Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (34 page)

“Are you Egyptian … or perhaps a Turk?”

“I’m from
India,”
he replied, his eyes aflame, his head swaying from left to right, and, as if to manifest his own super-satisfaction,
accompanying the words with a cooing, clucking sound which even the peacock would have difficulty in imitating.

“Very good,” I said. “But you’re not a Hindu, are you? What part of India do you come from?”

“Near Bombay … Poona,” he replied.

“Then you speak Gujarati.”

“No, Hindi.” His eyes lit up again. They danced with fire.

“Do you know Sanskrit?”

“No, but I can write it.”

“Perhaps you’re a rajah.”

“A
maharajah!”
he countered.

“Not a mahatma?”

“No, nor a yogi either.”

Pause while we study each other amusedly.

“What’s the difference, can you tell me, between a yogi and a mahatma?”

“A yogi thinks only of himself.”

(Very
good, thought I to myself.)

Aloud—“And how did you find that out?”

“I know lots of things that are not written in books,” he replied with a smirk. “I travel. I travel around the world.”

Another pause. He looks at me as if to say—“And your next question, please?”

“In September …
this
September … I will be in England. Do you know London?”

Before I could so much as nod my head he continued. “From London I will go to Paris, from Paris to Berlin, then to Vienna, and then to Rome, Athens, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo….”

“In September …
this
September …” said I, “I shall be in Japan. After that Cambodia, Burma, India. …”

“You have been to India before?”

“No.”

“You must go to India!” He said it as if it were a command.

More to lead him on than anything else, I told him it needed
a little thinking. “It costs money, a trip like that. Especially to travel around in
your
country.”

He gave a jackal-like laugh, threw back his head and screeched:
“Money?
What do you need money for?” He paused a moment, then asked: “What’s your business?”

“I’m not in business. I write.”

“You write articles, I suppose?”

“No, books.”

Immediately he was all animation. Squatting on his well-padded haunch, assuming the air of a buttered Buddha, he leaned slightly forward and fixed me with his glittering eyes.

“You write an article … a
good
article … and I will get you five thousand dollars for it.
More
even…. How much do you need?”

Before I could make reply he was on his feet and grasping my arm, as if to pull me out of the tub. “I’ll get you all the money you want, plus a free trip to Java, Burma, India, Ceylon, Bali….” He pulled himself up short. “Look,” he said, now fairly dancing with excitement, “I want you to write about Nature, not
people
—do you understand?” He took a few steps backward, pointed to the hills above us, then beckoned for me to get out of the tub. I did. “You see those trees up there … and that dark spot over there?” He indicated the area with an arclike motion of his hand. I looked searchingly, wondering what he saw there of particular interest. To my eye there was just the usual sweep of hills, the usual undulations, the usual trees, rocks, brush.

He dropped his arm, looked at me as if he were giving me a
koan
to solve, then exclaimed: “Can you write about
that
, just
that”
—he indicated the area once again with a sweep of the arm—“without describing it?”

Involuntarily my jaw dropped.
Without describing it!
(Sic)

“What you must do,” he continued, “is to talk about such things as … how do you call it? …
earth-quavers!
about caves and grottoes, volcanoes, the waves, sea lions, sharks and whales …
not people
. You must give it
symbology
, do you understand? That’s what we are interested in.”

(We!
Who did he mean by “we”?)

“By the way,” he said, as if it were practically settled now, the contract signed, my bags packed. “By the way, do you know any languages—
besides English?
You have to speak a few other languages too.”

To please him I said: “I know a little French, a little …”

“Speak French to me!”

“What would you like me to say?”

“Anything! I understand everything. I speak French, Italian, German, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Persian …”

“T’es bien calé!”
I barked.

“What language is that?” he snarled.

“Du français, espèce de con! Démerde-toi!”

(Naturally he didn’t know I was making a prick of him.)

“Où avez-vous apprendi le français?”
he demanded.

“Comme toi, à Paris. Panam!”

“I speak only correct French.
Polite
French.” He looked at me askance as he muttered this. Apparently he was getting the drift of it.

