The Rags of Time

by Maureen Howard

Daybook, October 9, 2007

  In the morning I phone my brother; he of total recall.

  As we talk, I pick at the medallion still stuck on my book. When I have it off, Alberich comes into view, the gnarled dwarf who grabbed the gold ring. The Rhinemaidens, all three laughing at his plug-ugly body; at his rejection of love which set Wagner’s whole Ring Cycle rolling on and on, fable begetting fable. By family telepathy my brother gets the message. I’m in the dumps. I protect myself with a pawn, tremor of uncertainty in my voice: My Summer of War and Peace? That creaking wicker chair? How come I hung out in their bedroom?

  Don’t make a fuss. Grandma Burns came to stay. She displaced you. They set up a cot in my room. I can still hear you snore.

  I don’t snore.

  But yes, that Summer I set one more place at the kitchen table. And the war news? Before supper we gathered by the Philco.

  The Magnavox.

  Trust he’s right about the Magnavox, but I know for certain that on D-Day FDR’s message of sorrow and hope was cut off by the clatter of forks, knives and spoons.

  Mystery solved: I dropped the good silver ’cause Grandma came to stay!

  My brother’s voice is strong today, sharp, lighthearted: What are you on about? He gets it. D-Day? Your prize story—rubbing salt in the wound of success? All that old stuff.

  Calendar stuff. Like Grandpa in a dinner jacket at the Grand Knights of Columbus. They served oysters Rockefeller, don’t you know. Santa María, remember?

  That was my brother’s ship in a bottle. I recall his concentration with glue, pincers, scraps of a linen napkin dipped in tea for the sails, button-thread rigging. He remembered pebbles brought home from the schoolyard, painted gold. The treasure chest stuck to the balsa wood deck of the Admiral’s flagship, Santa María.

  All that glitters . . . Columbus, he’s discredited.

  Untarnished in grammar school.

  You’re a day in arrears, Mimi, but give him a try, one of your bios. They always set you up. Lives of the Rich or Famous. Your calendarial Book of Days.

  Calendaric.

  Calendarial. Promote and demote, that’s what history amounts to these days. Admiral of the Ocean Seas, prop the old sailor up, easier than ship in a bottle.

  I heard the Times flop down on the table that lives by his side with amber bottles of pills for the daily doses aiding and abetting stealth moves on his body. We compare systolic over diastolic achievements, scoring low for the gold star.

  He knew, this brother who was there from the beginning, that I was out of sorts, weighted with more than my displacement to a wicker chair, what big eyes you have Gramma, sleeping in my bed—all that old stuff. He groaned slightly as he rose. I heard the slow squeak of his walker as he made his way across to the bookshelf in his tidy study. Now he would pick The Anatomy of Melancholy off the shelf, the book so heavy as he flipped through its pages to find clever bits to amuse me. We had been into Burton’s big book of a lifeline before:

  Of Seasons of the year Autumn is most melancholy. . . . Fools have moist brains and light hearts. They are free from ambition, envy, shame and fear; they are neither troubled in conscience nor macerated with cares, to which our whole life is subject.

  Stop!

  It be, melancholia, a kind of dotage without a fever.

  Stop!

  If there have been any suppressions or stopping of blood at nose, at hemeroids or women’s months, then to open a vein in the head or about the ankles.

  Till he induces laughter. So, you think while they listened to war news after the dishes were dried, I read Tolstoy by lamplight? Flies batting the screen.

  Stay on message, he says. Honor the holiday, one of your brief lives, Columbus.

  There’s nothing left to explore.

  We’re still hoping for water on Mars. What about your time in Genoa? Just writing your stories at that villa. No grand tour.

  I’d launched a piece on Columbus but it sniffed of embalming fluid, seemed a replica of his statue commanding the Piazza Acquaverde, the bus station in Genoa. We did tour the house where Christoforo was probably not born, and in a nautical museum viewed waxy simulacra of the Admiral with a first mate, and selection of sailors costumed for the journey. His instruments of navigation, the quadrant and the astrolabe, while never useful, were beautiful, and in yet another funky museum, a plaster cast of his hand. Why his hand? It’s so undiscovered, Genoa. The well-worn joke . . . À tre scopertede . . .

  Prego, not to tell it again. Do Columbus.

