Bowl of Fruit

by Panayotis Cacoyannis

  ‘Luigi also mentioned a moustache,’ Anna remembers.

  ‘I know exactly what moustache you mean. I was talking to it earlier, just five minutes before you arrived.’

  Anna has stopped herself dead in her tracks.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

  ‘Do you know who that was?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘That’s who I was talking to at the station.’

  ‘The man with the Dali moustache?’

  ‘Yes. And he mentioned scrambled eggs and half-recognizing someone who must’ve been you!’

  ‘It was me,’ I say.

  ‘“And what brings you to Tufnell Park?” he kept asking, like he was trying to make something add up. “I’m meeting an old school friend for coffee,” I said. “She’s just had another baby.” I think that put him off the scent.’

  ‘You make it sound like I’m a scoop you want to keep to yourself.’

  ‘That’s exactly right, I do want you all to myself,’ mutters Anna through a whiff of self-consciously benevolent laughter.

  We’re moving again, now in silence still skirting around whatever is the purpose of our meeting - supposedly the telling of my story, or a mixture of my story and the truth, or the several truths that in every combination are still some way short of the whole truth. Is there ever such a thing as the whole truth? And if it can be attained, and then verified and measured by some quasi-scientific and dispassionate method, even then (or perhaps particularly then) is the whole truth necessarily a desirable goal? My own grasp of the truth is incomplete, and the feeling that has twisted my gut ever since I have been infiltrated by the question, is that I wish it to remain incomplete, because my fear still is, as it has always been, that the whole truth must be tantamount to madness, to some greater or lesser degree. My story is what I know and what I don’t, Anna said. What do I know? What don’t I know? I am in water that reaches my waist. The surface is still and opaque. I can see no reflection: I am half and alone, and that is how I like it. Can there be a right moment for Anna?

  As we walk side by side, approaching the southernmost entrance to Waterlow Park, I am sensing (or at least I imagine that I am sensing) a conscious suspension of warmth - as if Anna’s sensible side, wakened by the enlivening chill in the air, is already reasserting itself and counselling caution. But perhaps I am remembering my own circumspection when I answered her call. We are strangers, after all, and it isn’t uncommon for strangers, when circumstances bring them together while they still lack the buffer of mutual reliable knowledge, to resort instead to projecting themselves on each other – my perception that Anna is becoming more cautious is perhaps an admonition to myself. Our meeting so far, stunted by reticence and interruptions, has served only as a pleasant introduction - a blind date, just as Luigi implied, devoid of order and lacking any purpose ulterior to the meeting itself.

  When Anna suggested a walk, possessed I don’t know by what madness (I lie: predicting that a coffee at the Sprinkle of Rocket might prove short for what Anna had in mind, I had had the foresight of alternative plans) I asked if she had ever been to either of the cemeteries in Highgate.

  She hadn’t, she said.

  Did she know Karl Marx was buried in one of them?

  She didn’t, no.

  Would she like to see his grave?

  Yes, she would like to very much.

  Why, was she a Marxist? (I meant this as a joke.)

  Admittedly her knowledge of the theory was near non-existent, but she definitely wasn’t a fan of the theory as it had been put into practice – Mao, Stalin, the malevolent hegemony the old Soviet Union had exercised over its satellite states, the atrocities that Communist leaders had committed against their impoverished people, all much worse than the mind games of 1984. If Marxism inevitably meant totalitarianism, there wasn’t a lot to be said for it, was there? But hey, a trip to the cemetery, wow, what a treat! Maybe later we could visit a prison as well...

  Ha-ha.

  Was I a Marxist, at least? Or did I just enjoy creeping around the local cemetery?

  Trying to be clever about not being very clever, I said I doubted very much if I had sufficient knowledge of any “ism” to qualify me as an “ist”, with one unimportant exception, which was a matter of belief rather than knowledge, and probably of un-knowledge rather than belief.

  If that was a riddle, she thought she knew the answer, said Anna.

  It wasn’t a difficult riddle to solve.

  6

  I Know What You’re Thinking

  She says, I say

  ‘You have to pay to go into a cemetery?’

  ‘The one across the road is three times the price. That’s West. We’re in East.’

  ‘You really do like to creep around cemeteries!’

  ‘I just know these things.’

  ‘And you brought me to the cheap one.’

  ‘Because here we can wander about by ourselves.’

  ‘With the aid of this amazing complimentary map.’

  ‘For West you need to be on a guided tour. It’s a fine architectural ruin and a flourishing wildlife reserve, with ancient trees and derelict tombs, with a ghoulish chapel and dilapidated catacombs…’

  ‘But no Karl Marx, right?’

  ‘No, East has Karl Marx, I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘You’re pretty sure? Haven’t you been here before?’

  ‘I don’t make a habit of creeping around cemeteries, no.’

  ‘So you’ve researched this. I mean for today.’

  ‘Not for today specifically.’

  ‘Yes for today specifically!’

  ‘It was you who suggested a walk.’

  ‘And what better place to walk and talk!’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘So you do want to talk.’

  ‘I’d like us both to talk.’

  ‘But there’s a but.’

