tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23504004061505144572023-11-15T23:53:16.146-08:00Jack's Notestorontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-78560523580131314512020-03-21T07:11:00.004-07:002020-03-21T07:11:44.305-07:00The New Balance
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">If my name were replaced with a
number, in a prison or in a dystopian future world, the standard expression
would be that I’d been <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reduced</i> to
that number, by forces seeking to deny my humanity. But I often think it would
be an elevation to be assigned a distinct number. Most of us share our names
with other people, albeit not usually people we’re likely to run into outside
of a Google search. Our names brand us, they provide a basis for speculation
about our age and origin, a reference point for how we’re to be classified and
categorized. For some of us, the name helps, for others it doesn’t. I have a
solid-sounding kind of name, so solid-sounding that some might suspect an
attempt to hide something, but that aside, a name that probably works in my
favour overall. But I resent my lack of control over these effects. I resent
knowing that people detect some subliminal link between me and the other Kevin
in the office, although at least he's a decent guy; between me and their second
cousin; me and Kevin Spacey (I didn’t like that one even when he was merely a
self-satisfied actor, obviously there’s no reason to like it any better now). I
dislike that my name lands me in the middle of the alphabet, as if charged with
being inconspicuous. If we all had numbers instead, you still couldn’t avoid
similar echoes and implications – oh, you have three fours in your number, so
do I, isn’t that weird – but I think their meaninglessness would be clearer to
most of us, excepting the obsessive numerologists. The way I imagine it, we
could perceive each other directly, without such a distorting filter. Once we
got over the transition, I think it would be great for relationships, for
individual well-being. I’m sure I’d be a little happier anyway.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">But I know I’ll never evade my
name, or anything attached to it. I can’t imagine faking my own death, or
voluntarily dropping out or cutting back or pulling over. I’m going to be on
this road until I’m forced off it, and sometimes I think I’ll be happy to accept
that. But not from these people. They’re a typically-constituted group of
regulators – one of them seeming alert and resourceful and potentially
dangerous, the other five just there for support, most of them suggesting
deficiencies of concentration, of awareness, of capacity, or all three. It’s a
circular table – I’m at the south pole, the others are all bunched above the
equator. One of them is saying: “Let’s go back to the email of June 26<sup>th</sup>.
Back to this sentence you wrote about getting rich off this thing. Do you want
me to read it to you again?” I shake my head. He says: “It doesn’t sound like a
meaningless comment, as you dismissed it before. It sounds like a specific
expression of an intent.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “But on the other hand, this
whole conversation is about just under fifty thousand dollars in profits. No
one would think that I regard fifty thousand dollars as getting rich. I mean,
you know how much I make.”</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Fifty thousand dollars isn’t an
insignificant amount of money,” says the questioner. “Many examples exist where
someone crossed a line and took chances for a relatively small amount of money.
Perhaps in some cases it was partly for the thrill of getting away with it. In
some cases they aren’t as financially secure as they appear. There can be lots
of reasons.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“None of that applies to me,” I
say. “I don’t obtain thrills from stock trades. That’s partly why I am as
financially secure as I appear.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Someone else says: “But you have
friends who are less financially secure. Like the recipient of this email, Mr.
Gardien. Mr. Gardien seems to have had plenty of motive to earn additional
money, the quicker and easier the better.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’d have to ask him,” I say. “We
don’t really talk about money. It’s a topic that guys tend to avoid.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Except that in this email you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> talking about money. It seems clear
that it’s referring to previous conversations about Mr. Gardien’s financial
problems and about a way to help him out, that is by helping him to make a
quick profit on stock trades. How should we read it otherwise?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Just as, pardon my language, as
bullshitting, throwing things around.”</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“But you did meet with Mr. Gardien
later that day. And he did place a trade in the company’s stock the following
morning.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’s just how things happen. You
hang out with someone and you start thinking about them and what they do and if
your mind goes a certain way then perhaps you act on it. It doesn’t mean we
talked about anything. Frankly, he’s the last person I’d talk to about my
business. He’s not that tuned in, if you want to know.”</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Maybe that’s why you wanted to do
him a favour.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t do that kind of favour.
You guys already asked for my tax return. You might have seen how little I
donate to charity.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’s not why we asked for your
return.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“But it tells you something. Just
like I’m telling you things.” Just like I can go on telling them things until
it gets dark, except that at this time of year it won’t get dark until after
eight o’clock, and most of these regulatory characters don’t like to work after
five. Even now, just after three-thirty, I think I can see them calculating the
time to wrap this up, to debrief and run for the train. I hardly ever get home
before seven-thirty, so it doesn’t matter to me; I may as well do this as be
sitting in my office, navigating the multiple impenetrabilities of being the
chief accounting officer. I don’t have many conversations about actions and
consequences, and the ones I have are too abstract for most people to
understand. It would almost be comforting to be accused of something immediate
and tangible, especially something motivated by reckless altruism, by kindness
or by pity. I can’t remember the last time I acted for such reasons. Even when
I do something apparently thoughtful, it’s invariably to provide myself an
advantage. I imagine it’s the same with anyone and anything, taking into
account the wide and subtle range of what might constitute advantages. With
Gardien, I think the advantage I gained by tipping him off about our stock –
which I did do, of course – was that I knew he’d be humiliated by it in one way
or another, or in most of the obvious ways. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Someone says: “Expand on what you
just said, about how you spend time with someone and perhaps that influences
their mind. That could mean certain things were conveyed almost without words,
for example with a nod or a wink.” I say: “I was just talking about presence
and influence. I have a colleague who reminds me of a particular singer, Donald
Fagen of Steely Dan specifically. I don’t mean he would seem to anyone like a
double, but something about his expression and manner brings Fagen to my mind,
if to no one else’s. Over the years, I’m sure I’ve listened to Steely Dan a bit
more than I would have otherwise, because of this regular nudge.” A couple of
them smile at this. I say, “I don’t know if you all know who I mean when I
refer to Steely Dan. It’s not a topical reference exactly.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Reelin in the Years,” says one of
the more junior participants, someone who’s barely spoken to this point, and
who looks like he might regret it now. I say: “Yeah, that’s right. You
shouldn’t stop at the greatest hits though, you should dig into the albums. I
guess that’s true of any good band.” They all wait patiently. I say: “Anyway, I
expect you could all look into your own lives and come up with similar
examples. Or maybe you couldn’t because the connections and triggers are so
deeply buried. Maybe there are things you’ve been doing your whole life without
ever acknowledging why.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’d like to stay focused if we
can,” says the person in charge.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Obviously I don’t know how his
mind works. Jack Gardien’s mind. I’m only suggesting it might have been the
kind of thing I just described. He sees me and starts thinking about me, what I
do, one thing leads to another, the next day he makes a trade.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“But it’s more specific than that.
You’d already told him it was a good time to get rich off this thing.”</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’ve always been a believer in the
company I work for. I couldn’t even guess all the people who made money in it
because of me. Not because I tipped them off to anything, just because of an
enthusiasm and positivity that conveyed itself to them. I wouldn’t be surprised
if some of you guys will be doing the same. That’s only if your employee manual
allows, of course.”</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I think some of them would like me,
if we were meeting under different circumstances. I think the one at the end
would like me a lot, although it’s hard to tell anymore, now that I’m at the
point where I keep meeting capable, assured women who could be my daughter, and
not even just on the premise that I was having kids in my teens. I’m coming to
think that age is the most intractable of divides – a man my age might forget
in bed that his partner’s from a different race or religion, but not that she’s
twenty years younger. The constant realization might be transporting or might
be toxic, depending on his relative degree of preservation, on her relative
energy and empathy. I think for me it would be fifty-fifty. Of course, I don’t
want to think about this now, although it seems comforting that I am – if I felt
myself to be in any sort of real trouble, I surely wouldn’t be thinking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quite</i> as vividly about fucking one of my
accusers.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">That’s not true of course – there’s
always room for that kind of speculation. I try to remember the last time I was
in a meeting room with no windows, with such a heavy atmosphere, heavy
lighting. I fail to remember – it might have been decades ago. I would never
hold a meeting in a room like this, not even if trying to wear someone down.
Any meaningful progress requires the clarity of light and air. It’s a noisy
room too, moaning through every pore, as if the heating and air conditioning
were located in the credenza behind me, or maybe it’s that the staff’s
collective despair at being stuck doing what they’re doing comes to rest here. There’s
a broken chair in the corner; I speculate that someone was chained to it and
fought his way free. I can read words on the white board, from a previous
meeting inadequately scrubbed away. It seems to have been one of those generic gatherings
about setting strategies and goals. I wonder how many people like me they need
to bring down in a year to satisfy their targets. I wonder if they believe the
stuff they said earlier about enforcing a level playing field for investors, or
whether they’ve ever thought about it enough to know how deeply they believe
it. I wonder how many extraneous things I can allow myself to wonder about
during this kind of interview, or whether I’m capable of stopping myself.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The person in charge says: “We’re
plainly not going to leave this meeting and invest in the company. Perhaps we
can stay focused on the specific conversation with Mr. Gardien.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Except, as I said before, it was
over a year ago. I probably wasn’t that focused on it even at the time. It’s
hard to recall much of it now.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“If you weren’t that focused, then
maybe you said something that with hindsight you wouldn’t have intended to
say.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t think I said very much at
all. You’ve interviewed him already. You know how talkative he is. I probably
couldn’t have shut him up for long enough to tip him off, even if I wanted to.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’s obviously not a serious
answer. We might as well speculate that you gave him what he wanted in order to
shut him up.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I didn’t say I wanted to shut him
up. I wouldn’t meet with him if I didn’t mostly like him. I’m happy just to
listen. I don’t see him very often anyway. It’s only been once or twice since
the time we’re talking about.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Three of them go for their notes,
in apparent competition for who can catch me out first. The one at the end
wins; she says: “He told us it was four times, and he provided the dates and
locations from his calendar. It seems all but one of those may have been
deleted from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your</i> calendar.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“They were never on there,” I say,
“if they happened at all. I don’t put all those social kinds of things on my
calendar. I just write them on pieces of paper, or remember them, or forget
them, or whatnot. I prefer to keep my calendar focused just on business.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“We didn’t get that impression from
reviewing your calendar. I don’t have it in front of me, but I’m sure it
contained many social occasions. I remember references to a few plays and
parties.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Those would have been
business-related. I often get invited to the premieres at the Whiler theatre
because our CFO is on the board and he passes the tickets on to me. Parties,
receptions, these come up from time to time. But I was talking about casual
get-togethers. Things where it doesn’t really matter if you remember to show up
or not.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“According to Mr. Gardien, you
remembered to show up for all four get-togethers.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That was good of me. But I don’t
remember them now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does he claim I gave
him tips on those occasions too?” No one responds; I take the silence as a no.
“It doesn’t matter whether I met him or not then,” I say.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It shows you have an ongoing
relationship. And a fairly close one. I know I have people I count as very good
friends, but see far less often than four times a year.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Yeah, but those things don’t
correlate. Some people just have schedules and habits that are more in step
with yours. Some people are better than others at keeping in touch.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’m trying to project a slightly melancholy
sense of distance, as if I’m simultaneously working on several demanding
projects in my head, and can’t really comprehend anything that’s going on here
except as a pesky distraction from that activity. I don’t want to project fear
of course, but then I don’t feel any. I remember a former colleague who was
summoned here to explain why he signed his name on a prospectus that failed to
mention a major ongoing lawsuit; he vomited before and after, and told me he
literally shit his pants at one of the questions, just a little bit. I imagine
he couldn’t have appeared more guilty if they had a video of him picking
pockets. Even then, he ended up settling the case, giving up $20,000, accepting
a reprimand and some short-term restrictions on what he could and couldn’t do.
After that, his career picked up speed because people thought he was a
battle-hardened badass. More often, people come in for interviews like this,
and never hear another word about it. It’s not easy to prove violations of
securities law. The only clear thing is that capital rushes on, the mightiest
river in the world; no one remembers or cares that someone took an illegal piss
into it upstream. The funny thing is that about twenty years ago, I seriously
thought of applying for a job at this place. I think I thought it would be like
being a cop. Now it seems more like being a garbageman, and with a truck that
keeps breaking down. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I know they make a special effort
to find cases of insider trading and stock tipping and, as the phrase goes, to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make examples</i> of them. They like to
claim that the market should be a level playing field, and that when people
receive advantages because of their positions and connections, it undermines
confidence in this concept. This seems utterly naïve to me. Perhaps actual
playing fields are perfectly level; if so they’re the only thing in life that
is. Instead of trafficking in sentimental ideals, it seems to me they should be
helping people see the stock market for the deranged cesspit that it is. But
this isn’t the time to go into that. Instead, I say: “Look, I don’t mean to
sound unsympathetic. Obviously I support the work you guys do. I don’t want to
be adversarial about this – that’s why I came today without a lawyer. I
understand the principle you’re defending. But there’s nothing to see here.
Obviously I could have been more careful in that email, maybe I could have been
more careful when I met him that night. But none of us operate like military
installations, and even if we did, intruders would still get in, or our systems
would still be hacked. That’s all it is. The idea that I passed inside
information on to Jack Gardien and basically told him to buy our stock to make
a quick profit just isn’t credible. And if he swore on a high-rise of bibles
that it happened that way, it still wouldn’t be credible. Frankly, the more he
says something happened, the less likely it is to be true, because he’s a
person who remembers his lies and fantasies more clearly than he remembers anything
else.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I wonder what they all keep
writing. It’s all being recorded, so there’s not much point trying to
transcribe what I’m saying. But they’re probably transcribing it anyway; it’s
easier than actually listening. No one speaks for a while, until the leader
does. She says: “What do you mean, you could have been more careful when you
met him that night?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I said <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">maybe</i> I could have been. But maybe that’s not true. Like I said, I
don’t remember the conversation, why would I? For all I know, I just said I was
tired and there was a lot going on at work. Maybe he took a lucky guess that
whatever I was working on would make the stock go up. You know, thinking about
it now, that’s probably exactly what it was.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Except that this was a very large
trade for him. As we’ve discussed, he financed it by going into debt. It
certainly seems he had good reason for believing it would pay off.” I shrug.
“He probably just decided it was all or nothing. He’s not the most rational
person. That’s why he’s in the situation he’s in.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It amuses me to paint Gardien as
this pathetic, irrational loser who only gets by on scraps from someone else’s table.
Actually he’s helped us out a lot over the years – making introductions,
bringing in opportunities, taking on things no one else wanted to. We stopped
giving him work because someone caught him looking at child pornography on his
laptop, in our offices. Actually we only had one person’s word for it – for all
I know, Gardien was actually looking at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National
Geographic</i> – but we couldn’t take the chance. I know I didn’t share this
with anyone outside the company, but word probably got around. He never mentions
to me what happened, but I see his continuing preoccupation with it in his
interactions with female servers, or in his references to women he says he’s “working
on,” or fantasizing about working on. He wants me to think “hot” women are an
all-consuming obsession for him, and he doesn’t mind if that exposes him to
other kinds of allegations, which of course they do, but he’s apparently
calculated that even if time’s up for the outdated leering masses, he can’t
afford to let it be up for him. Usually I just stick to uh-huhs and other token
signs of engagement, and I know he’d prefer a more full-blooded reaction, a
greater show of affinity with or even jealousy at his supposed Hefnerism, but I
don’t have those kinds of performance skills. Anyway, I’ve been giving him more
than he deserves, because I’m certain he hasn’t slept with anyone for years, at
least not without paying for it. It’s all in the past now because we’ll never
spend time together again, not after I helped him out by tipping him off that
it was a good time to buy our stock, and the little fucker ended up ratting me
out about it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“What do you mean,” someone asks,
“that’s why he’s in the situation he’s in?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I won’t cross the line of
mentioning the child porn, at least not at this point, although I’d be happy if
they found out about it from someone else. I say: “He had a good career for a
while and then he messed up. You can ask around and find out for yourselves. At
this point he’s desperate to get something going. I’m certain the anxiety
affects his judgment. It certainly affects his credibility.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“We’re not particularly interested
in his overall history, nor in yours. Of course we’re aware of the issues you
raise, that people remember things differently, or perceive things differently
as they happen, but I don’t think we need to go back over decades in order to
assess that.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Obviously I’m not telling you how
to do your job,” I say. “But I think that’s not entirely true. What Gardien is
now, it’s very much the culmination of what he’s been and done in the past.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You mean, in the same way that it
is for any of us?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Well, more so for him. Most of us
have some ability to reinvent ourselves periodically, to adapt to new
situations and needs. I don’t think that facility’s as advanced in him.” This
seems very funny to me, to suggest they might as well regard Gardien as
something less than human, but they don’t take it that way. Everyone’s silent
for a while. I refill my glass from the water jug. They’re all watching, so I’m
glad my hand isn’t trembling. My phone’s on the table in front of me, in
airplane mode. I check the time. It’s almost four – I’ve been here an hour and
a half. When they set this up, they said it should only take an hour. I think
most of them are ready to wrap it up. I try to remember what’s on my calendar
for tomorrow; I consider picking up the phone and checking on it now. I don’t
end up doing it. I think about the time when I was driving too fast and I
braked too late and nearly hit that woman and her kid on the crosswalk. It was
over thirty years ago, but there’s never a week I don’t think about it. I’m
certain my front bumper touched the kid. The woman kept walking, barely even
glancing in my direction, as if Death was always sniffing around her, and she
didn’t want to encourage it further. I remember her as having the saddest face
I ever saw, although I only saw it for a second or two, and I think I was
seeing an alternate reality more clearly than the actual one - an alternate
reality in which I’d killed two people, and I had alcohol in my blood, and I
was going to jail, unless I killed myself to avoid it. I even saw the exact way
in which I’d kill myself, by jumping into Lake Ontario. Ever since then, I
regard the lake as if it held monsters. Every meeting like this, every occasion
when I feel in potential jeopardy, seems to me an elaborated replay of that
moment, an attempt by time and fate to close that miniscule distance between me
and the kid, making a lifeless carcass out of him and a disgraced, despised
monster out of me, wiping out everything I ever did or ever tried to do. Of
course it’s a wretched thing to carry in my head, but on the other hand, I also
know the past is the past, and that nothing came of it, and that therefore
nothing will come of this – I feel the “therefore” is justified, that it’s
basically a matter of mathematical equation, even if I can’t demonstrate how
that actually works. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I remember another occasion when I
was involved in breaking the securities laws – when we knew that our investment
in Venezuela, our largest asset at the time, was probably going down the tubes,
and we did the same thing as my crap-pants colleague, we issued a prospectus to
raise money, without adequately disclosing what we knew. Cedric and I basically
looked each other in the eye and acknowledged what we were doing and that it
was wrong and that we might pay for it later, but that for now we needed to
raise the money and this was what we had to do. The financing closed and we got
the money and then a couple of months later we couldn’t keep our Venezuelan
fuck-up under wraps any more, and we put out the news, heavy with spin about
what we knew and when we knew it, and our stock price went down twenty per cent
in a couple of days. We were certain the regulators would smell a financial rat
and come after us, but we never heard anything. A few months after that, we got
some good news from somewhere else and our stock went back up, and we stopped
worrying. But during those few months, I would see two kids before me on that
crosswalk, two deaths, perhaps even two suicides of atonement. Sometimes I
would see four kids, or eight, or a limitless line of kids, their broken
identities to be revealed to me in the future, at other particular low points
in the poisonous, unprincipled life I should have forfeited. Sometimes I didn’t
even think I was driving too fast, and that I had plenty of time to brake, but
chose not to, because I knew I’d need this memory and all that I’d subsequently
constructed on and around it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Is there anything else,” comes the
question, “that you’d like to share with us today, any information you think
might be useful, anything you would choose to voluntarily provide?” I wonder
what they’d do if I told them about the woman and the kid and the kids. “No,” I
say, “I think we’ve covered everything pretty well. I’m happy to come in again
if you think of other questions, anything you missed.” The person in charge
looks individually at all her colleagues, allowing them a last chance to speak
up, chime in, unleash the interrogative missile to finally rip me open. No one
has anything. “All right then Mr. Whitland,” she says, “thank you for coming
in. We do appreciate your time today.” I decide to be ridiculously magnanimous.
“We all rely on the work you do,” I say. “I may not enjoy this particular
instance of it, but I realize that if meetings like this never took place, and
that if the fear of them didn’t exist, then the shape of our markets would be
very much worse than it is.” “Thank you again,” she says. Everyone stands up
and then no one knows the protocol for who leaves first, so we all stand there
looking dumb. The person in charge indicates I should go first; she shakes my
hand at the door; the others follow suit, all chanting that they were pleased
to meet me, some of them more compellingly than the others. One of them
accompanies me to the elevator. I don’t get to see much of the place, just a
few offices and work spaces, all also far removed from natural light. I see
piles of yellow files and piles of red files, and just to make conversation, I
ask: “So would this meeting most likely be recorded in a yellow file or in a
red file? Or are there other colours as well?” The question obviously rattles
him; perhaps he spontaneously imagines a future situation in which a watertight
case against me collapses because my lawyer is able to dramatically reveal that
at this early stage in the proceedings, I was mistreated by the colour coding.
He says: “The files are used for lots of different things.” He stands at the
elevator until the doors close on me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I leave the building, cross the
road to a parkette, sit on a bench. It’s funny, because just a few days before,
I was wondering why anyone ever has the need or the desire to sit on a bench,
assuming they’re not physically frail, or have any kind of agenda in life. I
exempt people sitting to use the phone, or even people who are reading,
although I’ve never encountered a piece of reading material that wasn’t most
effectively consumed in relative peace and isolation, if you’re truly
interested in consuming it. I think most people who read on benches do so
because of desiring to be regarded as the kind of person who reads on a bench,
and to be the recipient of whatever heightened interactions they imagine might flow
from that, if fate is kind. Misguided as that seems, I still understand it
better than people who just sit and stare. I’d respect someone who was applying
the full depth of their senses to his or her surroundings – seeing and hearing
and smelling and perhaps in some way I don’t understand even tasting and
touching the ground and the sky and everything between the two with a passion
and intensity I don’t possess; no doubt such a person would need to sit down
constantly, because the force and majesty of the revelations would make it
impossible to stand for very long. But the people I observe sitting on benches
plainly aren’t doing that. I doubt they’re even composing shopping lists, or
planning their TV viewing for the night, or recalling the great highpoints of
their lives. I think in one way or another they’re hoping for obliteration, for
a way of evading the tragedy of having to get up and move on. That’s what I
feel in myself now. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I sit on the bench for over five
minutes, an eternity really. Then I call Cedric. I haven’t told him the
allegations are true; I’ve been insisting it’s all based on bullshit. I know he
doesn’t believe me – I couldn’t respect him if he did – but for now he can
afford to pretend he does. I tell him I don’t think it’s going anywhere. He
says again that I should have taken a lawyer with me, no matter what I felt
about it. I say: “Cedric, I promise you, I did fine, I just told the truth, no
more no less.” He says: “When the fuck has that ever worked for anyone?” I give
him a bit more colour on the meeting, or a bit more specificity on its absence
of colour. He says again: “You should have taken a lawyer. They may be jerking
around, but sometimes that’s all it takes to come. Of course, they jerk around
so much they’ve got nothing left to come with, but once in a while they still
force one out.” I don’t care for this kind of talk; I don’t see how it helps me
to regard the securities commission’s enforcement branch as a penis, whether flaccid
or not. We move on to other things; he updates me on a meeting I missed, asking
me some questions that came up and that he couldn’t answer. People get to be
chief financial officers in different ways. Some climb up there from the
inside, by knowing more about the company’s finances and accounting and systems
than anyone else does. Most of the time though, they come in as stars:
established practitioners of financial wizardry, or of magnificent investor
relations, or just as a friend of the CEO. Sometimes, that works, like a
prefabricated roof that gets snugly lowered onto a building frame; sometimes it
only stays in place for a while before being blown off, a big exit package tied
to its shaky rafters. I’ve already worked under three CFOs at the company, so
I’ve seen all the variations, survived them all, because whatever they thought
of me personally, they could tell I knew more about the company’s financial
statements than anyone else ever would, and would always deliver them on time,
and that made up for everything else, because even if no one really gives a
shit about a company’s financial statements in the normal run of things, they
start caring when something goes wrong. I get along well with Cedric. He’ll
never promote me - he doesn’t see me as someone who should be overly visible to
the outside world, but rather as a creature of the dark, herding the other bats
– but he gave me larger raises than I’d had before, and he’s honest about our
relative strengths and capacities. I like it, but I also realize that to put it
as he might put it if he were talking to someone else, he’s been subtly sawing
off my balls.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">So I’m giving him the answers to
the questions and after a few minutes he says: “This is making my head hurt.
You call them and take care of it. Don’t do it tonight though, go home early
for once.” It’s already five o’clock, but he’s right, for me this would count
as going home early, very early. I’m tired: from waking up at 5 am today; from
spending most of the morning in my office thinking through possible questions
and optimal responses, even memorizing several such responses down to the
letter and the cadence, although I didn’t end up using anything I’d memorized;
from withstanding those hungry eyes on me in the meeting room; simply from not
collapsing. Lies are heavier than truths; anxieties weightier than certainties;
they sap our energy like bandits tapping into fuel lines. But I don’t want to
sleep, not for hours yet. If I go to sleep, I won’t be awake to tell myself how
well I did, and then maybe when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t be sure. The whole
point of getting through that meeting, the whole immediate point anyway, was to
stay awake afterwards, and not a sluggish, mediocre awakingness either. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I reflect on how small my life has
become. I have a job that’s bigger than most in its demands and compensation; I
get on a plane roughly once a month, always in business class; I give speeches
several times a year and I’m on two professional committees. Two years ago, the
institute of accountants named me as a “Fellow” for my services, so that I now get
to put “FCPA” after my name instead of “CPA” – I received over three hundred
expressions of congratulation, if you count the people who clicked on hearts
and thumbs and suchlike. Not long after that, someone from one of the
accounting magazines called and said he wanted to interview a cross-section of
“noteworthy accountants” on how they “find balance.” I asked him what he meant
and he mentioned other people he’d talked to who ran marathons, or spent
several weeks a year alone on the top of a mountain, or who practiced
ventriloquism, or grew the country’s biggest tomatoes. Half the things he listed
sounded like stunts perpetrated for the sole purpose of being well-positioned
for such a lifestyle feature. I told him I had nothing, I couldn’t even
pretend. He said maybe that would be interesting in itself, to include someone
who was still looking for the right balance. I told him that wasn’t the point –
I didn’t feel unbalanced, if that meant needing to bulk up some part of my life
that had become malnourished. I said: “If you sit on one end of a seesaw and
you’re so damn heavy it doesn’t leave the ground anymore, and the other end is
sticking way up in the air where no one can get to it, then in effect it’s not
a seesaw anymore, it’s just a weirdly designed chair. If you stay there long
enough, you forget it was ever a machine that could do anything else.” He said:
“Perhaps, but it’s not a very comfortable chair.” I said: “Well, if you get
paid well enough for sitting there, you can afford to buy a cushion.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I don’t know why people think
balance is necessarily a virtue anyway. We don’t expect people to maintain a
balance between petting dogs and eating them. The human spectrum of possibility
is vast – you might think you’re fine-tuning your place within it, but it’s
just like drifting in the middle of the ocean and kicking yourself a few feet
to the east; maybe the waves carry you immediately back, maybe you still die. You
might pick two spots and find balance in navigating back and forth between
them, but the scope of that recurring journey is dwarfed by the untaken
journeys to all the other unvisited or undreamed of spots, none of which would
change anything anyway. Some people think I live a big life – in particular,
they still regard airports with romantic idealism – but the effort of crossing
great external distances requires abandoning what might otherwise be sustained
back where you started. All is relinquishment, or sacrifice if you choose to
view it that way. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It appears to me now that I’ve
relinquished any ties with people who might otherwise be here to drink with me,
to celebrate with me if I chose to frame it that way. Perhaps Eliza would come
if she were available, not busy, but outside our scheduled times she’s never
available, always busy. Just like an accountant, I speculate about constructing
a spreadsheet of all the people I’ve plausibly called friends over years, to
track how many dropped away due to my apathy, or to theirs, or to relationship
stagnation following a change of location, or a marriage, and so on. The
logistics of this exercise occupy me for quite a while, as I muse about the
core definition of a past friend, the probability of discrepancies between my
perceptions and theirs, the likelihood that I’ve forgotten many of the people
who should be on the spreadsheet, and so forth. I wonder what would be an
acceptable distribution of culpability; I wonder how many lost friends I would
have chosen to have kept, especially if (say) their unsuitable and limiting
marriages and entries into parenthood could have been undone. The truth is
though, I’d only want them to have stuck around as vague, intermittent
presences, like background extras, and then on my own terms. This would be
another example of my grievous lack of balance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">By now I’ve been sitting on the
bench for twenty minutes, surely for long enough to attract suspicions of
vagrancy, if I wasn’t wearing such a good-looking suit. I decide to call Eliza,
although she hardly ever picks up. This time she does. “I was about to call
you,” she says, an obvious lie. “How did it go in there?” I spend a few minutes
summarizing my impressions. I say: “It does make you feel vulnerable though, you
realize how quickly you could lose everything, if all the forces turned against
you.” I don’t know if I really felt that; I’m probably only saying it to get
some sympathy. She says: “You mean like one of those actors who’ll never get
another job because they went over the line with someone fifteen years ago.” I
say: “Yeah, you could put it that way.” She says: “But then you have plenty of
other actors who used to be sort of famous but now never get jobs either, just
because the world left them behind. Most people fade away for one reason or
another.” I say: “So you’re saying I should be cool with it, because if I’m not
brought down for abetting insider trading, it’ll be for something else, maybe
just because I can’t cut it anymore.” “You know,” she says, “it’s probably
better to think that way. You’re probably one of the exceptions though. You’ll
be one of those hunched-over veterans that everyone comes to as a guru,
interpreting the big accounting books like they were faded parchments someone
dug up in a cave.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “All I feel like
interpreting tonight is the bottom of a glass. I was hoping maybe you’d join
me.” She says: “If I’d been thinking, I would have tried to work it out, but
it’s too late now. The show ends at ten thirty, as usual. Then I’m going over
to Nora’s because you remember we switched things around last week. I can try
to switch it back if you want though, she’ll understand. But by then you’ll
probably be asleep anyway and it won’t matter.” I tell her it’s fine. She says
she loves me; I respond similarly; we end the call. At this point it would be
easy to say to myself that I should never have entered into a relationship with
a polyamorous woman who already had a girlfriend. But even now I don’t really
think that – overall, it’s only a half-commitment, no matter that she claims to
feel it as a full one, concentrated into a tighter time and space. On the
whole, I appreciate the lighter demands more than I care about the dilution of
the benefits. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I scroll through my contacts,
looking for ideas. I call Chris, one of the guys who reports to me, the one who
rather reminds me of Donald Fagen. I haven’t told him what’s going on – he
thinks I was at a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dull committee
meeting. He assumes I’m calling to check on a memo he’s been working on, and he
launches into a long explanation of why he’s not further along. I’m not really
listening, but I still detect a couple of technical problems in what he’s
saying; I save them for later. I tell him not to worry about that, that I’m
only calling to see if he’s up for a drink. “Jesus,” he says, “what’s up?
You’re not quitting are you?” I say: “This is something people do, have a few
beers after work. We may be accountants but we’re people too.” He says he’ll
have to check with his wife because she’s been home all day with the kids and
she gets mad at him if he even misses his regular train and takes the next one,
fifteen minutes later. “But she’ll understand,” he says, “when your boss makes
this kind of offer, you have to say yes. I’ll call you back.” Of course, I know
Chris is married with two kids, although I don’t know their names. But to me
it’s just data, like his height and weight; actually not even as interesting as
his weight, because I eat sparsely and healthily myself, and the junk food he
eats at his desk disgusts me, especially as he grows larger by the month,
becoming more like a memory of a body than an actual one. I don’t understand
what it is to give more of yourself to another person than you can retain for
yourself. After enduring childhood and school and college and finally becoming
some sort of viable adult, I don’t understand why you’d so quickly squander the
resulting freedom by marrying and having children and then becoming one of the
primary things <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i> have to endure.
I’m fifty now, and I still feel it’s too soon for that, if I wanted it at all. I
guess it’s a measure of your participation in society, perhaps of your
credibility within it, and I understand some people feel a need for it, but to
me it’s one of the needs that marks us as animals, and so I don’t respect it,
any more than I respect myself every time I take a shit. Of course, I have to
keep that to myself, because people aren’t too objective about themselves,
least of all about their kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve met Chris’ wife a couple of
times – I don’t remember her name now either. She’s a large, pale woman, with
piercing eyes that you never want to look into; she has no sense of humour,
only seeming happy talking about her children and her house and the difficulty
of finding a parking space. I imagine him on the phone with her now, insisting
he won’t be having a good time, that he’ll be indulging me, and it could be
good for his career, and after all this hardly ever happens, and he deserves a
break once in a while just like she does. Then, because I always try to be
aware of all the possibilities, I imagine that she doesn’t care what he does,
that she’ll just dump the kids on someone and hook up with someone else for the
night, because in this passing fantasy of mine they’re swingers, and all the
conformity is just an act. Maybe even the weight gain is a special effect.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I start walking toward the office.
Rush hour already peaked while I was sitting, but it’s still busy with the big
clear-out: the thousands who know little of the city except the route between
the station and the office and the food court beneath it, and the time required
to transition between those key points; sprinklings of tourists disrupting the
flow by stopping to look at things and take pictures; higher-level types who
are obviously transitioning between meetings rather than going home, and who
mostly view the exodus as a mass admission of inferiority and failure; others
heading to the bars and restaurants, largely distinguishable by their greater
youth and beauty and by traveling in groups, often laughing louder than you
suspect their conversation really warrants. It’s a mild June day, the kind of
day that maximizes the street-level density. If it were any hotter, a lot of
these people would make the journey underground instead, using the subterranean
path system; in winter, virtually all of them would. I nearly always walk
outside, unless I’m wearing the wrong shoes. I suppose the path system is good
for the city – there’s enough commerce down there to displace several malls –
but I feel about it the same way I did about that meeting room: light and space
are fundamental to a sense of possibility, and to live much of your life
underground is a comprehensive denial of that. A lot of information gets
exchanged down there, mostly over low-quality lunches, but I miss out on it.