  Like the old days, I obey his command.

  DEAD RECKONING

  October 12, 1492—Cristoforo Colombo, Italian Navigator, born near Genoa, discovers the Indes East of the Ganges.

  For some days Columbus noted in his log: weeds in abundance with crabs among them; a whale, they always keep near the coast; pelicans and a turtle-dove. On October 11 he sighted a flickering light in the distance as though from a candle. That proved a mirage. The true sighting is attributed to Martín Alonzo, who sounded the alarm at 2:00 AM, according to orders. Columbus knelt on the shore of Guanahani to claim San Salvador for the King and Queen of Spain in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He had reached the Indies. In the heat of his discovery, his account flips from third to first person. The natives are recorded as an inoffensive people. He gave them glass beads, red caps and various trifles in exchange for parrots and skeins of cotton thread. No need to say who got the better of the bargain. These Indians had no fireboxes, no candles, no weapons. The naked bodies of the men were decorated with red and white powders in mysterious designs, but it seemed to the Admiral they would make good servants and would readily become Christians as they have no religion.

  Adam with an agenda: he named each island in this earthly paradise—Trinidad, Fernando, Isabella, Santa María de la Concepción and so forth—bringing it all back home. Best that he did not invoke the Lord in naming Puerto Grande, a sculpted harbor of Cuba we know as our naval base, Guantánamo Bay with its history of detention and “outrages upon personal dignity” (Geneva Convention). On first sight, the vegetation of the islands recalled the beauty of Andalusia, but deeper into the rain forest’s dense thickets of vines and lush trees the humidity was overwhelming. The natives, friendly and instructive, alas had no vein of gold. They offered stone glittering with something like mica, and the story of a great king who lived by an inland lake. Or perhaps the golden man was lord of a distant island? Could he be farther up the dangerous waters of the Orinoco, this godlike figure in some versions named El Dorado, with coffers of the precious stuff in his city of Manoa, enough to fill the royal treasury impoverished by holy wars to convert infidels to the one true faith. Now Colón’s calling was to be as much missionary as miner, persisting in his duties until on the island of Hispaniola he might find the river of gold in the waters of the Ciabo, might find enough glitter to show in Madrid along with curiosities and his captives. He settled the crew he left behind to set up shop. The book of Colombo’s discoveries was a best seller; his tales wonderful and so wonderfully told they might be the adventures of Marco Polo, which he read and reread in Italian, his mother tongue, preparing for his discoveries and for the writing of his own extravagant tale. After the success of the first voyage, Columbus drew up a contract, The Book of Privileges, in which Don Colombo demanded and received a title, a coat of arms, and a share in perpetuity of the profits of all the lands of his discovery. On the second voyage, he brought chickens to this handsome race quick to learn words of a strange language and the value of a farmyard egg. Prospects did not turn out for the best.

  The High Admiral of the Ocean Seas proved to be a slack administrator of the greatest real-estate deal of all time. He was unfortunate in choosing his lieutenants. Christoforo’s gift was for mapping the sea, not transatlantic politics, not sorting out quarrels between gold diggers and the indigenous people. Among the curiosities brought back from his first travels—lemon seeds, a necklace of fish bones, tobacco, cinnamon bark, corn—were strange birds a
nd slaves. He had assumed his captives would submit to this arrangement, though the Queen found their possession a bad show when they were put on public display—perhaps the beginning of his fall from grace. And where in advertised abundance was the gold? At the outset of his third voyage, he was becalmed in the Doldrums under the sign of Leo, which, given his belief in astrology, foretold the severity of his fate. When at last the Admiral landed at Santo Domingo, the ungrateful settlers he had left behind revolted. His powers dissolved, Columbus was shipped home in chains.

  In a homey museum just above Genoa, we discovered him in two roles. A white marble statue portrays a pretty boy with abundant curls, dreaming the glorious future, longing for adventures at sea. This charming Christoforo sits on a shelf with the crusty oil painting of a broken man, scant white hair, swollen feet, tattered robes. Shackled below deck, you said, head bowed to darkness. Upon his return to Hispaniola, the settlers had not thanked him for their hunger, war with the natives, death and disease. And yet again he returned. Now here’s the pity: the Don came back that fourth voyage, sailing with his young son and brother, to find the route to China described by Marco Polo, confusing fiction with geography, presuming that the estuaries of Panama might be the rivers of Cathay.

