Homesickness (36 page)

Unable to concentrate on any one shelf, Gerald crouched and darted left and right. In this way—for the first time—he resembled and understood Kaddok's clutching and tripping with his camera before an exceptionally rare motif.

‘What was it we came in for?' North scratched his head. He remained on the apex of the steps, turning the pages of the
Scientist's Bible
(1973).

‘We just don't have this back home,' Gerald complained. ‘It's a part of the infrastructure missing. A major lacuna.'

Zoellner at his desk cleared his throat.

The storage of words, like the lines on a map, records and fixes the existence of things. Inside the shop, the repository, a feeling of serenity pervaded, as if the four walls contained the entire world and even what lay beyond, each part isolated, identified and filed. It was based upon facts, upon known quantities. Exactitude reigned. It contrasted casually with the chaos of forest impressions suffered by the travellers. It was a haven.

Ho-hum: on the slippery leather stool Sasha crossed and uncrossed her legs. So very boring. A few minutes before she said airily she had always assumed etymology to be some sort of skin disease, and so produced from North some attention: an indulgent cheek-squeeze. Sasha turned to fidgeting Biv.

Reversing heavily down the steps North wore a satisfied expression.

‘We need a phrasebook and a strong map, if you can tear yourself away for a second.'

Gerald had his nose in
A Dictionary of Architectural Terms
(Unabridged). They opened a phrasebook with a red and white cover. Running his finger down North looked up
blat:
‘Getting what you want through friends and influence.'

‘This'll do. It seems up-to-date.'

‘My friend,' said Sasha to Roy Biv, ‘loves a good map. If I wasn't here he'd stay all day. D'you have trouble folding maps? I don't s'pose you do.'

Biv squinted past her. She was about his size and age.

‘Say, don't you find it terribly musty in here? I mean all day. Why don't you open a window? I want to get out.'

Leaning over his desk Sasha picked up a 45-degree set-square, opaque with scratches, and a new handbook,
The Walls of Peking
. Unconsciously she pressed her thighs against the desk, beside him. Oh boy! So Biv launched into the old argument for maps, including memory maps, cartography in general; in case she was interested. Maps make visible verifiable truths. Maps don't change the physical world; the drawing or even the manufacture of maps is one of the few worthwhile professions left. ‘Maps of course are…metaphors. They can do no harm.' He said it again. ‘They're designed to help people.' He also began raving on about the mystery of maps, even of street directories. ‘Oh well that's better,' Sasha agreed. ‘Now you're talking, because I find facts incredibly boring.' She ran her painted nail along the hypotenuse. ‘My life,' suddenly dropping the set square, ‘is one big confusion. I think I'm experiencing too much. But funnily enough, nothing much happens.'

Biv had orange hair and a hairy houndstooth coat. He didn't know what to say about that. He picked up some French curves; he put them straight back.

Gerald Whitehead and North, wise old men looking pleased with themselves, joined them and showed a keen interest, the way travellers do.

Biv became conscious of his blue nose, and to participate let out a laugh for no reason at all.

‘What is the nicest word you have here?' she asked, to help Biv. ‘What's your favourite, frinstance?'

Creaking back in his chair Biv didn't hesitate: ‘Pave-ment... Pavement! I often dwell on that word. It has a smooth sound. And it's related to maps.'

Pavement…

Zoellner in the corner snorted.

‘I think I've heard that choice before,' Gerald said.

‘I love verandah and boomerang,' Sasha said.

Gerald nodded. ‘Boomerang has a pleasant ring. It's a traveller's word.'

The bookworm fished in his side pocket and pulled out a paperback. ‘Listen to this.'

‘Here he goes again,' Sasha complained to Biv.

North elbowed her gently. ‘No, listen. A Russian finds us mysterious. “Whenever one sees Australia on a map,”' North read out, ‘“one's heart leaps with pleasure: Kangaroo, boomerang!” There, page 151.'

‘Hip hip,' said Sasha.

