Quichotte

by Salman Rushdie

  “We aren’t discussing morality,” said Quichotte. “We are discussing love.”

  Sancho, who had been slumped down in the passenger seat of the car, filled with the indifference of his apparent years, abruptly sat up and clapped his hands. “Okay then,” he cried, “let’s play. I’ll be the girl hidden on one side of the wall, and you’ll be the contestant on the other side, Contestant One. Let’s see how you do with my questions.”

  “What about the other contestants?” Quichotte asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Sancho replied. “I’ll be them as well.”

  * * *

  —

  LET US IMAGINE THEM leaving the Canyon of the Ancients, after Quichotte has satisfactorily invoked his mighty questing forerunners and also, to Sancho’s intense embarrassment, demonstrated his personal version of the Sun Dance, a slow-motion, lurching, gimpy, unstable thing, with arms outstretched and awkwardly tapping feet, oddly innocent and childlike, as if Laurel without Hardy had gone way out west. This terpsichorean act, Quichotte explains, was also a kind of questing, in this case for spiritual power. “Did you get it, then? The power?” Sancho asked when the dance was over, leaving Quichotte panting and wheezing with sweat staining his shirt, and refusing to reply.

  And now they are in the vehicle, heading east from Cortez (pop. 8,482) on 160, aiming at Chimney Rock. If we want we could imagine a Penske truck heading the other way, the driver looking down at the Chevy Cruze, seeing the gent in there, formally dressed, suit and tie and hat, what’s an old coot like that doing out here looking that way, talking to himself. Maybe he’s lost and on speakerphone trying to find his way. Probably the Penske driver doesn’t even think about it that much, just passes by and whoosh, he’s gone. But on the other hand maybe he thinks, For a minute there I thought I saw someone else in the car, but then no, there was only the dressed-up gent driving alone. Must’ve been some kind of reflection. A trick of the light. Forget it.

  * * *

  —

  “QUESTION ONE,” SANCHO SAID. “And I’m the lady, remember. I can’t see you, you can’t see me. There’s a wall.”

  “Pyramus and Thisbe,” Quichotte said.

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Please don’t interrupt anymore,” Sancho said with a shrug, and then raised his voice to sound feminine. “Here’s question one. I’m a woman who likes my men tall, dark, and handsome, with strong jaws and a dominant attitude. How do I know you’re my kind of guy? Contestant Three?”

  Now he deepened his voice and answered himself, “Just wait until I get you in my arms, baby. You won’t be disappointed.”

  And then again as the lady: “How about you, Contestant One?”

  “By the height of my emotion toward you will you know me,” Quichotte cried out in high rhetorical fashion, “and by the darkness in which I dream of you, and by the handsomeness of the deeds by which I will prove myself, for handsome is as handsome does. And by the determined set of my jaw as I bend the arc of my life toward you, and by the dominant idea which possesses me, which is, that you must be mine.”

  Sancho let out a low whistle. “Wow, Dad,” he said. “I guess I underestimated you.” It was the first time he had used the word “dad” and meant it.

  Quichotte nodded gravely. “A good knowledge of the classics,” he advised his son, “is the sign of an educated man.”

  * * *

  —

  THEY LIVE ECONOMICALLY. Quichotte’s small pension pays for gas and food and cheap accommodation but not much else. It is, of course, inexpensive to feed and house Sancho, as he is, at least at this point, still non-corporeal, monochrome, and visible only to Quichotte. Let us imagine them in Colorado, sitting together outside a tent at the Lake Capote Recreation Area, near Chimney Rock. (There has always been a tent in the trunk of Quichotte’s car. Maybe we should have mentioned that. It has been there all the time. Sorry.) Here’s what’s happening: Sancho, not a patient lad, is fraying a little at the edges.

  * * *

  —

  “WE’RE OUT HERE IN the middle of nowhere,” Sancho said. “There’s nothing to do and no reason to be doing it. This woman you never stop talking about, she’s over a thousand miles away and we’re out here looking at a rock. There isn’t even a TV to watch her show. What exactly are we here for, ‘Dad’?” Dad again. This time he definitely didn’t mean it.