It’s one of the reasons I have this reputation for being rather austere and
distant. The other main reason is that, no matter how I behave, I’m the chief
accounting officer, and anyone labeled as the chief accounting officer is going
to be regarded as a somewhat stuffy, intimidating asshole, no matter the
evidence to the contrary . You could fill that role with a piano-playing monkey
and people would still say: Christ, another typically boring accountant. I
don’t think it’s fair in my case, but I accept it, and the reputation does have
its occasional uses.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I decide to listen to music, and
stand in a doorway while I put in my earbuds. I go to Steely Dan, because I
wasn’t lying about that before. I like the attitude; I like the aural shimmer
and polish. I put on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Cow</i> – I’ve
walked to that a hundred times, always wishing I had an opportunity to say to
someone: Drink your big black cow and get out of here. Actually I did say it
once to one of my staff at the end of a meeting; he just nodded and left and we
never talked about it again. Chris calls right at that point in the song. “It’s
all good,” he said. “I can meet anywhere, any time you want.” I haven’t been
thinking about a place. “I don’t want to stand somewhere and have to yell,” I
say. “But I don’t want to be in some abandoned relic of the 80s either. What’s
a happy medium?” He doesn’t know. “What about that place on King, Pi?” I ask.
He still doesn’t know. I say: “It used to be a meet market. I can even testify
to that from personal experience. It’s still there, I walk past it often, but
the crowds have moved on. As we’re not looking for the crowds, it might be
fine.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’d like to hear about the
personal experience,” says Chris. “But yeah, it sounds great.” I have to give
him directions. I tell him I’ll be there in five minutes; not to worry if he
arrives later. “I’ll just drink alone,” I say, “like a sad middle-aged guy. I’m
sure the performance will come very naturally.” I listen to Steely Dan for the
rest of the way, and I even walk in the wrong direction for a few blocks to get
in an extra couple of tracks: I often feel like doing this, but usually can’t
spare myself the time. The music inside Pi is completely different of course –
it’s bass-heavy and throbbing, an invitation of a kind I can’t decipher.
Everything from floor to ceiling is either black or dark red, intended to
connote high-end decadence. It’s a little busier than I expected, but there are
lots of empty tables, lots of spaces between people. I duly see some
middle-aged guys drinking alone, inevitably looking sad, whatever their real
emotions. I sit close to the wall, where I can watch it all. The server is
pleasant, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she made a face as soon as her back’s
turned. I order a beer, then I get lost in emails and lose track of time. Chris
doesn’t turn up for half an hour; he’s apologetic, I tell him it doesn’t
matter. I order a second beer; he gets the same kind. We talk about work –
mostly about detailed accounting issues. We’re changing the way we account for
our property leases because of a new rule and it’s taking a lot of time and
money. He’s staring at the servers’ legs – they’re all wearing black short
skirts and low-cut red tops. He says: “I like it here. I wish I’d been here at
the time you were describing, when it was busy.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You didn’t really miss anything,”
I say. “I mean, you’d have a lot of people trying to hook up, but the success
ratio wasn’t ever that high, not for anyone I knew anyway. It’s always been a
very time-consuming and inefficient way of trying to get anywhere, approaching
people and talking to them. Maybe it’s easier now with the Tinder and the other
apps. I’ve never even seen them, let alone gone on them. I suppose that makes
me old school.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He asks about me and Eliza, but I
don’t ever reveal much about her, certainly not about the structure of our
relationship. I tell him we’ve been together, in some sense, for three years
but don’t live together. I tell him a bit about Rosalie – I did live with her,
for eleven years. I ended it when I met Eliza; actually it was within days of
meeting Eliza, after the first time we slept together. I’d slept with several
other women during my years with Rosalie, and I might have liked one or two of
them more than I liked her – I certainly found them more sexually exciting –
but I knew they could never be at the centre of anything. With Eliza, I knew at
once that I’d redefine myself in relation to her, and although I wasn’t sure it
would be for the better, it just seemed inevitable, like an accounting exercise
you have to go through because of a new rule. I still feel like that, but it’s
not a feeling I’ve ever examined very deeply. Sometimes I think I should just
sit in a chair in a dark room, or whatever it takes to feel properly isolated
and focused, and force myself to think about the whole past and present and
future and the meaning and the lack of meaning of me and Eliza, but it never
happens, and would stand no chance of a meaningful outcome, unless the dark
room collapsed in on me and ended everything. If it’s true that love is
unequally distributed in any relationship, then I know I love her significantly
more than she loves me, but still not as much as most other women would require
or desire. I’d like to feel a more consuming love within myself, and to receive
something comparable in return, but between personal incapacity and the demands
of being a chief accounting officer for a company with lots of complicated
accounting, I don’t feel either is plausible. It really doesn’t matter much –
I’d like a greater love in the same way I’d like to visit Venice or to see more
foreign movies: genuine enough ambitions, but not marked by real hunger, not
likely to make it into my final voicing of regrets. The only hesitation is that
I don’t think many people would believe I was sincere in this assessment, and
so I keep questioning it myself, without ever fully knowing whether the
questions are my own.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The major thing, though, is that I
just like thinking about Eliza. I like her blue eyes and her messy straw hair
and her rather square chin and how her face oscillates between playfulness and
determination. If I were designing her, her breasts would be much bigger – I
mean, they’d exist, basically – and her legs would be thinner, and she’d be a
little shorter than me rather than a little taller. But then, if I were
designing her, she’d probably exhibit every sign of having been designed by an
accountant. When I think of her, every other kind of physical proportioning
seems boringly conventional, or forced, or crass. It’s largely because of her
confidence in herself – she couldn’t be so all-purpose certain if she didn’t
know more than I know. I’ve never been too interested in understanding what it
is that she knows, although I’ve perhaps paid a price for that, in
cancellations and unexplained absences and times when she’s not available even
though any other girlfriend in the world would be. But again, I don’t know how
often I’ve truly cared about any of that. If I really wanted to, I expect I
could get myself a girlfriend who would usually be there, and the idea seems
dull and stifling, probably to the point of being intolerable. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Chris says: “Funny how I asked
about the girlfriend you have now, and you ended up talking instead about the
one you had before.” And that’s just about it – to talk or think about Eliza
always ends up being about the act of talking or thinking about Eliza, or else
about someone or something else altogether, which of course is just a
roundabout way of talking or thinking about Eliza. I say: “Well, I just wasn’t
cut out for a wife and children. She’s too good for me, basically. That’s why
it’s hard for me to talk about her.” I ask him about his children, and the
conversation moves safely away. We order more beers. I talk a bit about some of
the other people on the team. Everyone loves the sense of unguarded access to
the boss’s thoughts, especially thoughts on other people who might constitute
competition. I’m careful not to give him anything too blunt or definitive. Time
passes pretty easily. Pi doesn’t get any busier, but the composition changes:
the people who look like they came straight from work leave, to be replaced by
people who don’t look like they ever work, or not at any occupation I could
identify anyway. We get some food along the way – I order a Caesar salad; he
gets chicken wings and fries. We both regard the other’s meal with quiet
disdain. The music gets a little louder, for no apparent reason; maybe it’s on
a timer. I tell Chris I’m in no hurry to leave, but if he needs to take off,
I’ll understand. We keep going. He’s staring at a woman in his eye-line; I go
to the washroom before I need to, so I can see her for myself. I have the
feeling she’d rather be at home watching TV, wearing something looser, not
feeling the need to squirm. Perhaps Chris was actually staring at the guy she’s
with, who looks rather like him, enough to kick off drunken mechanisms of
identification and fantasy. I ask him about it when I get back and he denies he
was staring at either of them, which isn’t a very satisfying answer to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say: “You can tell me your inner life if
you like. I’m essentially like your priest. As long as you don’t probe too deep
on the meaning of essentially.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “It’s a pretty
conventional inner life. I don’t trust it anyway. You’ll laugh, but I think I
believe the theory you hear a lot now, that we’re living in a computer
simulation, or something comparable.” I don’t laugh; I say I’d like to hear
more. He doesn’t have much more though, beyond the basic premise. He says:
“What’s scary now is that the simulation could be breaking down. That’s why
we’re getting irrational results, like Trump and Brexit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might have reached a tipping point of
sophistication, so that the program’s starting to collapse in on itself.”
Through most of this, he’s still staring at one or both of the people he denies
staring at. I say: “We might be reaching some kind of collapse, sure, but I
think we got there all by ourselves.” I ask: “If the program’s wearing out, how
come we don’t see more dramatic signs of it, like the sky suddenly turning
black, or buildings disappearing?” He says: “You’re analogizing with the kind
of computer programs we know about. But this is a program beyond our
understanding, so we can’t tell what’s intended and what’s a malfunction.” I
ask: “What’s the difference between this theory and believing in God? I mean,
they both sound like big exercises in faith and in explaining away anything
that doesn’t fit the theory.” He says: “God is all-powerful, but programmers
aren’t. Every game behaves in ways its creators don’t entirely understand. So
maybe one day we’ll figure out how to take over the program, or even to climb
out of it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I decide at this point that Chris
is finished, that I don’t want to work with someone who thinks this way. I
could admire genuine faith, or the genuine complete absence of it, but this
just sounds to me like a rejection of any responsibility to engage. Much as
it’s impossible not to think of something that you were just ordered not to
think of, it seems to me these ideas might cause him to psych himself into a
malfunction. And I’m getting angry at his monitoring of the couple behind me,
no matter that it amuses me to think I might be partly jealous. I raise it with
him again. He says: “Honestly, I don’t know. If it’s true, it’s just my eyes,
it’s not what I’m actually looking at and processing.” And I don’t like this
either. I’m thinking: this guy probably aspires to have my job one day, and
being the chief accounting officer certainly benefits from a certain amount of
abstract thinking, but it also requires the constant sense of working toward an
end result, and of mowing down all obstacles in the way of that, and of
insisting on certainties even when you know there aren’t any. I’m thinking now
that Chris’s recurring indecisiveness and failure to grasp nuances reflect an
inadequate grasp of reality; an inability to determine something as
straightforward as what it is that he’s looking at. It’s not easy just to fire
someone if you’ve never laid the groundwork with Human Resources, but I resolve
I’ll start on it tomorrow.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’m sure my expression darkens as I
make this decision, but not in a way he could possibly interpret. I ask: “What
about your kids? If the simulation’s breaking down, aren’t you worried about
what happens to them?” I immediately feel this is the wrong question, that I
should have changed the subject. He says: “Yeah, I worry about them. But I’m
also aware that they’re probably simulations too. It doesn’t make what they
feel any less real to them though. The truth is, we just wanted to go through
the experience of having kids. I’m sure there were many times in past centuries
when people worried the good times wouldn’t be passed on down. Sometimes they
were right, sometimes they were wrong.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’s demographically necessary I
suppose,” I say. “If everyone was like me, the population would be aging
helplessly and society would collapse in on itself. Or at least the benevolent
aspects of it would.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You must have thought about having
them though,” he says. But it’s not true. Perhaps that’s partly because I was
never attached to a woman who forced me to think about it. But some men have
told me they felt their own paternal urges, even without anyone else’s specific
intervention and influence; I never had that. I say: “Maybe I’m just selfish
and self-gratifying. Almost anything can be either a limitation or as a
strength. I’m not too interested in knowing why I put things in one category
rather than another.” He says: “So you wouldn’t be a good candidate for therapy
or meditation or anything spiritual.” “That’s exactly right,” I say. “I’m not
interested in the origins of my problems, and I don’t expect to find a
resolution to them. Fortunately, I don’t think they’re very large problems.” He
says: “Well, the financial picture must be very different, when you only have
to think about yourself.” He’s raised this with me several times, saying that
even though his salary would sound pretty good to most people, he finds it hard
to get by on it, implying the company should be responsible for offsetting his
wife’s overspending. He says: “You don’t even drive, you’re not funding a
second home, or blowing it all on extravagant vacations. I mean, do you
actually even spend it? Or are you a big secret philanthropist?” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I give to charity, but
nothing spectacular. You’re right about the other things. My hobbies are movies
and music, if anything, but in the age of streaming those don’t cost much.
Eliza doesn’t even like me to spend much money on her. I have a big condo, but
I paid it off years ago. So as an accountant you can guess at the overall
math.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So what are you going to do?” he
asks, with real urgency, perhaps seeing me as a runaway train, laden down with
useless cash, heading blindly into a wall. “I don’t have an answer to that,” I
say. “The good thing about having some money is you can afford not to ask
yourself various questions. Maybe that’s the best thing about it.” I don’t want
to talk about this though. I’m thinking now about wrapping it up, even though
I’m not ready to go home; he’s just getting too tedious and irritating. I’m
about to start working towards that, but suddenly he’s on his phone. “Sorry,”
he says to it, “I was wrapped up in conversation, I didn’t hear it ringing.” He
goes outside, so I don’t hear the rest. I look at my own phone, but almost
immediately stop looking at it. I shift in my seat to take another look at the
woman that’s holding Chris’s attention, or some unacknowledged sub-layer of his
attention. She’s young, but quite severe-looking, like someone who in thirty
years from now will be a senior rainmaker for the Conservatives. She’s
listening to the conversation at her table with no conviction at all. Maybe
she’s the world’s worst undercover cop. I take in the rest of the Pi scene, but
I don’t see anyone or anything that could occupy my thoughts for more than a
minute; inexperienced and underdressed vivaciousness doesn’t capture my
imagination any more. Chris comes back flustered, like when I’ve given him
something to do at work and he doesn’t get it. “Sorry boss,” he says, “I need
to go.” He’s already putting on his jacket, retrieving his briefcase from the
floor. “My wife’s freaked out because my daughter has a temperature. It’s
probably nothing, but she gets scared.” I can’t imagine how he’ll help to calm
her down, but I have no reason to object. “All right,” I say, as if entirely
sharing in the urgency, if not about to surpass it. “Just go, don’t worry about
the bill or about anything, take a cab and don’t worry about the expense
criteria, we’ll cover it, just go.” He nods and babbles something, then he’s
gone. I speculate on the odds that his wife just made the whole thing up to
drag him home. The server sees him running out; she comes over. “Is he all
right?” she asks. I say: “He remembered he was about to turn back into a
pumpkin. I know that usually happens at midnight, but he’s married with kids,
so they rescheduled it to several hours earlier.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Did he leave behind a glass
slipper?” she asks. I say: “No, but he did leave a glass eye. It rolled that
way somewhere. The cleaner will probably find it.” She says: “We can’t give it
back to him unless we know it fits him personally.” I say: “Does he turn into a
frog if it doesn’t fit? We went as far as I can go with this story.” “I don’t
know either,” she says. “Was that Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, I forget.” I
tell her it had to be Cinderella, because the Sleeping Beauty was asleep
through everything we were talking about. I add: “I was going to wrap it up,
but you’ve given me lots to think about, so I’ll have another beer.” She says:
“You’re going to sit alone, drink your beer and think of fairy tales.” I say:
“You know they all spring from our dark subconscious. Thinking about fairy
tales can turn into thinking about a lot of dark stuff.” She says: “That’s not
the mood we’re trying to create here, but you’re the customer.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">When she brings the beer, she says:
“Seriously though, was your friend OK? He seemed really freaked out about
something.” I say: “His wife wanted him home, something about one of the kids
having a temperature. I don’t know that it’s really serious.” She says: “But
you don’t know that it isn’t. I’ve run out of here a few times because my
husband called about the kids. A couple of times it was nothing, but once we
ended up going to the emergency room. I mean, kids are fragile.” I don’t have a
response to that, so she moves on. It’s almost nine o’clock now. I’m thinking I
probably got what I wanted out of him; by the time I get home, I’ll be ready to
fall asleep, so there’ll be nothing else to think about for this evening. I
scroll through my phone. People would be surprised at how many
accounting-related questions and demands can crop up after hours, although
that’s partly because we have investments on the west coast, and in Europe, and
in Hong Kong, and we receive a regular flow of financial information from all
those places, and then my team here in Toronto oversees how it’s all put
together. The company invests mostly in real estate, or in services relating to
managing real estate, but we’re also starting now to get into the marijuana
industry, because it’ll be legalized for personal use soon here in Canada, and
it’s gradually being legalized across the US, and they estimate potential
annual revenues could be in the hundreds of billions, although I personally
think that depends on unrealistic estimates of how many people will abandon
their existing shadowy supply lines, or will decide to become professional
stoners now it’s all out in the open. Anyway, marijuana gives us a whole big
baggie of new accounting problems – for example because we now own greenhouses
full of growing plants, and we have to come up with a way of valuing those
plants while they’re still in there swooning under the lights, so we can show them
on our balance sheet. A few years ago, to have been the recipient of so many
emails containing such large marijuana-related numbers might have been a red
flag for the drug cops and their secret surveillance techniques, but now it’s
just the new front line of commerce.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">So I have emails on that, and then
problems come out of Hong Kong almost on a daily basis, just because the people
we have there taking care of things aren’t that good, and then several of our
properties in Europe are under-performing and might have to be written down,
and the debates over that are endless, and we have our own problems here in
head office, because of rule changes, and because we installed a new system
that doesn’t work as well as we thought it would, and because two of my team
are on maternity leave, which I don’t particularly like on its own terms, and I
like even less when I envisage a near future where they’re back at work but
then regularly running out of meetings because a kid lost its favourite toy and
daddy can’t get it to stop crying. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
I’m going through all this and thinking: what’s the point? What did I mean when
I talked about money giving you the ability not to ask certain questions?
Shouldn’t I be aspiring to ask more demanding questions, and then to be able to
better afford the answers to them, if they’re the kind of answers that carry a
big price tag? I think to myself that maybe I’ll work this out right now, here
at this table. So I put my phone away, and I shift my position so I’m facing
the wall, and I close my eyes and try to let myself fall into the future, or to
rise up into it, I can’t decide which, but I try to clear my mind and be
susceptible to all influences. I try to enter the soul of the music and to
absorb it so it becomes a second heartbeat; I try to coax the beery heaviness
of my thoughts into becoming an alternative clarity. If anyone’s watching me, I
suppose I just look like a lonely old drunk who’s falling asleep, but I don’t
expect to be watched, and I don’t need to be understood, because I think it’s
starting to work, that I’m starting to sense a future I didn’t previously know
about, lying behind a door I hadn’t previously noticed, or perhaps behind
another door behind that one. I’m starting to sense it, but only the fact of
its presence; I can’t yet detect any of its contours or textures; I don’t know
if it’s familiar or alien. I keep trying, staring into my personal darkness,
into a space richer and fuller than the crassness I’ll be returned to when I
open my eyes, if I ever open them, if I need to open them to enter the future
that’s now so imminent and tangible.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Someone touches my arm. I open my
eyes. It’s the woman that Chris was staring at, that I wouldn’t have been
staring at if I’d been in his seat. She says: “I wondered if you needed some
help. It doesn’t look like you do though.” I say: “Oh, thanks. No, I was just
thinking actually. I know it probably looked strange. It was very thoughtful of
you to check on me.” She says: “It was partly because I noticed the other
person leaving very quickly, as if there was some kind of emergency, and then
you were by yourself for a while, and then you looked as if there was another
kind of emergency.” She talks very firmly and rather gratingly; it’s a voice to
go with her face, which at close range looks even sharper and potentially
intimidating. I feel though that she’s softer and warmer than she appears, and
that perhaps she often laments that she makes it too hard for people to notice.
I say: “Yeah, he left because of some kind of family thing, his daughter had a
temperature. I don’t have children so it’s hard for me to identify.” “I know
what you mean,” she says, “I don’t have them either.” I say: “And then I
decided, in this place of all places, that since I so seldom spend time alone
just thinking, that I would do it here.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“And now I’ve spoiled it,” she
says, although she doesn’t sound very contrite. “It just shows we’re not meant
to think big things, the universe will always find a way to stop you.” I say:
“No, I don’t think there’s a universe that’s plotting against us. That’s the
kind of thing my departed friend believes.” She looks at me quizzically. I try
to summarize his simulated reality theory; she listens very carefully, nodding
as if encouraging a nervous subordinate. “I’ve heard things like that before,”
she says. “But I think the world is real all right. I think it’s much more real
than we think it is.” I doubt that makes any sense. I say: “Anyway, I’ve kept
you away from your table for too long.” She says: “No,” he left, “I asked him
to leave. It was a lousy date. It was over after about five minutes and then it
just kept staggering on like one of the walking dead. Can I sit with you for a
while?” I only notice then that she’s already placed her drink on the table.
She sits and continues: “It was a second date. The first one was a bit
uncomfortable but I thought he had potential so we set up another one. But this
time it was all bad. Mainly because he was just so negative about everything,
his job, his family, the world. I kept thinking, what’s wrong with you, you’re
in this great place on a date with a beautiful girl and you’re not getting any
of it.” I don’t react to the self-assessment; it seems to me a little generous.
She says: “In the end I just asked him to go. He left and he didn’t even offer
to pay half. On our first date he insisted on splitting the bill. I know a lot
of women are OK with that, but I think the guy should pay on the first date,
what do you think?” I say: “I don’t know if there’s a rule, but if it were me I
would pay.” She says: “If it were you, you said that as if it never <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> you. Don’t you go on dates? I don’t
think you’re married somehow.” I tell her: “I have a girlfriend, I guess you’d
call her, but we don’t live together, it’s not exclusive. I could go on dates
if I felt like it or had the energy or whatever. I haven’t done it for a long
time though.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “Well, I date a lot. You
think that’s sad?” I don’t really answer. She says: “It’s probably pretty sad.
Guess how old I am.” I think she’s thirty-five, so I say “twenty-nine.” She
looks genuinely pleased, like this is already more than she got from the
aborted date. “I’m thirty-one,” she says. “I don’t know if I even want a
partner, it doesn’t feel like I do, but I keep going on all these dates, so I
must. Maybe I’m just addicted to the dates. What do you think?” I ask: “How
often do the dates go anywhere good?” She says: “I have a rule I don’t sleep
with anyone until we’ve been on at least three dates. It’s a very strict rule.
I break it all the time though. Especially if I drink too much.” I have the
feeling that might only take one or two drinks; she certainly seems excessively
liberated at this moment. She says: “You can ask me anything, I don’t mind.
You’d probably ask pretty good questions that I wouldn’t mind answering. I
don’t think you’d want to answer all my questions, but that’s OK.” I ask: “When
was your last proper relationship?” She says: “As in sleeping with someone say
more than ten times? I don’t know, a long time ago. Maybe never, I don’t know.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask her what she does for a
living; she says she’s a strategist – corporate, political, not-for-profit.
This doesn’t seem very plausible, but maybe she just assists the actual
strategists. I’ve had to deal with strategists a few times – boards or senior
management bring them in when they’re out of ideas. The strategists seldom
think of anything that hadn’t already been considered, but they provide cover
for the people who hired them, especially if things go wrong later. She doesn’t
seem very interested in talking about it, and she doesn’t think to ask me what
I do. She goes back to talking about her dating habits. She asks me: “What do
you think is the point at which you become promiscuous, statistically
speaking?” I say: “Maybe when you can’t remember everyone you had in the past
year. Or if that sounds too easy, in the past month.” She says: “So whether or
not you’re promiscuous might depend on how good your memory is.” I say: “If
your memory’s that bad, you won’t remember the inappropriate labels that people
put on you anyway.” She says: “I didn’t say anyone was calling me promiscuous,
I was just asking a hypothetical question.” I say: “I wouldn’t even use it as a
pejorative term. It’s just a thing a person can be. Like being tall or being
short.” Then the conversation gets silly over her inability to pronounce
“pejorative.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A different server comes over and
asks her if she wants to start over again. She laughs about that too. She says
to me: “You just want to be alone now right?” I guess a few minutes ago I was
thinking that way, but now I think I’m committed to following this through a
bit more. Basically, if you’re an unmarried man (and never mind how big an
asterix should be attached to that) in his early fifties, and a younger woman
sits down and almost immediately starts musing about her relative promiscuity,
you have to stick with it, if only for anthropological purposes. I’m not
someone who tries to impress himself on younger women, and I don’t feel too
comfortable with my contemporaries who do. It’s not just Gardien; I’m thinking
for example of Ken, who worked with me some twenty years<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ago and whom I still meet for drinks a few
times a year when he’s in town. Ken always wants to go to some new
“cutting-edge” place (although to me his use of that term undermines the whole
premise, belonging to a vanished age when exciting new prospects had to be
sliced open rather than swiped or clicked on) – he’s always researched this in
advance and narrowed it down to two or three suggestions, from which I then
pick whichever one sounds like the least obnoxious. He always makes a great
play of memorizing the name of the server (unless the server is male, in which
case he usually suggests moving on to the next place on the list) and using it
whenever she comes by, although he often gets it wrong; he asks her about her
favourite music, or her favourite new apps, and then tries to pretend he knows
what she’s talking about. If she feigns any kind of receptiveness to all this,
he’ll push to get some contact info, or suggest she might meet him some other
time. As far as I know, none of this has ever gone anywhere. It’s not that he’s
unattractive or threatening; he just doesn’t see that the bridge between him
and these younger women is little more than powder, incapable of being traversed.
Anyway, on the rare occasions he gets a phone number, he subsequently thinks
better of doing anything with it, or else he forgets. I seldom contribute much
to this – sometimes he berates me for being an inadequate “wing man” – although
it’s possible I have the opposite problem to his, that I don’t see crossings
and pathways that could plausibly bear my weight. I usually tell him I just
don’t see the point, then of course he says the interaction itself is at least
part of the point. Maybe I’m just more aware of the age and power imbalance
than he is; or put another way, less aware of it, if you see an age and power
imbalance as an exploitable resource. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I don’t think I need worry about
that here. If she’s talking to me now, it’s all because of her initiative. I
can’t even be accused of exercising whatever subtle coercion might lie in
simply looking at her, as Chris was doing. As long as I remain relatively
passive and resist being the first one to suggest anything, I’m exempt from all
the usual criticisms. So I say: “If you’re suggesting another drink, I’d be
happy to go along with you.” She says to the server: “He didn’t put that very
enthusiastically, but I think it was a yes. I’ll have another Chardonnay.” I
order another beer. After the server leaves, she says: “I don’t think you know
how to behave with me. It’s not just you, I have that effect on a lot of guys.
I think it’s because I’m an exceptional woman. Don’t you agree?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say: “It’s a big burden to be exceptional.”
She loses herself in her phone for a while. She says: “I’m sending a message to
this other guy to say I won’t be able to meet him. Not that I was ever
definitely meeting him. It was just a possibility.” She has the air though of
someone who might bludgeon others into offering possibilities; perhaps that’s
her most accomplished application of strategy. She’s plainly doing much more
than messaging a single individual, so much that I almost decide to close my
eyes again. Just before I do, she says: “I don’t know if he even remembered
that we might have been meeting. There’s always too much to remember. You must
forget meetings all the time.” She then gets me to talk about my work for a
while, but rapidly tires of it. “It’s funny that you’re an accountant though,”
she says. “You know accountants have a reputation for being boring.” I say I’m
aware of that. “Your friend looked more boring than you do,” she says. I ask
her if she was aware of him staring at her; she likes the question but says she
wasn’t aware of him, except as a general uninteresting presence who became
semi-interesting only by suddenly departing. “Some people have really dull
eyes,” she says. “They don’t see you that clearly, so they have to look harder,
but their eyes don’t have much impact, so you probably don’t notice.” I
question whether she could even see Chris’s eyes that clearly. She says: “If
they were worth seeing, I would have seen them.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I tell her he’s not really a
friend, that he works for me. I say: “And maybe not for long, I’m thinking of
firing him.” She likes the sound of that – I suppose it’s a core piece of the
strategist’s arsenal, to advocate lay-offs and firings. “Then he’ll already be
at home whenever his wife calls him,” she says. I can tell I’m reaching my
alcohol limit – her features are starting to soften, I feel the possibility of
entering into an enclosed space with her. This needs to become one thing or
another, I don’t really even mind which. I go to the washroom again. I enter
one of the stalls and sit there, just to sit alone. I’m thinking I don’t have
what I need to take this much further. For years now my sex drive has almost
exactly corresponded to what’s available; I don’t have much in the way of
leftover compulsion or desire. Sometimes I actually imagine it’s all over for
me and I’m on the verge of tipping into content abstention. Those thoughts
can’t live for long when Eliza’s around, but she might be the exception that
proves the rule, not that I know what that could really mean in this context. I
don’t want to find myself in some depressing scene of under-performance and
grating reassurance. I don’t know why I’m even thinking in these terms, because
I don’t think I want to have sex with this woman, or to do anything at all with
her really, but I have even less desire to turn my back on the possibility and
to go home alone. It wouldn’t be succumbing to temptation, or anything you
could express in such terms; it would just be following the logic of a route,
as plainly as not trying to leave a highway between off-ramps. I’m not
satisfied with this conclusion though, and I sit there for several minutes to
see if it changes. Then as I’m about to leave the stall, two guys come in, all
but yelling as they stand and piss, as if needing to make themselves heard over
waterfalls. They’re laughing over how some friend of theirs, called Mike or
Mickey, apparently bungled a “fucking sure thing” by being too drunk and
passing out at a key moment, waking up hours later, abandoned and without his
pants. I suspect it’s an incident from years ago that gets revived on a regular
basis, always yielding new reasons for celebration. I don’t want to see them
and I certainly don’t want to be addressed by them, so I wait until they’re
gone, but it takes a long time because one of the guys dribbles on his pants,
and that opens up a whole new round of raucous logistics. I wash my hands and
return to the table. She’s not there, but I don’t immediately assume she’s gone
– I imagine she’s also in the washroom, or outside smoking or on the phone. I
sit and wait for ten minutes, then the server comes by and I ask her about it,
but she didn’t see what happened. I go to the woman standing up front; she
listens to my description and says, “Yes, I think I saw her leave.” I ask: “Was
there anything notable about the way she left, you know, did she say anything,
did she look like it was an emergency, anything like that.” She says there was
nothing notable, not that she noted anyway.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I wonder then if I was in the
washroom for much longer than I realized, for so long that she’d be justified
in suspecting I was staying in there to avoid her, unless I’d been taken ill or
died, in which case she wouldn’t want any role in the subsequent hubbub. It
seems possible to me she’ll come back, so I linger over what’s left of my beer.
After that I accept reality and settle the tab. I suppose I ought to be
grateful that the vexing possibilities closed themselves down, but it’s
outweighed by shame, that perhaps she was just an impulsive woman who found a
way to amuse herself for a few minutes, with no thoughts of anything beyond
that, until perhaps she realized what was in my mind, and felt she had to make
a getaway. Or maybe Chris’s wife called to summon her away as well.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I stand outside for a while, as a
smoker would. Someone even asks me for a light, but I don’t have one. It’s
almost ten-thirty now; Eliza will be free soon. Perhaps she’ll call, to say she
thinks she should be with me tonight rather than with Nora; or perhaps she’ll
just go straight to my place without calling, and then she’ll be irritated if
I’m not there. But it’s not very likely, as she’d expect me to be asleep, and
not likely to be lively or stimulating if suddenly woken up. I don’t understand
my reluctance to go home, and I don’t remember feeling anything quite like it
before. I don’t need any more alcohol; I don’t expect anything else to happen,
or even want it to. I move to stand somewhere else, near the entrance to one of
the towers. A janitor comes out for a smoke break, joining a security guard on
the same mission. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but they’re nodding as if
over a grimly funny secret denied to the suckers who work there during the day.
A couple of guys in suits come out and head for a cab; maybe they’ve worked all
this time, maybe they just came back to pick up their briefcases after the same
kind of night I had. You can never really tell who’s truly important and
occupied and who’s just along for the ride. Much of the time, if you’re seeing
them at all, it probably means they’re not so important. I startle a passer-by
by seeming to lurk in the shadows, so I take out my phone and randomly mess
with it, knowing I won’t look as suspicious that way.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I put my earbuds back in, and
listen now to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Not for the first time, I wonder
whether Nick Cave would embrace the idea of having someone like me as a fan,
given my past and present lack of any plausible characteristics of a bad seed.
I doubt that Cave himself lives such a badly seeded life now – he’s a few years
older than I am – but as he’s the proprietor of a mythic space of his own creation,
it’s solely up to him how much time he chooses to spend within it. This is
something most accountants can only envy from a distance: a CEO or CFO can
choose to define much of their role as performing – for the media and investors
and customers and employees and probably in large part simply for their own
motivation – but for someone like me, execution requires an immersion and
inwardness that can threaten to erase any other sense of yourself. If
accountants have a reputation for being boring, it’s only in the same way that
blood and tendons and muscles might seem more boring – at least from a school
anatomy class kind of perspective – than eyes and ears, let alone breasts and
penises. Regardless, when I listen to Nick Cave, especially at his most gleeful
and unrestrained, I sense the possibility at least of proximity to badness, at
least of being one of the sordid characters in the background of a song, like
the barkeep in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stagger Lee</i> who says “<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">I kick motherfucking asses like you every
day,” although (I hope) without those then being noted as the last words I ever
get to say before four holes get put in my motherfucking head.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I walk to Bay Street and then walk
north for a few blocks. By now I mostly pass people who’ve been in the bars, or
who work late shifts, or who are down and out, with a regular flow of
inexplicable others who might have been imported just to fill the spaces
between the people you can make sense of. A couple of guys along the way
approach me for money, but the music is like rocket fuel and I rapidly leave
them behind. Light emanates from everywhere; storefronts and signs are crisper
and cleaner now than they are during the day, especially during a hot day when
everything and everyone verges on clomping together into a multi-textured haze.
Now I’m almost back where I started, a block from the securities commission, as
if they’d laid out a coffin for me, and here I am returning to it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I cross the road again, and now I’m
approaching the big open space in front of the city hall. I’ve been passing the
building for years, and so I never really see it now, except once in a while
when it shows up in a movie or TV show, repositioned for its supposedly
futuristic qualities. Actually now, it’s more like a long-outdated notion of
the future. There’s a saucer-shaped structure in the centre where they hold council
meetings, overseen by two curving office towers – from above they say it evokes
an eye, although that would only make any sense to me if the eye were
overseeing the city, rather than staring out into space. There’s a big square
where they set off fireworks on New Year’s Eve, and where dignitaries
periodically gather to pin medals on old soldiers or to kick off Pride month or
for other events of that nature, and where at other times you find people
hanging out in a rather desolate-seeming fashion. It’s almost empty now. I see
a couple standing right in the centre, kissing, perhaps getting off on the idea
that they could be seen from a thousand different windows. There’s a guy
sleeping on one of the concrete-slab benches; someone else foraging in the
trash; a few of those inexplicable others, just hanging around. I suppose I’m
one of them too, even to myself. Maybe I’m ready to go home now, I think. I sit
for a while, take out the phone, put it away again. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
are sounding better than ever at this time, in this environment. I’m feeling
proud and defiant, although I don’t know what I think I’d defying, probably
just the inner state I had before I put on Nick Cave. I wonder how my mood
would change if I switched to, say, Adele. I’m not that interested in finding
out. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Someone’s walking directly toward
me. I turn off the music, take out the earbuds. He’s a young, pale guy with
thinning hair and hungry eyes. He’s walking as an assassin might approach a
target, but I can see both his hands, and anyway I don’t worry about things
like that. He stands in front of me, the scuffed tips of his shoes almost
touching mine. He says: “Hey man, it’s you, I remember. You came to pay me back
right? You know you still owe me right?” I just stare at him. He says, his
conviction already faltering: “It was only twenty bucks but you still owe me.”