Gerald angled the book to see its cover: Andrei Sinyavsky,
alias
Abram Tertz.

‘Not bad, what?'

‘Of course,' said Gerald, ‘he wrote that in a labour camp. So he was writing from a zoo.'

‘You mustn't be too harsh on your country,' a voice called out. And they turned: Zoellner was looking at them between two piles. ‘Other writers have been hypnotised by “kangaroo”. “Boomerang”, to a lesser extent. Those words represent the mystery of Australia—its distance and large shape.'

‘You mean in particular D. H. Lawrence?' Gerald asked respectfully.

‘Not only him. It is quite a pronounced, if minor, trend in world literature.'

Really? Go on?

Roos along with other marsupials were Dr North's field. Many of his papers in the zoological journals began with an apt quotation, from the north.

In particular, French novelists have long been attracted to kangaroos. The beast is biologically and visually surreal. The word itself is histrionic: a series of rhythmic loops. ‘Implacable kangaroos of laughter,' wrote young Lautréamont—a fine metaphor. Very fine. Young Alfred Jarry had his supermale box with not one but several kangaroos. You find the noun leaping like a verb from the hallowed pages of Louis Aragon, Malraux in China, and Goncourt's
Journal
—yes, he reported eating authentic kangaroo meat during the siege of Paris. Another naturalist is Gide. He described in his journal a monument in some little French village square, peopled with ‘familiar kangaroos'. To Proust, an acquaintance ravaged by time looked unexpectedly strange, ‘like a kangaroo'. There is Tiffauges, the ogre, astride his ‘kangaroo-like horse'. (But then Michel Tournier can also throw a boomerang. It is said.) It appears in Boswell's
Life
, in
The Mill on the Floss
and ‘Dear Kangaroo' is the nickname in Virginia Woolf's letters—ha ha. And who was that sad Irish clown who spent pages confusing the kangaroo with women and shirt-tails? The frequency of the word increases the farther north the writer is from Australia. Distance = novelty and a desire to conquer. Writing in Zurich, James Joyce recommended the Kangarooschwanzsuppe. ‘Kangaroo-shaped' is a common metaphor. See Isak Dinesen's description of hares, or the young philosopher in the Thomas Mann story, ‘At the Prophet's'. Chekhov in his notebooks used it to describe a pregnant woman with a long neck; and in Ehrenburg's novel he has a vintage car hopping like one. The great Osip Mandelstam questioned the logic of kangaroos in Armenia. And when discussing the cosmos in his autobiography Vladimir Nabokov writes, ‘a kangaroo's pouch wouldn't hold it'. Not bad? Very good. In a thunderstorm Henry Miller stripped naked and ‘hopped around like a kangaroo', the damn fool.

‘Sinyavsky,' Zoellner put his head down, ‘is part of a northern tradition.'

‘And “boomerang”?' North wanted to take notes.

‘I agree, the world is splendid. So far as I can see it doesn't crop up as much as “kangaroo”, I imagine this is because the boomerang is merely—strictly speaking—an inanimate object. It's a clever piece of wood. But used in northern literature, it's as if the Europeans are encircling your country, to bring it into the field, like the lasso-flight of a boomerang. You become a member State:

...
L'amour revient en boumerang
L'amour revient à en vomir le revenant
.

North, the zoologist bookworm, nodded. ‘Apollinaire.'

‘Then you know Samuel Beckett has used “boomerang”,' said Zoellner seeing his interest. ‘It describes a nomadic character of his who always returns to the point of departure. “Ding Dong” I believe the story is called.'

‘He doesn't usually talk like this,' Biv frowned. ‘You're very lucky.'

‘I think he's nice,' Sasha decided. She had her head to one side.

‘There's a very evocative story by Nabokov,' North exchanged, ‘which has a real dingo in it—“A Guide to Berlin”. And if I'm not mistaken, in one of his last novels, a character sees the shape of Australia during a heart attack.'

Gerald laughed and Zoellner smiled.

