skinny and pathetic in my end of Singapore. Even the smallest suit was big on me, but I cinched it and jumped into the pool, did a surface dive and saw the jade pendant glittering at the bottom in about ten feet of water. I missed it on my first try, but got it on my next dive. Now I saw how bright it was, emerald green, and intricately carved.

  "My hero," Fayette said distractedly, and snatched at the jade piece without looking at me.

  "That thing's worth a lot of money," Harry said.

  "What is it?"

  "It's a child's burial mask, and that's the rarest jade obtainable."

  "Did you get it in Singapore?"

  "Long story."

  Fayette had turned her face on him, as though dreading the story and daring him to tell it.

  Harry said, "Listen, I've got a job for you."

  After he explained, I said, "I'll ask my wife."

  "He needs permission," Fayette said, caressing the elegant mask of jade.

  He had said, "You're going to think I'm nuts," and I had had to encourage him to continue, and he went on, "I want you to give me poetry lessons," and, "You already passed the hardest test—my wife likes you." I wanted to tell him that it was the craziest thing I had ever heard. But I made a serious face and reassured him that it was a perfectly normal request.

  I told Alison everything. One of the clearest indicators of being hard up is that every decision is crucial. You have no cushion, and so everything you do involves risk.

  "The woman sounds awful," Alison said, "but the man seems fine—idealistic in a strange sort of way. Poetry lessons!"

  "They're what I give my students," I said. "At least I'd be well paid."

  "Americans are so funny. You're always trying to improve yourselves."

  "Why shouldn't this guy learn to write poetry?"

  "I didn't mean him. I meant you. That salary turned your head."

  "You could give up teaching night school."

  "That's fine with me," she said, and she laughed again, in puzzlement. "Here is this man with pots of money, and instead of sitting around and enjoying himself he wants someone to teach him how to write poems. Doesn't he know any better?"

  "But you said he was idealistic."

  "I think I meant naive. The idea that you can teach him that!"

  "He seems to think I can, that's all that matters," I said. "It's very civilized of him!"

  We looked at each other and laughed at my pompousness and hugged each other.

  I kissed her and said, "I want to tell them to shove this job."

  "It's nice, burning bridges," Alison said. She wrinkled her nose, she made a face, she laughed, and I loved her for her bravery.

  I saw Harry Lazard again and we drew up a satisfactory agreement: I would tutor him on weekdays in return for a rent-free house and a hundred U.S. dollars a week. It would be for six months initially, but renewable. We already had our air tickets home. When I told the head of my department I was resigning, he shrugged. Half Chinese, half Indian, he was a former tax inspector named Ratnaswami, known behind his back as the Rat.

  "We weren't planning to renew your contract, so it's just as well," he said. He grinned his awful stained-tooth grin. "We have someone else in the pipeline."

  I hated him for that, but I hated myself, too. Why had I stayed at this badly paying job so long? The answer was that until now I could not afford to leave.

  We pensioned off the two amahs, packed our belongings—everything we owned fit into our old car—and drove across the island to Holland Road and found Lazards wall. Alison's reaction was the same as mine had been—that this house and all its acres and its pool and its forest were so well hidden that Singapore seemed far away. Once you were behind the wall you were in a different place, which could have been a different country. It was quiet, it was hot, it was lush. For those differences alone it was worth making the move. And if I was to achieve anything as a writer, I needed to have the strength to quit a job, to move on and make my own life.

  We were met by Mr. Loy, the Chinese servant. The Lazards were away, he said. He showed us to the guest house, where we installed ourselves, and before we had unpacked anything the children were out of the house, on the verandah and across the lawn.

  I watched them kicking their blue ball, laughing, squealing with delight, safe in this lovely place. Alison's face was light with love as she watched them, and I knew that I had done the right thing.

  4

  For the first four or five days before the Lazards came back, we lived the sort of life we had never known. Without servants feeding the children, we cooked our own meals and we ate together on our screened-in verandah. We had the swimming pool to ourselves. We played croquet. I did no writing, but I looked over what I had written so far of my novel and it seemed fine to me, so I was confident that when I resumed it would go well. These were glorious, peaceful days and I felt an almost inexpressible gratitude towards this strange couple who had taken us in. I told Alison that this was how Third Worlders must fe
el when Americans entered their lives. It was as though we had been rescued. Our days were sunlit, our meals were pleasant, and after we had read to the children and put them to bed we had a drink on the verandah, marveling that we were still in Singapore, and then we went to bed. We all woke together.