I say: “So what was it, I was desperate to get home and I had no money, so I
randomly went up to you and asked for money, because you looked like you were
loaded and ready to give it away, is that what it was?” He says: “No man, it
was because I was carrying and you didn’t have your wallet, and I was sorry for
you because I know when someone needs it, because I’ve been there myself.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’s not a bad story,” I say. “You
almost make me remember.” I don’t want to pull out my wallet, but I reach for
whatever’s in my pocket. It’s a five dollar bill and some change, maybe twelve
bucks in all. I try my jacket pockets too; some stray bits of paper fall out to
the ground, but no more cash. “You’ll have to settle for this,” I say. “Maybe
you were sorry for me that time, but not as much as you said you were.” He
takes it, saying: “You can give me the rest another time.” He asks if I could
throw in a cigarette, but I tell him I don’t smoke. He says: “What you doing
hanging out here anyway? Trying to attract the criminal element? This isn’t the
place, I can tell you better places though.” I say: “No, I’m not looking for
the criminal element. I’m just sitting, listening to music, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> listening to music. I didn’t feel
like going home, but now I will, now you and I are square.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’s all right, stay if you want
to stay, I won’t bother you.” This only means he moves back a little and his
stance becomes a little looser. “What’s your name anyway man?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You can call me Bob,” I say. He
says: “I can call you Bob, but it doesn’t mean that’s your real name.” He’s
very pleased at this deduction, smiling a yellowing mouthful. “That’s all
right,” he says, “call yourself whatever you want. I’ve sometimes been called
Speedy. Not for a while though, although I can still move pretty fast when I
have to. Sometimes I do have to move real fucking fast, you know what I mean?”
I say: “You mean running from the cops for instance?” He says: “No man, that’s
only in TV shows. You can’t run from the cops, they always catch you. In real
life I mean. I don’t watch as much TV as I used to. I’d like to though. Is HBO
still around or did they shut down?” I tell him I’m pretty sure it’s still
around, although I don’t have it myself. He tries to remember an HBO show he
watched in the past, but can’t give me a single coherent clue about what it
was. “You know what I’d like to do,” he says, “I’d like to go a drive-in movie.
I only did that once, when I was a kid. I don’t have a fucking car, but I’d
like to get a car, and then I’d like to drive in my car to a drive-in movie.
You know, on Cherry Street.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I’m pretty sure that
closed. I saw it in the newspaper. HBO’s still around but the drive-in theatre
closed.” He looks at me like I’m taking back the money I gave him. “Oh fuck,
man,” he says. “How am I meant to get there if it closed?” He loses himself in
rearranging his priorities. “Well, there must be a drive-in somewhere,” he
says. “Just another reason to get out of this shithole. I’d like to have a
farm, you know, a little community. I like people, I mean not all of them, but
most of them. Someone like you, you’d be fine. You could take off the tie, kick
back. Wander round butt-naked if you want, you probably wouldn’t be the only
one.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I stand up. “Anyway,” I say, “I
should be getting home. I’m tired, you know.” But then I start walking in the
wrong direction. He accompanies me, as I knew he would, as I suspect he will all
night if I let him. “I think I saw you<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>before,” he said. “This afternoon, walking down Bay. That was you
right?” I say: “It could have been me. Or maybe you just took a lucky guess.
Maybe you looked at the suit and figured there’s a good chance I was walking
down Bay at some point.” He said: “No, no lucky guesses, do I look like someone
whose life is full of lucky guesses. You were sitting over there” – he points
in the right general direction – “and then you got up and started walking down
Bay.” This all sounds very deliberate, as if he has ten more revelations of
escalating astonishment-value waiting in the wings. I ask: “Why would you have
noticed me in particular? Or do you have some weird memory that never forgets a
face.” He says: “It happens all the time, there’s all these people in the city,
in constant motion around each other. We’re passing by the same people all the
time, but we don’t notice them, they don’t notice us. Once in a while we notice
for some reason and we think it’s a big fucking coincidence, but that’s only
because we noticed it, unlike all the other big fucking coincidences we never
say anything about because we never noticed them.” He indicates a man walking
with a dog, a yellow Labrador radiating engagement with every surface and
contour. “I’ve seen that guy before too,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t have
remembered I saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">him</i>, to tell the
truth. I remembered the dog though. Sometimes the most memorable thing about a
man is his dog. Actually that’s often the most memorable thing.” I concede it
seems like a memorable dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’ll be thinking about that
now,” he says, “looking at faces on the street, trying to remember them and
spot them again later. That’s something I’ve done for you.” He might be right,
although I think it would be depressing to realize the extent of my recurring
unregistered proximity to lots of over-burdened people. I’d be more interested
in registering absence and distance than nearness. I don’t want to ask him any
questions about himself; there’ll never be an end to his responses. I wonder
how many people he latches on to in a day. Maybe I’m a more welcoming and
accommodating presence than I think I am, or more likely the isolation of the
night is its own accommodation. He says: “I’d love to have a dog, man. Just
think right now if it was me and my dog. But I have too much energy, I’m up all
night, moving. Dogs sleep twenty hours a day. We’re fundamentally incompatible.
You don’t have a dog either, right? You would have said so.” This amuses me: “I
haven’t told you anything about myself, so why would I have volunteered that I
have a dog?” He says: “You’d be proud, so you’d be telling everyone, like if
you were a movie star or you had special powers.” I say: “You’re all backwards
on that. Movie stars look for anonymity.” He says: “I’m saying if you were a
movie star who was here right now, instead of inside the fucking Four Seasons
or something. You’d only be here now if you wanted to be recognized, like some
kind of exhibitionist I guess.” I don’t see much point arguing.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’re right about the dog,” I
say. “I mean, I don’t know about the pride and everything, but it’s true I
don’t have a dog.” I had a dog for most of the eleven years I lived with
Rosalie; he came with her, but over time I came to feel he was at least equally
mine. We both talked to the dog more than we talked to each other; we touched
it and saw it and felt it more than we did one another. When I worked late, I
knew the dog was counting the minutes more than she was. After the dog died, we
only stayed together another few months. Sometimes I think of Eliza as a
partial reincarnation of the dog, no longer providing the sense of messy,
fascinated devotion that accompanied the first incarnation, but allowing a
comparable feeling of structure and relative safety, and at the same time
constituting a sort of shackling and recurring constraint. I suppose it’s
clearer now that the leash is really on me. When asked, I usually tell people
I’d like to get another dog one day, but I don’t ever actively think about doing
that. Perhaps it would just confuse matters too much. I look back to watch the
man and his Labrador for as long as I can. Who wouldn’t want to believe as
fervently as that dog does in the untapped promise of the next step, of the
next air molecule?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Speedy chatters on about dogs that
he’s known, or maybe ones that he’s imagined, I’m not sure which. I don’t yet know
why I’m walking in this direction, although tomorrow, looking back on what
comes next, I’ll think it’s around this time that I decide what comes next, even
if the decision occupies my hands and feet more than my conscious mind. We’re
at the back of City Hall now – continuing north up to Dundas and its cluster of
Chinese restaurants. He remarks on how fast I’m walking. “You probably don’t
think you’re in such amazing shape,” he says, “but you should give yourself
more credit. A lot of people get too fucking tired to walk more than a couple
of blocks. Doesn’t work so well for a life like this. It’s a younger man’s life,
a life like this. How old do you think I am?” That question again, I think. It’s
been years since I was able to answer it reliably: if I knew how old anyone
else was, I’m sure I’d understand more fully how old I am myself. It’s even
harder than usual with Speedy; I imagine a year in his life entails as much
inner erosion as three or four of mine. I say: “Too old to be living like this.
I know it’s easy for me to say, but you need to pull things together. I can
tell you’re a guy with great potential.” He accepts this as a fair comment. “I
wouldn’t take that from everyone,” he says, “but I know you just want me to do
better. You’re not trying to lecture me, I can’t stand people who try to
lecture me. Like, who’s to say their lives are so fucking great? We all have
problems, on some of us it just shows more than on others.” He pauses and then
concludes with a sense of verbal flourish: “On you it doesn’t show so much.” He
goes on: “You didn’t tell me what you do man. It’s not a state secret is it,
what you do?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I consider trying to make something
up, to see for how long I could keep it going: it flashes through my mind how I
might describe my life as a volcanologist, or as a food tester, or as a talent
scout, or as a high-tech shepherd. I particularly like the last one – I imagine
how I might rattle on with stories of digital implants and invisible fences and
drones and robotic dogs. I’m pretty sure a high-tech shepherd would never make
the same money as a high-end accountant, no matter how much fancy technology
was involved, but it would carry more glamour, even allowing that most people
don’t consider sheep to be particularly exciting. A lot of people consider
accounting to be interiorized and self-referencing to the point of complete
denial, as if being able to move around a spreadsheet means you couldn’t
possibly also find your way around an interesting conversation, or around a
naked woman. I think perhaps we were making progress on leaving that behind,
and then a partner from PriceWaterhouseCoopers lost his concentration at the
climactic moment of the Oscars and handed Warren Beatty the wrong envelope,
confirming for the whole world that accountants can’t function adequately in
the light. People got up my ass about that for at least a year afterwards, as
if all accountants were linked to the same mediocre governing consciousness,
and so all bear responsibility for one another’s failures. Of course Speedy
isn’t likely to mock accountants in the way that lawyers and investment bankers
do. I say: “It’s not a state secret, but it’s not interesting either. I’m not
wandering round at this time of night so I can talk about myself.” This much
seems true.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Makes sense to me man,” he says.
“No one likes to hear people ramble on about themselves. That’s not how you
impress a date anyway.” We’re on Dundas now, walking west, past places with
names like Queen’s Legend and Shanghai Spectacular and Royal Noodle, almost all
closed or closing now. It’s a little food island stamped onto downtown – the major
Chinatown is a few blocks further west. It’s around this time that I start to
keep my head down, not looking at Speedy anymore, not looking up at all, except
for what it takes to avoid an accident. He doesn’t notice of course. He says:
“Where are you going anyway? Looking for takeout? I didn’t ask you to treat me
but I wouldn’t say no either.” The streets are quiet now – the passing
late-shifters widely scattered. An ambulance roars past, heading for one of the
nearby hospitals; there’s not much traffic otherwise. I pull into the doorway
of the Chinese Ocean, standing as far back from the street as I can, as hidden
by the darkness as the city’s perpetual river of artificial light will allow.
It takes him by surprise - he shoots past me and has to retrace a few steps.
“What’s going on man,” he says, “looking for a place to sleep?” He laughs at
that but then quickly gets serious: “Having some kind of problem? You can tell
me man, I’ve seen it all.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t know,” I say, “maybe I’m
feeling a bit faint.” He comes right up close, as if trying to sniff out the
malady. I say: “Do me a favour, stand out in the street and keep watch, I don’t
want anyone to see me if I collapse or something.” He complies; then I stand
there facing the door, my hands clutching my knees, breathing fast. He says:
“Maybe you just stayed up too late. That’s why you didn’t want to tell me about
yourself, because I would have said, Christ man, that’s just too tough on your
bones.” I say: “Tell me if anyone’s coming.” He says: “Yeah, some guy. He’s not
going to give a shit, people have seen it all.” I straighten up, turn around
enough so I see the man when he passes. “What about now,” I say, “tell me if
anyone’s coming.” “No one’s coming,” he says, “relax, puke up your guts, puke
up a bucket of blood if you want, although I’d appreciate it if you aimed away
from me,” and he laughs again, like someone who hasn’t always been aimed away
from. I move closer to the road, so I can see what’s coming on this side, from
the west. I see headlights; I can’t identify what’s behind them, but they look
big and fast-moving and I decide this is it. I choose my moment, a moment of
cruel instinct informed by whatever innate sense of oncoming speed and reaction
time and momentum you acquire over fifty years, and I inhale and I exhale and I
feel like I unclench a bunch of muscles that have merely been cowering within
my body, and I slam out into the street and into him, at once punching and
kicking him with a coordination I could never replicate in the gym, so that he
loses all balance and posture and friction and falls spectacularly backwards,
as if he’d been standing on a ledge, and even in the few seconds before he
falls into the road and I start to run, it feels like I see him descend ten
flights, the wind leaving streak marks on either side of him as if in a cartoon
panel. I don’t know whether he’s hit,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>but I know the mundane order of the night has been broken. I run, east
along Dundas to the first cross street, and then south for a block, and then
west again along the next cross street. Approaching University, I look back;
there’s no one behind me. I stop running, start walking, or some version of
power-walking, still with my head down. I reach University and walk south; even
at this time of night, I know I’ll get a cab within a minute or two; I see it
coming and wave it down and get in. “Yonge and Bloor,” I say. I sink into the
seat, never looking up, grateful I don’t have a talkative driver. There’s a
green light at Dundas and we push right through; I don’t even have time to
consciously prevent myself from looking toward the scene. After that it’s one
of those unhindered late night glides that almost cause you to doubt the
reality of the daytime dysfunction on these same streets. All I say to him is
“I’ll get out here,” and then “Keep the change.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I enter the subway, the northbound
platform. The display says it’s five minutes to the next train. I lean against
a wall, staring at my feet, but then I think that to the few people waiting
with me, I’m going to be more conspicuous that way, so instead I take out my
phone. I respond to a couple of easy messages, just to establish that at this
moment I wasn’t doing anything to prevent me from responding to easy messages. The
other passengers are mostly also traveling alone, all potentially contemplating
their own transgressions, although I don’t think their transgressions smell as
fresh as mine do. I get out after one stop, at Rosedale. I order an Uber as I
walk to Yonge; I hardly have to wait for it. I’ve entered an address a few
blocks from home. The guy says brightly: “Is this music all right with you?” I
don’t know how to engage with the question – the sounds won’t disentangle
themselves for me. He says: “It keeps me going on these late shifts.” It sounds
very much like the music at Pi, or at least the heavy pulsating foundation
sounds similar. For that reason then I welcome it, as if everything that
happened in between was just a blip on the monitor. I don’t remember exactly
when I left there, but it can’t even have been two hours ago – I just haven’t
done enough for it to be that long ago. I mean, I’ve done enough for it to have
been a lifetime, but it can’t have been two hours.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“The music’s fine,” I say. “It’s
not what I would have put on, but maybe it should be.” He asks me what I would
have put on; I mention four or five names and he seems impressed I made it that
far. I expect he carries very low expectations for anyone over forty. The only
name he responds to specifically is Bowie. Sometimes I think Bowie was less an
actual person than someone we collectively invented to put other things in
perspective. He says: “I’ve always wanted to know more about his life. I know a
lot of the songs and some of the image changes and I tuned into the way he died
and the music he released right at the end, but I don’t really have a timeline
for how all the songs and images fit together.” I say: “That’s actually pretty
appropriate. Bowie used to write lyrics sometimes using a cut-up method. He’d
take a block of text and cut it up into pieces and then rearrange them to find
an effect he liked. I think that’s partly why the songs seem at the same time
totally unanalyzable and yet meaningful. Of course, it must have been a pretty
high-quality block of text to begin with. I mean, he wasn’t cutting up the
telephone book.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“The telephone book,” he says. “Oh
yeah, I remember that.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “So maybe your impression of
his life is an application of his cut-up method.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “That’s only because I
didn’t spend five minutes on Wikipedia getting things straight. Lives happen in
the order they happen. I guess you can have new beginnings along the way, but
each new beginning brings you closer to the ultimate end.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You might not be aware of that at
the time though,” I say. With that, we arrive. I get out and start walking in
the wrong direction until he’s out of sight, then I turn around and head for
home. I think I’ve done enough to foil any plausible attempt to retrace my
steps. I run the journey in my head, trying to think of all the points when I
might have been caught on a camera, or in someone’s memory. I momentarily
imagine that I’ve flashed through the consciousness of almost everyone in the
city, and that not a single person will remember the experience as more than a
brisk hint of troubled air.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I nod at the concierge – it’s
someone I don’t recognize; those guys come and go all the time. In the
elevator, I prepare myself to be greeted by Eliza, to tell her some story of my
long convivial night in the bar or in the multiple bars, but of course she’s
not there. I take off my shoes and my jacket, sit in the armchair I usually sit
in, get up almost right away and walk to the window. Well, I think, Speedy’s
still out there or he isn’t. He’s already latched on to someone else, telling
the hardly-embellished story of how he was talking to someone he thought was a
decent guy, until the guy tried to kill him, running away like a cowardly
jackal without waiting to see if it worked, and so perhaps the guy’s already at
home now – and if you saw this guy, he definitely lives in a mansion, you
should search for him door by door in Rosedale - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>jerking off at his own image in the mirror,
the image of a murderer, but actually of a delusional shit who didn’t hear the
car brake and didn’t know it came to no more than scraped hands and knees and a
new level of disenchantment. Or Speedy’s dead, and of course it was murder:
even if the witnesses didn’t see much or only saw it out of the corners of
their eyes, they saw enough to confirm that much, and the killer will be the
most wanted man in Toronto at least until the next killing, and despite all my
evasions, maybe there’ll be a photo or a psychic’s drawing that looks just like
me, and my life will be over. Or else it’s something in between – and of course
if you work with numbers, you know that reality almost always comes to settle
somewhere in the middle of the bell curve – such as a concussion, or a broken
leg, and as Speedy will almost certainly be an unpersuasive and
unreliable-seeming witness, the police may toss their incident notes out of the
window on the way back to the station.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Of course I’d like to know which of
these realities I’m living in, but it’s probably too late at night to find out,
and anyway, not knowing won’t keep me awake. I do what I need to do in the
washroom; I get into bed. I almost invariably fall asleep within minutes;
tonight is no exception. The last thing I remember thinking about is how I’m
going to fire Chris, leading to a flickered fantasy of Chris throwing himself
under a car, and then to another of the whole world dividing itself into
drivers and the driven over. I wake up a few minutes before the alarm, but I
don’t know whether that’s because of my excitement at entering the day, or
because I was in a dream that chose to expel me. My initial thoughts are mostly
about work; I swear there’s a part of me that constructs spreadsheets and
reviews documents and calculations during the night. Then I think of the woman
and the kid on the crosswalk thirty years ago, and how I drove over them and so
ruined my other life, the one I didn’t actually end up living, although it
suddenly feels like I did end up living it after all. Then I remember Speedy
being pushed into the road, but I can’t tell if that’s a different incident or
a newly-revealed facet of what happened thirty years ago, and then a few
moments after that I remember being the one who pushed Speedy into the road and
I disentangle my memories. Well, I say to myself philosophically, it must have
seemed like a good idea at the time, and I don’t feel like second guessing it
now. I walk to the living room, where I left my phone overnight. Eliza sent a
text at 2 am: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Just saying good night
sweetie XXX</i>. The message that registers is that she was still up at 2 am,
probably because of what she’d been doing with Nora. I switch on the TV, on the
local news channel. I sit with my laptop and search for: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toronto man pushed in front of car Dundas</i>. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">There it is on TV, within seconds
of switching it on, as if curated expressly for my benefit:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“A Toronto man is recovering in
hospital after allegedly being pushed in front of a car at Dundas Street east
of University late last night. Several witnesses reported seeing one man push
the other into the road and then run from the scene. The victim’s injuries are
described as serious but not life-threatening. The suspect is described as
white, medium-built, in his late 30’s to early 40’s, wearing a dark suit.
Anyone with information is asked to contact 52 division or Crime Stoppers
anonymously at 416-222-TIPS.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This plays over an image of where
it happened – a couple of police officers standing round pretending to point at
the road and the sidewalk, people passing by, pretending not to notice the
camera. The newsreader moves on. Just as I expected, it’s not the most dramatic
outcome, nor the least. I find a couple of news stories online, all
paraphrasing the same limited information. There was also a murder last night,
in the west end; a teenage boy shot dead while he was walking home from a
hockey game; and the media still hasn’t moved on from a teenage girl who was
shot dead by her boyfriend the other day, especially as they haven’t found the
boyfriend. So I imagine this pushed-in-front-of-a-car trivia will be out of the
news rotation by mid-morning, and forgotten completely by tomorrow. I’ll
probably have forgotten it myself by then, for all practical purposes. I don’t
expect to be haunted or preoccupied by it. I mean, I knew what I was doing; it
would be foolish to spend time revisiting something that I executed so
consciously, and frankly so well, and apparently even like someone looking ten
years younger.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I respond to Eliza’s text from last
night, telling her I’m looking forward to seeing her later. It’ll probably be
one of those evenings when I nap for an hour or two hours after I get home, to
refresh myself for her arrival around eleven; we’ll talk and eat and make love
and then I’ll fall asleep and she’ll probably stay awake to text Nora. I don’t
care for the routine, but I’m used to it, and at least it helps me feel
distinct from the mundane rhythms of regular relationships. Not that this will
ever be an option with Eliza. I know there’s something desperate about her
rejection of the conventional and the workable, about her refusal to be pinned
down or to commit to a plan, even when it’s for the purpose of something that
would clearly enhance her life, like a foreign trip or a concert. The best way
of getting her not to attend an event is to tell her you already bought two
expensive tickets for it – she even bailed on our Platinum section Madonna seats,
calling me an hour before and claiming she had such bad cramps that she was on
the verge of going to emergency, although of course they subsequently lifted,
she said. I didn’t want to go alone, nor with another guy, so I went with a
woman from work I could barely stand, and whom I entirely avoid talking to now
because of negative associations. A while later, when I casually mentioned an
upcoming P J Harvey show, Eliza pressed me into buying two tickets, insisting
she wouldn’t cancel again; she canceled again, again on the evening of the
concert, with such a lame story – about needing to oversee the emergency fixing
of a leaking toilet – that it might actually have been true. Since then, the
only way I’ll buy tickets for her is on one of the resale websites, and even
then I wait until we’re virtually entering the taxi to head to the event; I
fully expect that one day she’ll mess that up too, dashing out of the car at an
intersection, mumbling some nonsense about an emergency text. But as with
everything about Eliza, I’ve come to tolerate and even to rely on it. My main
wish would be for greater equilibrium in her disruptiveness, that she’d
sometimes surprise me by being there when I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t</i>
expect her, not solely by not being there when I did. If I said that out loud
it would probably sound plaintive and dejected, but I don’t feel that way about
it; it’s only like saying I wish I were taller, or that I had a more
actorly-sounding speaking voice.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’d like to tell Eliza about what I
did, but perhaps strangely, I don’t think it would have much impact. She’d
assume I must have had my reasons, even if I wasn’t admitting to them, and that
it’s solely for me to decide whether to give myself up or not, and that as it
remains inconceivable I’ll ever push <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i>
in front of a car, it provides no reason to reassess anything about us. Many
would say she takes me for granted, and it’s true of course, but it’s not a
small thing to maintain a place in the consciousness of a woman like Eliza. She
doesn’t take for granted the logical progression of day into night or the
prevailing organization of society, so to be one of the things she <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">does</i> take for granted is in its way
transformative, like being elevated to the same category as the law of gravity,
or the category of her hair appointments (because I don’t think she ever breaks
those). If she knew about last night, it might elevate me further within such a
category, or might just send me crashing out of it, if it strikes her as a
portent of greater neediness ahead. I bounce this around in my head while I
shower and brush my teeth and get ready. But then having Eliza in my head is
always like that, a ball that perpetually bounces, never coming to rest. I
don’t think any more about what I did, except in the context of Eliza, and
except in the context of choosing what music to listen to on the way to work –
I briefly consider choosing something somber and commemorative, and then
choosing something purging and celebratory, and then when I end up listening to
Roxy Music, I can’t really decide whether it reflects one train of thought or
the other. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I walk to work, the density of
people and suits around me increasing as I get closer to Bay. I don’t think the
morning rush hour has the same sense of concentrated purpose here as in London
or New York or presumably in the other A-level metropolises of the world.
Toronto may be the biggest and most consequential place in Canada, but it
doesn’t have the power and influence and magnetism of a top-flight city. We all
know that, and maybe we acknowledge it and maybe we don’t, but the sense of our
privileged second-tier-ness informs and calibrates everything, imposing a soft
underbelly on our show of drive and ruthlessness. In those other cities, for
instance, it’s almost inconceivable that someone like me could live in a big
apartment so relatively close to his office, and conduct the vast majority of
his life on foot. It’s almost a parody of what privileged living really demands
of you. Usually I like this quality, but today I feel suspicious of it, of its
compromises, of its vulnerabilities, of what they might do to its people, might
already have done to me. Not that I’m looking to assign any blame, or that I
even think blame is a relevant concept here. When people are perpetually in
motion around each other, in the way Speedy talked about, they’re sometimes
going to collide messily and destructively. That’s probably the whole story.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I turn off the music as I enter the
lobby. I arrive at the same time as a guy from our investing group – I think
he’s an analyst, someone else who pumps out paper to justify the conclusions
that the decision-makers have already reached by instinct. He says: “We’re
nearly there now. The due date is exactly two weeks from today, but they’re
saying it could be any time.” From the way he launches into this, it seems we
must have discussed it before, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything
at all about his personal life. So I just say: “You must be very preoccupied.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Not as much as Alex,” he says. It
seems to me Alex could be either a man or a woman. He manages to say several
sentences about Alex without using a pronoun. I ask: “Are you having a boy or a
girl?” He says: “We don’t know, we didn’t want to know.” I say: “I’ve never had
kids or been close to, you know, the process, but doesn’t everyone want to
know, for planning, expectation-setting?” He says: “I think they usually do,
yes, but we see this as life’s greatest surprise. Perhaps as life’s last real
surprise. We didn’t want to tamper with it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “What about the way you’re
going to die? Won’t that be a bigger surprise? Especially if it’s out of the
blue.” I correct myself though: “Of course, it may not be a surprise you’re
able to reflect on afterwards, so maybe it doesn’t really count.” He looks very
displeased at this. “Why would you say that?” he asks, his voice unsteady. “I’m
talking about new life and you bring up the most morbid prospect there is.
Don’t you realize what an inappropriate vibe that is to introduce around a
baby?” I should let it go, obviously, but I don’t. “The baby’s not actually
here though is he, or is she,” I say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
says: “He or she, or whatever pronoun may apply, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> here, in my thoughts, and even if that wasn’t true, I’ll be
coming home tonight, and now I’ll be bringing that negative vibe with me.”
“Jesus,” I say, “if you pick up a negative vibe just from something like that,
what about all the other crap around the office? What about the shit that seeps
out when you’re watching the news?” He says, on the verge of yelling at me now,
“the shit on the news isn’t specifically directed at me and my baby is it.”
“Well,” I say, “I’m sorry,” but I know I don’t say it with even a hint of
conviction.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The elevator’s arrived now; he
pushes before some others to escape into it. “I’ll get the next one,” I say,
mostly to myself. We’re in one of the newer towers, with a ground floor
designed to bathe the visitor in light and space, and so I suppose to impose a
sense that everything that happens on the fifty or so floors above is powered
by serene awesomeness. Although I’m usually skeptical of this effect, I sit now
and try to absorb it. I even close my eyes for a while. When I open them, one
of my staff, Cristina, is standing there, looking at me. She says: “I didn’t
want to disturb you, you looked like you were considering something important.”
I tell her it’s fine, not to worry. She asks how my meeting went yesterday,
referring to the cover story I’d concocted. I haven’t even thought today about
the threat from the securities commission. I tell her that was fine too. She
says: “Actually there was something I wanted to talk to you about, but I was
nervous, and I didn’t know if I’d get the chance. As we’re both here, could we
do it now?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I tell her that’s fine. She sits in
the adjoining chair, although the chairs are so large they don’t encourage a
sense of intimate conversation. It feels like a waiter should be coming round
to take our cocktail order. She says: “You know I hate to complain, or to talk
about myself at all, I just want it to be about the work.” I can certainly
agree with this – she doesn’t at all convey the sense of entitlement that many
of the others have. If she ever gets pregnant, I can imagine her taking off
only a couple of weeks, and apologizing even for that. She says: “I respect the
way you respect my personal life.” I suppose this refers to my total lack of
interest in it. She says: “Not everyone’s like that. Someone on the team is
giving me a problem. I tried to handle it myself, but it’s getting to be too
much. I’m not even just saying this for myself. I think this person needs
help.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” I say, entering my
empathetically authoritative mode. “You can tell me as much or as little as you
like.” She’s quiet for a long time, and I wonder if that constitutes telling me
as little as she likes. My mind goes to the same place it always goes when I
talk to her, to the time when she revealed she doesn’t shower, because she’s
militant – her word – about conserving water, and she doesn’t believe showering
is necessary anyway, because it destroys beneficial bacteria and oils, or
something along those lines. I don’t think I would ever have suspected it if
she hadn’t said anything, and I don’t know how much it influences the sense I
have of her, but she always makes me think of forests, of dense beds of fallen
leaves yielding underfoot, of sweet smoke and soft air. It’s quite soothing to
be around her, in a way I can’t say of anyone else. Still, I wish she’d never
talked about the shower, because it also means she’s naked in a
disproportionate amount of my thoughts about her, perhaps in virtually all of
them, usually standing in her bathroom, applying the homemade deodorant she
also mentioned.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I don’t want to point
fingers at anyone. I just want to be left alone to do my work. I don’t want to
have to talk about myself, or to answer endless questions about how I’m
feeling, or what I did last night, or what I’m doing tonight. The problem is,
it might not sound like harassment, not like having someone talk about my body
all the time would sound like harassment. But from my perspective, that only
makes it worse, because it’s so creepy and calculated.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Do you want to tell me who
it is?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I thought it would be
easier to do it down here than to come into your office as I planned to do, but
now it feels more difficult. Everything I’m talking about with her exists only
at work. I don’t want to will it into existing anywhere else. Not that I’m
superstitious.” I say: “With her?” She doesn’t say anything. I go on: “Oh,
you’re talking about Mary.” Certainly I was aware that Mary treated her rather
oppressively. But I suppose I’d believed that Cristina could tolerate it
indefinitely, in the weary way that older people sometimes have to be tolerated,
far more easily than she’d tolerate more modest intrusions from one of the
younger males. She says: “See, that sums it up. Everyone knows she pays extra
attention to me, but they think it’s sweet, that she’s a nice old lady who sees
me as a second daughter or some shit like that.” Mary is actually a year
younger than I am, but I let it go. She goes on: “I used to see it that way
myself, but now it’s too far beyond that. I can’t get half an hour alone. She
eavesdrops on my calls, she takes my stuff off the printer and comments on it,
she interrogates me about what I do at night, she emails me all the time, she
puts her hands on me. I just can’t stand it. And I’ve tried, because I realize
she’s probably lonely and unhappy and all the rest of it. But it’s not my
responsibility.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve never heard Cristina talk like
this. I can see that it’s tough for her, but also that she doesn’t carry a
glimmer of doubt, which is also unusual for her. And I’m displeased with
myself, because I knew all of it, every single detail; I’d either seen it, or
heard fragmented reports of it, or else guessed it. I flash ahead to an
imagined future hearing or deposition or trial where I’m asked how I could have
known it all and not done anything to stop it. And maybe I’d want to say: I
just didn’t join the dots, I’m sorry. And they’d say: you mean you were too
blind or too complacent to see what was in front of you. And I’d want to say:
you don’t realize how much there is in front of me, and to all sides of me, and
behind me; you don’t realize how many dots there are, and how many ways they
can be joined up, and how easy it is to join them up to form a blindfold or a
wall, rather than the difficult truth beyond. You don’t realize that the dots
aren’t passive – as we’re trying to join them up, they’re shifting and
shimmering so as to resist being joined, and sometimes they’re fighting back
and joining <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">us</i> up, because we’re only
dots too. And maybe I’d want to say, as if thinking it would shut them up,
whoever they are: Just the night before that, I joined the dots up so
imaginatively that I figured out I should try to kill a random guy, and I very
nearly did kill hm too. So don’t talk to me about being blind or complacent,
not for as long as you’re just holding me here asking questions, rather than
being the one of whom questions should be asked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I assume you must have told
her to stop, in various ways. Does she realize how she makes you feel?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’ve tried to tell her, but you
know what she’s like, she doesn’t really see me as an equal. I made the mistake
of telling her my mom died when I was young and I never really got on with my
stepmom. I think she saw it as an invitation to step in. So now she brushes off
everything I say, just like some moms disregard their children. But it’s not
just that. She does tell me I’m pretty, she tells me how I should do my hair,
when she approves of my clothes and when she doesn’t. She won’t approve of the
neckline I’m wearing today, I can tell you for sure. But she’ll also stare at
it more than any of the guys will.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So it is a kind of sexual
harassment too,” I say, succeeding in not looking to the neckline myself, but
failing in not thinking of her getting dressed this morning, after not having a
shower, after applying her homemade deodorant. She sighs. “I think it’s
certainly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">some</i> kind of sexual
harassment,” she says. “I wouldn’t necessarily put it that way to her, it might
only push the conversation down the wrong road. The way she’s treating me is
wrong.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’ll talk to HR about it,” I say.
“I mean, I’ll certainly talk to her about it, but I’ll consult with HR first to
get their input.” It’s a glum prospect – talking to the people at HR is like
handing them a bag of sand and then waiting while they transfer the contents to
be weighed on an old-fashioned scale, one grain at a time. I ask: “Do you think
she’s capable of changing?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Can children make their mothers
change? Once in a while I suppose. They can’t count on it though.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” I say. “I’m glad you
told me.” It wouldn’t bother me at all if Mary had to go. Like many men my age,
I’d rather work with younger women, and therefore avoid all the lessons and
warnings inherent in interacting with women my own age. The only problem is, if
I’m talking to HR about getting rid of Mary, I can’t talk to them about Chris
too; it’ll look like I’m sinking, and I don’t want to have to replace two
people at once. I wonder if it might be sufficient just to fire Chris, with a
few “there but for the grace of God”-type warnings in Mary’s direction to scare
her into virtuousness, but more likely I should fire Mary now, and get to Chris
later. I suppose our asses are constantly being protected by the clumsy
interventions of others, tripping and falling into the way of the booted feet
that were poised to kick at us.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You know I don’t like to complain.