  ‘Oh, there’s always a but… or more than one but… or too many buts to mention.’

  ‘Wait, I think we have to take a left.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Marx thought. Okay, not a very original joke.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘This “left” and “right” thing, have you any idea how it actually started?’

  ‘Probably it started with left-handedness being sinister in Latin.’

  ‘So “right” is right and “left” is wrong.’

  ‘According to the right.’

  ‘I think you’re holding the map upside down.’

  ‘Am I? So then we have to go right.’

  ‘No, I think we still have to go left. No, really, we do.’

  ‘And there it is.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘“Workers of all Lands Unite.”’

  ‘But it’s a foul monstrosity! Just an oversized head on a block, without even so much as an inch of neck.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t have a neck.’

  ‘And what’s that thing over his mouth that looks like a turd?’

  ‘That thing over his mouth is his moustache.’

  ‘Well it looks like a turd.’

  ‘Shush, people can hear you.’

  ‘It’s like they’ve put him in a box with his head sticking out. After cutting him in half. Are you sure this isn’t Harry Houdini?’

  ‘“The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it.” That’s not Harry Houdini.’

  ‘The flowers are nice, I suppose. Very red.’

  ‘And we got here just in time, there’s a procession arriving.’

  ‘Old men wearing medals and carrying a wreath.’

  ‘Looking very glum.’

  ‘And marching out of step.’

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of their way.’

  ‘Good man, you know, Harry Houdini. Hated mediums with a vengeance. By the time he died he’d become quite obsessed with them, on a personal crusade to debunk them as frauds, which of co
urse they all were, with their tricks of shifting furniture and conjuring fake apparitions. And they might’ve fooled the gullible, among them many scientists, by the way, but they could hardly have fooled a master illusionist, contortionist and escapologist like Harry Houdini. He was one step ahead of them, always. He’d disguise himself to gatecrash their séances, and then he’d challenge them with proof of their chicanery. To be a successful spiritualist in those days wasn’t just fashionable, it was also very lucrative, and after several of them had been proved to be fraudulent, mediums rightly regarded Houdini as the bane of their “profession”, so much so that they even put curses on him.’

  ‘I take it that you don’t believe in spirits.’

  ‘At any rate I don’t believe in mediums.’

  ‘People didn’t quite believe that you could paint Picasso paintings, even with the paintings in front of them.’

  ‘There was nothing supernatural about my paintings.’

  ‘But they weren’t your paintings.’

  ‘Of course they were my paintings. They just looked like Picassos.’

  ‘They more than just looked like Picassos.’

  ‘And what does “more than” mean?’

  ‘I can’t explain it. That doesn’t mean I don’t know it happened.’

  ‘But you don’t know there are spirits.’

  ‘And you don’t know there aren’t.’

  ‘If I don’t know that there isn’t a man on the moon right now, does it mean there might be? But no, that’s not a good example, there’s already been a man on the moon, so at least we know it’s possible there might be another.’

  ‘There isn’t a moon right now, does that mean there isn’t a moon?’

  ‘But there is a moon right now, we just can’t see it. I’ve seen the moon before, I’ve not seen any spirits.’

  ‘It’s in the nature of spirits not to be seen.’

  ‘And who’s the authority on that? Superstition and the mediums, I suppose. Are you a medium, Anna Tor?’

  ‘I’m not saying that spirits exist…’

  ‘In some unknown dimension…’

  ‘I just like to keep an open mind. It’s arrogant to disbelieve everything we don’t exactly know, though as it happens I don’t believe in spirits.’

  ‘But you don’t entirely disbelieve in them either.’

  ‘I can’t entirely disbelieve in what I’m not entirely able to understand. There are many things that are impossible for me to imagine - unknown dimensions, for example, ha ha - but I also can’t imagine that nothing can exist unless I can imagine it. I think we have a different definition of keeping an open mind.’

  ‘Let’s for argument’s sake say that spirits exist. I can’t think of a reason why they’d want to, unless they’re just unable not to exist. Because if they exist, it must be in some second-rate dimension where they can’t be very happy. And if they really have to linger in cemeteries for all eternity, then I’m sure they must be really pissed off. I mean, just take a look around you, most of the graves are a disgrace; the place is like a tipping yard for B-movie props. Being buried is depressing, and not because you’re dead, or at least not just because you’re dead. I’d much rather be cremated, my ashes thrown away with the rubbish.’

  ‘You’re assuming your spirit will be as bad-tempered as you are.’

  ‘An evil spirit.’

  ‘Seriously, other than because you’re dead, I can’t see how being buried is depressing.’

  ‘Then let me show you. First we’ll pick a grave at random. Here. Born 1955, died 1988, which is relatively recent. Anything that happened after I was born is relatively recent. A young man dies and less than thirty years later there isn’t any evidence of anyone caring. I think that’s depressing. And they dare to call cemeteries places of remembrance. If you’re dead, you’re dead, why advertise the fact, there’s not exactly a captive audience out there. You’re in this hole, and your name’s inscribed on a slab so that everyone can come and watch you being forgotten while you rot.’