To which I replied:
“A quoi bon continuer? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

“Ja wohl!”
he exclaimed.
“Je vous dite que je parle Arabe, Espagnol
… and Greek and Turkish. A little Armenian too.”

“Fabelhaft!”

“
Was meint das?
”

“Das meint
extraordinary … fabulous.
Kennen Sie nicht ein Wort wie fabelhaft? Vielleicht kennen Sie wunderbar.”

“Wunderbar, ja!
That’s German…. Now I will tell you another language I can speak—
Dar-goon!”

“Never heard of it.”

He grinned. For just one moment I thought he was going to break down and say, “Neither did I!” But he didn’t.

He looked away, as if studying the sea, the heaving kelp. When he turned around there was a blank look on his face.

After what was meant to be an impressive pause, he asked: “Do you believe in a Creator?”

“I do,” said I.

“Good! Are you a Christian then?”

“No,” I replied, “I have no religion.”

“Are you a Jew?”

“Not that I know of.”

“But you believe in God?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me squintingly. It was obvious he didn’t believe me.

“What do
you
believe in?” I asked.

“The Creator!” he replied.

“Have you a religion?”

“No. I belong to the Bahai movement. That’s the
only
religion.”

“So!” I made a clucking noise and preened my feathers.

“You must get to know the Creator! Jesus Christ was just a man, not a god. Would God allow Himself to be crucified? All nonsense!” He turned abruptly and gazed straight up at the sun. He pulled me violently by the arm. “Look up there!” he commanded, pointing to the fiery orb. “Tell me, can you see what’s behind it?”

“No,” said I. “Can you?”

“Behind the sun, behind the stars and all the planets, behind everything that man can see with his telescopes, is the Creator. Nobody has eyes good enough to see Him. But he’s there…. You must believe in Him. It’s necessary. Otherwise——.”

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise you’re lost. In India we have many religions, many worships, many idols, many superstitions …
and many fools.”

Full stop. I said nothing. Blank for blank.

“Have you heard speak of the Nile?”

“The what?”

“The Nile! It’s a river … in Egypt.”

“Oh, the
Nile!
Why, of course. Everybody knows the Nile.”

He gave me a disdainful sidelong glance.

“Yes, everybody knows the Nile, as you say, but do they know how many Niles there are?”

“What do you mean by that?” said I.

“Did you know that there is a white Nile, a blue Nile and a black Nile?”

“No,” I replied, “I know only the green Nile.”

“I thought so,” he said. “And now tell me, what
is
the Nile?”

“You just told me … it’s a river.”

“But what does it mean?”

“What,
river?”

“No,
the Nile!”

“If you mean etymologically,” said I, “I must confess my ignorance. If you mean symbolically, I must again confess ignorance. If you mean esoterically, then I am thrice ignorant. We’re at the quincunx now.
Your serve!”

Just as if I had said nothing at all, he informed me in his most pedantic manner that Nile meant—
in Egyptian!
—wisdom and fecundity. “Do you understand now?” he added.

“I think so.” I murmured it most humbly.

“And the reason for that (for what?) is that it lies quiet like a snake and then it vomits. I have been up and down the Nile many times. And I’ve seen the Sphinx and the Pyramids….”

“Didn’t you tell me a while ago that you had been to Damascus?”

“I said I was
going
there. Yes, I’ve been to Damascus too. I go everywhere. Why should we stay in one spot?”

“You must be a rich man,” said I.

He shook his head from side to side, rolled his eyes, made the cooing, clucking noise as before, and answered: “Tsch, tsch! I’m an artist, that’s what I am.”

“An artist? What, a painter?”

“I paint too.
Sculptor
, that’s what I am.”

Wunderbar!
thought I to myself.
Fabelhaft!
If he’s a sculptor, I’m an octoroon.

“Do you know Bennie Bufano?” I gave it to him like a test question.

Cautiously he replied: “I heard of him.” Then he added quickly: “I know all the sculptors—including the dead ones.”

“How about Lipschitz?”

“He’s not a sculptor!”

“What is he then?”

“An ironworker.”