  “We’re waiting for a sign,” Quichotte replied.

  “There’s signs all over.” Sancho was not a stranger to sarcasm. “That one says Showers and that one says Slow. And there’s one back there saying Bait Shop. Also Self-Permitting Station, that’s a good one. It’s right over there. You can just permit yourself to do whatever you want. Problem solved. Can we go now?”

  “I danced the Sun Dance,” Quichotte said. “So the sign will surely come.”

  * * *

  —

  PAUSE.

  * * *

  —

  “AS I PLAN MY QUEST,” Quichotte said, drinking from a can of ginger ale, “I ponder the contemporary period as well as the classical. And by the contemporary I mean, of course, The Bachelorette. Twenty-five contestants! Twenty-six in season twelve! Thirty in season five, thirty-one in season thirteen! The searcher for love must understand immediately, at the outset of his search, that the quantity of love available is far too small to satisfy the number of searchers. We may further intuit, following on from this first proposition, a second; namely, a quantity theory of love. If the amount of love in the universe is finite and unchanging, then it follows that as one searcher finds the love he seeks, another must lose his love; and that when one love dies here—and only when a love dies!—it becomes possible for another love to be born there. We may regard this as a variant form of the butterfly effect. A butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, and we feel the breeze on our cheek here at Lake Capote.”

  “Or,” said Sancho, “maybe the wisdom to be gained from a show like that is that you can’t trust anybody to be true, not even the woman you’re after.”

  “Already so cynical,” Quichotte said mournfully. “No great quest, my boy, was ever achieved except by those with faith.”

  “But if faith is all you’ve got,” the other answered, “you’re going to lose out to the guy with the moves and the looks.”

  “The stories of the suitors and bachelorettes teach us this,” Quichotte said, ignoring Sancho’s remark, “that an apparent victory may in reality be a defeat, and that the defeated may yet, long after their apparent failure, triumph. At the end of season two, Meredith Phillips agreed to marry Ian McKee; but they separated a year later, and six years after that, her lovelorn high school sweetheart won her hand. At the end of season four, DeAnna Pappas was engaged to Jesse Csincsak, but they called it off six months before their wedding date, and, if we leap into the future, we see that Jesse actually married Ann Lueders, who was a contestant in season thirteen of the parallel show, The Bachelor. Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski (season five), Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez (season six), Emily Maynard and Jef Holm (season eight), are all exemplars of the proposition that a ring on a ring finger guarantees nothing; whereas Ashley Hebert and J. P. Rosenbaum (season seven) and Desiree Hartsock and Chris Siegfried (season nine) reassure us that victory can lead to happily-ever-after. The record warns us of the frailty of even the greatest endeavors, and the consequent need to be resolute in the pursuit of love, as strong as a lion in his prime, and as unbreakable as a holy vow; and never to give up hope.”

  “You know your stuff,” Sancho conceded in a grumbling voice. “I guess I’ll grant you that.”

  A little later Sancho spoke up again. “I have one more question for you,” he said, and this time he spoke with some caution. “If, in the unlikely event that, in spite of everything, and not questioning your worthiness, and all you’re doing and will do, but,
just suppose, by some freak of bad luck, some wild, off-the-wall, million-to-one chance, the lady doesn’t love you back? If you end up not being the bachelor chosen by this pretty frigging hot and desirable and also super famous bachelorette?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Quichotte said, coloring, and he was suddenly shouting. “It’s the question of an ignoramus. It’s the inquiry of a baboon trying to speak English. It’s the splutter of a fish out of water. It’s the twitch of an amoeba that thinks it’s a human being. It’s an insult to the greatness of my quest, and to your father also, by the way. Withdraw the question. I, your parent, demand it.”