  ‘We’re all forgotten in the end.’

  ‘Then why make such a fuss?’

  ‘It’s just ritual, Jack. It’s harmless and it helps us to move on. Isn’t it a kind of ritual to be reading and re-reading Kafka? Unless of course there’s something you’re not telling me and there’s actually some purpose to your madness.’

  ‘If it is a kind of ritual, it’s a different kind of ritual altogether, whether there’s some purpose to my madness or not. Anna, just look at this place! You really think this kind of ritual is harmless? I don’t think it’s harmless at all.’

  ‘I can’t see who’s being harmed.’

  ‘We’re all being harmed. It makes liars of us.’

  ‘I think it does all of us good to believe we’ll be remembered when we’re gone, and it does good to the people who love us to believe that they are going to remember - it helps them to manage their grief, even if it’s just a pretence. Which it isn’t always.’

  ‘We attach too much importance to the things we “believe”. And I believe you just called me Jack.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘No one’s called me Jack since I changed my name.’

  ‘To Leon Cheam.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘Here! A grave that isn’t unkempt. Born 1949, died 1998, remembered by devoted wife and loving son. Always in their hearts and they obviously meant it.’

  ‘And what do you think will happen when the wife joins her husband in heaven?’

  ‘People can remember without tending a grave. If there ever was love, love shall have always been. My mother used to say that.’

  ‘Ah, love – the meaning of life, buried under six feet of earth. How is she, your mother?’

  ‘Buried under six feet of earth.’

  I say, she says

  ‘I’m an idiot, I’m sorry. Really.’

  ‘I do remember her, you know.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  ‘We were close.’

  ‘Has she been… I mean, was it a long time ago?’

  ‘She died four years ago.’

  ‘That’s not so long.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I feel morbid, bringing you here, to a cemetery of all places, and then upsetting you by ranting on and on like a madman.’

  ‘But I’m glad we came, it was just what we needed after the Sprinkle of Rocket, a little bit of peace and calm. And eventually my mother was bound to come up. Had it not been for her, we wouldn’t be together right now. I wouldn’t have called you, and we wouldn’t have met.’

  ‘Probably I shouldn’t ask, but do you visit her often? I mean her grave. It’s just that I think “grave” is such a horrible word. Unless she was cremated…’

  ‘My father was cremated, but that was a long time ago. He was downstairs watching the news, and I was dancing to Madonna in my room. When I was thirteen an older boy had given me a Joy Division album, and for years I used to play it and cry, but I’d got over it by then. Unknown Pleasures. I still play it, and it still makes me sad – in fact that’s when I play it, when I feel like being sad. Anyway, it was a Sunday and my mother was out, and when she came back he was still on the sofa, just as she’d left him but dead. She came upstairs to my room and sat on my bed and told me. Then we went downstairs together and she asked me to turn off the TV while she called 999. I still remember the image on the screen, the frame just before it went black: a big baboon’s bottom. We used to laugh about it later, but at the time it upset me even more than the sight of my father sitting dead on the sofa. Just one of those irrational things, I suppose. We loved each other but we weren’t very close. I didn’t really know him very well…’

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t really have asked...’

  ‘I don’t think “grave” is such a horrible word. I think what’s horrible is that she’s dead – I say “she” because I feel it’s my mother I’ve lost - and I don’t mind you asking. It’s not very practical to v
isit her often – if you don’t like the word, we don’t have to use it. She died here, but she’s buried with my father’s ashes half a world away – I didn’t even know she’d kept his ashes until she told me just days before she died. You don’t like “buried” either, I think. Anyway, I was there for the funeral, but I haven’t been able to go back.’

  ‘Half a world away where?’

  ‘Half a world away in Santiago, which is expensive to fly to, but where at least the cemeteries are free - to visit, I mean.’

  ‘Your parents were from Chile?’

  ‘My mother was. My father was mixed, Chilean and English. I was actually born there, but I was just a few weeks old when my parents decided to move back to London.’

  ‘If you know when I was born...’

  ‘I think I also know where.’

  ‘Same day, same city.’

  ‘Same hospital, too.’

  ‘When you said our meeting was important to you personally…’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know myself what I’m thinking.’

  ‘You’re thinking that probably I’m not a ghost-writer at all but an impostor; that I invented that story as a pretext; that the reason our meeting was important to me personally… Am I right so far?’

  ‘It never even crossed my mind that you weren’t a ghost-writer.’

  ‘That’s good, because I am. And even more now that I’ve met you, I do want us to work together on your story. There are many things you know that I don’t. But there are other things that I know and you don’t. I mean things that are very much part of your story.’

  ‘Depending on what story we tell.’

  ‘Everything we know, remember?’

  ‘I thought it was everything I know.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like to know the rest of your story? Or at least a part of the rest of your story?’

  ‘The part you know and I don’t.’

  ‘That part, yes.’

  ‘If you know what I’m thinking…’

  ‘Right now I think you’re thinking something else. You’re thinking birthdays and September 11, and you must also be wondering how I managed to get hold of your number, but actually the two aren’t related, I mean the birthdays and how I got hold of your number.’