  Cristóbal Colón, Colom. Or Colombo—an Italian-Jewish name. A wool carder, weaver, boy sailor. Instructed by his brother Bartholomew in cartography, he mapped the known world. In Portugal and Spain, cartography was a Jewish profession. According to Christoforo’s calculations, the world might be shaped like a pear, and so he sailed round this fruity globe to bring back spices and trinkets of the Caribbean. His true quest had been for the wonders of China or Japan. He figured the world too small, America lay in the way. It is said the Admiral, bitter and nearly blind, passed his last years consumed with the defense of his Privileges and his title. It is said the Genoese bankers drew on his pesos d’oro in Hispaniola, which supported him grandly. If true, he died rich. A devout Christian, he was deeply religious yet a confessed mystic who communed with the stars, though he never mastered celestial navigation. Five hundred years after weeds and a pelican foretold the most promising landfall known to man, a colossal statue of Christopher Columbus was refused by five cities in the States and Puerto Rico. A Taino woman, descendant of the people who first greeted Columbus, debunked the memorial enterprise: To allow the ultimate symbol of mass murder, genocide, oppression, colonialism . . . Enough! There is never enough outrage to fully tarnish a symbol. We are left with the navigator, son of the wool merchant, possibly illegitimate, the bright ambitious boy who went to sea.

  The public television documentary turns folio pages from his log book, voice-over reading the translated text on-screen; model of the Santa María; an animated map of each voyage, with his fleets bobbing over the sea: the professors disagree about the date and place of his birth, perhaps a hill town above Nervi. A facsimile of the chart used on the triumphant voyage of discovery is pegged as it was every four hours, pin-pricking the distance achieved each day. The flow of sand in an egg timer tracked navigational hours. A quadrant and an astrolabe are displayed: the nifty new tools he carried on board. But the Admiral could not fix his latitude; in bad weather could not site the North Star. In a letter to the King of Spain, Columbus claimed he had determined his latitude off Cuba by use of a quadrant. In truth, his readings were off. He did not have the math, laid the instrument aside, sailed the parallel by dead reckoning, pinprick by pinprick, a ship’s boy, perhaps his son, turning the egg timer until the last willful voyage was done. The astrolabe behind glass case is not of his period, so the tag says in all honesty. When we left that museum set in a park just down from the villa in Bogliasco, we took a wrong turn into a boccie-ball game, old men, old as we are, passing the time. They were welcoming to i stranieri with museum pamphlets in hand. One with a grizzled beard could not resist the old Genovese query, À tre scopertede Genoa sono? I answered: pesto, banking, and America. We laughed in bilingual accord.

  Columbus Circle, newly refurbished with trees that brave the exhaust fumes, stands at the southwest corner of Central Park. The Admiral wears the familiar cloak of his best days, fur trim and rich wool stiffly flowing. The puffy beret we remember from a school play. Perched on a mighty pillar, he stands sentinel to the traffic that circles round him, his back to the Park and to the outsize pylon that bears the competing statue of Columbia Triumphant as she heads toward Broadway in a golden shell. Layer upon layer of gold leaf covers her body and windblown gown. She commemorates our Victory in the Spanish-American War, 1898. Columbia and Columbus join in our urban allegory of Empire as empire sails on.

  October 13, 1492. The fish so unlike ours that it is wonderful. Some are the shape of dories and of the finest colors, so bright that there is not a man who would not be astounded, and would not take great delight in seeing them. There are also whales. I saw no beasts on land save parrots and lizards.

  On shore I sent the people for water, some with arms, others with casks; and as it was some little distance, I waited two hours for them.

