by Jim Harrison
Sorry I got angry, but you got a problem when abysmal insensitivity passes for public wisdom. You know when I talked about Central America where I spent so much time? What if they cut off the balls of our sons or tortured our daughters? I hope to say we'd spend our lives on vengeance. Only they mostly do it to peasants, whom they have long made beasts of burden. In our own Republican and Democrat demographics, the few million hungry can't swing an appreciable vote. The smart political money is after the ladies and the homosexuals. I hope these groups are ready for the mudbath.
Sorry again. Well, up near Amritsar in Punjab we were this foreign legion of workers, paid very well, but not probably commensurate to the damage we did to ourselves. The pleasure in this massive project is to have seen it happen right before your eyes and to know you had a part in it. Nehru even paid our construction site a visit once. We all stood in long lines in clean khakis to shake this great man's hand. I couldn't wait to tell Violet about the experience, because we were corresponding weekly at the time—me in Punjab, and she in the Dakotas. It's not widely known, nothing of this sort is, but Nehru's big push brought electricity to eleven thousand communities and put ten million new acres under irrigation. Some people are questioning this sort of progress now, and they probably should. I'm in basic sympathy, or why else would I be way back here in the woods in a cabin? But in India it was different. It's one thing to give up the world when you've already had the best it can offer. We always have a return ticket. We are the world's grandest observers and experiencers, though that's a clumsy word.
After we finished the basics on the system up in Amritsar, we moved on down to south of Hyderabad where they were having problems. Our crew was made up of a hundred or so top hands, the men who could handle the intricacies of the heavy machinery and the installation of the German and Swiss-made generators. There was an overall boss, a dozen or so well-educated engineers, then Martin, who delegated the work to the rest of us. It was pretty democratic, though the very top men tended to keep each other's company, due to education and class. This is true anywhere in the world.
In Hyderabad we had to contend with the monsoons and the unusual food of the area. The Punjab climate was less foreign, and the people somehow less exotic than down south. We all tended to drink a great deal more after we arrived, and the summer rains drove us batty. After we were there a year, Martin started being sick. He blamed it on a meal he had at a “western” restaurant in Hyderabad; his usual policy was well-cooked local food, bottled water, and enormous quantities of beer. He became, fatally, his own doctor, which is not surprising as he had spent so much of his life outside good medical help. We were working extra long shifts that spring, trying to repair a faulty twenty-six-foot pentstock before the monsoons could drown out our coffer. I tried to get him to take it easy once I noticed he was sick, because amoebic dysentery can slowly eat you alive. He kept himself going with pep pills, along with opium pills for his guts. He kept saying he'd take a week off when the monsoons came. One hot afternoon he dropped dead from a heart attack brought on by acute dehydration.
I almost quit and went home at that point. Some others who had worked under Martin for a long time shipped out right after the memorial service, including an American from New Jersey, who said, “If it killed the best of us, it's sure as shit gonna get me.” A few days later I was handed a note from the boss, an ex-officer in the colonial service named Enright, asking me to have dinner with him and the engineers. The upshot was that I was appointed foreman of the crew. I was dumbfounded and objected that I wouldn't be accepted because I, at twenty-four, was one of the youngest of the whole group. Enright said nonsense, and that I was the unanimous choice of the engineers because I could always see the whole picture, not just my specific job. Way back in Sudan, Martin had entered in my job record that I would make a good leader after seasoning. Oddly, I thought, I received nothing but warm congratulations from the crew. It was a little eerie sitting in Martin's office, plotting work schedules, even though a plaque with my name had been screwed onto the door. The size of my checks to Emmeline became so much larger that she feared I had become involved in some kind of criminal activity, though I wrote her I had been promoted. Ted told me later that he had checked it out through the firm's New York office. He said it had made him proud that he had helped in my training.
It's pleasant to relive these small triumphs in your life if you don't do it too often. My own was much more ordinary, but I can imagine as a reader what it would be like for you to get your first book printed. Ted had a judge friend over near Marquette who has written some successful books. In a way it puts the place on the map for something other than pulpwood and iron ore.
Three years later the same sickness that killed Martin drove me out of India. They had to drag me off the job. When the first signs appeared, I started keeping an eye on the mess hall. Sure enough, one of the dishwashers was just washing the tops of plates that sat in dirty stacks, plus the rinse water was tepid. People will literally kill themselves from sheer inattention and laziness. The firm gave me a choice of a hospital in London or Jackson Memorial in Miami, where they have some fine people in tropical medicine. I was so weak at the time that they sent an English nurse along to deliver me to Miami.