  “It’s a totally reasonable thing to ask,” his son answered. “You yourself just talked about, what did you say, the frailty of even the greatest whatevers. And every guy knows that rejection is a normal thing. Many men are rejected by many women for many reasons and we just have to learn to accept it and feel grateful when a woman assents. And how would I know this, by the way, if not for your thoughts inside me?”

  “What do you mean?” Quichotte shouted, really angry, enraged to such a shocking degree that Sancho was disconcerted, more than disconcerted, actually afraid. “Where have you been sticking your nose? Don’t you dare go where you are forbidden to enter. You are a child. You are not me. There are things about me that are not for you to know.”

  “Okay,” Sancho said, and it took some courage for him to say it. “I see that under your old-goof act, beneath your sweet nutty disguise, you’re maybe someone else entirely, and that part of you is locked away right now. It’s like you’ve caged the beast.”

  * * *

  —

  BY THE BANKS OF LAKE CAPOTE, in the aftermath of this confrontation, Sancho realized that his dream might have begun to come true. At first the nights had been difficult for him, because as Quichotte slipped toward sleep he, Sancho, lost consciousness too. The approach of this involuntary dreamless nonexistence terrified him, felt like a nightly execution. He struggled against it but it overpowered him. Until, suddenly, it didn’t. Quichotte slept, and Sancho remained awake. A great firework of joy burst in him, erasing the memory of the quarrel. He was on his way to being alive.

  That night after the argument, Quichotte had limped off into his tent and had immediately fallen asleep. Now he was snoring his vroom-vroom NASCAR racetrack snores while Sancho lay up on the roof of the Chevy, listening to the crickets and looking up at the humbling wheel of the galaxy. There was a sign if you wanted one, he thought, a gigantic starlight finger flipping the bird at the Earth, pointing out that all human aspiration was meaningless and all human achievement absurd when measured against the everything of everything. Up there was the immensity of the immensity, the endless distance of the distance, the impossible scale, the thunderous silence of all that light, the million million million blazing suns out there where nobody could hear you scream. And down here the human race, dirty ants crawling across a small rock circling a minor star in the outlying provinces of a lesser galaxy in the inconsequential boondocks of the universe, narcissistic ants mad with egotism, insisting in the face of the fiery night-sky evidence to the contrary that their puny anthills stood at the heart of it all. He might still be half a ghost, Sancho thought, but he was a ghost who saw clearly, without illusions, and had his head screwed on the right way around.

  And yet he wanted to be one of those ants, that was the paradox of it. He wanted flesh and blood and bones, and a bisonburger from Ted’s Montana Grill that he could touch and taste and swallow. He wanted life.

  “He wants it for you too,” a voice said.

  Sancho, startled, sat up fast. There was nobody to be seen. “Who’s there?” he cried.

  “Down here,” said the voice.

  He looked down. There was a cricket sitting on the car roof beside him, unafraid, not making its cricket noise, speaking English with an Italian accent.

  “Grillo Parlante at your service,” said the cricket. “It’s true, I’m Italian originally. But you can call me Jiminy if you want.”

  “This isn’t really happening,” he said.

  “That is correct,” said the cricket. “È proprio vero. I’m a projection of your brain, just in the way that you started out as a projection of his. It seems you may be getting an insula.”

  “A what?”

  “As I was saying,” said the cricket, “he wants you to be fully human as badly as you do. He imagines it all the time. And to get you there, he will need to give you an insula.”

  “I’m talking to an Italian cricket,” Sancho said to the stars, “whose vocabulary is bigger than mine, and who apparently wants to discuss insulation.”

  “Insul-ah, not insul-ate,” the cricket corrected him. “This is the Latin of science. It means an island in the mind.”

  “He’s giving me an island?” Sancho was confused.