I just didn’t have a choice.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Of course not,” I say. “And things
like this never stay isolated. The poison spreads from one limb to another, and
the whole body gets infected.” I don’t really know what that would mean in this
specific instance, but it sounds good to me, and she nods as if taking
something from it. “All right,” she says. She stands; I see now how heavily
she’s trembling. “Wait a second,” I say. She obeys, as if I’d told her to hold
her breath and remain immobile. I say: “Mary just came in, I thought you’d
probably rather wait until she’d gone up.” She asks: “Did she see us?” “I don’t
think so,” I say. “She swept into the elevator like a teacher entering a
classroom; she must have scared the other people in there.” Cristina says: “And
then the first thing she’ll do will be to sweep her way to my desk. And when
I’m not there, she’ll take note of it, and she’ll ask me about it as soon as I
come in.” I tell her she can work from home if she prefers, or from an office
on a different floor. “It’s all right,” she says, “knowing I’ve told you and
that I have your support, it means a lot.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I tell her I’m going to stay in the
lobby for a while longer. She gets up and walks to the elevator. She makes the
space feel unquestionably warmer. If I were ever to consider becoming a
naturist, I’d want someone like Cristina to accompany me. I don’t fantasize
about having her in my bed, but to be with her in a field or a glade, pushing
her down into the earth while the sun drilled into my neck and my buttocks, would
be some kind of ultimate arrival point. She gives no hint of being a naturist,
but then she’s discreet enough to maintain several secret lives. I watch the
doors close on her. One day, I think, the elevators of the world will all
decide in unison to collectively inhale and pulverize the poor fools who placed
themselves into their trust, and the buildings they occupy will be sealed off
forever as blood-spattered memorials, forcing the survivors to begin again on
the ground. I’m not sure what will happen to the people already in the
buildings when that happens, whether they’ll be allowed to escape by the
stairwells. Stairwells are low-tech compared to elevators, so they may be
excluded from the conspiracy. I reflect now on how little I’ve ever liked the
sweeping views from the upper floors, the master-of-the-universe-type views. I
think it’s gradually destabilizing to regularly see human beings and their
homes and neighborhoods reduced to such tiny abstractions, to place yourself so
far away from whatever threat or opportunity or pleasure or pain they represent.
If I worked on the ground, like a street sweeper or a butcher, I’m sure I’d
have a more balanced view of my entitlements. The same probably goes for Mary.
Maybe the danger is less for millennials, because given their dependence on
screens and images, it barely matters whether their feet are on the ground or a
mile above it. A few minutes go by, consumed by this kind of reverie, not a
very relevant one to what I’m supposed to be doing. In fact – and I check my
phone to confirm this – I’m already late for a meeting. Even as I’m looking at
the phone, I get a text message asking if I can make it. I respond that I’m on
my way and they should start without me. I head to the elevator, fairly sure
this won’t be the day of the uprising.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">But then something else happens,
possibly an uprising of another kind. I get into the elevator with two other
guys. In succession, we press the buttons for the 32<sup>nd</sup>, 33<sup>rd</sup>
and 34<sup>th</sup> floor, and given the configuration of the buttons, this
means a row of three green lights, like a winning pull of the lever. This
astonishes me, but I don’t want to comment on it, for fear of sounding like a
kid reacting to some shape he sees in the clouds. Fortunately, the 34th floor
guy seems equally fascinated, and less inhibited about expressing it. “Look at
that,” he says. He’s pale and lanky with shoulder-length hair, wearing jeans;
he looks like someone situated either at the bottom of an organization chart,
or else at the very top of it. “Jackpot,” I say appreciatively. We both look at
the third man; he looks up from his phone, to the extent his stiff-looking
collar allows him to look up. “Oh yeah,” he says, “very cute.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The 34th floor guy says: “So what
do the rest of you think, it’s a symbol of common destiny? Like we should give
up what we’re doing and focus on figuring it out?” I’m amazed that he’d say
something so outlandish and yet so aligned with my own mindset. The 32<sup>nd</sup>
floor guy says sharply: “Sure, you two guys follow the call of the lights and
run off together, I don’t see it becoming a threesome though.” I think the 34<sup>th</sup>
floor guy dislikes this as much as I do, and instantly forms a similarly
unfavorable impression of the 32<sup>nd</sup> floor guy. Then the 32<sup>nd</sup>
floor guy grimaces at himself, and starts to say: “I didn’t mean to…” The doors
open on his floor; he shrugs and gets out. After the doors close, I say: “What
an asshole.” We’re immediately on my floor; I take a step out; the 34<sup>th</sup>
floor guy starts talking, and I stay where I am, blocking the door. He says:
“Well, I’ve always been superstitious. I’ll admit to you that I believe in a
lot of things that polite society doesn’t officially believe in. Including the
existence of signs where you wouldn’t ever have looked for them.” It’s pretty
clear that he could jump head-first into this topic and not emerge from it any
time soon. Even so, and despite my meeting, I say: “Give me an example.” The
elevator is already whining; he exits with me and lets it go. He says: “Well,
since you asked, I think it’s plausible for instance that we have aliens living
among us. I don’t know how many, or for exactly what purpose, but I think it’s
plausible. Probably not including the gentleman we just met.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Jesus,” I say, “I don’t know
what’s going on nowadays. Last night I was talking to someone, one of my colleagues,
who thinks we might be living in a computer simulation. And now we have aliens
among us. Or are those basically the same thing?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“The computer simulation theory
comes up a lot,” he says, “but it’s pretty obviously bullshit.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask: “You think it’s plausible we
have aliens among us, but is there any evidence for it?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “To me it’s the best way
of explaining many of the things we can’t otherwise explain, for instance why
some societies developed faster than others.” I say: “Because aliens helped
them out.” “Yes,” he said, “basically.” He says: “If you actively think of us
as in part a laboratory, a lot of things start to make more sense.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Charlmane at reception is looking
quizzically at me, probably wondering whether I’m being pounced on by some
random eccentric and whether I’m capable of extricating myself. I flash a big
smile, mainly for her benefit. “But for everything that might make more sense,”
I say, “wouldn’t there be something else that makes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">less</i> sense? I mean, why would aliens want to deny their natures for
generation after generation, hiding away among inferior beings?” “That’s a
great question,” he says appreciatively. “And there’s no way we can know the
answer. But for example, they might be like super-intelligent ants. The
population living among us might be the equivalent of a small sliver of the
worker population. If the queen tells them this is what they have to do, then
that’s all they need to know. Like I said, we’d simply have to accept it’s not
entirely within our understanding.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I just can’t bring myself to wrap
it up. I say: “I guess it doesn’t matter if we believe in these aliens or not.
I mean, after getting away with it for so long, they’re not going to slip up
now, and even if we knew for sure they were here somewhere, we couldn’t
practically do anything with the information. So it seems to me like a belief
without consequence.” He says, loving every step of this: “But we don’t know
that either. Maybe they’re putting in the time until mankind acquires the
collective awareness and wisdom to acknowledge their presence. When we get to
that point, for example when maybe 50% of us become believers, then we’ll have
met their test, and their purpose will be revealed. The start of a whole new world.”
And I do believe he’s glimpsing it as he speaks. One of my staff, Dora, from
the meeting I’m supposed to be at, is standing next to Charlmane now, trying to
get my attention. I gesture at her in some formless way. I say to him: “Or
maybe that’s when they’ll decide the whole experiment is getting away from them
and they should just wash us all down the celestial drain.” He says: “I don’t
think you’re really that big a pessimist. You have to believe we’re working
toward something good.” I say: “You see how convoluted that got? You called me
a pessimist for suggesting that a bunch of hidden aliens – who I don’t actually
believe in – might have motives worse than we hope for. I don’t think that’s a
meaningful definition of pessimism.” “I’ll give you that one,” he says. “You
must be an optimist because you believe in the value of this kind of
conversation. You’re looking outward and upward, just like I’m trying to do.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I suppose this means I’m at least
one step closer to making contact with the aliens. “All right,” I say. “I’ve
got to go. I’ll see you around though.” I tell him my name; his name’s Seton.
As he steps back into the elevator, he says: “Hey, moving upward, like I just
said.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I stay where I am a few moments
longer, perplexing Charlmane and Dora even more. When I finally move, Charlmane
says: “Who was that guy? It looked like you brought your weed dealer to work.”
I say: “That probably only tells me he looks like your weed dealer.” I like
Charlmane because I think she finds me faintly ridiculous, in a way unique to
her. I wouldn’t like that to become the predominant impression of me, but as
long as it’s just one person, I can take it as an endorsement of sorts. Dora
says: “We started the meeting, but we couldn’t do anything without you.” I
consider tormenting her further by making her wait while I go to the washroom,
and then to the kitchen to get a coffee, and then chatter to someone else in
the corridor; the first two of those wouldn’t even be contrived delays. But I
follow her into the meeting room. Two more of my staff are sitting there;
several other people are patched in by phone. It should have been a video
conference, but we usually fail to get that to work. “Apologies,” I declare as
I enter, “I was unavoidably detained by someone who wanted to talk to me about
space aliens. Obviously he’d seen our meeting agenda.” We’re discussing obscure
accounting topics, the sort that make you wonder if you’ll ever see the sky
again. To buy time, I ask them to summarize what they’ve covered so far, but of
course they haven’t covered anything. This is one of those many situations that
shapes how people assess your worthiness to occupy your position, your
effectiveness as a leader. You need to show them you have something they don’t –
an intuitive grasp of the complexities that are bogging them down, a capacity
to explore those complexities and to stretch and to transcend them. You don’t
have to be perfect – it’s better if you’re not – but your people have to
understand the imperfections as a necessary aspect of your greatness, as relief
valves or cooling mechanisms. You have to occupy the moment completely, while
always suggesting a sense of urgency to get out of it. You have to remember
past discussions and decisions better than they do, while also being less constrained
by them. Perhaps this is the only area of existence in which I could attain
this, but at least I found one.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">An hour and a half later we’ve
agreed on – that is, I’ve basically dictated – what we’re going to do: Dora and
Adam are going to work on a memo to document our approach to this
bloodsuckingly dull but unavoidable issue; Matt is going to instigate the
system changes; Viraf and Jodie are going to liaise with other groups to make
sure nothing falls between the cracks. I assign to myself the task of
communicating our decision to the external auditors, and getting them to agree
to it. I already know how this will go: the auditors will initially express
skepticism; then they’ll charge us thousands of dollars to research the issue
for themselves; then they’ll endorse our approach, with just enough caveats and
reservations to prove they didn’t entirely snooze through the whole exercise. I
don’t hold them in any respect, but if you make your living as an auditor, I
think you get used to that. The meeting comes to a close, and we allow
ourselves some token chatter before moving on to the next thing. Someone asks
if I was entirely joking when I said I’d been talking to someone about space
aliens. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this throughout the meeting,
approximately as much as I’ve been thinking about the topic of conversation. I
summarize the things Seton said to me, as best as I can in twenty seconds. “But
I don’t mean to take the tone I’m taking,” I say. “I don’t think he’s correct,
at least not on the basis of what he’s told me so far, but I respect him for
developing his view of the world and for being as willing to share it with a
stranger. It takes a lot of balls to put yourself on display, to someone who
might see you as a madman.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Viraf says: “Maybe he thought you
were one of the aliens. I know I often do.” That gets a solid laugh, and it’s a
good place to stop. I go to the kitchen for a coffee, linger there to look at
my phone. It’s approaching the point, as it does every month or two, where the
volume of messages gets away from me and therefore I ignore all of them,
knowing the important ones will find a way to survive. Usually though there’s a
specific reason for that, like an emergency - yes, an accounting emergency -
that swamps everything else. At this moment, it’s just my torpor and indifference.
Well, I tell myself, trying to kill a guy takes it out of you. I don’t have any
messages from Eliza. She’s probably still asleep though. I wander with my
coffee over to Chris’s office. He’s on the phone, but when he sees me he wraps
it up immediately, indicating he was probably only talking to his wife. I ask
about his kid, already knowing it can’t have been a big deal, or he wouldn’t be
here now. He says: “It was a false alarm, she was already almost back to normal
by the time I got home. Kids are so delicate, it’s easy to overreact to every
little thing.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I don’t say anything. He asks
whether I left right after he did. I say: “More or less. I hung around for a
while, finishing my drink.” He says, rather smugly and knowingly: “More or
less? Sounds like you’re hiding something. Maybe you tried to relive the good
old days you were telling me about.” I say, as matter-of-factly as I can,
“someone did come over and talk to me for a while, but she left. Men and women
can talk, you know. I was probably home within half an hour.” He says: “It was
great to go out, we should do it more often.” Better check with your wife
before you say that, I think. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I briefly tell him about the
meeting I just had; he fills me in on the meeting he just had. I go to my
office. It faces east, away from the lake and away from the downtown cluster,
toward mostly conventional condo buildings and big desolate patches beyond
that; it’s probably the worst direction to face in, judged by conventional
spectacle, but that fits my loathing of being up this high, at least allowing
me a slight feeling of restraint. To have a postcard-worthy view of the CN
Tower, by comparison, would constitute a big show of grandiosity. I also chose
a smaller office than I would have been entitled to occupy, and then I resisted
bringing in a single personal item. I seldom print anything out, and I don’t
leave my files or books out in the open, so it generally resembles an empty
office where a visitor sat to plug in his laptop. I keep my home fairly neat
and sparse too – as far as Eliza allows, because she has a mysterious ability
to mess up and clutter any space she passes through - but not to the possibly
compulsive extent of my office. I think this might represent a frail attempt to
deny my identity as the chief accounting officer – that is, as one of the most
embedded, organically intertwined members of senior management, as someone who
necessarily has to know about everything, because everything has to be
accounted for. If my office looks like the location of someone who’s little
more than a visitor, then I must be freer than the chief accounting officer
could ever logically be, and so I can’t in fact be the chief accounting officer.
I’m not sure why this seems to me a good thing, beyond the natural human
interest in keeping one’s options open: I’m committed to my job by all
conventional measures; I’m content with the path I chose in life. Perhaps I’m
so sensitive to the accountant’s need for objectivity and skepticism that I
strive in some areas to seem as neutral and affectless as possible. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">My assistant Kayla comes in. She
says: “Cedric said you should come and see him as soon as you’re out of your
meeting.” This isn’t what I want to do, but he’s my boss. He’s six floors
above, with the rest of the executives: we weren’t able to get space on
consecutive floors when we moved in. I start walking to the elevator, but then
I consider the possibility of another time-stopping manifestation and I decide
to take the stairs. I think again about how stairwells resist modernity – they’re
always grey and stuffy and heavy-feeling, no matter how sleek and fresh the building
surrounding them. I think of it as stepping into the colon: of course the
building doesn’t dispose of its literal and figurative shit by pouring it into
the stairwell, and anyway, nowadays people worry about keeping their colons
clean and healthy, but no one talks about prettifying the stairwell, as if it
were even more intimate than the colon, even less susceptible to being
acknowledged. Everyone should in theory step in here at least once a year, when
the building has its annual fire drill, but in practice most of my colleagues
learn the time of the drill in advance, and then make sure they’re already
downstairs when the alarm starts sounding. I usually do that myself. But now
I’m happy to be in here, even if I’d rather be heading down than up. I ascend
very slowly, measuring each step deliberately and evenly, counting off the
arrival of each mid-point between floors, and then each new floor, as if
there’s any likelihood of my picking up too much momentum and carrying on past
Cedric’s floor, to whatever’s at the top, or beyond.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">At the exit to the 39<sup>th</sup>
floor, I pass an empty cardboard box, the outer packaging for a printer. This
reminds me of an incident in the past, perhaps three or four years ago, when a
printer had been delivered to my floor, and went missing from reception before
it could be unpacked, during a period of just a few seconds while Charlmane’s
predecessor at reception was away from her desk. We consulted the security
cameras, but some of them had mysteriously malfunctioned, and the others didn’t
give us anything to work with. For several days, the place was anxious with
theories about the stolen printer, and whether it pointed to greater looming
insecurity or danger. Thinking about it now, some of the theories stopped only
slightly short of invoking aliens among us. Anyway, nothing else in a similar
vein ever happened, and it turned out we decided we didn’t even really need the
printer, so we never ordered a replacement for it. It comes to mind now because
I think this box held the same make of printer. I speculate that it wasn’t
stolen at all, that it slipped somehow into the folds of the building, and is
just being digested now. Maybe the building was waiting to deposit this at my
feet, as a rebuke, or a nudge, or a wink. I stop to examine the box more
carefully, but there’s no packing slip or invoice to confirm it’s actually the
same one. I pick it up and take it with me, for further investigation later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I hear footsteps coming down, moving
much faster than mine. I wait against the wall. She sees me and gasps. “Jesus,”
she says, “I never see anyone in here.” I don’t know who she works for, but she
looks vaguely familiar. I can never decide whether I have a good memory for
faces or a terrible one, somewhat compensated for by imagination and fantasy.
She asks: “Are you locked in here?” “No,” I say, showing her my pass. “I
thought I’d take the stairs for a change. I found this box in here.” “Well,”
she says drily, “that’s quite a treasure.” She adds: “I found twenty bucks in
here once. I felt bad about keeping it because I thought it must belong to a
cleaner or a maintenance person, someone who couldn’t afford to lose it. I kept
it anyway though.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Sounds like you must use the
stairs a lot.” She says: “Well, usually just in this direction.” She says: “You
look familiar to me somehow.” I say I was thinking the same thing. I say: “I
work at DeRan Kingston. I’m the chief accounting officer there.” She says:
“Never heard of it. It’s in this building?” The unashamed lack of recognition
is refreshing. I tell her we occupy a couple of floors, that we’re an
investment firm. “You invest in different companies,” she says; I confirm
that’s what I meant. She says: “I work for McInnis Research, investment
analysts.” I say: “Yeah, I know a few people from there. That’s probably why we
recognized each other, maybe we sat in on the same meeting at some point. I
didn’t know they were in this building though.” She says: “They’re not, I just
come in here to use the stairs.” I don’t have a response; she laughs and hits
me on the arm. “I’m just joking,” she says. “We moved in here a few months ago,
that’s probably why you didn’t know we were here. We used to be in one of the
older buildings on King East.” People who work in downtown Toronto perpetually
get into this – happily listing all the different buildings they’ve worked in.
I feel that with a few more rounds of questioning I could identify the exact
occasion at which we met each other, but I don’t suppose it would cause either
one of us to appreciate this particular moment any better. I say: “Maybe I’ll
run into you again. Well, maybe I’ll send you a message and we can get together
for coffee. We can reminisce about this time we spent in the stairwell.” I hand
her a business card from my jacket pocket. She says: “I’ll get in touch for
sure. My name’s Leslie, Leslie Williams.” I introduce myself; we shake hands,
both still laughing at the incongruity of it. “Let me know if you find a good
home for the box,” she says. She keeps on going down.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I exit from the stairwell, leaving
the box in an alcove nearby, to mystify someone else. I arrive at Cedric’s
office. We review again my interview from yesterday, although I don’t have
anything to add to what I already told him. He says: “The only new input into
the equation is the recent board turnover, in particular Oswald Fleck.” Fleck is
one of our new directors; he likes to present himself as a leader in governance
and ethics, although it seems to me his main ethical principle has been to go
where the money is, and then to distance himself with pious speeches when
anything goes wrong. Cedric says: “I’m going to have to fill them in on what’s
happening, when I deliver my quarterly report. I have a feeling Ozzie might be
hard to satisfy.” I wasn’t aware Cedric was on sufficiently good terms with Fleck
to call him Ozzie; I wouldn’t have guessed even Fleck ‘s wife was on such terms
with him. He says: “Ozzie’s more of a where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire man.” I
wait for more. He says: “Especially for someone leading our accounting team,
Ozzie might take the view we can’t afford to have the slightest question about
propriety and integrity.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “When you say Ozzie might
take this view, I assume you’re saying you already know he does take this view.”
Cedric says: “I certainly have good reason to believe that, yes.” I say: “And
so, what then?” Cedric says: “I don’t know, it could get nasty.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I go and stand by the window, to
impose a symbolic sense of distance. “Just say what you mean,” I say. Cedric
approaches massively consequential decisions decisively, but can often hardly
bring himself to approach less consequential ones at all. I remember once how
he dithered for months about firing a flagrantly incompetent clerk. It occurs
to me now that to fire me would be fairly consequential, and so perhaps not so
difficult for him, despite his unease at this moment. He counts me as a friend,
I think, but that’ll just make it easier for him to assume I’ll come round to
seeing it from his perspective. He says: “At this moment I don’t want it to
mean anything. I’m afraid it may come to mean something.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’m happy to meet with him,” I
say. “I can explain to him how groundless this is, I can address any questions
he has.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric says: “I already offered
that. He doesn’t want to do it. He says he doesn’t want to be in the position
of trying to adjudicate the facts, that’s not what a director does. He wants me
to adjudicate the facts, and then satisfy him on how I did it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So that’s fine then,” I say, “you
tell him you’ve questioned me in detail, and you’re satisfied there’s nothing
to it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Well,” says Cedric, “that likely
won’t be enough. The Commission is conducting a thorough investigation.
Interviewing you is only one part of it; they’re also looking at emails, other
documents, and so forth. We don’t have the time and resources to replicate that
here, but we can’t take one man’s word over that kind of thoroughness, no
matter how much we value the man.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Fine then,” I say, “wait until the
investigation is completed. It’s only an investigation. Innocent people get
investigated for things all the time. I mean, sometimes other people just
outright lie about them.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Yes indeed,” says Cedric. “But the
‘innocent until proven guilty’ standard, for lack of a better way to put it,
doesn’t necessarily apply in all cases. Some surfaces have the capacity to
withstand a certain amount of dirt, others have to be kept spotless at all
times. It’s a risk and reward thing. The job is bigger, but so is the exposure
to random stones and arrows.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” I say, “so it’s over.
You actually called me up here to say I should either resign or be fired.” I’m
already adding up my assets, constructing a hazy lifetime projection of
anticipated returns versus estimated outflows, peering to see when the cash
runs out. It probably runs out earlier than I do, if I never work again. But I
can’t seriously engage with such a hypothetical future. I say: “I can think
about it I suppose. But I don’t like it. What about the other directors? They
must know what I’ve contributed, what my reputation is.” Cedric assures me this
is the case. “But Ozzie’s a powerful voice,” he says. “That’s why they wanted
him on the board, as a bulwark against complacency.” “A bulwark,” I say, and
then I repeat it again, and then I say it a third time.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric says: “Look, I’m not saying
we’re at that point of no return. I just wanted you to know which way the wind
is blowing. Or might be blowing.” I’m getting lost in winds and surfaces and
smoking fires and bulwarks, especially bulwarks. He says: “My report’s not due
for a couple of days. We have time to consider further, maybe to come up with
some kind of proposal. Obviously I don’t want this, it’s the last thing I
want.” That’s how I know it’s virtually all over for me. It’s too large a turning
point for me to absorb while standing here before this inadequately squirming
individual. Cedric’s office is the opposite of mine – it must contain every
gift and souvenir he ever received, some of them displayed on shelves, most of
them on the floor, competing for space with books and files and with random
items such as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Downton Abbey</i> DVD
boxed set, which I know has been there for at least two years. He has a closet
containing two suits, several collared shirts and several golf shirts, a
raincoat, a sweater, I don’t know what else. It strenuously announces not just
the blurring of his personal and professional lives, but his relishing mastery
of that blurring; if they tried to push Cedric out as he’s pushing me out,
you’re supposed to feel it would disrupt the building’s structural integrity.
It’s all nonsense, all crap, but I could use such handholds now. I look at my
phone; I want him to think I’m looking at something crucial to this unfolding
moment. Actually I’m looking up the definition of “bulwark.” The first
definition I find is simply “a solid wall-like structure raised for defense”
and then there’s another definition relating to ships. That’s Ozzie then, a
solid wall-like structure against the tornados of complacency that would
otherwise wash over the board. Obviously I can’t break through a solid
wall-like structure.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric says: “You’ll always be in
demand. The worst that will happen is that you’ll sit on the sidelines for a
while, until the stink from the investigation is entirely cleared, then someone
will snap you up, and we’ll be kicking ourselves for letting you go. And of
course, if you walk away from us, it won’t be without a package. And then
you’ll probably come after us with a lawyer and extract an even bigger
package.” I just keep staring at my phone. He says: “What’s the state of your
team? I’ve never had to worry about it, you’ve kept such a tight ship. Who’s
the current second in command?” “Chris,” I say. Cedric can’t remember who that
is. “Is he ready to step up?” he asks. “Sure,” I say, “he’ll hit the ground
running.” I imagine Chris stepping up to the platform, blinking and gasping, buckling
under the realization that no volume of calls from his wife can save him from
gradual suffocation. Of course, it doesn’t usually work out that way; people
usually rise to the challenge, or the challenge lowers itself to them. “The
team’s fine,” I say, “no HR issues at all.” Cedric says: “Anyway, we’re getting
ahead of ourselves. I’m going to stand my ground with Ozzie. I’ll tell him this
would be like cutting off our nose to spite our face.” “Well, not really,” I
say, “his premise would be that the nose is diseased and needs to be removed
before it infects the rest. It may be an incorrect premise but it wouldn’t be
done out of spite.” “All right,” says Cedric, “I won’t put it that way. I’ll
tell him there’s no disease here. Even if there is, we can be confident it
won’t spread. It’s not like a nose on a face. It’s more like…” He can’t think
what it’s like.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Anything can spread,” I say. “Within
a corporation, there’s nothing that’s not infectious, and there’s no such thing
as a bulwark, probably. We should probably be grateful for the infections we
can see and manage, because meanwhile we’re being slowly killed by the ones
spreading behind our backs.” I walk out at that point, even as I can see he’s
about to say something else. I don’t want to talk about it anymore, directly or
indirectly. I sit for a while in a nearby empty office. I’m late for another
meeting already. The only major reason to attend that meeting today is to avoid
having to do it tomorrow, or the day after that. If those future consequences
don’t apply, then there’s no reason to go now. I suppose I should maintain an
appearance of normal engagement to avoid speculation and awkward questions, and
to increase my negotiating position if it does come to that. But there’s no
such thing as the appearance of being the chief accounting officer – that’s
your reality, or it isn’t, and I feel it’s no longer my reality, because the
position is a constant negotiation with the future, a future I’ve just been
expelled from.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I power off my phone. I try all the
drawers in the desk I’m sitting at, and one of them opens. It contains mainly
paperclips and elastic bands, and an old copy of the HR manual. I push my phone
into the very back of the drawer, possibly never to be found. I pause to assure
myself that all the contacts I give a shit about are on my personal phone. I
can only think of one person I give a shit about, and I’ve memorized her number,
so I conclude it’s fine. I consider my next move. The CEO, Bob Baines, walks
by, probably on his way to Cedric’s office. Bob knows who I am, of course, but
like Cedric, he seldom talks to anyone not joined directly to him on the
organization chart, and if he does, he talks to the exciting guys in strategy
and marketing, not to the accountants. He stops now though, in the same way
he’d probably stop if he spotted a stray cat in the office, sparing himself a
whimsical smile. “Kevin,” he says. “Are you contemplating what life would be
like up here in the clouds? No doubt it’s less exciting than you hope.” It’s
clear he doesn’t know my situation yet, although he might be just a few minutes
from finding out, not that I know what items of information Cedric considers
Bob Baines-worthy or not. I say: “No, if anything I was contemplating what life
would be like down on the ground.” Bob says: “It’s important to make time to
think. It’s my greatest challenge in this role. I often reflect on how little
time the current President of the United States appears to spend thinking. That
could only succeed with enormous intuition, or enormous luck. He may actually
have enough of the latter to get by.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve never mastered the knack of
talking politics with executives – I feel I always reject the wrong
simplicities and embrace the wrong complexities. I say now: “His luck is
everyone else’s damnation. I don’t think I’ve ever loathed any public figure as
much as I loathe Trump.” Bob is surprised, but intrigued. “Well,” he says, “I
may agree with you. Officially in this role, I’m usually inclined to focus on
the two or three policy decisions I agree with and to downplay the rest. In Mr.
Trump’s case, I can’t even count up to two or three rational policy decisions,
and the rest are terrible. Many of my contacts tell me it’s merely an extreme
case of politics as usual, but it’s hard for me to see it that way.” He looks
deeply worried, and more wrinkled than usual; perhaps he uses this room to air
out the real him. “Of all the times in human history,” he says, “this might be
the one when we most need to be having a broad-based, rational discussion about
how to steer into the future. I’m talking about climate change, aging
populations, debt loads, changing values, you name it. And not a single element
of that conversation is taking place. It’s a cliché to talk about fiddling
while Rome burns, but that’s certainly the phrase that comes to mind.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“As if Trump would ever have the
refinement to play an instrument,” I say. He chuckles at that. “Still,” he
says, returning somewhat to his official face, “there’s economic opportunity in
everything, and it’s our task to find it. And in your case to ensure we account
for it correctly, which I will say you achieve impeccably.” I smile vaguely; he
goes on his way. I haven’t finished considering my next move, but it seems to
start with getting out of here. I walk back to the stairwell. Someone’s already
moved the box out of the way. I don’t see anyone in the stairs this time, even
though I descend absurdly slowly, even stopping at one point and counting to
twenty. I return to my office. Kayla intercepts me, saying I’m late for my
meeting. I say: “Tell them I can’t come, I got caught up in an emergency.” She
says: “Isn’t this meeting being held to deal with an emergency? It just got
scheduled yesterday.” “We’re not the fire brigade,” I say. “If we think have so
many emergencies, then it must be a problem of definition. We’ll take the
things we currently call emergencies and redefine them as important. Then we’ll
take the things we currently call important and redefine them as not important.
I think that should open up a lot of time.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Kayla and I get on adequately, but
I don’t think she really likes me; she considers my behaviour to be forced and
unnatural, and she doesn’t understand why I don’t have children, or a car, or a
house, or any of the things that appear to define her existence. She thinks
jokes are unseemly in adults, and that all laughs should emanate solely from
stories about goofy kids or incompetent husbands, or from the same videos that
everyone else is watching on YouTube; if I say something she doesn’t
understand, she can only process it by forcing it into those frames of
reference. She says now: “That’s what you try to do with kids too. Everything’s
an emergency to them. You can’t reason with them and tell them it isn’t. Well,
they’re only kids.” This doesn’t give me much to work with. I say: “And most of
us in this group are only accountants. Is that a step forward or a step back
from playing with Lego? For me it’s a step forward, but only because I came
from a deprived childhood, and the only Lego I had access to was the occasional
brick donated by charity.” She asks blankly: “Does that mean you’re going to
the meeting or not going to it?” I say: “I’m not going. I’m not going to any of
my meetings today. Tell them anything you like. Tell them I went to the Lego
store. We have a Lego store in this city don’t we?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“The biggest one is at Vaughan
Mills,” she says, because of course she’d know that. “It’s called the Legoland
Discovery Store, or something like that. I’ve taken my kids there a couple of
times.” “I can’t go to fucking Vaughan Mills,” I say flamboyantly. “I don’t
travel that far outside downtown, unless it’s on a plane.” This is pretty much
the truth, something else she’s never understood. Her reality is out in the
suburbs: the downtown only exists for her to originate pay cheques. I view the
suburbs as arbitrary, essentially meaningless places to live, and the time
spent commuting to and from them as pure waste, negation of possibility.
There’s probably no way of reconciling these worldviews. I could marry someone
from another country, perhaps even someone with whom I barely shared a common
language, but I couldn’t be with someone who held a fundamentally different
view of what it means to live in Toronto. Kayla’s looking a little startled, so
I say in a conciliatory manner: “Maybe the domineering presence of the towers
is getting to me and I’m starting to crack up. You may feel free to file a
report on me.” She says: “I don’t need to do that, I only want to know what to
do about all these meetings.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Kayla’s never tried to learn
anything about the substance of what I and my team actually do – she only sees
meeting requests and appointments and files and memos, with no knowledge of
what they represent, of what it is they’re trying to maintain or to progress: for
all she knows, we could be engaged in covering up a plot to bring Hitler back
from the dead. But perhaps I only see the ways in which her life appears empty,
not those in which it’s full to overflowing. Looking at her now, she seems entirely
strange and alien, barely human at all. I think she detects something of these Seton-influenced
thoughts; she looks uneasy, exasperated, even contemptuous. “Don’t do anything
about the meetings,” I say. “Just tell people I’m not available and I haven’t
told you why. Tell them it’ll all become clear eventually.” She asks: “Is that
true? I don’t feel like things will ever become clear.” “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">More</i> clear at least,” I say.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I go into my office and shut the
door. I decide to plan for a quick exit. There’s nothing in here I would care
about salvaging. I have a personal folder on the computer, but there’s nothing
much in there; still, I copy it onto a USB drive and then drag it into the
trash. All right, I think, I’m ready to go. Except why would I go now? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where</i> would I go? Home to watch daytime
television? To a bar to get drunk by myself? I could go to the airport and take
the first flight out that isn’t fully booked, unless it were headed for one of the
red states, in which case I’d take the flight after that. And then what? I
don’t have sufficient direction or purpose to fill up twenty-four hours a day.
That’s been my strength, that’s how I could focus on being the chief accounting
officer, with minimal distraction, minimal regret. A day from now, I could
actually be bored; a week from now, I could be bored to the point of madness.