Years later, when I began seeing Evelyn, I had time to talk, read and reflect on the idea of illness. I didn't come up with anything of any value to anyone but myself. It seemed to me that unbearable longing created my illness a number of times. It was true after Edith left, and after Sharon it was the prolonged but still temporary disease of alcoholism which helped lead to the amoebic dysentery. After Allegria, it was kala-azar and filariasis. After Evelyn it was the accident, because I was untypically reckless. Life kills us. Too much life kills us! What a wonderful idea. Evelyn had me read some novels by the Russian author Dostoevsky because he was an epileptic, though his seizures were far more severe than my own. I loved these books because they possess the most brilliant conversation of any I've ever read. Well, this man contends that to be too acutely conscious is to be diseased. It's a point worth considering, but Evelyn insisted that his own disease deeply colored his perspective. I said, so what, he has given us a great gift. This is probably elementary to a well-read person like yourself. When I was building that mission school, I neglected my medicine for a few days, in hopes I had become well over the years. Peter, my Kikuyu friend, witnessed my seizure and told me about the spirit of “badimo"—I think that's what he called it. The natives think a man who has seizures possesses a certain magic because he can slip through a crack in reality and see the world differently: I doubt if I agree. You don't see a separate world; you only see the same one everyone sees more vividly. The question is whether the vision of a sick man looking at a healthy world becomes, in the rush of convalescence, a healthy man looking at a sick world because he has a memory. Who knows? Evelyn, who could be a perfect WASP nit, claimed that a lot of artists make themselves sick on purpose. I said bullshit, you're missing the point by being a tidy little scientist after the fact. She has the most amazingly brilliant geometrical mind, and she thinks that everything on earth calls for a decision on her part. Her only escape into the irrational was fucking, and I must admit she did a bang-up job at it. To the extent she neglected it on the conscious level it became a repository of energy when she let loose. Come to think of it, I never saw the point of reading those stacks of dirty magazines at construction camps. It was a simpleminded indulgence. You hit Panama after two months in the jungle, and a pair of thighs will pop your skull.
A month ago you said something I brood about, that metaphor was a way to measure things of similar resonance and volume but vastly different shape. Imagine trying to make a blueprint of that statement! We were talking about beauty and the idea if a person, animal, object, whatever, possessed wholeness, harmony, and most of all, radiance, it was likely beautiful. It seems our hunger for this only gets assuaged piecemeal. Maybe we should add “surprise” to the list of requirements. I was think
ing that we are pretty blind by habit, and sometimes we are jolted by beauty out of dumb luck or habit. One Sunday an Indian worker from Hyderabad took me up near this small cave in the hills. We were about a hundred feet from the cave when he threw a stone into the entrance. My god, but what a shock! Out of the cave races this king of snakes, a king cobra about twenty-five feet long, rearing up until his enormous hood is at our eye level. He just glared at us, “naga,” the Indian called him, letting off blasting hisses and daring us to come closer. You wonder what God had in mind, but you often do. Jesus, that snake was beautiful. Years ago, at Marshall's request, I wrote down all my thoughts on water under the title, which I meant as a small joke, “The Theory and Practice of Rivers.” Of all beautiful things, I take to rivers the strongest. They give me that incredible sweet feeling I once got from religion. With the Catholic, the question of whether that little girl actually saw anything at the site of Lourdes ought to be meaningless. You can actually see your foot every day, but that's not what keeps you going. Any metaphor between us and a river is that we can't stop ourselves one bit.
CHAPTER XV
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The morning of our departure for Marquette, Strang took me for a walk upstream in order to give me an “inkling,” as he called it, of the practical science of hydrology. He had graduated over a period of a few weeks from his set of staffs to double canes, and his gait could best be described as that of a drunken praying mantis, the large insect more commonly known as a walking stick. My three nights with Eulia had soured, frazzled, occasionally delighted me, to the point that my attention span was no broader than an actress's. My pecker chafed from over-use, and my gut rumbled, craving some leftovers from an elaborate southern Indian curry dinner Strang had prepared the evening before. His cooking process had an Oriental concentration and intensity; he was the soul of modesty and, in contrast to so many neophyte chefs, there wasn't a single fandango to impress. It was also the best Indian food I had ever eaten and now, to be frank, I wanted more. I was trying to nod attentively as Strang talked on about the dynamics and morphology of rivers, fluid mechanics, sediment load, the fluvial processes of erosion and deposition, slope and channel morphology.
“What are you thinking about, food or fucking?” He stopped in the path and I bumped into him, nearly falling.
“Pardon . . . actually both at once.” There was no point in being flustered. He was amused at my total worthlessness as a student of science. We sat down on a log, and he adjusted his leg braces. The dog buried her nose in my jacket pocket for the biscuits I had taken to carrying for her.
“I bet Eulia got you to promise to take care of her if something happened to me.” He didn't wait for an answer, knowing it was true. “She told me her dad used to slap her around as a child. It's unthinkable but it happens all the time. In late May I was here in this clearing with the dog. Over there we watched a raven die. There was a big group of ravens swirling around him up in the tree where he was perched unsteadily, as if to give him encouragement. They made even more noise when he fell down through the branches, but then caught himself, teetering on a pine bough. I held the dog back so she wouldn't torment the situation. Finally the raven fell all the way down through the branches, flopped around on the ground, and then was still. The whole thing took about two hours. I had never seen a bird die like this before. I didn't tell Eulia about it because she is fond of omens and I thought a raven ought to be allowed to die without being compared to me.”