  “A part of the brain,” the cricket clarified. “In Gray’s Anatomy it is called the Island of Reil after the German scientist who first described it. But you can call it, if you wish, the Island of the Real. It is the part of the corteccia cerebrale that gets involved in most of what it is to be a human person. Essere umano, si. It is folded within the solco laterale. This is a fissure that separates the lobo temporale and the lobo frontale of the brain. From the insula comes consciousness, emotion, perception, self-awareness, and being able to connect to other people. È molto multi-funzionale, this insula, yes. It is where empathy comes from, it controls your blood pressure, and when you get hit, it tells you how badly it hurts. You want to feel hungry? Taste that Ted’s bisonburger? The insula gives you feeling and tasting. It is sex you’re after? It processes your orgasms. It helps your concentration. It has to do with ecstasy. Oh yes, it’s a hard worker all right! It gives you happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, disbelief, trust, faith, beauty, and love. Also, hallucinations, which is where I come in. Eccomi qua!”

  “He really wants me to have this insula?” Sancho asked, dubiously. “I thought he just liked having me as a black-and-white accessory for his pleasure alone, tied to him, like a prisoner. I’m not sure he can handle an independent child.”

  “You are wrong. He is like every parent,” the cricket said, soberly confining itself to English. “He wants you in full color, with full powers, able to lead a successful life. He promises you an insula. Already it is growing in you. Soon you will burst out in Technicolor and spread your tail like the winter peacock of Fellini in Amarcord and everyone will see you and then there you are! Life. The sweet life. Look at you: growing up fast! Almost the young Mastroianni.”

  “And you?” Sancho wanted to know. “Are you going to stick around? Because I don’t think I want anyone to be my guide.”

  “The insula,” replied the cricket, “unfortunately has nothing to do with conscience.”

  “Nor do I,” said Sancho. “I’m like the sky at night. The universe has no interest in right and wrong. It doesn’t care who lives or dies and who behaved well or badly. The universe is an explosion. It rushes outwards, pushing, growing, making room for itself. It’s a never-ending conquest. You know what the motto of the universe is? Give me more. I want it all. That’s my motto also. That’s how I see things too.”

  “That, I already perceive in you,” the cricket said, beginning to disappear. “That’s already completely clear. Ciao! Baci!” And it was gone.

  When Quichotte awoke the next morning he heard the improbable sound of breakfast sizzling in a pan outside his tent. A dark-haired young man—tall, skinny, his build remarkably similar to Quichotte’s own—was frying eggs and bacon. The young man had his back to Quichotte and wore a red-white-and-blue-check lumberjack shirt over blue jeans with turn-ups and held the pan in his right hand over the flame. With his left hand he was waving at the campers in the neighboring tent, and they were waving back at him. Quichotte called out and when the young man turned to face him the old fellow’s
heart pounded so hard that he feared his time had come. Then, still alive, he understood that a second miracle had occurred, because this was his Sancho in high definition, full color, and wide-screen aspect ratio. Farewell, monochrome phantom! Here was a visible, tall, handsome (if a little bony-faced), strapping teenage lad with a grin on his face and a hearty appetite for food. The disagreement of the night before fled from Quichotte’s thoughts. He found tears standing in his eyes.

  “A real, live boy,” he said. “Truly, anything can happen today. Even such a thing as this.”

  “Is this the sign you were waiting for?” Sancho asked him, but Quichotte had a lump in his throat and couldn’t reply.

  “Seeing that this happened,” Sancho then said, “there are things I’m going to need.”

  Quichotte was still in a daze, and shook his head in puzzlement.

  “Don’t pretend there aren’t,” the lad cried. “You’ll have to get me everything. I can’t wear the same thing every day, can I. So, shirts, pants, underpants, socks, sneakers, boots, hoodie, coat, hat. Plus, I’ll need to eat regularly from now on, so we’ll need to get extra food. Also, when we get away from here I’ll need a room of my own, to get away from that steam hammer in your nose. And, as this plays out, it’s clear I can’t live with you forever. I’ll need a job, a place to stay, all of that. Which we’re not going to find me any of it out here, so we have to leave asap. You’ve had it pretty easy with me so far. But going forward, I have needs.”

  “You will want for nothing,” Quichotte finally spoke up. “I have some money saved that will take care of it. There is also my severance-pay lump sum.”