  Alison said, "I like this."

  We were at last a family, and family life was possible because we were together, because our needs were met, because we were living in luxury, because we were happy. And on those first days I often thought of our visit to Ringrose's house on the Jurong Road, and shut my eyes and gave thanks.

  But I also knew that I had been entrapped, even if it had been in the nicest way. If Harry Lazard had a gift, it was his ability to gauge what it was that a person needed. Everyone wanted something different. Money, a meal, space—when he found this out he had them. There were many ways to a person's heart, and generosity worked best when it filled a profound need. He was not around, but because we were happy we had a sense that he was present. It wasn't poetry, but perhaps, I told myself, Harry's was a poetic gift. How had he known that all this little family wanted was to pay off its overdraft at the bank and be together?

  Then they returned—we knew it even without an announcement. It happened in stages, first something in the air, a tremulous attention, a sort of nervousness, as subtle as a cloud shadow crossing a meadow. The servants stopped talking loudly to each other; they worked with greater care, the gardening was more meticulous, the nagging sound of the vacuum cleaner was almost constant, flowers appeared in vases, dust covers were removed from chairs and tables, and most of all there was an air of watchfulness—not as though the Lazards might turn up at any moment, but rather as though they were already there, hovering, humming, about to explode into view.

  One evening it was that, intensely, and the next morning Fayette Lazard was in the chaise longue by the pool, in the shade of a thick awning, where I had first met her.

  The children hung back, feeling that their swimming pool had been invaded by a stranger, but I gathered them up and introduced them and Alison to Fayette Lazard.

  Fayette hardly moved. She tilted her sunglasses and smiled.

  "We were in Bangkok."

  "Was it nice?" Alison asked.

  "We're there all the time, because of Harry's business."

  Alison persevered. "I've heard Bangkok's fabulous. I'd love to go there."

  "They have TV," Fayette said and frowned.

  Alison took this to be a joke, and out of respect laughed very hard. But Fayette's expression was not deadpan, it was serious, and then it was grim.

  "Only two channels, though. We have fourteen in San Francisco."

  We stared at her and I wished I were able to see her eyes.

  "I'll bet you love watching television," the woman said to Anton. "What's your favorite program?"

  "Television is bad for you," Anton said in his quacking voice, with all the sententious certainty of a bright three-year-old.

  Fayette turned to me, as though blaming, and she laughed insincerely.

  "Television gives you square eyes," Anton said.

  Alison said, "He's such a philistine. If Will could talk, he would assure you he quite likes the telly."

  Was Fayette wincing behind her sunglasses? We could not tell. She said, "I hope you're comfortable."

  "The guest house is lovely," I said.

  "That's not the guest house, it's the old servants' quarters. The guest house is way over there."

  We decided not to be put off by her. We were happy enough and secure enough in each other's love that not even this woman could spoil our fun. She spent an hour outside and then disappeared. The rest of the time she kept to the big house, occasionally shimmering onto the verandah. She stayed out of the sun. She never came to the guest house—as we went on calling it. It was only at the pool that we met, and the pool was big enough so that there was room for everyone.

  We had no need to leave the estate, and indeed seldom went outside the Lazards' wall. A grocer came in his van every other day; we bought what we needed and then he sought out Mr. Loy. We used the pool and the croquet lawn, and we walked on the gravel path through the three acres of woods. The arrangement worked because we did not fraternize. The Lazards gave a party. We were not invited. It struck me as comic that we had met as equals at the American ambassador's house, but here we were regarded as glorified servants—at least I was. I did not mind; my family was happy.

  It was more than a week after he returned from Bangkok that I gave Harry Lazard his first poetry lesson. I realized that he was very shy, that he liked the thought of my being around, and he was thrilled by the idea that I was working on my novel—he told me so, he inquired about my book's progress. But he was reluctant to expose his own talent, or lack of it. It was amazing to see this powerful millionaire made so timid by the prospect of showing me his poems.

  I took the initiative. I saw him dropped off by Ahmed late one afternoon and I hurried across the lawn and up the hill to say hello. We chatted, Lazard offered me a drink; we began talking about things in general, and then about poetry. It was as though sitting in the shade on the sheltered side of the house was our way of being serious.