There’s no reason to rush into that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I call Eliza. I don’t expect her to
answer, but she does. “Hey you,” she says. “I can’t remember the last time you
called me from work. It must be a really dull day.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It is,” I say. “It’s the dullest
fucking day ever. What are you doing right now?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’m cleaning the kitchen. You know
what that means right, I’m doing everything except cleaning the kitchen. It’s
really disgusting. There’s a kind of brown film over the counter. I don’t know
what it is.” I say: “I wish you’d let Gyongi clean for you. She’d like the
extra work. I told you I’d pay for it. It would be the most romantic thing I
ever did for you, to get your place cleaned regularly.” She says: “I just don’t
believe in it. I don’t believe anyone should do such menial work, it offends
me.” I say: “But this is what she does for a living. Realistically, it’s not a
choice for her between cleaning or working in the theatre or being an
accountant. She can barely speak English and I don’t even know that she can
count. She’s just a real woman trying to make a living, not to be a social
statement.” We’ve been through this several times before. Eliza says: “I’m fine
with you giving her the money, I just don’t want her to clean my place in
return. And of course she can count, that’s ridiculous.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say, and I don’t know I’m going
to say it until I hear myself saying it: “Anyway, I think you should leave the
cleaning for another time. Come and meet me downtown. Come and meet me in a
hotel. I want to make love to you. I want to meet you and fuck. Let’s do that.”
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She gasps, then laughs. “Wow,” she
says. She sounds impressed at least. “That’s not like you. What’s going on
there? Did some hot new employee get your motor running?” I say: “I was
thinking of you and this is what I want to do. I know you can manage it. Just
come now.” She laughs again. “All right,” she says. “I have a lunch date at twelve
thirty, but it’s downtown anyway, so I could fuck first. Sure, I could do
that.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Good,” I say. “I’ll go find a
hotel. I’ll text you the location. You’ll start heading this way?” She’s still
laughing. “I need to reorient my head,” she says, “because, you know, I was
thinking about cleaning the kitchen, not about going downtown for a hotel room
fuck. Should I wear anything in particular? You know, to help this become a
fully-fledged fantasy.” I say: “It doesn’t matter what you wear, because I’ll
only be tearing it off. Just head downtown. And by the way, I love you.”
“Yeah,” she says, “I love you too.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, a conversation like this
is inherently exciting, but if it was anyone but Eliza, I doubt I’d be able to
follow through. I don’t have a lot of excess desire lately – my penis feels
tired, in a way I haven’t bothered to diagnose. I need the right kind of
preparation and foreplay, a lot of stroking and stimulation; I can’t relate to
movies or shows where men seem to get instantaneously hard. Even with Eliza,
I’m worried that the daylight and the unfamiliar hotel room and the other
things on my mind will make it embarrassing, especially if I continue to think
like this about how it might become embarrassing. But I’m committed to it now,
and for now at least, I’m hard and I feel like I could run into the washroom
and jerk off, which is a rare feeling for me. I leave my office and walk past
Kayla, buttoning my jacket. She calls out: “Wait, are you coming back?” I say:
“Yeah, probably, but don’t count on it. If you want to take the rest of the day
off, go ahead.” This might strike her as the most troubling thing I’ve said so
far today. She says, like a mother explaining the realities of adulthood, “I
can’t take off just like that. Look at all these things I’m working on.” I
don’t bother to look. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I have many hotels to choose from
within walking distance. My first thought is to go to the top of the line – the
Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons – but I think Eliza will be unimpressed at the
extravagance, and I’m worried they’ll be intimidating. I consider the other end
of the spectrum, going to the kind of dive I wouldn’t usually be seen dead in,
but feeling sordid isn’t my thing either. I think of a mid-range hotel a few
blocks from my place, and I race over there, not even taking time to put in my
ear phones. I tell the woman at reception I need a room for one night. I admire
the pleasant blankness of her expression as she hears this and checks the
system. “We don’t have a room available at the moment,” she says. “We’ll have
one available at around 3 pm, if you were looking to come back this evening.”
This lands as a way of filtering out people who have in mind what I have in
mind. I say: “I’ve been working all night, I really need to get some sleep right
now. You’re sure there’s nothing available?” I look around me; the lobby is
almost completely empty, except for an old couple who look like they’ve
forgotten why they’re there. “I could put a rush on the cleaning,” she says,
“then it might only be half an hour.” I feel I could assure her it’s not like
I’m going to bring in a hooker: you’ll see when she arrives, she’s someone
you’ll be proud to have in your lobby, proud to have spreading her legs in your
room. “I can’t even wait that long,” I say, “I need to go right to sleep. It’s
almost like a sickness.” She apologizes; I walk out. I think of another place
not so far away, a Holiday Inn. As I walk over there, I text Eliza: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Still working on the location</i>. The lobby
of the Holiday Inn feels sparse and cold, more like a stage-set hotel than the
real thing; the reception desk looks like I could kick a hole in it. Still, the
guy seems happy to see me, and he says they have availability. “I need to check
in right now,” I emphasize; he assures me that’s fine. I take my key card. One
of the three elevators is out of service. I share my ride up to the fourth
floor with a few staff and a cart of cleaning supplies. The card doesn’t work,
so I return to reception. He reacts like this has never happened before; he
couldn’t be more apologetic. I share my second ride up to the fourth floor with
a different cart of cleaning supplies, even though the place hardly carries the
air of being perpetually cleaned. The card works this time. The room is
unquestionably a hotel room – a bed, a TV, a bathroom, a few other things not
worth registering. It smells of starch and dust, perhaps of sex – I can’t tell
through the odour of starch and dust – but certainly not of romance. I don’t
think it will matter. I text Eliza again with the location and the room number.
She hasn’t responded to my last message but I’m hoping that’s because she’s on
the subway. It’s eleven o’clock; I figure she’ll be here in ten minutes or so,
and then that’ll give us over an hour before she leaves for her lunch date,
unless I can talk her into canceling it, as if I’d ever be the one she cancels
for rather than on. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I don’t know what to do now. I
don’t think I need to take a shower – I wouldn’t do that if this were happening
at home. The idea just seems more prominent here because there’s almost nothing
to do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">except</i> take a shower. I wonder
whether it would be customary to take a shower before meeting a prostitute;
whether it would be customary to take two showers, before and after. I decide
to stay as I am. I consider popping out to buy flowers, or booze, but I don’t
want to eat into my time. I consider scanning the TV for a music channel, for
background atmosphere, but this room doesn’t have any background, only
foreground. I leave it off. I can’t decide how many clothes to remove, if any;
whether I should rehearse the way in which I let her in, in which I lead her to
the bed. The only thing I can decide on is drawing the curtains. It just makes
the room seem cheesier, as if it’s for people who can’t afford a window, but I
leave it like that. There’s still no response from Eliza. I wait a few minutes
then text her again: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">R U close by? </i>I
stare at the phone, willing it to respond; it doesn’t. My mind processes
possibilities: maybe her phone was stolen, or she dropped it onto the subway
tracks, or she was hit by a car. I can’t believe that she forgot, or that she
got distracted by something else or someone else; even she wouldn’t be that
callous – I’d rather she were dead than think that. I stare at the phone for a
solid ten minutes before texting her again: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where
R U???!!</i> I think about how the delay should change my strategy when she
gets here, if she gets here. I’ll have to jump on her with a sense of urgency,
pull her to the bed, tear off her clothes, or whatever the real-world
non-rapist equivalent is of tearing off someone’s clothes. The problem is, I still
don’t feel that kind of rampant energy; I’m more in the mood to take it slow
and intimate. Now I’m worried the whole thing will feel misconceived and
awkward; it’s certainly starting to feel more like a challenge than an
opportunity. I try to focus, just to think about Eliza, naked and wet and
committed to me; I think about her strutting around like a stripper, like a
whore, although in practice these fantasies erode into images of her laughing
at me for thinking she would ever strut around like a stripper or a whore.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I start to become agitated, pacing
the room, wishing it had the dimensions to allow me to pace; staring out the
window at every turn, although it faces north and it’s unlikely she’d come from
that direction; clicking my fingers; pursing my lips and muttering to myself; waving
my arms like windmills. I feel I need to release pressure, not sexual pressure
but the inner contortions of self-pity and humiliation, and so I try whatever
dumb physical move might have something to contribute to that. In fact I don’t
believe at all that she dropped her phone or was hit by a car or any of that
crap, because in practice that kind of thing is hardly ever the explanation,
even though I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> think of a recent
incident where someone was hit by a car. I believe she changed her mind about
it and she doesn’t have the guts to tell me. I’ve never despised her so much;
the futility of our relationship has never been so clear. I assume she means
this to be the end, that the only text message she’ll respond to will be the
one where I say I get it and it’s over, to which I’ll get back an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“All the best” </i>or something equally
anodyne. I see clearly now how everything about her that sometimes seems
adventurous or free-spirited or impulsive is better understood as a
manifestation of fear, indecision and superficiality. I wonder if she’s ever
told me one true meaningful thing. Now I’m wishing for her not to show up, out
of fear for what I’ll unload on her when she does.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I start to rehearse the lines, the
inflexion, the posture, but then I sit on the bed, just wishing she’d come, and
that I could take the high road, assuring her that I wasn’t worried, that I
know how things come up at the last minute, and that I was calmly waiting,
frustrated only because of my desire for her, which I’d tell her has never been
so acute. Then I’m thinking she’ll come in right <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now</i>, that she designed all of this and was perfectly timing her
entrance. I open the door and look out into the corridor, to see if she’s
waiting there, maybe with her ear to the door. But of course she wouldn’t be
waiting there – she’d be down in the lobby or maybe out in the street, but if I
take the elevator down to find her, she’ll come up at the same time in the
other working elevator and she’ll think I left. I could text her to say I’m
coming downstairs, but if she’s not there, if I was right and this is all
calculated to injure me, it will be the most pathetic text ever sent, and
she’ll be laughing about it with her friends into her old age. I close the door
and lie on the bed. I feel every second go by. At least it’s experience, I tell
myself. When I check the time again, it’s 12.40 pm. I wish she’d told me where
she was going for lunch, so I could burst in there and make a scene to end them
all, or at least to end the possibility of any future scenes involving me and
her. Of course, I wouldn’t do that, but I’d probably stake out the place,
perhaps intercept her afterwards. The truth is I don’t know what I’d do, or
what I will do.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Anyway, I don’t text her. I think
of deleting her number, or blocking it, or even of throwing my personal phone
away as well. I can’t see a clear path forward. Eventually it’s after 1 pm and
I leave. I don’t want to deal with reception again – I throw my card on the
bed, figuring they’ll work it out. I share the elevator with a Chinese family;
I take their chatter to be excitement at what’s about to unfold. The teenage
girl makes eye contact with me, and doesn’t quickly look away, and I imagine it
might be one of those moments for her, a tiny random incident you remember long
after many more important memories have dissipated. That was the day, I imagine
her saying as an old woman, when I started to realize that the darkness is
always closer than you think it is, as I looked into that stranger’s tortured
eyes. And yet at the same time, I imagine her saying to her grandchildren, if
he’d reached out and snatched me from my parents, I think my life would have
been more meaningful than it actually was; you know, considering the time I
wasted on your dumbass grandfather and everything. I’d rather put money on my
ability to figure out the thoughts of a teenage Chinese girl than on my ability
to figure out Eliza’s. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I cross the road into St. James’s
Park and walk through there very slowly. The temperature is in the high
twenties by now, so the park is fairly dense with dogs, dog walkers, non-dog
walkers, sunbathers, lunch-eaters, book readers who I doubt are doing much
engaged reading, people who look like they have no plan or reason for being
here beyond hoping the sun will make it all better. My phone rings; I reach for
it so quickly that I fumble and drop it in the grass. It’s a restaurant,
calling to confirm my reservation for tomorrow night; Eliza said she’d heard it
was one of the best new places in town and I said I’d take her there, even
though I only really like empty, unfashionable restaurants. I tell her they can
cancel it. Then I start to think about grabbing lunch before going back to the
office, if I go back. I seldom get very hungry; I frequently go a few days
without eating much of anything. I suppose it’s another example of how I’m out
of tune with my own needs and desires. I don’t get sick very much either, or
maybe it’s that I’m always low-level sick and so newly-added pain and
discomfort doesn’t register. Even though I only weigh about one-fifty, I often
feel very heavy, or maybe it’s more that I feel dense, that I once had inner
space, but it’s all gradually been filled in with figurative cement, the
slowly-setting by-product of my amalgamated disregard, callousness,
disconnection and wrongness. I’m not losing my hair like many men my age, or
even seeing it go grey; I’m not putting on weight; my features are hardly
fuller or less taut than they ever were. But these indicia of being
“well-preserved” make me think of Toronto’s habit of preserving an old
building’s façade, when tearing down every other part of it to build another
condo tower. At street level, the subterfuge can work – you might think you’re
walking past somewhere with character, with a history. But when you go inside,
or you tilt your neck upward, you see it’s just more modern concrete and glass,
without a foot in the past, or even a foot in the present, beyond the atypical
self-referencing present of downtown Toronto. That’s often how I think of
myself – the exterior might seem meaningful in some way, but it’s a promise
that can never be met.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">These thoughts would only make me
think I didn’t deserve to eat. But I consider it rationally and I decide I may
need some energy this afternoon, if only to be sure of sustaining my
disappointment. This provides enough motivation to walk to the end of the park.
I get a text message, but it’s from someone I don’t give a shit about. I
realize I hadn’t thought about music since leaving the hotel. As soon as I
become aware of this, I can’t hear anything except a sickening aural churning.
I don’t know how much of it is the traffic, the infrastructure, the mass of
people, and how much of it is me, the racket of my own dumb head, but either
way I have to block it out. My mind goes to the Beatles, as if in some effort
to reset; I always say the Beatles are the first group I remember being aware
of. I don’t know if that’s true – they’d split up before I started tuning into
anything – but it’s never seemed to me to be an implausible claim, and no one
ever questioned it. I think I like the story of the Beatles, the improbability
of such personal journeys, of so many musical doodlings becoming indelible, as
much as I like the actuality of them, and I like their dumber and yet somehow
equally indelible songs as much as I like the cornerstones. If anyone else had
written a song called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ob La Di Ob La Da, </i>it
would have been dead on arrival. I go to the White album and listen to that
track now, although I don’t find the assertion that life goes on as persuasive
as I usually do. Then soon afterwards it goes on to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bungalow Bill,</i> which belongs in that same category, at once
absurdly unnecessary and inevitable. I somehow think that even if someone had
never heard the White album before, or never even heard of the Beatles at all,
you could play them the White album and they’d feel it in their blood if you
skipped a track.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I turn off the music to enter a
sandwich store. There’s no one in line – I guess the whole lunch period got
away from me. I can’t be bothered to read the board – I just say I want
something vegetarian. She starts to list the possibilities – the first one is
tofu salad, I say I’ll take that. She starts to ask something else, whatever
the following standard question would be, but then she chokes it back; I think
my taciturnity may have intimidated her. She takes a few steps to relay the
order to the guy in the kitchen, and he asks the question, so she comes back
and asks it of me: “Any sides? We have potato salad, Caesar salad, sweet potato
fries, onion rings….” She trails off. “Various others,” she adds, indicating a
list somewhere. “That’s all right,” I say, “no sides. I mean, just the sandwich
will be fine.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She asks me if I want anything to
drink, and I realize I really fucking do want it; I ask for an orange juice,
because it’s the first thing I see, and then for a coffee as well. She asks if
it’s to stay or to go and although I hadn’t even thought of staying, I decide
now I’ll stay. She says she’ll bring everything over; I go and sit by the
window. I’m not even ten minutes’ walk from the office, but that’s far enough
away for downtown to loosen its grip – there’s more skin, less sense of the
clock. There’s a patio across the street, occupied by people who look like
they’re on vacation; I’m certain I never look like that. When she brings my
drinks, I say: “You must sometimes look over there and wish you could join
them.” Actually I could believe she’s never been out in the sun – she has an unblemished
paleness that’s rather striking, now I let it strike me. She has a vaguely
exotic look about her too – she could be half-Asian and half-Norwegian or
something like that, although if she were actually that, I think she’d draw
more confidence from her own distinctiveness. She says: “Maybe they’ll be
working when I’m having fun though.” I say: “Some people have the knack of
looking like they never work.” I’m talking about an ability to fully occupy
their current coordinates in time and space, to make that a larger place than
it could ever be if they vacated it, betraying no hint of other demands or
priorities or concerns. In contrast, I’m pretty sure I always look like a guy
who’s stealing time from something else, and I’m pretty sure I’ll go on always
looking like that, even if I never again have anything I’m actually stealing time
from. She says: “Maybe, but that’s because they’re lousy at what they do.” I’m
not sure I would have reached the same conclusion, but at least it’s something
to engage with. “That’s a big generalization,” I say. “Are you that good at
judging people?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I think you wanted me to
say something, so I did.” She’s at least twenty years younger than I am, probably
more like twenty-five. I say: “I guess I seemed bad-tempered when I came in. I
was having an extremely bad day. Do you want to know about it?” “Sure,” she
says, “I’ve got time.” I say: “First of all, I effectively got fired, because
they think I committed a crime, which is actually true, although it’s not a
crime anyone really gives a shit about. Actually I committed a much more
serious crime, but I’m thinking I’ll probably get away with that one. And just
now I was going to meet my girlfriend in a hotel, because I have one, a
girlfriend, I’m not married, I was going to meet my girlfriend in a hotel for a
romantic lunchtime, you know what I mean when I say that, and she didn’t show
up. She didn’t text or anything. I waited for over an hour and a half. So you
can imagine how that made me feel.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “At least you didn’t get
told you have cancer.” After that she has to think it over. She says: “You look
like a pretty normal person to me, but now you’re telling me you’ve committed
two crimes. Does that mean almost any normal-looking guy has probably done the
same thing, or is it just my luck I had an outlaw walk in?” She gets called to
the kitchen before I can answer. She returns with my sandwich. I say: “I wish I
knew. There’s the big collective happy dance we carry out during the day, and there’s
our private contorted hell. The most horrifying thing in the world is that we
all know the distance between them. Living within the law, morality, ethics,
the calm disposition that makes you a good Canadian, it’s just not enough to
make a life. We suppress our private natures for the good of the whole. But
individually, we can’t help fighting the suppression, because we know we only
live once, and we crave the thrills and the stories, and we usually believe
we’ll get away with it, because the truth is we usually do. For instance, guys
maintain secret sex lives for decades, with hookers or whatever, without it
ever falling apart on them.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She processes all this very calmly.
“Do they?” she asks. I say: “They must. It’s an industry worth hundreds of
millions of dollars, but no one ever admits to knowing anything about it.
Because it’s a perfectly maintained secret.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “You should eat your
sandwich. It’s hard to think of your private hell on an empty stomach.” I try
to pick up the sandwich and it falls apart in my hands. She laughs and brings
more napkins. “Happens every time,” she says. “We urgently need to redesign
this sandwich. But we don’t have that kind of brain power here. So what are you
going to do now?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I suppose I’ll go back to the
office,” I say. “Like I said, I’m not fired yet. I’d like to see how the final
chapter plays out. Is that you meant by what I’ll do now, or did you mean the
rest of my life?” She shrugs. “Perhaps I’ll try to do something more in tune
with my private hell,” I say, “once I figure out what that is.” I’m eating the
tofu salad with a fork, mostly leaving the bread. “What’s your life?” I ask,
“other than this.” She says: “I don’t know yet. I’ve mostly just drifted along.
For a long time I was living with a guy and that held me back. Good thing I
couldn’t have kids, or that he couldn’t, or I’d <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> be held back.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">This doesn’t feel like a natural
place for a serious conversation: it’s a white, cubical space that feels like
it was assembled in a laboratory, so sterile that anyone should be happy to eat
off the floor, and I imagine the harshness of the light must make my face look
like the inside of a toilet bowl. I see about ten signs and logos emphasizing
freshness and goodness and organic-ness, but you just know that in its own way
it relies on as heavy and morally oblivious a supply chain as any fast food
shithole. There are lots of places in the same vein, but perhaps this one
pushes the concept too far, considering I’m the only one here. I tell her I
don’t have kids either, hoping she doesn’t immediately think it wouldn’t only
be because no one would ever have fucked me. She’s surprised by that; when I
ask why, she says: “I just think of older guys in suits as having kids. Even if
they’re gay. It’s just part of the package.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t have a big house or a car
either,” I say. She says: “Wow, so you’re actually really poor like me?” I say:
“No, that’s not it. I just live the life I want. Or at least in those respects
– those were the easy ones to figure out. The intimate stuff is harder.”
Another customer comes in; she goes back to the counter. I finish my sandwich,
or as much of it as I’m going to. The other customer is the direct opposite of
me; he questions her for several minutes as if he’s been on a lifelong quest
for the perfect sandwich, and it’s all come down to this. In the end he settles
for ham and cheese; which seems to me a choice someone could make in five
seconds. He orders it to go, but still needs to wait a few minutes. It feels
unnatural that I’m hanging around; I wonder if I should go. Then she reappears
at my table. “Here’s your cookie sir,” she says, “and your coffee refill.”
“Thanks,” I say, sounding very buoyant I think, “I’d forgotten I’d ordered
those.” “I didn’t forget,” she says. She goes back to the counter. The guy
leaves; a couple come in. They order quickly and sit as far away from me as
they can; that is, not very far away, but they’re completely enveloped in each
other and their phones, and will never notice anything I do. Eventually she
returns and asks about the cookie. “It was great,” I say, “and I don’t even
like sweet things usually.” “That’s ridiculous,” she says, “who doesn’t like
sweet things? Oh, I know, someone who never wanted kids. I guess you don’t like
kittens either.” “Maybe not,” I say, “but I like puppies.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I always had dogs when I
was growing up. I live by myself now in a tiny place, so I can’t have one. I
mean, technically I could, but you know what I mean.” She adds: “How about
another cookie?” She doesn’t wait for the answer; she goes to get it. “By the
time I’m done you’ll be an addict,” she says, putting it before me like a hash
brownie. “I eat too many of these myself.” She does have a fleshiness about her
that I can envisage getting out of control one day; I can’t tell whether she’s
trying to control it now. I guess I have a conventional prejudice against
people at the higher end of the weight range, especially as sexual partners. I’m
surprised that I’m thinking of her as that, even fuzzily. She’s a much younger
woman, so it ticks off that part of the conventional dream, but she’s not conventionally
trophy-ish. Maybe I’d rather have her as a friend. That would be a glorious
thing, at this time in my life, to make a genuine friend who just happened to
be a younger woman. I imagine us eating together, attending concerts, texting
late into the night. I imagine myself in my dying years, with her putting aside
all other priorities to care for me. I say: “Maybe I’ll stay here all afternoon
and eat cookies.” She says: “You’ll be by yourself then, we close at three.”
“Good to know,” I say, “what do you do afterwards?” She says: “Sometimes I take
a break and then go to my other job in a bar. I’m not doing that today though.
So I guess I’ll go home and watch TV. I’m working my way through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orange is the New Black</i>.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I haven’t seen that,” I say. “I
don’t watch any shows at all. If I had the time I’d watch more movies. Mainly
foreign ones.” She asks: “Aren’t there enough English ones?” “No,” I say
flatly, “there just aren’t enough of them.” She says: “It’s no good watching
things by yourself. All the fun is in talking about them. I usually watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orange</i> at the same time as my friend and
we text about it the whole way through.” “Interesting,” I say, “I’ll have to
find someone to do that with when I’m watching Jean-Luc Godard.” As if this
were an admission of something, she says: “Are you going to tell me about these
crimes? I mean, is it murder, or more like jaywalking?” “A bit of both,” I say.
“One of them I could explain in a few seconds, the other one maybe not at all.”
She says: “Are you going to go to jail?” I say: “I’ll only accept that if I can
find someone who’ll wait for me.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I need to get back to
work, I need to clean up, start shutting things down.” I say: “I guess I should
go too. But I was thinking of coming back. I mean, today even. Not for another
cookie. I thought we might continue our conversation.” She says: “You know
that’s weird right? We probably don’t have anything in common. You’re probably
only interested in talking to me because you’re in a hole of some kind and you
don’t know how to get out.” She says this like an actress departing from her
script to deliver a mild rebuke to a fellow actor. I say: “I don’t know if
that’s true, but if it is, then I must be putting a lot of trust in you, to help
me climb out of that hole.” She says: “Maybe you just think I’ll climb in there
with you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I live pretty close by.
It’s a nice place. I’m thinking I might give you the keys. You can go there and
hang out, enjoy a change of scene.” She says: “That’s pretty weird. I have my
own place. It’s not close by, but at least it has all my stuff in it.” I say:
“Go and get some of your stuff and bring it back downtown. Stay a night or many
nights. You can have your own room. You can have the whole place if you want. It
would be good for me. If you think it might be good for you, then you should do
it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She goes back behind the counter.
Another customer comes and goes; the couple leave, their laughter hanging in
the air for several minutes afterwards. I go up to her. “My keys,” I say,
putting them down like a stake in a game. “This thing gets you through the
outer door and into the elevator, this is the key to the door. I’ve written
down the address here,” and I put that down too. “You can go there now or later
or tomorrow or never. You can mail these back to me or throw them away. It’s up
to you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“This is a bit fucked-up,” she
says. “People don’t hand their keys to a stranger.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“No,” I say, “and people are
generally miserable and worn out and scared. But it’s up to you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It sounds like it’s up to me but
it also feels like you’re manipulating me into something. Like one of those
magic shows where someone guesses what you’re thinking of but you know it’s
only because he somehow put it in your head in the first place.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Well sometimes there’s no obvious
line between manipulation and persuasion.” But then I also feel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> might have fallen prey to such a
magician; that I had an arbitrary premise forced on me – talk this random-selected
woman into something neither of you would ever have thought of – and now I have
to make it work or else…or else something. “I just see a possibility,” I say.
“I don’t even know of what. I’d like to find out. But you have to tell me what
to do. Except it can’t be, you know, let’s meet for coffee in two weeks. It’s
too fast-moving a situation.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The phone rings; she goes into the
back. I notice a guy there, sitting on a stool, reading a big book. I guess he
could have heard all or most of what we’ve been saying, if he cared, but he plainly
isn’t listening. She says: “That was the owner, he calls every day about this
time, just so he can be disappointed every day I guess.” I indicate her colleague,
with what I intend as a quizzical expression. She says: “He tunes everything
out. He lives in the Second World War. He has some theory he’s trying to prove,
I forget what it is.” The break and the digressions give events the feeling of
a reset. She says, almost playfully: “So about these crimes. You going to tell
me what they are?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I go into my phone, to one of the
local news websites. I scroll down and find the story right away. I glance at
it before showing it to her; they haven’t added anything new since this
morning. She reads it carefully, then goes back to the start to read it again.
“So what does this have to do with you?” she asks. “You don’t look like you
were pushed under a car.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Do I look like I did the pushing?”
I asked. Her eyes widen; she reads it a third time before handing back the
phone. “You pushed someone under a car?” I nod. She says: “Like, in
self-defense or something?” “No,” I say, “if it had been self-defense I
wouldn’t consider myself a criminal. It was unprovoked, unnecessary. He was
just one of these guys that latch onto you in the street. Annoying, maybe, but
not dangerous. I didn’t need to do what I did.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She’s studying me very carefully,
as if she has permission now to disregard all the usual rules of personal space
or propriety; it feels like she’s trying to memorize the exterior of my
eyeballs and of the surrounding skin, so she can describe them in detail to a
sketch artist. “But at the time,” she says, “you felt you had to? Or the car
came out of nowhere?” It’s inevitable she expects to find mitigation, to find
that the story carries a blunt edge, not a sharp one. “Not at all,” I say. “I
could have shaken him off easily. I picked the right place to do it, I
positioned myself, I waited for the car, I pushed him, I ran, I did everything
I could not to be picked up by any cameras, I went home and slept like I always
do. Then I woke up today and didn’t think about it much then either. No more
than other events of yesterday.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” she says. “And this is
something you do often. Because it’s the kind of person you are.” “No,” I say,
“it’s something I’ve never done before. As for what kind of person I am, I’m
waiting to find out.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She asks: “Did you want to kill him
or just to scare him, or to hurt him?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Pushing someone under a car
isn’t that precise an exercise. I had no way of knowing how it would turn out.
It was an exercise in randomness. It was only pure unlikely chance that I was
out so late wandering around, that I met him and he latched on to me, that I got
the idea, that I acted on the idea. If I’d known how it would turn out, I
wouldn’t have done it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So that’s fine then,” she says.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “You can ask me as many
questions as you want and I’ll answer them as honestly as I can. The answers
may not be as good as the questions.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She asks for the phone and reads it
a fourth time, seemingly convinced she can make it come out a different way.
“Well,” she says, “it’s interesting that you told me.” She looks displeased by
that choice of word, but I’m sure it was the best she could do. “Who else have
you told?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“No one,” I say. “There’s no one
else I could possibly tell.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “What about the other
crime? You said there were two. Or do I really want to know.” I say: “The other
one’s almost like comic relief by comparison. I’m being investigated by the
securities commission for giving someone inside information about the company I
work for. He bought shares and then sold them quickly for a profit. It’s not
allowed by securities law because it gives people with connections an unfair
advantage.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I should be so lucky as to be able
to buy shares,” she says, “no matter how much money someone told me I could
make. I don’t even know how to do it. Well, I guess I could go online and find
out, but I never have. So you’re guilty of that also?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’s basically true. I mean, it
was all kind of subtle and implied, but I did let him know it would be a good
time to buy shares, which I guess is the key point. I don’t think they’ll be
able to prove it though. They open a lot of these investigations but most of
them die along the way. Personally I don’t think it’s much worse than crossing
against a red light. Without mowing someone over I mean.” I go on: “The only
problem is, not everyone agrees. The phrase is, there’s no smoke without fire.
For those people, even a hint of misbehavior is enough to put you over the
line. That’s why it looks like I’m being fired. That’s why I’m not at any of my
meetings, not returning any of my calls, lingering here talking to you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Doesn’t sound like you’re getting
a lot of calls,” she says, looking at the phone. I tell her: “This is my
personal phone, I threw the work one away. So it tells you how little I have
going on outside work. But the work phone is always busy.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">As I speak, I’m reflecting on how
I’m able to tell her all this, on how I maybe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> to tell her. I’d told Eliza about the commission’s
investigation, but I swore to her I was entirely innocent. I never concluded
whether I’d tell her about the other thing. I still haven’t heard from her, and
I wonder now whether it’s because she somehow found out about it, without
whatever alleviating spin I would have given it. That could only have happened
if they – the forces, the authorities, the powers of justice - found out who I
am, and they’re looking for me, and they somehow talked to her. But in that
case she would have given them my number, presumably would have told them where
to find me. Maybe it means she found out and they, the forces, didn’t find out,
and for now she’s keeping it to herself, bearing it in appalled silence. I
don’t know how that would have happened, but when such a disruption gashes down
the centre of your life, who can anticipate the full extent of the
destabilization? Or maybe I’m guilty of a third crime, a crime to which I’m
currently still blind, and she’s punishing me for that. And if it wasn’t that
one, it would be a fourth crime, and after that a parade of them stretching in
a disreputable line to the moral horizon and beyond.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I think maybe you’re
just a con man, that this thing with the car is nothing to do with you. Maybe
you’re one of those guys who puts on his suit as if he’s going to work, then
just hangs around the parks and the coffee shops all day, trying to get
attention. What do you think of that?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I think you could be describing me
in six months’ time.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Or maybe you have a hidden camera
on me and this is all going to be on TV. Or more likely on some super-shitty
web series.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I think in that case I’d be trying
to make it funnier.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’ll probably be funny enough by
the time you edit it and add in the snarky commentary.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So I should just leave then,” I
say.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Not necessarily. I don’t really
have anything to lose. What do I care if I end up looking dumb on some shitty
web series.” She certainly doesn’t seem anxious, or even overly interested; her
demeanour is becoming blanker as our exchange continues, as if some aspect of
this has already become inevitable enough not to need her active engagement
with it. “I don’t really know what you expect though,” she says. “Whatever your
problem is, your problems are, I don’t think I can do a lot to help you out.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You can be another person who’s
present,” I say.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It’s almost three o’clock. “Close
enough,” she says. She locks the door, flips the sign around. “Wrap it up,” she
tells the guy. He almost seems reluctant to close his book. Maybe for both him
and for me, for all its sterility and lack of character, this place is a kind
of refuge. He puts the book away and gets to work, closing up containers,
tossing utensils into the sink. It doesn’t look like there’s a lot to do. “I’ll
be another half hour here,” she says. “I’ll take your keys, I’ll go to your
place. I could use a change of scene. Anything to eat and drink there?” “You’ll
find the alcohol easily enough,” I say. “You might not find much food.” I would
give her some cash, but I barely carry it now. I give her one of my credit
cards and write the PIN on a napkin. “Use this to buy whatever you want,” I
say. “Food, clothes, whatever you need. It has a limit so you can’t buy a car
with it, but that aside, don’t worry.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’re putting a lot of faith in
me,” she says. “Or you’re conning me. You guarantee this is an empty apartment,
I’m not going to walk into some weird mess and be framed for one of your other
crimes?” Except for building management and the cleaner, who’s not coming this
week, the only other key is with Eliza, but I’ve never known her to use it in
my absence, so I can promise the apartment will be empty. “Change your mind at
any point you like,” I say. “Like I said, leave the key at the desk, or throw
it away, leave the card there or throw it away, I’ll cancel it eventually.” The
guy from the back is tuning in to our conversation, now his attention has been
liberated. I stop to look in his direction; we make eye contact; he darts out
of sight like a park squirrel. “Hey man,” I call out, “it’s all right. You can
weigh in. You might see this clearer than I do.” He reappears. “I’m sorry,” he
says, “it’s just interesting to see how different families are.” I ask him what
he means. He says: “You’re her uncle or her cousin or something right? You’re
letting her stay in your place. I thought it was pretty cool. Everyone in my
family has no money, and if they do, they’re assholes about it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “Does he look like my
uncle or my cousin? We just met. He just got this crazy idea in his head and
I’m crazy enough to go along with it.” “Wow,” he says, “you never even tell me
what you do in the evening, and then all of a sudden you’re hooking up with
this older dude.” She says: “I’m not hooking up with him, I’m just doing him a
favour and he’s doing me one.” He says: “I told you, I think it’s all good.”