“And Giacometti?”

“Tutti-frutti!”

“And Picasso?”

“A house painter! Doesn’t know when to stop.”

I wanted to steer him back to Damascus. Had he been to Lebanon, I wanted to know.

He had.

“And Mecca?”

“Yes! Medina too. And Aden and Addis Ababa.
Any more places?”

At this point my friend Fink intervened to ask for a light. The look he gave me said—how long are you going to keep up this game? He turned to Mr. Know-it-all and offered him a cigarette.

“Not
now!”
said the latter, holding up his palms and making a mue of disgust. “When I am dry I shall ask you for one. It’s better to wait.”

I could hear Fink mumbling “Fuck yourself!” as he walked away. Meanwhile, possibly in answer to my last question—or his own—his nibs had begun spouting. I missed the first few sentences. Tuned in just as he was saying “… they have no stores, no salesmen, nothing to buy, nothing to sell. Everything you want is free. Whatever you raise you bring to the square and put it there. If you want fruit, you take it from the tree. As much as you like. But you mustn’t fill your pockets….”

Where in hell
is
this? I wondered to myself, but refrained from breaking his train of thought.

“Very few people ever get there. At the border they stopped me. Took away my passport. While they were gone I made a portrait of the man I was going to see. When they came back I handed them the portrait. They saw that it was a very good resemblance. ‘You are a good man,’ they said. ‘We can trust you not to rob anybody.’ So they let me in. I didn’t need a penny. Whatever I asked for they gave me free. Most of the time I lived in the palace. I could have women too, if I wanted. But you shouldn’t ask for such things….”

At this point I couldn’t resist asking what he was talking about. “What country
is
this?”

“I told
you—Arabia!”

“
Arabia?
”

“Yes. And who was my friend?”

“How should I know?”

“King Sa-oud.” He paused to let this sink in. “The richest man in the world. Every year he sells to America 500,000,000 barrels of oil. To England 200,000,000. To France 150,000,000. To Belgium 75,000,000. He
sells
it. He doesn’t
deliver
it. They have to come and get it. All he asks”—he threw me a weak smile—“is a dollar a barrel.”

“You mean they have to bring the barrels with them?”

“No, he pipes it out. The barrel is free. He charges only for the oil. A dollar a barrel. No more.
No less
. That’s his profit.”

My friend Fink hove to again. He was getting fidgety. He pulled me to one side. “How much more of this can you take?”

Our friend scuttled back to his tub. We collected our things and made ready to go. A sea otter poked its head through the glassy sea below us. We stayed a moment to watch its antics.

“I say!” shouted our India-rubber friend.

We turned around.

“I want you to brush up on your German!”

“Why?” I shouted.

“Because you should know a few languages. Especially German.”

“But I know German.”

“Then study Arabic. It may come in handy.”

“And what about Hindi?”

“Yes, Hindi too … and Tamil.”

“Not Sanskrit?”

“No, nobody speaks it any more. Only in Tibet.”

Silence for a moment. He’s splashing about like a walrus.

“Remember what I said before—put more symbology into your writing!”

“I’ll try,” I said. “And I should believe in the Creator, isn’t that it?”

I waited for a retort but he said nothing. He was soaping the cracks between his toes.

I gave a shout, just as loud as I could.

He looked up, cupped his ear, as if someone were whispering to him.

“Now smile for me!” I said.

He drew his lips back.

“No, not that way. The way you did before. Roll your eyes. Move your head back and forth.” Then I went—“Tsch, tsch, tsch. Like
that,”
I said. “Come on now, do it for me before we go.”

To my surprise, he did just as I wished.

“Good!” I said. “I think now maybe you
are
a Hindu. I know lots of Hindus. I had many Hindu friends once—in New York. Good boys, all of them. A little wacky, some of them. … Did you ever hear of Mazumdar?”

“Who?”

“Mazumdar. Haridas Mazumdar. He was a genius.”

“What is his first name again?”

“Haridas.”

“That’s not a Hindu name!”

“No? Well, it isn’t Czech either. Let’s say it’s Bulgarian.”