The drive to Marquette went wonderfully. Strang drove the first ten miles or so but then gave up when his accelerator foot began wobbling uncontrollably. This didn't in the least diminish his humor, and when I took over the driving, he joined Eulia and Allegria in singing some popular Costa Rican songs. Since I didn't understand a bloody word, I began brooding about whether or not I'd have the opportunity to talk to Karl alone. I had greased the skids somewhat by calling a cousin of my mother's who was prominent in Michigan government. I had always thought the man a dolt but I wanted to ensure that certain courtesies were offered us at the prison.
Allegria insisted we stop several times along the road to pick the wild flowers that abound in the area. She liked to design fabric and was convinced she could incorporate these colors, not found in the tropics, in her cloth. I sat in the car scribbling notes during these plucking expeditions which Strang accompanied. He called my attention to a large black snake which he had caught and soothed by rubbing its tummy as it wrapped around his arm. I declined to do so myself, saying I was busy with my notes. Allegria looked so lovely with her flowers I wanted to trade in Eulia for this more mature, less enervating model. It was impossible to imagine her background as a “courtesan,” no matter how far in the past.
When we drove through Munising and could see Lake Superior, Strang was disturbed by a storm front gathering to the north. He said that winds up here have great character and when they start moving up the clock from south to west to northwest, there can be some problems. Allegria's plane would be fine because it was hours before the front would arrive.
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TAPE 7 : Returned to the cabin with the sun going down, and a temperature drop from eighty to forty degrees on the first of August. The winds were worse than the night of my arrival, the sea rumpled as if in green torment. A cold sweat from emotional exhaustion, so I changed my clothes, made coffee, poured a whiskey. Eulia's things are here though she went home with Strang. I looked at her open suitcases while I listened to the coffee perk, deciding not to snoop because I wanted no more surprises.
I tended the fire in my small fireplace like a feebleminded boy scout. It cast a circle of warmth that didn't include my back. I felt some of the discomfort but little of the real pleasure that a scientist might feel late in the day after he or she discovered a new species. Some of the items, the wedges of the whole pie, are:
1. Strang's speech became a little garbled after he kissed Allegria good-bye at the airport. I had been in a continuous state of déjà vu since entering Marquette. I hadn't been there in thirty years but memories I had never “remembered” came sweeping over me and I still haven't regained the slightest sense of composure. After the inevitable sadness for Strang and Allegria, even Eulia, at the airport I drove us down to a park by the ore dock. I called the prison from a pay phone to make sure they were aware of our appointment. I turned from the phone booth to Strang and Eulia, who had their backs turned to me and were watching a huge freighter being loaded with the iron taconite ore. For an instant they became my mother and father. We used to picnic at this park in the forties and watch them load the freighters. To the northwest, out on Lake Superior, you could see the blackish gray front approach, with the lead thunderheads rolling and furling over on themselves. Strang turned to me with crazed delight. “I can feel the barometer dropping,” he shouted. I watched the other picnickers gather their blankets, baskets, children, and head for their cars. A gust of wind whipped Eulia's summer skirt around and up her legs. Then the leading cloud covered the afternoon sun, so we headed for the prison.
2. When we passed through the gate, we were directed to the administration building rather than the regular visitors area. This is a maximum security prison, not one of those polite camps where they send the influential dope wholesalers, or the political swine who have betrayed the public trust. I drove by two threadbare and weeping black women, noting that Strang's face tightened perceptibly; Eulia said, “I'm frightened” with a pinched voice. We were shown into a drab lounge by the warden himself, who turned out to be an acquaintance of Ted. He told Strang there was a good chance Karl could be released the following spring if he consented to the custody of Ted up in Alaska, who had pulled any number of strings to make the arrangement. Thus far, Karl had not consented to anything. “He never has,” said Strang. We all seemed to share the sodden, pastel, strangulation of institutions as we waited for Karl.
I was fooling with my tape machine when the door opened the same instant the storm hit. The lights flickered
out and I could see the silhouettes of Strang and Eulia watching the driving rain and bending trees out the window. I turned back to the opening door and an instant later the lights came back on. I was standing not a foot away from Karl and I involuntarily stepped back with my hand held up in alarm. It was embarrassing so I averted my glance to the guard, who withdrew out the door, though his shadow beyond the steamed glass was visible throughout the visit.
Karl ignored me and moved swiftly to Strang. They embraced warmly and kissed. When they released, Eulia offered her hand which Karl took, making a bow. “Jesus, what a beautiful niece,” he said, then turned tome. “Relax, I ‘m just a big old fucking kitten. You might say I'm rehabilitated.” I felt prepped for everything except his actual presence. Strang had told me that Karl had been a diver, an underwater welder, an oil roust-about on of f shore rigs, and most lately, a stevedore in Mobile and New Orleans. He certainly looked like all of these, though my frame of reference is limited in the areas involved. He reminded me most of those underground tunnel workers in New York City known as “sandhogs.” He gave me a broad toothless smile that crinkled an old scar that followed his jaw line until it flipped up toward his lower lip. There was a seemingly obligatory cobra tattooed on a big lumpish forearm as he offered his hand to me. In his mid-fifties he still presented a sense of threat, though his eyes twinkled. He was Strang's height, about six feet, but thickish, nearly massive, and the hand he offered had the heft of a shot put. Again, in contrast to his visitors he was warm, almost radiant.