Addressing me, he says: “I’ll do you some favours myself, if you ever think of
any.” She says: “Just finish up so I can go where I’m going and you can go back
to jerking off with your book.” It seems a little harsh to me, but he takes it
amiably. He has the look of someone who if he ever finds the right direction,
will follow it forever, like a soldier who doesn’t care that the rest of the
army has deserted him. I say to her in a low voice: “He actually could do
something for me though.” Irritated, she says: “Why don’t you hand out
assignments to everyone who walks by?” I realize I’m already diluting whatever
singular pleasure she’s taking from what I’ve given her. “I don’t mean he could
help me like you could help me,” I say. “I’m thinking, maybe, the equivalent of
asking him to collect the mail.” “Whatever,” she says. “I need to focus on
this.” She sits and loses herself in the computer; it’s like being dismissed
from a board meeting. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I wander into the back. “Hey,” I
say, “I’m Kevin.” It only occurs to me then that where it seemed entirely
natural to transact with her on the basis of no names, right up to giving her
the key to my place and probably beyond, I don’t see it that way with him. Maybe
it’s because he just doesn’t occupy his piece of time and space as fully as she
does, and so I need a name to help arbitrarily flesh it out. “I’m Ryan,” he
says. I say: “I think I know a lot of Ryans.” Then I amend that to: “Actually I
probably don’t know a single Ryan in the flesh. It’s a name that shows up a lot
on correspondence from law firms. You get an email copied to twenty people
you’ve never heard of, and one of them’s always named Ryan.” Obviously, this is
too situation-specific a joke for him to get anything out of it, if it’s a joke
at all. He says: “Most people connect it to Ryan Gosling, if they connect it to
anyone. Actually though, my mom named me after this other actor, Ryan O’Neal.
She says he was already a has-been when I was born, but she liked him anyway. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love Story</i> was her favourite old movie
when she was growing up. Know who I’m talking about?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Certainly,” I say. “To me, if I
was alive when it came out, it’s not truly an old movie. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love Story</i> came out in 1970 when I was two. I can remember a few
Ryan O’Neal movies. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What’s Up Doc. Paper
Moon. The Driver.” </i>But I can see that his knowledge of and interest in this
piece of family history stops at what he’s told me already. I might as well be
reciting old Aboriginal chants. “I’ve also seen a few Ryan Gosling movies,” I
say, reassuringly. “Were you serious when you said you’d do me a favour?”
“Sure,” he says. “Once I finish this, I’m not doing anything that can’t wait,
probably forever.” I say: “I’ll wait outside. Take your time.” She doesn’t look
up as I walk past, but I’m not worried about losing her.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I put on my music, continuing with
the Beatles for a while, and then switching to Talking Heads. I don’t know much
about Talking Heads, except that they grew out of the same general ground as Blondie
and the Ramones, out of New York’s most socially uneasy and culturally fertile
period, but they always meet my most important criterion, of being
unprecedented before or since. There’s an uneasy jitteriness to them, embodied
by David Byrne’s presence, but also a mythical underlying flowing permanence;
listening now to “Once in a Lifetime,” for the five hundredth or thousandth
time, I register again both the pervasive disembodiment of all those questions
about the beautiful wife and the beautiful home, and the intermingled sense of
freedom, of a water capable of holding you up, of things being the same as they
ever were; the song at once occupies a deeply uncertain now, and an always
that’s predictable for better and for worse. I could happily listen to it every
day, if not for all the other songs that I could also happily listen to every
day. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">When Ryan comes outside, I’m
staring at the ground, or into the hell below that, and he startles me.
“Talking Heads,” I explain as I put the earphones away. He says: “What’s that,
a political podcast or something?” It’s hard to answer such questions without
seeming condescending or antiquated or both; hard to talk solely about the
glories of Talking Heads without seeming to implicitly belittle the questioner
for not knowing all of it already. I decide not to try it now; to prove my
relevance by focusing on him instead. “They’re a band,” I say, “but it doesn’t
matter now. Tell me about you. She indicated…what’s her name by the way…,” as
if I’d forgotten it. “Cindy,” he says. I ask: “Short for Cynthia or just
Cindy?” “How the hell would I know,” he responds. I go on: “She said you were
studying the Second World War, she said you had a theory on it.” “It’s not
really a theory,” he says, in the tone of someone who has to swat away such girlish
misconceptions every day of his life. “It’s because my grandfather was a Nazi,
and my dad’s obsessed with Hitler too. I’m always worried I’ll go the same way.
So I read about it a lot, to remind myself what an evil fuckfest it all was.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’s one of the more interesting
explanations I’ve heard for reading a particular book.” He says: “I never told
Cindy that, I didn’t think she’d get it. I thought you’d probably get it, as
much as anyone would.” He tells me his grandfather was in the SS and was blown
up in the 1944 by the French Resistance. “Obviously for most purposes the
family brushes it under the carpet,” he says. “They say he was just an innocent
kid who got drafted and didn’t know what he was doing. But he was like a fucking
cheerleader for Hitler. He thought Hitler was God. It’s all in his letters and
his diaries. My dad still has all those. My dad’s a creepy motherfucker too. He
has his own website where he posts his rants about how racial dilution is
ruining our country and all that kind of crap. None of it makes any fucking
sense. So every time I have a racist thought, and you know everyone has them, I
get hyper fucking scared that I’m starting to swing toward our proud family
tradition of bigotry. I’d rather kill myself than end up like my dad.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask about his mother. “She left
when I was a kid. She says my dad didn’t talk much about his Nazi heritage when
they met, but once they got married, it was like he exhaled and out it came.
She’s a hard right conservative too, she worships Trump so that’s one thing
they have in common, but denying the Holocaust was too much even for her. And
then he found another woman who’s like a quieter version of him. This just
shows you can get anything online, even your own dedicated Nazi bitch. The
worst thing is I still live with them. It’s not even like I live in the
basement, they live in a condo. So I have to listen to this shit every day of
my life. He knows I don’t agree with a fucking word he says, but it just means
he goes further out of his way to pound it into my head. So every day, I make
sure I do something to keep it out.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, this completely changes
my view of him; now he seems to me pained and pilgrim-like. “I’m sure you’re
too hard on yourself,” I say. “Human minds aren’t so malleable, especially not
alert adult ones.” He says: “I don’t know about that. Look at all the fucking
Trump supporters. If you’d told them three or four years ago they’d vote for
someone who acts and talks like that asshole, with the same kind of putrid
personal history, they would have told you to go fuck yourself. But look at
them now. You can say they’re all jerks but some of them must have some kind of
brain. So if a supposed decent Christian can become a Trump supporter, I can
become a racist piece of shit.” He’s staring straight ahead, but I feel his
eyes gleaming with emotion. We’re just a block now from my office building.
They say Toronto is as diverse as any city on the continent, but at this
moment, I only see white people, smug in their sense of their own necessity. I
say: “You must be wondering what I want you to do.” “Not so much,” he says, “I
thought you were just bored and looking for ways to kill time.” I say: “I want
you to go to my office for me. Talk to my assistant, get my messages, anything
I need to know. That’s it. I’ll give you, what, a hundred bucks.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You shouldn’t wave your money
around,” he says. “I know that’s nothing to you, but it takes me like six or
seven hours to earn that. More than that probably.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’re right. I’ve lost
perspective, I lost it years ago. Just this once, you may as well take
advantage of it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“What’s the catch? Why can’t you go
up there yourself?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’m going to be fired. It was
going to happen anyway, and by spending the afternoon like this I’m not doing
anything to stop it. In effect it’s probably already happened. I can live with
the decision, but I don’t want to face the personal humiliation.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“What if they don’t believe me?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Why would a random guy come in off
the street and try to steal my messages? I’m not that important.” Still, I
conclude he has a point. I record a message on his phone, for him to play to
Kayla: “Hey Kayla, this is Kevin, it’s just after three o’clock on June the 21<sup>st</sup>,
I’m not able to come back today but I’m sending my friend Ryan, this is just to
confirm you can give him my messages, give him anything you have to give me,
thanks Kayla, any questions you have for me, give them to Ryan, thanks again.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“The business world is even more
fucked up than I thought it was,” says Ryan. “No wonder the planet is being
raped and pillaged.” He asks: “What are you being fired for? Just in case
that’s relevant to this assignment.” I assure him it’s not relevant. “White
collar crime,” I say. “Excessive raping and pillaging.” We cover the remaining
distance to the building. I ask him if he wants his hundred dollars now. “I’ll
get it on the other side,” he says. “I won’t feel I earned it but at least I’ll
know I did something.” We cover a few more logistics. I tell him I’ll be in the
vicinity; I’ll see him when he comes back out. He goes through the revolving
doors, like a hiker taking his first step onto the Appalachian trail. I almost
believe he’ll never make it back out.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I walk to the corner to use the
ATM, then I cross the street and enter another lobby; I can sit inconspicuously
there, watching the lobby of my building, and waiting for Ryan to come out. I
check my phone again. Nothing from Eliza. At some point I received two voice
mails from numbers I don’t recognize, but I don’t listen to them. If I had any
remaining chance of a future at the company, I’m sure this stunt will choke it
off. I’ve already moved on. I’m thinking perhaps I’ll put my name out there as
a consultant. I’ve made lots of contacts over the years. The method of my
leaving here may be a stain on my reputation, but eventually it’ll be
forgotten, or understood as an aberration. There aren’t that many people who
can do what I do; there aren’t that many who would want to, but we’re needed,
maybe not by regular people, but by the distended engine of corporate
compliance. Rationally, I don’t think the cause of corporate accounting in
Toronto can afford to let me fall away. I think I could do much worse than I’ve
done, and still come out a survivor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I see Seton, the believer in aliens
among us, exit from the elevator, cross the lobby, come out into the street.
He’s not leaving for the day; maybe he’s running an errand, or just taking a
break. For now though he just stands there, almost perfectly still, as if he’d come
out for the sun and the air and the noise, and doesn’t even mind that he’s on
one of the busiest downtown intersections, with people pushing past him from
north and south, impatient at this breach of sidewalk etiquette, because
everyone knows you don’t just stand there, not unless you’re a dumb visitor. I
wonder whether he’s the alien and this is his way of recharging, or whether
sometimes he just forgets his purpose and has to come out here to reestablish
his connection with home. Perhaps everything he told me was a disguised cry for
help, or an invitation, or a warning. I watch him until he finally decides on
something, and then walks very slowly up Bay Street, not like someone who ever
plans on arriving anywhere.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I see one of my staff come outside
and light a cigarette. I had no idea she smoked. I did know she goes to the gym
at lunchtimes. She doesn’t look very happy with herself. I could be witnessing
her falling off a long ride on the wagon. I imagine my unexplained absence is
destabilizing everyone on my team. Perhaps I’d be forgiven for imagining
everything is about me, considering that not long from now, nothing will be.
She half-finishes the cigarette, fumbles with some breath strips, goes back
inside. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I wait for half an hour, much
longer than I thought likely. Then I see Ryan enter the lobby. He’s accompanied
by a man I don’t know, in a brown suit. Ryan looks frustrated, unamused. They
come out into the street. Ryan’s looking around for me; he raises an arm and
waves, turning from left to right. The man turns with him. I slide down in the
chair I’m occupying and then move to hide behind it. Some wretched busybody
stops to look at me, follows my eye-line, sees them across the street, waves at
them, points down at me. I store away a wish to see her again one day, to push
her under another car, or worse. The man across the street reacts, looking for
a break in the traffic. I get to my feet and run. There’s an escalator in the
lobby, going down to the underground path, and to one of its busiest spots – a
large food court in proximity to a subway entrance. I have a good head start,
multiple choices of direction and plenty of people to duck behind, so his
chances of catching me are minimal. Still, I don’t take any chances – I move
quickly to lose myself, past the displays of cosmetics and cellphones and
financial services and sushi and shoes, in above-ground terms heading a block
north and then another block or two west, until taking another escalator up to
another lobby, another chair. I sit there, reflecting how quickly I adapted to
the state of having to run for my life on a daily basis.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I assume the man was from the
police, waiting for me to return; he must have descended on Ryan, extracting
the little that Ryan had to share about me. It would have been more astute, I
think, for Ryan to come out alone, to draw me out of hiding. But I don’t
suppose they deal with such situations every day. I’m sure Ryan thinks I
tricked him, but I didn’t anticipate anything like this, and I don’t know how
to explain it. Insider trading offences don’t rise so quickly to this kind of
drama, so the police must be here for the attempted murder, or whatever they’re
calling it. I’m quite impressed they found me so quickly; I may reassess my
entire notion of the relative fallibility of law enforcement. I search on my
phone again, but there aren’t any updates. It shouldn’t be surprising if one’s
personal problems aren’t being updated for the whole world to track, but on
this occasion I feel it’s a big, disappointing hole, just waiting to be filled
with confusion. Well what the fuck am I meant to do now, I ask myself, aware
that the question is hitting the same part of my brain that the accounting
problems go to, not the part that processes and responds to personal crises and
dramas, if my brain even holds such a place. When we deal with accounting
problems, we rely heavily on materiality to save us from the small stuff – for
a company like ours, it doesn’t much matter (for some purposes anyway) if the
numbers are off by a few tens of thousands; a big bank or conglomerate might
not even sweat the millions. I’ve been moving within a materiality-influenced
world for so long that I’ve lost all sense of financial precision in my own
life, and so perhaps of any kind of precision. It's hard to think any
differently now, but I know I have to. Every move I make now may carry
permanent, unalterable consequences, and not just in some abstract butterfly
effect way. I could very easily be facing humiliation, ruin and pain now.
Indeed, at this moment, I’m not sure there’s any way of avoiding those
consequences, other than suicide. Again, I analogize to situations at work, to
the times when there didn’t seem to be any solution to a particular challenge,
and yet we worked our way towards one. But I can’t forget how materiality eased
the way in all those cases. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I sit for twenty minutes,
monitoring the street. I half-expect to see the area cordoned off, to have
tracker dogs and bazookas trained on me, but of course I’m not quite that great
a public threat. I check the news several times, still with no update. It’s
been a violent summer – the murder rate is running about double what it was
last year, and we’re all being encouraged, more or less as a civic duty, to get
anxious about gangs and guns. A one-off incident like this, without even a
traumatized kid or outraged mother or disrupted quiet street, shouldn’t rank
too heavily in the competition for law enforcement resources. But I suppose it
would be naïve to think the problem will go away. On one level, even if they
find me, even if there’s no doubt the hands pushing him into the road were
mine, it’ll be his word against mine; I might plead self-defense, irrational
fear. In another time and place, I’d easily be a more credible witness than he
is. But it’ll be easy to establish that I was behaving unusually in the run-up
to the incident, and they might have camera footage that works against me.
Perhaps I can present my behavior today as a manifestation of shock at what I’d
been forced into doing. I might say I was in denial for the first couple of
hours, and then it all came crashing in on me, and I’ve been unable to function
rationally since then. It might work. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and Speedy will
have amnesia. I suppose that happens less often in life than in fiction though.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Even if that works, it’s only at
the end of a long trudge through interrogation and I suppose at least some
period of incarceration and public disgrace and the pillaging of my bank
account and very likely a much reduced life after it’s all over. I certainly
wouldn’t have done what I did if I’d anticipated all of that. It wasn’t even
that great a momentary thrill. I don’t know what I was thinking. I laugh out
loud at the inadequacy of that self-rebuke. Oh well, I tell myself, there’s no
point crying over spilt milk. I laugh out loud at that too. Someone turns to
look at me. I stare at my phone, benevolently shaking my head as if at an
amusing message. And I see on there what I saw thirty years ago, the woman and
her kid on the crosswalk, and what I’ve seen so many times since then, a world
in which the only thing to know about me, in which the only thing I knew about
myself, was that I killed them, and should have died myself, and yet lived on,
day by unbearable day.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I call my home phone. I don’t know
if Cindy will feel she should answer, if she’s even there, but I call four
times in succession and she picks up, with the most tentative hello I’ve ever
heard. “Good,” I say, “you made it there. Hope it works for you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I love it,” she says. “You have a
great place. It feels weird being here, but it’s great.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You have everything you need?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t know what I need. I don’t
know why I’m here. But I guess it’s all good.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“There’s no one else there, no one
looking for me?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You have voice mails on your
phone, I can see the light flashing.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I can’t remember how to check them
remotely. I’ll do it later, maybe.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Are you heading back here?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I think so,” I say. “Things got a
little complicated. I mean, even allowing how complicated they are.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Did Ryan help you out?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’m not sure. I haven’t been able
to talk to him yet. I know he tried.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“He didn’t end up under a car too
did he?” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“He didn’t end up under a car,” I
say. “All right,” she says. She asks if she can have a glass of wine. I tell
her to drink as much as she wants – it’s all cheap stuff anyway. “Smoke weed if
you want,” I say, “although you won’t find any in the house.” “That’s what I
thought,” she says. “That’s all right, I don’t need it.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I end the call. It’s after four
o’clock. I mean to head for home, but I feel it would be like leaving a concert
before the encore, something I would never do. I feel I’ve fucked up something
very basic. The reason for walking out on something should be to avoid having
to think about it anymore, but my speculations about the office are clogging my
thoughts like a wad of psychic chewing gum. I suppose it’s because I
contravened another basic rule and threw too many balls into the air at the
same time. But at least I’ve diagnosed the problem quickly. I decide I’ll
settle for even a slight reduction in my current uncertainty. I start to make a
call, but then I stop, reflecting that I’ve never given my personal number to
anyone at work, and maybe should protect it from them now. I go back underground
to look for a pay phone. I can visualize the location of just about anything
down here: I immediately know where I’d go to get lingerie or orchids or
Australian meat pies or board games or wigs, but I don’t have any idea where to
find a pay phone, or if they even exist anymore. I put my ear buds back in and
continue with Talking Heads. I swing my arms a bit, click my fingers, try to
treat this as a stroll, a calming exercise in subterranean birdwatching. In the
end I come across a couple of phones, at the entrance to a corridor no one
needs to do down, except to reach a particular elevator. One of them is
occupied. The other is out of order, so I have to wait. The woman before me is
laughing and nodding, entirely immersed in the conversation; the pay phone
ought to use her as an ad for the pleasures of old-fashioned stationary
communication. I wait through two entire songs. After that I shift my position
so she can see me waiting, but she just doesn’t care, and I wait for five more
minutes. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I call Cristina, although I only
make that decision as I’m placing the call. Perhaps I think our conversation
this morning, and her own workplace problem, will make her particularly empathetic.
I get lucky; she picks up. “Cristina,” I say, “it’s Kevin.” She doesn’t say
anything, but I can sense her surprise. “Don’t say anything,” I say. “Are you
OK to talk?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She tells me to wait a second; I
hear her office door closing. Even then, she talks in a whisper. “I’m surprised
you called me,” she said. “You’ve been missing for hours.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Only from your point of view,” I
say, trying to convey total breeziness and equanimity. “From my point of view I
knew exactly where I was.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’s good to know I guess,” she
says. “I was only talking about my point of view. The point of view of everyone
here. It’s a big panic. Everyone’s looking for you, trying to get hold of you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Any reason in particular?” I ask,
hoping she doesn’t detect how much depends on the answer.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t know,” she says. “They
haven’t told me. I know the executives are involved in it, whatever it is. We
were only told to let Cedric or HR know at once if we get hold of you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Did you get the impression it was
something to do with work, or was it something that arose externally?” “I don’t
understand,” she says, “don’t you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i>
what it is? Why did you disappear without telling anyone?” “It’s about
connecting dots,” I say vaguely. “I may know what the dots are but not how
they’re being connected.” She says: “I’m afraid I don’t know either then. At
first I thought it was just because you were AWOL, because that’s out of
character for you. I thought maybe they were worried that you’d had an
accident, or been shot or something.” I register how incongruous that is; I
doubt that anyone who leaves one of the office towers during the day has ever failed
to return because of being shot. She goes on: “But then I realized they were
looking for you for a reason, and I think because you were missing and not
answering your phone, the reason became more important to them.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I threw the phone away,” I tell her.
She says: “Well that doesn’t sound good.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t think I’ll be working
there anymore. It’s come to an end. Sorry I couldn’t have solved your problem
with Mary first.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She sounds genuinely upset when she
speaks again, although I don’t really take it as an expression of personal loss;
I think it’s more comparable to how she might react to a sad scene in a movie.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “When we talked this morning you seemed so
normal. Did this all happen since then? They told me you were late to a meeting
and they saw you talking to a creepy guy by the elevator. Did they catch you
buying drugs on the premises? That’s it isn’t it?” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“No, it isn’t,” I say, “and don’t
speculate on that to anyone else. He’s an innocent bystander, I don’t want him
dragged into it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“But dragged into what?” she asks.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I promise I’ll tell you everything
one day. If you’re still interested then. Things like this flare up and then
they pass. I know I’ve messed things up for the team in the short term, even
the medium term. It’ll take a long time for anyone else to settle in. But no
one’s irreplaceable, perhaps no one’s even particularly important.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t want to work for Chris,”
she says. “He’ll never be as good as you are. I mean technically and also
personally. He makes commitments and doesn’t keep them. I don’t really respect
him. If he gets the job, I’ll leave. I mean it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Obviously I feel smugly happy about
this. “People stay in jobs too long,” I say. “They say it’s an age of mobility
and virtual offices, but accountants still like to find themselves a physical
space with a desk and then hang on to it. I did that for too long myself.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So can I do anything for you?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t think so,” I say. “Just
keep this between us. Maybe I’ll call again, if that’s all right.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“But you’re not going to keep
hiding, are you? I mean, what’s the point? You have to deal with whatever
you’re avoiding.” I acknowledge that. I wish her a pleasant evening, a pleasant
everything, and hang up. I check the news again. If the police are looking for
me, they haven’t told the world about it yet. Things aren’t remotely as clear
as I need them to be. I decide I don’t want to hang around at home; I’d rather
be where no one will come to look for me. I call my place again; Cindy answers.
“I guess you really like calling me,” she says. It sounds like she’s drinking
my wine. She says: “I can handle that. I hang out here, enjoy the view, get
drunk, answer the phone once in a while. I could probably take on more duties
too if you need me to.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask if anyone’s been there. She
says: “You asked me that already. You’re obsessed with the idea of people
looking for you. Maybe no one cares about looking for you, did you think of
that?” “Yeah,” I said, “I considered that, and I also considered that maybe
there are people who do care.” “Chill out,” she says, “no one’s looking for
you.” I say: “I’m coming back there, but only to pick up some things I need,
then I’m going to a hotel. You can stay there though. Enjoy the space, the
wine, think about your life. Stay as long as you like.” She says: “This is all
nutty. I thought you wanted me to keep you company. Now you’re just leaving me.
I don’t get it. If you’re running an Airbnb you should save it for people who
actually need somewhere to stay. And you should get them to pay you. You could
get a lot for a place like this.” These are all good points. I say: “I didn’t
invite you for any particular reason. I’m not sure what I need from you or from
anyone. Right now I’m just sculpting, sticking on pieces of clay, moving them
around, seeing if they suggest any particular shape.” She doesn’t try to engage
with that. She asks: “Can I invite some people over? I mean, it’s great, but I
might get lonely.” I tell her it’s fine as long as she doesn’t hold a wild
party and wreck the place. She doesn’t seem like someone who would, but for now
I’m choosing to believe anyone might be capable of anything.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I tell her I only need one thing
from her in return, to pack a bag so I can pick it up and get out of there
quickly. I tell her where to find the bag, in the closet in the spare bedroom,
and then I direct her as she locates my laptop, a phone charger, a couple of
changes of clothes, the key bathroom items. She complains that nothing in my
closet has any colour, that it’s like a rack at a funeral home. “That’s not just
because I’m an accountant,” I say. “Accountants often like to dress as if they were
headed for the country club. I’ve never subscribed to that premise myself.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “Instead of sticking bits
of human clay onto yourself, you could try to wear something that actually
looks good to other people.” It stings deeper than she intends, not because I
give a damn about the specific assessment, but because I can’t accommodate any
further vulnerabilities now. If I can’t count on understanding, I can at least hope
for support and loyalty. My silence must be persuasive, because she says:
“Black always looks good, don’t worry about it.” She tells me she’s carrying
the bag to the door. I fleetingly think of her as a disgruntled girlfriend
throwing me out, which causes me to think of Eliza, who seems as far away now as
total freedom, as distant as the ocean, albeit that in downtown Toronto you’re
never far away from the lake, and that from there the Saint Lawrence Seaway
allows passage to the ocean, rendering it not distant at all. Sometimes by the
lake you see a massive docked cargo ship with a foreign name, most often
bringing sugar to the refinery directly south of the financial district; it’s a
sight at once anomalous and irrational, because we’re so plainly
post-industrial, so obviously inland, not somewhere that could ever be accessed
by something as ancient and cumbersome as a fucking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ship</i>, and liberating, as a testimony of unbound possibility. If
unrefined sugar can travel over water from Brazil to Toronto, then there must
be a route back to Eliza, and deeper into her than I was before.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I feel this so vividly that I think
Cindy might be that conduit to Eliza. To another man, in the right time and
place, Cindy might be the world and Eliza just a signpost or a connection, but
that’s not visible to me now. I thank her for helping me; I tell her I’ll be there
soon. I start walking. The street feels unfamiliar, dangerous; the people
strike me as puppets that could suddenly be marshaled against me. They don’t
know it though: they’re all the same as always, seeing only as far as the next
block, the next meeting, the next text, the next wearying item on the schedule.
I put my music back on but it’s one of those times when my thoughts are too
loud, and I barely register a note. I switch it off for the last couple of
blocks. It’s one of those days that only finds itself in the late afternoon;
clouds dissolve and the sky exhales into a blue that feels unnaturally intense,
because in the city you lose touch with the intensity of nature, and the sun reigns
in unhindered, majestic yet deadly triumph. The streets hum with glowing skin:
it’s wondrous, but also intimidating, because I’m overdressed, and my anxiety
doesn’t help me feel any cooler. By the time I reach my street, everything
about me feels wet and heavy. I take a minute in the shade to cool down.
There’s a woman hanging around the front of the building with her dog, some
negligible-looking thing that could lose itself in a rug. There’s a man leaning
against the wall, smoking, looking like he’s taking a break from something
strenuous. People come and go. I decide I’m ready; I don’t have my entry fob because
I gave it to Cindy, but the concierge recognizes me and lets me in. The man who
was smoking slips in behind me. Even though I’m staring directly at the sign
that tells us not to let in people we don’t recognize, I think little of it; it
happens all the time. He’s not paying any attention to me. The elevator is
already waiting on the ground: I go inside, he does too. I press twelve, then
step back for him. He waves his hand as if to say I read his mind. Even then I
don’t register a threat: there are ten or eleven other units on the twelfth
floor, the people in them come and go. In the street I saw threats everywhere,
but I’m not in that frame of mind now. We arrive at the floor; he gets out
first and seems to be walking the other way, but then he’s somehow in front of
me, extending his arm to block me. I look at him, and I know he’s not a
policeman, or anyone of authority; he’s unshaven and his hair is tangled, he’s
wearing a stained T-shirt with some comic book character on the front, and
shorts that don’t match. “Can I help you?” I ask, as if it’s necessary for me
to say anything. He says: “Yes, I think so. Mr. Kevin Whitland?” “Yes,” I say,
knowing the futility of lying, “who wants to know?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I’ll tell you once we get
inside.” I don’t want to let him in. “Let’s go somewhere else,” I say. “No,” he
says, “you’re going to want to hear this and you’re not going to want to be
overheard.” The last part sounds plausible, although I can tell he’s
uncomfortable in this role, straining to appear authoritative yet enigmatic.
“Just so you know,” I tell him, “there’s someone in the apartment waiting for
me, a young lady.” He’s not prepared for this, nor for many other contingencies,
I suspect. “That’s your problem,” he says after consideration, “I just need to
give you a message.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I shrug and knock on the door. I
need to knock again. She has the music on loud; it sounds sweaty and naked. The
door opens wide; she plans to greet me effusively, then she swallows it back as
she sees my companion. She looks immediately uneasy; perhaps she thinks I’ve
trapped her, that I’m selling her into bondage and this is the first customer.
“Don’t worry,” I say, “this is just someone who was waiting to meet me.” We
come inside; I introduce her; she turns down the music. “I didn’t catch your
name,” I tell him, taking off my shoes. “I can’t give you my name,” he says,
leaving his shoes on. He surveys the apartment, more like someone gawking at an
open house than an emissary who’s arrived to disrupt it. I suppose I may as
well lean into the incongruity, so I ask him if he wants a drink. “She’s
already drinking,” I point out. Cindy protests that she only had one glass; if
that’s true, she must have the tolerance of a tissue. He looks deeply tempted,
by the drink and even by the company, but he resists. “I want to give you the
message,” he insists. “All right,” I say, “should I receive it standing up or
sitting down?” “I don’t fucking know pal,” he says, “what would you be doing if
you were reading the mail?” I’m standing by the kitchen island, so I lean
against that. Cindy’s also hanging around; he looks uneasily at her. “It’s
fine,” I say, “she can hear it.” “This is your girl?” he asks doubtfully. “More
like a business adviser,” I say. Cindy nearly spits with laughter. Another silence
follows, until I say: “All right, this is it, let’s hear it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I’m here from Tommy.” I
fleetingly think he means the waiter at a pizza place I sometimes go to.
Dismissing that possibility, I respond: “Who the hell is Tommy?” Looking more
at Cindy than at me, he says: “Maybe you don’t know his name but you know what
you did to him. You pushed him under a car last night.” Cindy gasps. She puts
her glass down on the table; I register that she doesn’t use a coaster and
it’ll probably leave a mark. “All right,” I say, “I didn’t push anyone under a
car. But I might know who you’re talking about.” He says: “You could have
fucking killed him. It’s a shitty thing to do to a man. Tommy’s never done any
harm to anyone.” I don’t respond. He says: “You’re lucky he’s a good guy. I
would have told the coppers exactly who you were. There’s no honour in
protecting a man who does something like that. But Tommy sees the best in
everyone.” I look at Cindy; she’s wide-eyed, like a kid at the zoo. He says:
“He’ll keep his mouth shut, but you’ve got to do something about it. Twenty
thousand dollars. Looking at this place, he should have asked for more, like I
told him to, but he thinks twenty thousand is the right number. That’s what you’ve
got to do about it. To go on with your nice fucking life.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask: “What makes you think it was
me?” He says: “You dropped this.” He takes out one of my business cards,
briefly holds it up for me to see, turns to show it to Cindy, puts it away. “He
picked it up when the two of you were talking. You never know what’s going to
come in useful.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I keep business cards in the
pockets of all my jackets, so I can pull them out when necessary without
seeming too formal or calculating about it. Sometimes they fall out when I pull
out my phone or something like that; I often find them on the floor of my
office. I can’t really damn myself for being careless; it’s just random bad
luck. I’d rather be undone by that than by investigative brilliance or
technological oppression; the frivolity of the unmasking matches the
impulsiveness of the crime. “This doesn’t have my home address,” I say. “Good
thing you’re not called Smith then,” he says. “We found it online in two
minutes.” He must be talking about the listed landline, weighed down with voice
mails I never listen to. I intended to get around to disconnecting it; now I
realize it wasn’t merely a waste of money, but a dormant enemy. “I found
pictures of you as well,” he says. “After that, all it took was waiting
around.” “All right,” I say, “there’s not much I want to say to that.” I add:
“You know blackmail is also a crime.” He says: “Yeah, of course we know. What
you going to do about it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I walk deeper into the apartment.
“You know,” I say, “spaces like this can be deceiving. This place is mortgaged
like a motherfucker. I’m nowhere near as rich as you think I am. I can’t get
twenty thousand dollars.” This is an absurd lie, but there’s no harm in trying.
He says: “I’m not an idiot and neither is Tommy. You can get the money. It says
on the business card that you’re an accountant so you can probably steal it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’ll take a few days at least,” I
say, and that’s probably true – I’ll have to liquidate some investments. He
shrugs: “That’s all right. Tommy’s not going anywhere, the police aren’t going
anywhere.” I’m thinking it’s a shame I’m so unaccustomed to violence, to any
kind of rough stuff. This visitor really doesn’t feel threatening. He hasn’t
indicated he’s carrying a weapon. I could possibly overpower him, take back the
business card, tell him to convey to Tommy that if I hear from either one of
them again, I’ll use the twenty thousand dollars to have them both beaten up.
I’m tempted to try it; I’d have the element of surprise on my side. But I don’t
have enough confidence in the outcome, especially as Cindy’s standing around. I
say: “I might be willing to make a deal like that. I’m not admitting I did
anything of course. In fact I’m telling you I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t</i> do anything. I don’t know who Tommy is or what any of it’s
about. But for the sake of peace and putting any misunderstandings to rest, I
might be willing to make a contribution. It’s a lot of money for any of us, but
your need is probably greater than mine. So it would be a Christian thing to
do.” I smirk at that absurd piety.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Tommy goes to church every
Sunday,” he replies. “He sits in the back of St. James’s. He’s the real deal.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I suppose some of it will end up
in the collection then,” I say. “If they still do those.” I haven’t been into a
church for decades; I even skipped several funerals I should have attended,
like my father’s. It’s plain to me that there’s no God – becoming an accountant
helped to remove the few doubts I ever had about that. If you could dig all the
way down into a big company’s income statement, it would disentangle itself into
millions or billions of transactions, the efforts of thousands of people and
hundreds of locations, pulled into single summary amounts of revenues, and
expenses, and bottom line profit. God, likewise, is what you get when you
coalesce our billions of human transactions into a single number. It’s just an
exercise, like accountancy, depending on a lot of systemic information
gathering, some arbitrary rules, and collective faith. The God that arises from
all that is real in the same sense that the numbers in an income statement are
real: they have meaning as the sum total of what gave rise to them, but no
independent life beyond that. We crave the simplicity of God just as we depend
on the illustrative ease of accountancy. I’ve thought about this many times;
I’m not sure if it’s flashing through my head at this moment because I was
reaching for the reassurance of God, or for that of accountancy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’ll be up to him,” he says.
“He promised me a piece of it. You can’t say that’s not fair. I took a chance
coming here.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I turn to Cindy. “What do you think
about all this?” She oscillates between looking like she’s at the greatest show
on earth, and debilitating fear. She moves her lips without saying anything. I
tell her I really want to know what she thinks. She says: “Twenty thousand
dollars is so much money.” To emphasize that, it seems she’s hardly capable of
saying the words. I say: “You think I should negotiate him down?” She flails to
indicate she wasn’t suggesting that. It’s an idea though: I wish I had the
panache to say I’ll pay a thousand bucks and not a cent more. I’m almost certain
they’d accept it in the end. But I’m an accountant, not a negotiator, and the
amount doesn’t seem as awe-inspiring to me as it does to her. I pretend to
think about it, before saying: “No, fuck it, I’ll pay the twenty thousand. The
poor bastard did get pushed under a car. He can use a little stroke of luck.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“How is he exactly?” asks Cindy. I
don’t think I would ever have got round to asking. He says: “He’s fucking
lucky. Mostly scrapes and bruises. No broken bones. That would have cost you
more. But for once, the world decided to give a shit about what happened to us.