‘Conrad,' Biv here called out. ‘He wrote of its shape on the map.'

The visitors glanced at the walls of books, at the definitions stacked from the floor to the ceiling. There was an answer to everything here. Zoellner had returned to his work.

‘We've heard a lot about you,' Gerald ventured. His neck reddened out of respect. ‘I'm pleased to meet you.'

‘My name has travelled? I imagine it has. I've slaved my guts out. Now I'm busy.'

He put his head back down.

Sasha laughed. ‘Why is he suddenly so grumpy?'

‘He tells me,' Biv whispered, ‘the future is tense. But I think he occasionally likes the sound of words. He likes hearing them after seeing them so much.'

North paid for a 1913 Russian Baedeker, a street directory of Moscow, and a Russian phrasebook.

It was raining outside: European rain. And it multiplied the images yet again, complicating the most simple memories; and their taxi driver happened to have the foulest Cockney tongue they had come across in their travels.

‘I'll tell you…' Kaddok had to speak up, ‘we saw excellent newspaper photographs of English teams standing on top of Mount Everest, and weight-lifters breaking heavy world records. They can lift a small English sedan over their heads. On display too were the world's fastest car and motorbike. These were—'

‘Where's this?' Garry looked up.

‘And spaghetti,' said Gwen. ‘They had spaghetti because it's long. It's unpredictable.'

‘The Exhibition of Extremities,' Kaddok wheeled around trying to find Garry. ‘Government-sponsored. Very interesting; I recommend it.'

‘No thanks.'

‘It sounds like an Exhibition of Simplicities,' Hofmann drawled.

‘Did they show examples of Extreme Moderation?' Violet chipped in. ‘They're the world champions at that.'

‘The English are all right,' said Gerald gently.

‘I can see it now,' said Hofmann. ‘Abstract paintings and two-tone music scores mixed in with Molotov cocktails. I don't know which they find more extreme.'

‘They did,' Gwen looked disappointed. ‘How did you know? We thought it was good.'

‘Oh come on!' said Hofmann. ‘We're not stupid.'

Borelli had become subdued again, so Louisa pinched his elbow.

‘I could keep travelling,' Sheila sat up, ‘every day of my life. There's so much to see.'

‘Well, I'm sick of it. Always stop-go, stop-go,' Sasha cried. ‘I'm not used to this life. I really am not. I don't think anyone is.'

‘It's a bit hard to know what's happening,' Borelli frowned. ‘No, I'm serious!' he said when North laughed. ‘Something very funny happened today.'

‘How long have we been on the road?'

‘Lummy, let's see.'

They couldn't work it out.

‘But it's interesting. Sasha, listen to me. Don't you think?' Sheila leaned forward. Her earnestness resembled love. ‘We've seen things you couldn't have imagined. I think everything's interesting. I thought of being an air hostess once. I've even made the necessary enquiries.'

Experienced air travellers, they turned to her: sadly enlarged eyes, her bedroom pallor, cardigan with opal brooch—a badge from a different age. And strange pale veins on her throat and forehead stood out, tributaries of a remote, rarely visited country.

‘And don't we have a nice group? Above average, believe me it is. We couldn't wish for better. It can make such a difference.'

She glanced—without meaning to—at Sasha's hand resting on North's wrist.

‘How many marvellous people have you seen again after one of your innumerable trips?' Hofmann asked and returned to his magazine.

‘Ken!' said Louisa. She touched Sheila. ‘You must excuse him. He's not very nice.'

‘But this happens,' said Sheila brightly, ‘when a group gets to know each other. People start telling the truth.'

But she began blinking, glancing around.

Turning to Violet, Sasha asked, ‘You're very quiet. What have you been up to?'

‘I'm having an OK time,' said Violet. ‘It could be worse.'

‘Hey, cheer up,' someone said.

‘What?' Gerald looked up. ‘Oh I'm thinking of the things we missed.'

‘But you're never happy,' said Sasha. ‘I don't mean that nastily.'