  During that time I walked among the trees, the most beautiful things I had ever seen. . . .—Don Cristoforo Columbus

  Among trees. On the Mall in Central Park, he stands under American elms with the poets. Blinded by disgrace, the Admiral could not see Literary Walk flashing green to gold on the day marking the discovery, nor hear the distant blare of a high-school band, so I backdate him to full possession of his Privileges, walk him along Columbus Avenue a block west of Central Park. In the neighborhood of the El Dorado, two restaurants are Italian with inferior trenette al pesto, pandolce of sorts. The Mass at St. Gregory’s on 90th Street is said in Spanish and French, Salve, a poor parish of immigrants—Hispaniola, San Salvador, Port-au-Prince—its school basement once the last refuge of unruly priests who protested the Vietnam War. That war, this war. Many of the indigenous on the avenue are dusky as those once noted in his log. On this unnaturally warm day, a few men and women display markings of mysterious designs on their naked arms and legs. We might stop at the narrow shop with birds in the window—zebra finches, parrots, canaries, the exotic creatures he captured for the delight and edification of Her Majesty. Past the flower shop with Peruvian lilies, maranta, Queen’s tears, a bouquet gathered from his Discoveries. We will stop at 86th Street. Two banks on the corner. That should amaze the Genoese sailor. His swollen fingers fumble with the knot on his purse. The high ceiling and terrazzo, all so familiar, but the deposit slot rejects his pesos d’oro. . . . And that henceforth I should be called Don, and should be Chief Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and that my eldest son should succeed and so from generation to generation forever. . . .

  The woolen cloak heavy on his stooped shoulders, strands of white hair poke out of the jaunty tam. Through infirmity of eyes, he sees at last this Manoa, the strange land of his discovery. We head east on 86th, back to the Park. Thanks be to God the air is very soft like April at Seville; and it is a pleasure to be here, so balmy are the breezes.

  On the Promenade, a Hispanic peddler of gelato. Limón, por favor. Pinprick by pinprick, back in time when the world was fresh. Near blind. A small whale near shore? A stalk laden with rose berries, in plain light of day birds flying from winter. Heaven on earth awaiting his discovery of a flickering mirage.

  Daybook, October 20, 2007

  We are plotting a surge. Our Republic—mine, yours. It’s dumb to sign off on this country, like some old lefty still humming “The Internationale.” Ten, twenty thousand troops will tidy up, bring them round to our way of thinking. Not thinking, just watching the reality show. It comes on after the weather, which has been lovely, day after day of sun withholding the sharp promise of Fall. I still speak of my outrage launched some years ago. The edge has dulled, needs to be honed. Time was, we took out the whetstone, sharpened the blade. In the past, wars beyond our recall were taught in school. How the Civilized Tribes were sent off on the Trail of Tears, that from these honored dead, that we here highly resolve (each ch
ild in turn reciting by the schoolroom flag); how during the Mexican-American War our town in the Berkshires chose the Mex name, Monterey. This war, that war, how the Austrian girl was instructed to kneel when she kissed the Cardinal’s ring; how the Spaniards got rid of the Moors, a costly operation, so Columbus shipped out for the gold. How the pilot of the Santa María sang a chant marking time, first note to last, forward to aft. Depending on wind and tide, on flotsam and jetsam near shore, on words lost in the wind, Salve, the ship would make harbor. How men have always been intimidated by animals they fear, nothing new siccing dogs on prisoners. And did I go on about Walter Reed, while deplorable, it’s nowhere near as unsanitary as hospitals were in the Civil War. This war, that war, my father deliced soldiers who survived the Battle of the Argonne. Ran a hot rod up the seams of their clothes, much like the iron instrument once used to curl hair.

  You said: Take it down a peg. You’re edgy.

  I thought we hated that expression. You’re the one warned me off here and now, how stale today’s incursion seems tomorrow.

  These treks across the street may not be the best prescription, for your spirit, I mean.

  You flapped the Wall Street Journal against your thigh; a respectful review of a movie we might want to see.

  Elizabeth, The Golden Age. Biopic, right up your alley.

  Your instructive tone is troubling. It’s the Park I have going for me, new material—tourism, birding, our looming towers preserved in bourgeois splendor. I spoke then of my Scheherazade mode, of watching the clock run down, of my balancing act that’s solo, though often I depend on a fellow traveler. Like Chaucer, don’t you know?

  Whan that Aprille?

  It’s Fall in Central Park.

  Time Bends: The Student’s Tale

  With all the senses of my body I have become aware of numbers as they are used in counting things. But the principle of numbers, by which we count, is not the same. It is not an image of the things we count, but something which is there in its own right. If anyone is blind to it, he may laugh at my words: I shall pity him for his ridicule.