He was even on TV. I didn’t get to see it myself, but I heard.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” I say. “We have an
agreement.” I go on: “I assume you’ll want the money in cash, but it’s not
wise. A bank draft would be safer. Installments would be even better, to avoid
any temptation to spend it all at once.” This goes down much as I expect; I
might as well have suggested settling in beaver pelts. I don’t even bother
waiting for an answer. “How do I get hold of you when I have the money?” I ask,
moving on. He says: “I’ll call the day after tomorrow to check in on you.”
Great, I think, now I’ll have to go through all those voice mails on the
landline. He says: “I know you’re probably a clever bastard who has lots of
tricks up his sleeve. Don’t fucking try anything. I’m not saying we know people
who’ll come and break your legs. The people we know are mostly all clapped out
with no muscle mass. But we know where you live and we don’t owe you any
protection.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I acknowledge this. “Don’t worry,”
he tells Cindy, “no one knows where <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i>
live. Just watch your back around this guy.” He starts moving to the door.
There’s a knock – loud, authoritative, a knock certain of obtaining a response.
We all jump – I think maybe half the furniture jumps also. “Who the fuck is
that?” he demands. “Is that the fucking cops?” “I don’t know,” I say. “No one ever
knocks on the door. This is a condo. I don’t know who it is.” I point to the
bathroom. “Go in there until we know what’s happening,” I say. He’d clearly
rather run; then the knocking repeats itself and he complies. “I’ll hide too,”
says Cindy. She goes into the spare bedroom. I look quickly around; I can see
signs of Cindy all around – her wine glass sitting on the kitchen island, her
coat thrown on the couch, her shoes by the door. I make a snap judgment on the
futility of trying to hide her presence. I open the door, just as it appears
the third round of knocking might force it off its hinges. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric is standing there. Maybe
it’s been years since he had to wait so long for his wish to be fulfilled; he’s
looking swollen by outrage, and as he’s a big man anyway, I visualize him
getting stuck in the door,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not that I
intend to invite him in. “I didn’t expect to see you,” I say, truthfully. He
says: “An interesting contrast then – I expected to find you in the office at
several points today, and yet I didn’t. I also expected you to answer your
phone, and you didn’t.” I have a good history with Cedric, but it’s all driven
by work, all built on the dynamic of him being the unquestioned decision-maker,
out of the two of us anyway. Sure, he often takes my word on things, things he
doesn’t give a shit about; obviously he gives a shit now, otherwise he wouldn’t
be here. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s barely even asked about my
personal life, beyond the minimum required to avoid utter iciness; I’m certain
he’s never contemplated coming to my home. Under other circumstances it would
be an honour of sorts. Now it’s entirely unwelcome; I don’t know how I need to
behave with him, and if I did, I wouldn’t know how to achieve it. He says: “Can
I come in,” and then he’s already in, over by the window, the grandeur of the
view seeming to shrink in deference to him. “A nice place you have here,” he
says, but I’m sure he thinks that living in a downtown condo is little better
than sleeping in your office. He asks me to point out our office, but it’s
hidden by an intervening tower. “Just as well,” he says, “or you could stand in
your office with binoculars and watch the cleaner fucking on your couch.” This
seems like an enormously unsuccessful attempt at camaraderie, especially if he
knew my cleaner. He sits in the chair where I most often sit, his forearms
resting like carcasses on a slab. I sit somewhere else, furious at how quickly
I lost control of the dynamic.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I would have expected
better of you. Still, I can empathize. I’d given you some unpleasant news and I
shouldn’t have expected you just to run with it as if nothing was happening. I
expect you felt there was no more reason to be loyal or even conscientious. But
that’s never the right assessment. No matter what’s going on, you can always
improve your position or worsen it.” I stare at the floor. “Not to mention,” he
says, “that I told you I would stand my ground and work in your best interests.
I let you know about the threat from Ozzie because I wanted to be transparent.
If I’d known you’d react like this, I would have said nothing. But that’s how I
treat people I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">don’t</i> respect.” I hear
this less through my own ears than through those of my hidden visitors, which
I’m sure are pressed right up against their respective doors.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Understood,” I say. “But does it
change anything?” Regardless that he booms everything out as if to a town hall
gathering, I keep my voice low. “Well, here’s the thing,” he says. “We got some
news today that I don’t think will have reached you yet. It’s about Jack
Gardien.” I indicate I don’t know anything. “I’ll be the one to tell you then,”
he says. “Jack Gardien killed himself. At least, that’s the way it was
communicated to us. Perhaps it’s ambiguous – they informed us he threw himself
under an oncoming truck. Perhaps it was an accident of some kind. In any event,
it was certainly fatal.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He looks like he just pulled the world’s
biggest rabbit out of its smallest hat. I don’t know whether this is a release
or a further blow, perhaps a fatal one. As soon as the words leave his mouth, I
visualize it all – Gardien stumbling off the sidewalk; the rapacious roaring
lights of the oncoming truck; an impact that leaves nothing of a man, a wide
pulpy stain on the road that will never be entirely cleaned away; and I see
myself there, a triumphant witness to all of it. I feel like pulling my other
visitor out of the bathroom, to confirm just who we were or weren’t talking
about before. “I don’t understand,” I say. “We know this? Someone saw it
happen?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I can’t give you a play by play,”
says Cedric, “but the version I got is that he was standing on the sidewalk in
broad daylight and that he very clearly jumped. This was at Lakeshore, so you
know what the traffic’s like at rush hour. He wouldn’t have had a chance. There
were several witnesses. I’ll admit to you, it went through my mind at first
that you might have come up behind him and pushed him. You might have had
reason. But that’s not being suggested, you’ll be glad to know.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“He left a note or something?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Not that I’ve heard. It’s still
early days. He had all his ID on him. His sister lived close by, she got the
call, she identified the body. She placed a couple of calls, each of them
probably placed a couple of calls, next thing you know the whole town knows.
Except you. The one who had most to gain. I’m just yanking your chain. I know
you didn’t wish the guy dead. You were probably the best friend he had, even if
that’s not saying a whole fuck of a lot.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I hadn’t talked to him for a long
time,” I say.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Of course not, with what was going
on. Anyway, we won’t know until we know, but my strong guess is this means the
end of your problems with the Commission. I bounced it off someone who should
know and he saw it the same way. They can’t hound poor Gardien anymore, and
it’s hard to get anywhere against you without him. And the matter isn’t
important enough to shake the bones of the dead.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“What about there being no smoke
without fire?” I ask.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’re talking about Ozzie. I told
you I would try to manage him. This makes it easier. We already have one dead
man, we don’t need to create another one. Figuratively I mean.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I reflect on all this for a while.
I was so certain that it was over, as surely as if I’d boarded a plane and
flown away from it. The certainty with which I left it behind in the last few
hours weighs more than the fifteen years I’ve spent there; at this moment I can
hardly conceive how I’ll find a way back in. I’m sure I’ve damaged my standing
with the staff, although on the other hand, a little chaotic behaviour might
just emphasize my human side and work to my advantage in the long run. Even as
half of me thinks it’s impossible, I’m also starting to think about the
meetings I missed today and how quickly I can get them rescheduled. But also
I’m thinking over and over about how I killed Gardien. My hands and feet are
throbbing with the sense memory of how they pushed him, how they carried me
away from the scene. My memory says it was another guy, at another time in a
different part of the city, but I can’t trust my memory on this. I feel a
frightening inner conflict developing. I say: “I’m going to need time to
process all this. I’m very shocked about Gardien.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Of course,” says Cedric. “I’ve
always told you to take more time off. Take as long as you need. Within
reason.” He gets up. “I noticed you were drinking,” he says, indicating Cindy’s
half-full glass. “I’ll join you for a quick one. Don’t worry, I’ll serve
myself.” I want him out, but I’m helpless to protest. He passes Cindy’s glass
to me when he returns, saying he gave me a top up. I say: “I did see something
on the news this morning about a man being pushed under a car. But that
happened last night, and it wasn’t at Lakeshore, I think it was on Dundas. Did
you see that?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Possibly I did,” said Cedric. “I
don’t tune into all these local stories of crime and mishap. I always stay
focused on the big picture. I do vaguely think I heard the story you mention.
But as you say, it’s not relevant. Your point is about the danger of being a pedestrian?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I was wondering whether Gardien
saw the same story this morning. I mean, I don’t know if he watched the local
news either. But if he did, and he was already thinking of doing something like
this, maybe it helped his thoughts coalesce. Maybe it was in a sense his
inspiration.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Possibly,” says Cedric. “It’s a
pointless speculation. There’s no shortage of sources for ideas on how to kill
yourself, or for loopy ideas in general. But I don’t blame you for trying to
see all sides of the matter.” It’s clear his patience for it will be limited
though. He waits for me to say something else; when I don’t, he says: “As I’m
here, I’d like to pick your brain about something.” He starts talking about the
monthly report we provide to the board; he has an idea for reformatting it, for
making some numbers (the ones he likes) more prominent and deemphasizing
others. I doubt if this will prompt the board members to read it any more
carefully than they do now, but I pretend to listen and to take mental notes.
“You don’t have to agree with all this,” he says at one point, “feel free to
push back.” I make a few token suggestions, without even listening to myself.
“Maybe this wasn’t the right moment to talk about this,” says Cedric; I’d roll
my eyes, if that was in my repertoire of expressions. He drinks the rest of his
wine, commenting on how I never touched mine.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” he says, “I’ll leave
you to it.” The chair exhales as he gets off it. He asks: “Any likelihood
you’ll be in tomorrow?” I remind him that he told me to take some time off.
“Naturally,” he says, “I just wasn’t sure you were taking me up on that. I
assume you’ll at least check for urgent messages.” I indicate I will, but I
don’t tell him I don’t have my phone. Walking to the door, he says: “I’m
meeting Jack Jilowsky for dinner. I suppose you’ve heard of Jack. Brilliant
guy.” He starts on a tedious old war story about how Jilowsky demonstrated his
brilliance by being born with family money and then adding several zeroes to it
by being in the right place at the right time. I’m trying to usher him along,
but then he swerves away from me, striding to the bathroom: “I’ll just pay a
fast visit,” he says. I try to stop him, to say he should use the other
bathroom, but the door’s already open, and the hidden visitor is already
exposed. “Oh,” says Cedric. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here. Well of
course I didn’t.” The visitor steps out. “Go ahead,” he mumbles, moving out of
the way. Cedric hesitates, but then he goes ahead, shutting the door. He pisses
as loud as he talks.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I know he’ll expect some
explanation, but I can’t think of anything that’s likely to be both plausible
and satisfying. I ask the visitor if he heard the conversation. “Enough of it
to get the drift,” he says. “Boring old twat though isn’t he. I was thinking of
coming out anyway and pretending to be the plumber.” Grabbing at the best thing
I can think of, I go to the spare bedroom and lead Cindy out. “Pretend to be a
couple,” I tell them. “I know it’s ridiculous, but just do the best you can.”
She’s understandably bemused, but goes to stand beside him. He starts to put an
arm around her; she swats it away. “We’re not that great a couple,” she hisses.
Cedric comes back out, starting to say something, then abandoning it when he
sees Cindy. “Another one,” he says. “Is that it or will we end up with a full
house?” They both laugh, more convincingly than I’d have expected. “That’s it,”
I assure him, “you can search the place and that’s all you’ll find.” Obviously
he expects more. “This is Cindy,” I say, “and this is Eric.” Cedric shakes
hands with them both. I say: “Cindy and Eric are staying with me. In my spare
room. I can’t remember if I told you that. Eric is a relative, actually he’s my
cousin’s brother, and Cindy is his girlfriend.” Cedric says: “He’s your cousin
then.” I don’t get what he means. He says: “If he’s your cousin’s brother, then
he’s also your cousin.” I say: “I meant my cousin’s half-brother. I don’t think
of him as a cousin in the same way because we didn’t see each other as much as
kids. Well, I’m older, as you can see. But they were coming to Toronto and so I
said they should stay with me.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I see,” says Cedric. “Where are
you from?” “Oakville,” says Cindy. “Not a huge change of location then,” says
Cedric. She says: “I mean, we’re in Vancouver now. I used to be from Oakville.”
She turns toward Eric and I can tell she’s already forgotten the name I gave
him. “You’re from Vancouver right,” she says. “Right,” says Eric, as I think of
him now. “Vancouver born and bred.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’m interested in why you were
hiding,” says Cedric. I say: “They knew I was having a rough day, that this
might even be the end of the road, professionally speaking. I had a feeling I
might get a visit from the office. When you knocked, I asked them to stay out
of the way until I figured out the lay of the land. I was so shocked by what
you came to tell me, everything else went out of my mind.” Addressing Eric and Cindy,
I say: “Sorry you guys for leaving you in there. Especially you Eric, good
thing it doesn’t smell too bad in there. Unless I just can’t smell the
lingering odour of my own shit.” I pat him on the shoulder as I might a cousin.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I certainly would have appreciated
being told we had an audience,” says Cedric. I say: “You can’t hear anything
from in there. You were just in there, I’m sure you heard nothing.” He asks
what they’re doing in Toronto; Eric stares at the floor. Cindy says: “We just
wanted to hang out, see some sights.” Cedric asks: “Where are you based in
Vancouver?” Neither one answers quickly. Eventually Cindy just says:
“Downtown.” “The downtown eastside?” asks Cedric. She says: “We move a lot.
We’re practically homeless.” “That’s a sad state to be in,” says Cedric.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He moves to the door, but then
stops and turns around. “We’ve been talking about how there’s no smoke without
fire,” he says to me. “My lungs are clogging from the smoke now. I realize your
private life is your own, but this isn’t a normal time. I need to know you can
return to work and function reliably. And I need to know nothing’s going on
which will damage the company’s reputation by association. I don’t feel
confident about either of those things.” Addressing Eric and Cindy, he says:
“I’m afraid I don’t believe a single thing you’ve told me so far. I don’t
believe I can leave without getting to the bottom of this.” He walks back to
the window, taking in the view just as he did before, as if effecting a
complete reset; then he sits. I look desperately at Eric and Cindy; obviously
they can’t help. I remind Cedric of his dinner with Jack Jilowsky. He’s already
on his phone, canceling it. “Jack knows how these things work,” he says. “He
once withdrew an offer to fly to Florida on his private jet, just as I was
arriving at the terminal. The money started to blow in a different direction
and off he went.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Look, you’re obviously not
entirely wrong, we didn’t tell you everything. But I swear to you it’s
unrelated. Nothing is happening here that will ever find its way back to the
office. It’s just a personal matter.” Cedric says: “They’re a drug dealer and a
prostitute, is that it? The first of those certainly seems likely. As for the
other, I suppose you can never tell.” Eric says: “Look man, I don’t have to
take this. I’m getting out of here.” But then he doesn’t move. Cindy says:
“It’s got nothing to do with you what I do for a living.” She comes over and
takes back her glass. “This is mine by the way,” she says. Cedric asks her to
bring the bottle from the kitchen; she looks defiantly at him but then obeys
anyway. He refills his own glass, then suggests we should all join in. Eric
says he’d prefer a beer. I get him one from the fridge, and one for myself. We
all sit in a semi-circle, like a family settling down to watch TV. Her glass
rapidly emptying again, Cindy says to Cedric: “If we all have to be so honest,
why don’t you tell us how many prostitutes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i>
know.” He says: “The least I can expect is that my questions be answered
first.” She says: “I think you know more of them than all the rest of us put
together.” Eric says: “To be honest, I know a few, so maybe not.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The music ended at some point, and the
silence in the room is now excruciating and unchanging, seeming to assert no
way of moving on from this. I put the music back on; it kicks in too loudly,
startling all three of them. I apologize and turn it down. We all drink and
contemplate. Eric says: “I could use a smoke.” I tell him to go out on the
balcony. He says: “I don’t want to miss anything.” Cindy asks about the music;
I tell her it’s Stevie Wonder. “Oh yeah,” she says, “my mom really likes him.”
I think she’s oblivious to the cliché. “He’s the blind one right,” she says. I
tell her there are other blind ones, at least one who’s about as prominent.
Eric talks a bit about punk. Cedric listens, apparently contented. After a
while he chimes in that although his tastes are primarily classical, he did see
Bob Dylan and the Band perform in the 70s. At any other time, I would have
asked more follow-up questions about it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A lot of time passes. It seems we’ve
all forgotten about the rest of our lives. Eric says: “I think I’ll have that
smoke.” “How about a cigar,” says Cedric. “I’ll join you for one.” They go out onto
the balcony together; the conversation between them seems to take off, although
I can’t hear any of it. I can’t think of anything to say to Cindy. She
volunteers: “Just so we’re clear, there’s no way I’m sleeping with him.” I ask
her why that needed to be clarified. She says: “He looks like a man who thinks
he can buy whatever he wants. I have a friend who knows a man like that. He
gives her an allowance, that’s what she calls it. She says he can’t do it a lot
of the time because he drinks too much and he passes out, but sometimes she has
to give him what he wants. I don’t judge her for it, but it’s not for me.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Fine,” I say, “but I don’t think
that’s the vibe here. She says: “I’m here with three men, all of them are older
than me and two of them are as rich as shit, everyone’s drinking and no one’s
going anywhere. How is that not the vibe?” I say: “Maybe I’m just not tuned in.
I thought we all had bigger things on our minds.” She says: “Things are never that
big. I knew someone who was killed in a car accident. Her fiancée slept with
someone else on the day of her funeral. It might even have been someone he met
at the funeral, I can’t remember.” She empties the last of the bottle into her
glass. She says: “I mean, you did ask me here.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I have a lot on my mind,” I say.
“I’m not feeling sexual. I’ve known stories like that too, I’ve been in some of
them. I don’t know if it’s true that men think about sex every five minutes, or
whatever the claim is. I don’t know what constitutes a thought about sex. Maybe
it’s just an awareness of human closeness. An awareness isn’t necessarily a
wish. It might be enough in itself.” I have to laugh at myself then. “Of course
I’m thinking about sex with you now, because I couldn’t deny having the thought
without engaging with what the thought would be. But I’m thinking of it in a
very sanitized way, like a movie scene shot from a distance, with everything
happening under the covers. It’s so sanitized it’s virtually in black and
white.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She asks: “Do you ever think about
people you know, like people you work with for example, and imagine in detail
what it would be like with them? I mean go through it in your mind step by
step, until you can almost feel your fingers on them?” She asks the question as
if something significant might depend on the answer. “I don’t think so,” I say.
“Maybe I’m just not good enough in bed to do that much fantasy planning.” She
says: “Do you think someone like Justin Trudeau sometimes drifts away during cabinet
meetings and starts to think about fucking one of his ministers?” “I don’t
know,” I say. “If people had access to each other’s secret thoughts, society
would probably break down in a week.” She fills in: “Because we’d find out how
little we really respect each other.” I say: “Not that exactly. I suppose it’s
out of respect that we keep so much hidden from each other. Or maybe it’s fear.
Or necessity.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">With this out of the way, I feel we
should start strategizing, but the other two return from the balcony and sit
again. We all wait for Cedric to speak, and he savours the knowledge that we’re
waiting. He looks at me very gravely and darkly. He says: “My friend here
decided to tell me the truth about why he’s here, in exchange for a small
payment. I can hardly bring myself to say the words, but I will say them. I
understand that you’re implicated in the incident we talked about earlier, and
that my friend here is representing the gentleman you caused to be injured,
almost to be killed.” I don’t care for the cumbersome way in which he chooses
to express this; it makes me think of the flowery style he brings to his memos.
When they’re for external consumption, he usually has me edit them down. He
asks: “Is that an accurate statement?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Sure, it’s accurate enough
anyway. You’re right about why he’s here”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “My friend here” – the
phrase is already starting to grate on me – “couldn’t tell me whether you were
responsible for Jack Gardien’s similar demise. You seemed genuinely surprised
when I told you about it, so I’m assuming not.” I say: “That’s right. The
similarity troubles me, so much that I’m doubting my own memory. But I had
nothing to do with it. From what you said, there are witnesses who’d confirm
that. So we only need to discuss one outrage, not two. Not that we do need to
discuss them. You only need to tell me what you’re going to do.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I suppose you think I’m
going to turn you in.” He obviously enjoys having such a low-life phrase pass
his lips. Playing into that, I say: “Yes, I think you’re going to squeal on
me.” I’m thinking I might punch him in the face first, giving him something
else to squeal about. I say: “Anyway, that’ll be up to you. Obviously this is
the end of it. You came here to tell me I wasn’t being fired for one thing, and
I end up being fired for another. It has a kind of music to it almost. You’ll
walk out in five minutes or ten minutes and I expect that’ll be the last time
we ever talk about anything. Maybe I’ll see you at my trial, but it might be
tough to chat then.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Such melodramatic self-pity,” says
Cedric. “Why would you assume I’d fire you for this?” I say: “Well, just to
begin, there’s the thing about no smoke without fire. Even if the only smell of
smoke in here is coming off you two fucking people.” Cedric says: “You’ve
certainly started a fire, but my friend here has offered you a way to put it
out.” I say: “I’m wanted by the police. You’re the chief financial officer of a
public company on the Toronto Stock Exchange. You’re not even allowed to
backdate a grant of stock options. If you learn one of your senior staff is
wanted for attempted murder, potentially, it’s not hard to figure out what your
duty is.” Cedric says: “Human beings are laden with duties. The higher we climb
up the ladder, the more they fall out of the sky and attach themselves to us
like barnacles, hoping to push us off. Our task is to resist them as much as to
submit to them.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t know where you’re going
with this,” I say.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Just between us friends here, we
don’t need to subscribe to the same liberal pieties that govern so-called
polite conversation. There are too many people on the planet, simple
observations tells us they’re not all born equal, and simple logic tells us
they can’t be made equal subsequent to that. It’s not as if you acted solely
out of racial animosity. You didn’t target a productive member of society,
solely because of his skin colour. You put into practice what everyone knows
but fears to say. Many of us, even of us white males, are born far from
privilege, and such lives are expendable. To worry about them only when they’re
mistreated or targeted only confirms their meaninglessness at other times.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I thought Cedric was a
conventionally unimaginative right winger, but this doesn’t sound to me like
that, nor like a rationalization he’s improvising on the spot. It sounds like
someone taking out his Bible and reading from his favourite page. I’m thinking
Eric should be seething at this, but he’s nodding vigorously, muttering
something encouraging. I suppose that’s related to the reasons Republicans own
the poor white vote, even as they systematically work against that group’s
economic interests: an enduring mix of aspiration, cultural identification and
delusion. “I appreciate the support,” I say, “but I wasn’t making a statement,
and I wasn’t asking for any interpretation, good or bad. It was something I did
for myself, out of pure selfishness. I took what was there before me and I
tried to destroy it. It could as easily have been a woman, or a black man, or a
kid.” I don’t actually think any of those three things are true though. I might
not have thought I was making a statement about expendable white males, but I
would certainly have recoiled from seeming to symbolize misogyny, or racism, or
utter heartless child-killing bastardry. In that sense Cedric’s right, I picked
someone who seemed to me largely absent of content. But I feel I have to resist
Cedric, that he might be most dangerous of all when posturing as a knowing
ally. “There’s no way of redeeming what I did,” I say for emphasis. “Turn a
blind eye to it if you think you can, but that’ll be just as venal as the act
itself.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’m sure you know how easily the
contradictions in our moral outlook are exposed,” says Cedric. “Take the thought
experiments about the identical outcomes of killing a child by your own hand,
and preventing to save one who’ll otherwise die, by not rushing the rescue, or
even not by making a charitable donation. A demonstration of active antipathy
provokes horror, passive disregard provokes nothing at all. I think you’ve
drawn us most effectively into that intellectual space.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Regardless,” I say, not trying to
hold back how angry I am. “that space doesn’t exist outside the pages of a
philosophy textbook. I don’t want to listen to any more of this bullshit.”
Turning to Eric, I say: “There’s no need for you to wait around anymore. Get in
touch in a few days, as we agreed, I’ll have the money. That’s all you need to
know about it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric says to Eric: “I’ll have the
money for you tomorrow, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> agreed.
And a little more for your trouble.” He tells me: “My friend and I discussed
all this outside and came to a revised arrangement. We’ve already finalized the
details. You needn’t even concern yourself with it anymore.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I get to my feet. “Are you fucking
kidding me? I needn’t concern myself?” I pace to the other side of the room and
stare at the wall, only reluctantly returning. “Where the fuck does that leave
me?” I demand. “A slave to you for the rest of my life? It’s not fucking worth
it.” I say to Eric: “Don’t you dare take money from him. This is between you
and me.” He hardly registers my presence anymore; he’s entirely in Cedric’s
pocket. Cedric says: “My agreement with my friend is exclusive; that is, the
terms require that the only payment to be accepted will be from me. Your money
isn’t requested and won’t be accepted.” I yell: “That’s the price of their
silence, you fucking asshole, that’s something they sell to me, not to you.”
Cedric says: “I’m not foolish enough to think you’ll be a slave for the rest of
your life, as you put it, for the price of twenty thousand dollars. I’m in this
with you now. I’m putting myself in jeopardy as well. As you said, I have
duties.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I go to take a leak, although it’s
bad timing, given how I’m quivering with anger and my aim is all over the place.
I’m certain he’s trying to provoke me, but I don’t know why. I actually wonder
if he has a death wish, and this is the first step in having me deliver him
from his earthly pain. I wash my hands and then simmer in the bathroom. Almost
all possibilities pass through my head – prison, death, a lifetime of
uncertainty and submission. I might have left them to their smug conversation
and gone to hide in my bedroom, except that I’m nervous about what other poison
Cedric might be laying down. When I return, he and Eric are smoking on the
balcony again. Cindy’s walking around with her glass; while I was away, they
opened another bottle. She says: “This is getting seriously weird. Maybe I
should go.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“What, and miss a once in a
lifetime show like this?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t think it’s a very safe
situation for me. It’s getting out of control.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Yeah, I know. I’ll try to get them
out of here. Then maybe you and I can chill and watch TV.” I smile to
acknowledge how unattainable that feels. She says: “I don’t think your boss is
planning on leaving.” I say: “Who knew this was what he was waiting for, an
entry to the dark underbelly of society. Obviously money and respectability
aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.” She says: “Well, they didn’t stop you
from lashing out. I still don’t understand why you pushed that guy. I don’t
think you believe poor people are scum, or whatever it is he believes. I don’t
think you’re full of rage that needed to come out. Why did you do it?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I suppose I did it to shake things
up,” I say. “And I got what I wanted.” She says: “If you wanted to shake things
up, you should have gotten yourself a dog. A big one with lots of energy.”
“Maybe that’s obvious now,” I say, “but you weren’t here to talk to about it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The light is getting grey and thin;
the dark windows of the adjacent towers are suddenly becoming golden or amber,
some of them revealing their inhabitants, looking outside or moving mundanely
around in their spaces. One guy is changing a light bulb; another actually is
playing with a dog, just as I’d perhaps be playing now, in a parallel universe
of more benign shake-ups. I point this out to her and we watch together. I say:
“You know what I’ve never seen from here? Nudity, sex. I’m not saying I spend a
lot of time watching for it, but it’s still a disappointment.” She says: “Maybe
they’re just as disappointed in you.” I say: “But we don’t know what’s on
regular display in the unit below us, or the one above. Maybe this is the only
dull window on this side of the building.” She says: “In that case they’ll all
be looking this way later. It means there’ll be plenty of witnesses when
someone gets thrown off your balcony.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We quietly watch for signs and
wonders until the other two come back inside. Eric heads straight for the door,
barely looking our way. “All right ladies and gents,” he says, “I’ll see you in
a few.” He leaves. Cedric comes back to his chair. The smoke sits heavier on
him than his expensive suit does. “What’s he talking about?” I ask. Cedric
says: “He’s just off on an errand, he’ll be back shortly.” I say: “There’s no
possible fucking errand that creates a need for him to come back. And if there
was, there’s no fucking reason you’d still be here.” Cedric says loftily: “I
disagree with you on both counts.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I look outside again, searching for
anything in any of those illuminated boxes that might inform my next move, any
hint of someone dealing with a comparable invasion and managing to get the best
of it. I say: “Sounds like you’re not leaving any time soon then.” Cedric says:
“I’m certainly starting to feel at home here.” I again feel he’s trying to
incite me to violence. “Well at least drop the enigmatic bullshit,” I say:
“Just tell me what’s going on.” This obviously isn’t persuasive. He says: “I
don’t know how I can be any more enigmatic than a man surrounded by death on
the one hand and by randomly selected female company on the other.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I only now remember the bag that
Cindy packed for me, and then in turn I remember her friend Ryan, standing in
the street between the two strangers. I ask her if she’s heard from him; she
says he texted her a few hours ago, saying it was too much bullshit for him and
he was just going home. I tell her how I watched him from across the street.
Cedric says: “You’re talking about the young man who came to the office to
collect your messages. I talked to him myself, then I got someone from building
management to accompany him downstairs, to make contact with you. It didn’t
work obviously. I gave the young man a tip for his trouble.” “Jesus,” I say,
“you’ll have my own mother on the payroll next.” I think he takes it as a
useful suggestion; it’s a good thing he’ll never find her. I decide I’ve had
enough of this. I say: “If you’re feeling so at home here, let’s make it
official, you take it. I’m getting out of here, going to a hotel.” “All right,”
says Cedric, “perhaps you’ll benefit from some time in a neutral atmosphere.”
Cindy says she’s leaving too. She finishes her wine in a couple of gulps, then
goes to the washroom. I don’t want to be alone with Cedric, so I leave the room
until she returns. I think of the filing cabinet where I keep all my life
records; usually I just leave the key in the lock, but I take it with me now,
along with the USB key on which I back up my personal documents. If I had a
photo album I cared about, I’d probably take that too. Cedric is fingering a
cigar; I know he’ll light it up indoors as soon as I leave. He says: “I hope
we’ll sit down soon and discuss all this calmly. Perhaps in the office
tomorrow.” I don’t respond. I only talk to Cindy, to check she’s ready to go.
She picks up some shopping bags, and then we leave, without any further attempt
at managing the situation, let alone bringing closure to it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In the elevator, I apologize to her
for everything. But she says it’s not necessary. “It’s actually sort of
inspiring,” she says. “I always feel my life moves slowly ahead in a straight
line. The last few hours are all curves and squiggles. If I could figure out
how to do that all the time, my life would be much more interesting. Probably a
mess, but more interesting.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’s not possible to do it all the
time,” I say. “Eventually the curves and squiggles turn in on themselves and
just become a big black static dot.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She asks: “Have you always been
dissatisfied with your life?” “I don’t know,” I say. “There’s been no God in
it, so some people would say it couldn’t possibly have been satisfying enough.
Maybe that’s what Cedric’s trying to remedy in his own blundering way.” The
doors open. The young woman standing there is new to the building I think; I’ve
noticed her a few times but haven’t talked to her. She always has her blonde
hair up in a bun and wears long, tight, sleeveless dresses. She never makes eye
contact but never seems to be actively avoiding it either. Whenever I see her,
I always feel certain she’d naturally make eye contact with Eliza, if they were
ever face to face. I was looking forward to witnessing that one day, but now I
don’t care. Maybe that’s a bit of progress then.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We walk through the lobby, out into
the street. I start to head for the hotel, but Cindy directs me to look the
other way. Eric’s approaching, accompanied by a thin, tanned woman with messy
hair; she’s wearing flip-flops, and a mismatched T-shirt and shorts, and she
looks like someone who crashed into middle age too fast. I don’t know if I’d
identify her as a prostitute if I passed her into the street, whether due to
naivete or generosity, but I certainly see her that way now. “Jesus Christ,” I
say to Cindy, “good fucking thing we’re getting out of here.” Still, we wait
for them to reach us. The woman has extraordinarily bright eyes; I think it can
only mean she’s burning up too fast. Eric says: “These are the people I told
you about. Well, he’s not the guy I told you about, he’s the other guy in the
story.” That seems to sum it all up. He introduces her to us as Katrina. Deciding
I may as well play into the incongruity, I say to her: “I hope you’re having a
nice evening so far.” She says: “I’m doing fine honey. Where are you two off
to? He told me we were having a party.” She asks Eric: “Who’s the one who did
that to your friend?” He says, exasperated: “This is him, this is the other
guy. The guy I’m taking you to see is the first guy, this is the second guy.”
“Who’s she?” she asks of Cindy. He says: “She’s a friend of the second guy,
this guy here. Maybe he doesn’t have any friends, he just has people he knows.”
Cindy doesn’t say anything.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Katrina says to me: “It’s a shame
you’re leaving. The people leaving are always more interesting than the people
staying.” I say: “You haven’t even met the man who’s staying.” She shrugs and
repeats the observation. I think about asking her to come with me instead, as a
small assertion of offsetting power, but I suppose Eric would just go away and return
with someone else. I say: “He has a lot of money anyway. Make sure you take as
much of it as you can.” She says: “It’s always a negotiation honey.” I open the
door for them, and walk them past the concierge to the elevator, to ward off possible
questions, not that the building has an official policy on hookers. I rejoin
Cindy outside. We start walking to the hotel. “That’s a really skanky-looking
woman,” says Cindy. I say: “Don’t say that, we don’t know what her story is.” I
add: “She does look pretty rough though.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It’s a warm night, sticking to us
as we walk in it. Adelaide is down to a single lane because of road works, and
so the traffic is heavier and more irritable, and that irritation tries to
stick to us too. Cindy asks me what I’m going to do. I say: “I’m going to
answer that like a dumb guy who takes everything literally. I’m going to sleep,
if I can manage it, and pray things are clearer in the morning.” She asks: “What
if they’re not?” I say: “Well, we can be sure they won’t be, that my prayer
won’t be answered. I’m hoping Cedric’s grabbing at this to throw off a lifetime
of repression. Maybe in the morning it’ll be out of his system. The guys get
paid to walk away, Cedric and I go back to work and agree never to talk about
this again, maybe in a year or two we actually forget it ever happened. It’s
possible, remotely.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “Or maybe he decides he
wants to spend his whole life like this and he blackmails you to help make it
happen for him.” I say: “It wouldn’t be a very stable situation. It couldn’t
last very long, I think.” A few steps later, I say: “This might sound
self-indulgent or clueless, but I don’t do a lot for myself. I mean in terms of
maximizing the available possibilities. I live in a nice place, I make good
money, but I hardly ever go on vacation, I don’t have a fancy car or a boat or
a cottage or season tickets for the Leafs or any of the conventional things I
might be spending the money on. I don’t even have a relationship I can count on
to do anything for me. It’s not a lot of return on my investment in work and in
life. And I can’t explain why it turned out that way, it wasn’t in any sense
what I wanted. But also, I don’t know why I’m not madder about it. You know,
working in technical accounting, the area I work in, is an incredibly abstract
kind of territory. You can spend hours or even days working on an issue which
will only ever have a tiny impact on anything that goes out into the world.