  That first day he asked me, "Do you have any favorite poets?"

  "So many," I said. "One is Wallace Stevens." And I remembered. "He was a businessman. Insurance. Went to his office every day. His secretary typed his stuff. Have you read him?"

  "Wallace Stevenson, oh, yes, he's very powerful," Lazard said.

  I was afraid to embarrass him by correcting him, and it hardly mattered, except that it gave me an inkling that these poetry lessons might be harder than I had thought.

  He said, "Do you still hear from Robert Lowell?"

  "No," I said. "He doesn't write. Harry, I only met Lowell that one time."

  "It's not how often you meet someone, what matters is how deep an impression you make on them," Lazard said, and this was not the poet but the businessman speaking.

  "He was impressed that I caught a fish."

  "That's what I mean," Lazard said. "I should get him out here."

  We looked across the lawn, past the trellises, the statues, the arbors. I tried to imagine Robert Lowell sitting by the pool, a big pale man with wild hair and crooked glasses and crazy gestures, getting drunk, teasing Fayette, insulting Lazard.

  "Do him good," Lazard said.

  We were seeing our own versions of the same thing.

  The next day I ambushed Lazard again, and taking a cue from him, I asked him who his favorite poets were.

  "I'm very old-fashioned in my literary tastes. I like the old masters. Shakespeare. Keats. Lord Byron. 'Where have you been, Lord Randall, my son?' That sort of thing."

  "I gave tutorials on them. We had to teach all periods. What about the war poets?"

  "Which war!" Lazard cried out, startling me.

  "The First World War was the one that produced the most poets. I'm thinking of Edmund Blunden. Siegfried Sassoon. Wilfred Owen. Isaac Rosenberg. Have you read any of them?"

  "Oh, years ago."

  The expression "years ago" always seemed evasive and untruthful to me.

  "Isaac Rosenberg sounds pretty interesting. What did he write?"

  '"Break of Day in the Trenches' and some others."

  "Must have been Jewish," Lazard said. "Strange. A British Jew."

  "Disraeli was a Jew."

  "Everyone says that," Lazard said.

  "'Mendelssohn was a Jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Savior was a Jew and his father was a Jew. Your God was a Jew. Christ was a Jew like me.'"

  Lazard gave me a puzzled, almost wounded look. "Are you OK?"

  "I was quoting. That's in Ulysses. Leopold Bloom says it to some Irishmen in a pub."

  Then he was absolutely delighted, and he swished his gin and tonic and drank it and swallowed it with satisfaction and said, "I never thought I'd be sitting on this verandah talking about Joyce's Ulysses. That
's pretty unique!"

  I just smiled. I found it impossible to reply with a straight face to such a solecism without sounding sarcastic.

  We did not meet the following day, but later, when he had a spare hour or two, in the late afternoon before dinner, we sat together. He was still very reluctant to show me more of his poems or even to write any, and so I suggested that we simply read and talk about poems, to get into the mood.

  "Good idea," he said.

  I could see that he was grateful to me for not asking him about his own poems, glad that I did not expect too much of him. He was prompt in paying me my month's salary in advance. With no rent to pay, we were better off than we had ever been when I was working at the university, and at last Singapore seemed pleasant.

  But inevitably, with so little to do, I felt a growing sense that I was superfluous. Whenever I saw the chef sitting behind the kitchen, reading the Straits Times, I remembered how Lazard had gone into the kitchen of Chez Michel's on Robinson Road and offered to double the man's salary if he left. With me it was money, peace of mind, literary pretention, luxury, and a chance to live in old Singapore on the grounds of an imperial mansion, behind a high wall, with my family. It was a chance to work on my book, to be away from the bitter humor of the Staff Club. But I identified too strongly with the chef to feel much at ease.

  One night on our little porch after the kids had gone to bed I said all this to Alison.

  She said, "This is the first time in ages that I've been happy. The kids love the pool."

  I suspected that Lazard knew that too.

  "And I love not having to teach rotten old night school. What are you complaining about?"

  "I'm not complaining. I'm just wondering."

  "Please don't drag us away from here," she said. Settled here, protecting the children, playing with them, feeding them, she had discovered that the sacrifices of motherhood also gave her intense pleasure. And the boys blossomed in her care.

  Their happiness justified everything, and was the best reason for giving this man poetry lessons.