There’s a whole machine that keeps it going, a pretty lucrative machine if you
live inside it, but one that might as well have been designed to keep you from
noticing the sun or the rain or the seasons.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I always thought
accountants mainly existed to help people get round paying tax.” It’s a common
misconception and I don’t bother to get into it. We pass a guy with a
briefcase, apparently just now finished for the day, heading home just as I
might have been doing, if none of what’s happened had happened. I think I may
even have walked home behind this very guy once or twice; perhaps there are
times when he’s walked home behind me. I feel I should warn him, but I don’t
know yet how to adapt this ongoing turbulence into a transferable life lesson.
If I ever learn how to do that, then maybe I’ll become a kind of urban
white-collar missionary, although perhaps the object will be for my subjects to
succumb to a kind of informed savagery, not for them to be cleansed of it. We
cross Jarvis, skirting the corner of the park before crossing to the hotel. We
still haven’t talked about what she’s planning to do now, whether she’s perhaps
just making sure I arrive safely, or whether there’s to be anything beyond
that. She follows me into reception. I tell the guy – of course it’s a
different guy by now - that I accidentally left my key card in the room; he
gives me a new one. Cindy accompanies me up in the elevator. It smells now like
a mix of spices and detergent; the corridor just smells like the detergent. She
says she would have expected I’d stay in a better hotel. I remind her my
original plan wasn’t to stay here, but just to meet my girlfriend here for sex.
She says: “You just finished saying you don’t maximize your possibilities.” I
say: “Well, she never showed up.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Once I close the door and take my
shoes off, it feels like the day left me with exactly enough energy to do those
two things, and no more. I cover the distance from the door to the bed more by
falling than walking; I succumb to a yawn that eats my face. “I’m sorry,” I
somehow say while yawning, “I just realized how tired I am.” I start to say
something appreciative and supportive, but I never get to the end of it. I
don’t remember what I dream about, only that if a normal dream takes place at a
level removed from everyday consciousness, then this dream takes place several
levels below that; when I wake up, I feel I was in an inverted elevator shaft,
thirty or forty floors below ground, and that a single violent,
lung-compressing, skin-stretching kick of the apparatus returned me to the
surface. I wake up entirely disorientated, feeling incapable of ever locating
myself, but then of course it settles. It’s almost 2 am. Cindy is asleep next
to me, under the covers. She’s taken off all or most of her clothes, I don’t
investigate which, but her presence there feels mostly chaste and practical, as
if this was the only available bed in the city, so of course she had to share
it with me. I’m glad she’s there, because otherwise I’d feel I was waking up in
a friendless, possessionless void. Without conducting much of a conversation
with myself, I strip down to my boxers, root around in my bag for the
toothbrush and toothpaste, then I go into the bathroom and brush my teeth for
several minutes, and then I wash my face using the cardboard sliver of soap the
hotel provides, and then I sit on the toilet for several more minutes. I try to
be open to any idea or realization that comes now, but I start yawning again,
and I go back to sleep as soon as I return to the bed. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I wake up again, more gradually
this time. Cindy’s already dressed and moving around. The fresh daylight
overwhelms the room, rendering everything in it stained and dusty and pathetic.
Cindy looks like a little girl on a big stage. She’s wearing a different dress,
hanging carelessly on her. “Jesus,” I say, “I hardly ever sleep like that.”
“It’s still only seven thirty,” she says, “but I need to get to work.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I sit up in bed, aware that I’ll
probably look like a sagging wreck compared to whatever other male torsos she’s
previously seen in such conditions. I suppose I at least wanted to start the
day by being real. I ask her how she slept. She says: “It’s weird, but I slept
incredibly well. The combination of drinking too much and being in a strange
bed should have killed me, but I feel like I hit all the right buttons. Maybe I
was drawing it from you. I wondered a couple of times if you were still
breathing.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I almost wondered that about
myself,” I say. I try to describe what I experienced. I say: “It’s as if I
wanted to draw as far away as possible from everything that happened, so I
could come back to it with fresh eyes.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So how does it look now, with
fresh eyes?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t know,” I say, “I can’t see
it from here.” But I feel contented and present and capable, better equipped to
move forward, perhaps even to arrive somewhere sustainable. She makes me an
instant coffee in a cardboard cup. She talks about everything except the things
we should be talking about: her old-school but lovable parents, her geek older
brother who looks down on her, her desire to go to Europe. I know she doesn’t
expect me to respond or even to listen, that this is her way of pulling me
further up the shore. I tell her my last five or six trips to Europe were on
business, that I saw no more than you see on the ride to and from the airport,
which seldom amounts to much, or on the cab rides from hotels to offices to
restaurants. “I used to stay an extra day or two at least,” I say, “to walk
around and at least experience something, but I got out of the habit. I think I
started taking a perverse kind of pride in always being on the other side of
the window. Although there’s a kind of humility to it too. What you glean from
a few days in some other place is so trivial that maybe there’s more integrity
in not trying at all.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You glean the fact that the people
are there,” she says. “You look at them, not through a window, look at them
directly, and they know you came there to see them, and it means something.
Even in my stupid job, those are the best customers, the ones who can hardly
speak English and have to order by pointing, or who actually look super-excited
because it’s different than anything they have at home. We don’t get many of
those though. We’re too far from the CN Tower and the aquarium.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I sense that if I took her to
Europe with me, she’d be the leader and the teacher, I’d be the follower and
the pupil. I toy with saying we should go tonight. She gets up, saying it’s
that time, time to leave for work, as if we’ve lived this morning routine a
thousand times. I say: “I’m not sure what will happen today, where I’ll be
tonight.” “No problem,” she says. “Let me know. I finish at three again.” She
gathers her stuff together. “Nice dress by the way,” I say. She says: “Just as
well, you paid for it. And for another one too.” This reminds her she still has
my credit card. I tell her to keep it, that I have others. She leaves without
arguing about it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I register that there wasn’t a
single physical contact between us, not even when she brought me the coffee.
I’m not sure how conscious that was, or what it says about her, or about me. Yesterday
was the same. And yet she willingly came to my place, to this room, to the same
bed as me. I tell myself we all draw the lines in different ways.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Anyway, I have a lot to thank her
for. I shower, shave, brush my teeth, get dressed. I put on the local news station:
there’s nothing new about Tommy, as I now need to think of him. At reception, I’m
asked if I enjoyed my stay. I say: “I enjoyed it so much I may come back
tonight. I’ll let you know.” He says: “We’ll be very happy to see you again
sir.” I leave the hotel without knowing my destination. I decide to go home, if
only for efficiency because it’s so close. I tell myself to expect nothing and
to be shaken by nothing, but then I’m still mildly surprised when I stare up at
my unit and see the windows intact. I nod at the concierge as if I’d just
popped out for a coffee. I pause at the door to my unit, almost praying for
equanimity. I recall that I talked last night about praying for something too.
Before that, I can’t remember the last time I thought of prayer, even
frivolously. I try the handle; it’s not locked. I go inside. Well, I say to myself,
the place is still here. It smells sick with smoke; I pull back the sliding
balcony door all the way, inviting the air to flood in. The ashtray seems
fuller than two or three people could achieve. I count more than twenty empty
beer cans, five wine bottles and several from other kinds of liquor. I didn’t
have that much booze in the place: they must have restocked somehow. There’s no
one in any of the rooms now. My bed looks disheveled and unhealthy; I can’t say
for sure that anything happened, but I strip it down anyway and put the sheets
in the washing machine. I find more cigarette butts and beer cans on the
balcony. Still, overall, it could have been worse; nothing looks broken or
damaged; as far as I can tell, nothing is missing.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I change my clothes. I plan to sit
for a while, but the place doesn’t feel like mine any more. I call Gyongi, who
comes in to clean every other week, and ask her if she can come in today. She
says she can’t, but she can send someone else. I accept the offer, telling her it’s
dirtier than usual and will take longer. I don’t know if that’s objectively
true, but I want someone to look at it as a putrid pigsty that needs to be
scrubbed not just for dirt, but for associations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After arranging this, I need to leave out
some cash - they only deal in cash - so I walk to the ATM. It feels stabilizing
to be at a bank, to be handling money. This time, on reentering the building, I
ask the concierge if his overnight colleague heard any complaints about my
unit. He doesn’t have anything specific, although he comments that a strange
group of people left in the early hours. He doesn’t have a lot of information,
but he says there was an older man who looked like a businessman, and others
who didn’t look like that at all, so that his colleague was puzzled, and wrote
down a description for possible future reference, as they’re told to do. He
wants to know what I know. I tell him: “The older man you mentioned is a
friend, I let him use my apartment while I was out for the night. I don’t know who
the other people are. I think he abused my trust. That’s just how people are.”
He throws in a story from his own life to support this observation, but I don’t
listen to it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I leave the money in its usual
place on the kitchen island. I still don’t feel comfortable sitting in here. I
stand on the balcony to check my messages, wishing now I had my work phone, if
only so I’d have Cedric’s cell number. There’s nothing from Eliza, but today
I’m almost surprised to find myself registering that absence; I might almost be
noting the silence of a girlfriend from decades ago, or of a dead relative.
It’s plain to me I can’t accomplish anything without going into the office. I
exit the building, put in my earphones and listen to Bowie, to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scary Monsters and Super Creeps.</i> I
remember having a recent exchange with someone about Bowie, but I can’t place
when it happened. Listening to the album, I try to count how many creative
shifts he’d undergone by the time he made it. Although it lies well within the
first half of his career, it always seems like a kind of ending, a farewell to
Major Tom and to his most consuming preoccupations with fashion and
self-invention: his next album would be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Let’s
Dance</i>, a new peak in popular success and accessibility. Marveling again at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ashes to Ashes</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s No Game</i>, feeling completely thrilled by their overwhelming
presence in my head while at once remembering what came before and after, I
feel the powerful possibility of reinvention, of returning to the world as I’ve
known it with a renewed, glowing energy and stability, if that’s what I choose
to do. By the time I arrive at my office building, momentum almost carries me
into the elevator and up, as if on the premise that I’ll sweep into my office
and resume as if nothing had ever happened. I’m alert enough though to realize
this might not be quite sufficient, so I sit in the lobby as I did a day ago,
watching and waiting for the right person or the right signal, still listening
to my music.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Because of that, I fail to hear
Seton come up from behind and greet me. He steps into my eyeline and waves; I
mumble an apology and switch it off. “Bowie,” I explain, because that should be
enough. “Old school,” he says, “I like it.” We swap generalities like old
friends catching up. He asks about my night. I say: “Well, to tell you the
truth, I spent it in a hotel with a much younger woman I didn’t even know this
time yesterday.” He says: “Old school seduction, I like that too.” I say: “It’s
a strange story. I’ll tell you about it once I know how it ends.” “How long
will I have to wait?” he asks. I say: “In some respects I might know in half an
hour. It’ll probably take longer though.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I thought maybe you’d run
away from me after all that alien shit I laid on you.” “On the contrary,” I
say. I stand up so we can deal with this more equally. I ask: “Do you think the
aliens are primarily responsible for causing chaos or for alleviating it? I
mean, are they more likely to be found lurking around warzones and terrorist
acts and great disruptors like Trump, or do they stay far away from trouble?”
He says: “I think they probably worry about that themselves. Someone like
Trump, they’d want to study him up close to get the best information. But how
do you do that without becoming part of his machine and starting to facilitate
the damage instead of just observing it? I think they probably try to follow
the same prime directive that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star Trek</i>
had, to not interfere with natural development, not identify themselves. But
natural development takes a long fucking time, so I could see them giving
things the occasional small push, like introducing something new into a mouse’s
cage.” I ask him for an example. “Something like the iPhone,” he says: “not
such a big leap that you can’t disguise it as natural human progress, but big
enough that they know it’ll give them something to study.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say: “Maybe they miscalculated there, it
sometimes seems like iPhones changed everything.” He says: “Yeah, maybe, I’m
not saying they have perfect foresight, if they did the whole experiment would
be unnecessary.” I ask: “What about at an individual level? I mean, would they
get involved in something that only affects the lives of a handful of people?
For example, would they entice a more or less average person to do something
crazy, just to see how it plays out.” “Sure,” he says. He reflects a bit and
says: “They’re probably more likely to do that than to plant the iPhone,
actually.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask: “Do you think they know when
they’re being discussed?” He greets all these questions with the same
straightforward enthusiasm. He says: “I don’t think there’s any way they could
know every time. I don’t think there’s a surveillance system that could listen
to every conversation on earth, in every language.” I say: “It’s like anything
else though, you don’t need 100% coverage. They could use profiling techniques
to close in on the most likely people.” “Sure,” he says, “that’s right.” He
gives me a knowing smile. “You’re saying they would have profiled me as someone
worthier of keeping an eye on. Lucky me. Hey there aliens. If you’re listening,
you know I’m good with the whole thing. You can bring me into the loop. Hey,
I’ll stay in the loop and never come back out.” He pretends to wait for a
response. “Maybe there’s a time delay,” he says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “It’s as we said before -
because there’s no evidence for any of this, we can explain it any way we want
to.” He says: “You must see something to it though, or you wouldn’t be asking
all these questions. I don’t think you’re doing it just to laugh at my expense.
If you are, you’re pretty smooth about it.” “No,” I say, “I’m not laughing. I
find it comforting if anything.” On top of my godlessness, I recoil from people
who say they’re “spiritual,” or something to that non-denominational effect, and
from any phrase like “triumph of the human spirit” or “food for the soul.” Some
people find this cold, but I don’t see anything warm about drawing on undefined
mysticism, or about denying the inherent facts and boundaries of one’s
existence. Sometimes when people babble about what they’d do if they won the
lottery, I want to hold them against the wall and demand: “Don’t you realize the
odds that you already beat, just through the millions of minute evolutionary
shifts that brought you here? What makes you think you ever deserve to beat the
odds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">again</i>?” But of course, the
evolutionary miracle of consciousness is too strong: it demands that we deny
its very reality, that we slip into airy substitutions, that we prioritize our
baseless notions of miracles and connections over the miracles and connections
we embody. I suppose it’s so widespread that it is indeed “the human
condition,” but it seems to me a form of mass sickness; I don’t remember a time
when I felt any differently about it. And here I am, finding something soothing
in Seton’s unmoored, utterly malleable quasi-theories. For now at least, I
don’t have what it takes to see all these people around me as outcomes and
culminations; I’d rather see them as projections, perhaps even susceptible to
dissolving as you walk through them, if you can only find the optimum entry
angle.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “Yeah, I find it
comforting too. And at least I’m not ranting about Muslims and illegal
immigrants.” “It’s true,” I say, “you make paranoia seem entirely appealing.” I
walk to the elevator with him; we get in. We share it with six other people
headed for four other floors, so there’s no repeat message in the lights; we
exchange a regretful glance at this absence. In a low voice, I tell him: “If
you don’t see me again, it’s because of the humans.” He doesn’t know how to
take it, and I can tell he’s considering stepping off onto my floor again, but
my exit is too quick and decisive. Charlmane plainly doesn’t expect to see me;
she gives me the face she might have reserved for a long dead relative’s return
from the grave. She watches me as I walk to her, seemingly worried I might
vanish into the intervening air. “Oh my God,” she says, emphasizing every word.
“You just disappeared yesterday. Cedric was throwing a fit. I’m supposed to
call his office as soon as I see you or even hear anything about you. Some
people said you just left forever and would never come back.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I look at her as if in wry sorrow
at people and their dumb notions. “Yeah,” I said, “the day didn’t go as I
planned. But I’m here now. Go ahead and call Cedric’s office. I’ll wait.” She
does that, relaying the news to Cedric’s assistant, listening to the response.
She tells me: “He’s not in yet. Apparently he missed a breakfast meeting which
isn’t like him. So now she’s worried he caught what you had.” “Looks like only
one of us can have it at a time,” I say. “Well, if and when he shows up, I’ll
be easy to find.” I walk to my office. Usually I walk past the rest of my team,
so I can see who’s in, who’s jerking off; this time I exit the lobby a
different way, to avoid them. My desk is covered in things to review, memos, post-it
notes, deliveries. I scan my email on the desktop computer; it looks like a
disaster. I head to the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time up to the 40<sup>th</sup>
floor. I’m about to burst into the empty office where I left the phone, but
there’s a guy working at the desk with the door closed. I don’t have time to
think about it, so I knock cursorily and enter. I say: “Hey, I’m from the
corporate accounting group. I left something in this office yesterday.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’m here on special assignment,”
he says. “I checked the office already, there’s nothing here.” I’m thinking it
must be a pretty high-level special assignment or I would have heard about it.
If this had happened yesterday, I might have assumed I must be the object of
the assignment, and he’s here to build a case against my being here, if not
against my being anywhere at all. But it’s more likely he’s evaluating a
possible deal, or looking at ways for the top guys to pay themselves even more
money than they do now, or something like that. I say: “I know where it is.” I
move to the desk; he lowers the screen of his laptop so I can’t see it. I open
the drawer and retrieve the phone. “Got it,” I say. I’m already halfway to the
door, but he says: “Wait, I need to understand this. Was that phone recording
me in some way?” I say: “No, it’s not even on,” and I show him. He says: “This
office is assigned to me and my special project. I don’t know who you are or
why that phone was here or why you’re taking it away.” I say: “Of course you
don’t know, I don’t know who you are either, I’m not interested in finding
out.” He says: “You’re not leaving with that phone until I get to the bottom of
this.” I say: “I’m literally leaving with this phone,” and then I do. But he
comes out into the corridor behind me, running to catch up and reaching out to
restrain me, yelling: “I need some help here! I need some help with this guy!”
A few people pop out of their offices, not knowing what to do because they probably
recognize me but not him, and then there’s Bob Baines, the CEO, sweeping into
action like the warm wind that will soothe any wound. “Kevin,” he says to me.
“I understand you’ve been causing us some anxiety. And now you still are, in a
different form.” He looks quizzically at us both, seeing no more need to talk.
I say: “You remember yesterday, I was in that office when you came by. I left
my phone there. I came to get it back and this idiot threw a fit.” The idiot
says: “His phone was at the back of a drawer, clearly placed there
deliberately.” Bob says: “I’m not interested in this nonsense.” He tells the
idiot to get back to work, and directs me to follow him to his office. Before
doing so, I wave the phone in the air, as if letting the idiot view his scalp
about to vanish into the distance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">In all my years here, I’ve only
been into Bob’s office a handful of times: usually I talk to Cedric and he then
talks to Bob alone, or else I encounter Bob in the boardroom, at the head of
the oak playing-field of a table, framed against the city as if all its
capacity and power emanated from him. His office is relatively small and
unpretentious though. He doesn’t go to his desk now, but rather to a couch,
which I’m certain has never been used for seduction. He has me close the door
before I sit next to him. Regarding the idiot, he says: “Nowadays the board
won’t sign off on anything unless the consultants waste a couple of trees
writing a report on it. I don’t know what happened to trusting our own
judgment. It’s all ass-covering.” He sighs, closing that off. He says: “Now, I
want to understand exactly what’s going on with you and Cedric.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Obviously I’m not going to give him
that understanding, because I don’t have it myself, and even to tell him the
things I do understand would take much more time than he’s allocated to this
(probably only ten minutes, as that’s as much time a CEO can ever allocate to
anything that doesn’t involve big deals or TV cameras). I think my best
strategy is to run out the clock. I say: “So I don’t waste your time, tell me
what you already know.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I know I saw you up here
yesterday morning. Shortly after that, Cedric talked to me about your trouble
with the commission, and his worry that we might not be able to keep you. I
advised him to do all he could to prevent that, as I know how much he relies on
you. Not long afterwards, he told me that the source of your problems had
killed himself, and that you’d gone missing. We weren’t sure how the two things
were related, if at all, but knowing your reliability and steadiness, we became
concerned. Our concern increased as you failed to respond to any messages or to
turn up for anything in your calendar. I placed HR on high alert, insofar as HR
has such a register, and instructed your staff to inform me or Cedric of any
contact with you.” I suppose I should feel somewhat honored by his personal
involvement in this, but I imagine it was primarily light relief to him, the
equivalent of a game of computer solitaire between weightier obligations. “Late
in the day,” he says, “Cedric told me he was going to your place, to see if
that would accomplish anything. I expected to hear from him, one way or the
other, but now he’s the one who’s absent, including an unexplained absence from
a breakfast meeting today. As Cedric and I are usually in constant
communication, this is even stranger and more worrying to me. But now you’re
here, seeming rather as if nothing at all had happened. You can see why this perplexes
me. Although I don’t know at all whether I’m looking at a corporate matter that
concerns me directly, or at some personal matter that over-spilled its bounds.”
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Addressing my own behavior,
I can only apologize. I had the impression I was going to be fired, and I
wanted to take time to think it over. I realize I could have done that in a
more transparent and professional manner, but I was upset. I did see Cedric in
the evening, and he did tell me about Jack Gardien. We spent a couple of hours together,
at the most. I haven’t seen him since. I heard about his absence when I came
in. That’s it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“No messages?” asks Bob, indicating
the phone, still in my hand. “Perhaps you don’t know, as you’d left your phone
in the back of a drawer.” I say: “When you saw me up here yesterday, I was
distracted. I thought I was going to be fired, as I said. I left my phone here
through a combination of being distracted and frustrated.” He says: “Well now
that you’ve retrieved it, power it up and let’s see if you’ve heard from him.”
I comply. While we’re waiting, he says: “I did talk to Cedric’s wife this
morning. She didn’t seem overly concerned. She says it’s not unusual for him to
be gone all night at short notice, with no explanation. I must confess I was
surprised by that information.” He stares at me piercingly. I say: “Cedric and
I aren’t close in that way, you know. I don’t know what he does at night, or
why he does it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Bob gets frustrated, which I expect
is uncommon for him, and then gets frustrated at feeling frustrated. He says:
“I don’t doubt your relationship with Cedric is entirely professional. But
there’s a coincidence here that’s too great to ignore. You go missing, then he
goes missing. And there’s this association with a dead man. I understand there’s
no suggestion of anything improper, but still, it looms large. If there’s
anything going on that could damage this company, I need to know.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">My messages appear on my phone. I
can see at once that several of them are from Cedric. I say: “No, nothing from Cedric.
Not yet anyway.” Bob looks deeply disappointed, but not disbelieving. I say: “I
agree it looks very strange, beyond coincidence. Maybe his disappearance is a
response to mine, in a way I haven’t understood yet. There may be a lot that’s
above my pay grade, as the phrase goes.” Bob says: “It shouldn’t be above
mine.” I say: “I suggest I start my day and wait to see what happens. There’s
not much else we can do.” Bob dislikes that suggestion, not that he has a
better one. He says: “You know, Cedric’s due to fly to Lisbon with me tomorrow
morning.” I tell him I didn’t know that; the top guys like to pretend their
continent-hopping hardly registers. He says: “We have something we’re looking
at over there. If he’s not available to go, you may need to fill his spot.
Would that be plausible?” I interpret this as saying that I might swing within
a couple of days from being as far on the outside as I’ve been for years to
being deeper on the inside than ever before. It certainly seems to prove Bob
isn’t harbouring any doubts about the plausibility of what I told him, or about
my stability. I say: “Of course, whatever you need.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Good man,” he says. He gets up,
starts moving back toward his desk. I make to leave, but then he says: “Is it
something about finance and accounting that’s causing this outburst of
instability? I always did think there must be something inherently unsatisfying
about it.” I don’t know how to respond. He goes on: “Finance may be the life
blood of an organization, but that also tells you its limits. No one remembers
a person for the quality of his blood. It’s only worth commenting on when it’s
cancerous or deficient. I always thought it might be a challenge to one’s ego,
to work in such invisibility.” I say: “The metaphor has its limits though. If
you eat right and take care of yourself, human blood just goes on circulating.
In a company there’s always a new organ needing to be integrated, a diseased
one needing to be taken out. It can take a lot of precision engineering to keep
the blood circulating smoothly.” He says: “I certainly don’t mean to undermine
the contribution. Maybe it’s because I find it difficult to focus on numbers,
beyond the ones that matter to me. Top line, bottom line, stock price, that
kind of thing. I tend to imagine that working so closely with numbers would be
a form of slow starvation, whether one realized it or not.” This seems to me
pure self-styled-action-man snobbery, or would be, if he believed what he’s
saying. I take it as an expression of his profound unease about Cedric’s
absence, that he’s casting out so randomly. Still, as he’s revealed something
about himself, I feel it’s reasonable to reciprocate. I say: “It’s probably
true that accountants are more reticent than lawyers or investment bankers or others
in the big swinging dick league. But they’re close enough to see the dicks
swing, and they have money of their own, so it’s inevitable that they watch and
they wonder. Maybe that’s just a sideshow of regret to their real lives, or
maybe it’s a poison that has to be neutralized somehow. I have aspects of my
life that I wouldn’t discuss in so-called polite society. I think Cedric does
too.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Certainly if you look at the
direction of our politics,” says Bob, “money seems like an increasing evil.
That’s a different point to the one you’re making, but it does cause me to
wonder sometimes whether we leading capitalists haven’t been wrong about more
than we’ll ever admit. There’s no question that we’re squeezing too much out of
the present at the cost of any regard for the future. Do you have children,
Kevin?” “No,” I say, “I don’t. I’ve never been married. And I never found
myself having them by accident or anything. Another mistake accountants don’t
usually make.” “I don’t have them either,” he says. “But I’m increasingly
trying to live as if I did. That is, to feel the existence of a personal stake
in the next generation.” He seems to be in danger of forgetting where he is,
but then he remembers. “We’ll talk about that another time,” he says. “For now
at least, we’re justified in taking care of our present. Be sure to let me know
if you hear anything.” He walks to his desk, looking like a man already creaking
from a tough day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The idiot is hanging around the
corridor, waiting for me to pass by again. He descends on me to say he’s sorry,
that he didn’t realize I worked closely with Bob, that it was just a
misunderstanding. It’s a pathetic display, but as his anxiety appears genuine,
I behave graciously, saying he couldn’t have known my eccentric habit of
leaving my cellphone in unoccupied offices. He’s excessively grateful for this,
and I wonder what kind of personal disaster I’m glimpsing in him. I walk to the
other side of the floor, to a sitting area that no one ever uses. I sit and
review my messages. I have several hundred of one kind or another, perhaps a
quarter of them actually deserving my attention, half of those needing a
response. I have two texts from Cedric, both saying simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Call me,</i> with a number. The first was at 6.10 am, the other a
couple of hours later. There’s no point putting it off; I call right away. He
answers immediately. “You kept me waiting,” he says. I tell him I only just
retrieved my phone. He says: “I’ve made a decision.” I wait. He says: “I’m
retiring, effective immediately. You’re the first one to know. You’ll be the
only one who knows why. I need to change everything and now I know how to do
it.” I say: “By hanging out with lowlifes?” He says: “By making new friends,
embracing new experiences. Last night I did some things I haven’t done in
years, and others I’ve never done at all. Some things that will add years to my
life, others that will seriously shorten it. I think it’s a fair compromise.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I’m all in favour of
embracing change, but isn’t it a bit sudden? Couldn’t you change your life for maybe
one or two days a week and see if it sticks?” He says: “What I have in mind
won’t allow that. You can’t be a virgin during the week and a whore on the
weekends.” I say: “Actually, maybe you can, if you’re on top of it.” He says:
“I don’t intend to retain that much self-control.” I say: “You’re not literally
planning to stick a needle in your arm and lie in a back alley until the end
comes are you?” He chuckles but doesn’t actually deny it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “I’ll call Bob shortly and
tell him this. Well, in his case I’ll simply say I have to step down. Maybe
I’ll say it’s for health reasons. In the short term, I’ll recommend you step
in. Some of it will be a stretch but you can manage. This assumes of course
that you’re up for it.” I say: “Sure, I’ll do it. I just enjoyed a refreshing
day off. I can jump back in.” He says: “I don’t imagine you’d be Bob’s choice
as permanent CFO. I expect he’ll look for someone with a track record in
financing, in treasury, in dealing with the street, that kind of thing. I could
be wrong however. If you hit the ground running, perhaps it’s yours for the
taking.” I say: “Well, for now I’ll just do what needs to be done.” It seems
ridiculous to be discussing my career prospects against this background. I say:
“What about the incident, the twenty thousand dollars?” He says: “You already
know that’s my responsibility now. I guarantee you’ll never hear about it
again. Categorize it simply as something you saw on TV.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">He says: “You know Kevin, when I
look back on all this, I mean all of everything, I think it will be clear to me
that you were a transformative figure in my life. I don’t know why you
transgressed as you did, whether you wanted to be punished or even destroyed,
but I hope you’ve come out the other side stronger for it. If you haven’t,
well, perhaps then the possibility of that renewed strength transferred itself
to me. It’s something I never foresaw in all our years working together.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The call ends. I go back to my
office. Kayla has arrived now and is at her desk. She tries to look pleased
when she sees me, but I suspect she hoped I’d permanently self-destructed and
that she’d find herself working for someone more grounded in the way she thinks
of herself as being grounded. I think I’ve put up with her for too long.
Getting rid of her isn’t my top priority though. She asks if I’m all right, if
I’m going to be in all day. I tell her there may be some unscheduled interruptions,
but for the most part we can assume things will go as planned. I tell her to
reschedule everything I missed, although if I end up flying off to Lisbon,
it’ll all have to be rescheduled again. I’m thinking constantly about Cedric,
imagining him hanging out at the corner of Queen and Sherbourne with the
down-and-outs, or in a crack den, unconscious in his own filth, or having his
cock sucked by two hookers at once, maybe by two male hookers. Maybe that’s too
colourful an interpretation of what he was telling me, although it seems as
likely to me that it’s the opposite, that my life experience has been too
sanitized to know what he really has in mind. If it’s true that something of
myself transferred itself to Cedric, then these lurid imaginings might constitute
receiving something in return; I feel unnaturally energized by them, and
determined. I spend some time clearing off messages, sending out terse
instructions and resolutions. People pop by to say hello, no doubt to check I’m
alive; I make a point of seeming entirely at ease, as if I’d spent the day in a
spa, something I’ve never actually done (I couldn’t even say with certainty
what people mean, when they talk about spending the day in a spa). When
Cristina appears, I tell her to come in and shut the door. She says: “After our
conversation yesterday, I thought I wouldn’t see you again. I was depressed
about it all night.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I remember I was talking
about connecting dots. Turns out I didn’t foresee myself how they’d be
connected. As I said, I’ll tell you the story one day.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You told me you wouldn’t be
working here anymore. You used exactly those words. How can something like that
change so quickly?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I thought there was only one piece
in play, I mean me. In fact there were several. I don’t mean to be coy. I’ll
tell you something<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>no one else knows
yet. It’s Cedric who won’t be working here anymore. He’s quitting, out of the
blue. I’m going to be taking on some of his role, at least in the short term.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Congratulations,” she says. “But I
don’t like this. It feels all of a sudden like I’m working for a crime
organization where you never know who will have been killed off since
yesterday. Was Cedric trying to blame you for something? Is he a bad man?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“No,” I say, “he’s just a man off
on a new adventure.” I assure her everything’s going to be fine. After she
leaves, I call Mary into my office. This time I get up and close the door
myself, so that she feels subtly threatened. Returning to my desk, I allow her
to ask me a few questions; I assure her I’m here to stay, that the rumours of
my death were ill-founded. I say: “If anything, I expect to be a more vivid
presence than I was before. Sometimes we just need to recharge. I feel I’ve
accomplished that.” She says, in the slightly sarcastic way she has about her,
“It can’t be a very extensive recharging exercise if it only took a day.” If I
needed a push to continue, that would have provided it. I say: “Perhaps you
need to recharge yourself, Mary. Maybe you don’t know it, it’ll be easier if
you do, but you’re going over the line with someone on this team. I mean in
terms of the attention you pay to her. Perhaps you mean it to be helpful and
supportive, and perhaps it contains aspects of that, but there’s much else
that’s oppressive and excessive. If you can’t modulate it, it’s better you not
talk to her at all.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Reflexively, without any
consideration at all, she says “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking
about,” but she immediately realizes how weak that sounds, and doesn’t protest
any further. She sits there like someone trying to prevent a volcano from
erupting. I intend to give her the time she needs to come up with something
else, but it’s taking too long, so I say: “We don’t need to discuss it even for
one sentence more. I think you got the message, I’m confident you’ll act on it.
If that’s the case, then as far as I’m concerned it’s over.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says, in a very small voice:
“That’s very decent of you, Kevin. I do know what you’re talking about. I don’t
think I knew five minutes ago, but as soon as you said it out loud, I knew.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“We’ve all had times when we got
carried away,” I say. “I know this from very recent experience.” I get up and
move to another chair on her side of the desk, to emphasize our comradeship in
this. “I also know how quickly things can turn around. I know this from” – I
consult the watch I don’t actually wear – “from half an hour ago.” I add: “It’s
important though to ask ourselves why we’re susceptible to some kinds of distractions
over others. That’s the only way we can identify whether there’s anything we
can fix.” If I didn’t care about staying inside the lines of workplace
propriety, I think I could spend the next ten minutes throwing out things she
can fix for starters – her dry, withered-looking hair; her fleshy chunk of a
body; her clothes that others on my team wouldn’t wear to clean out a basement.
She’s slightly younger than I am, but I’m convinced no one would suspect it.
Even as I congratulate myself for that though, I damn myself for such smugness.
Perhaps in this moment she’s closer to a true self-revelation than I am.
Anyway, I say: “Let me know if there’s any way I can help.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’d like to sit somewhere else,”
she says. “For my own good. Where I won’t see her as often as I do now.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I’ll put that in motion,” I say.
“You can sit where Brian used to sit, if you like.” It’s usually considered the
worst workspace on the team, for allowing a prime view of people entering and
exiting the washrooms, but she agrees at once. She says: “Also, I’ll take on
the foreign exchange project.” She’s referring to something that’s become a
joke around the team, a tedious wouldn’t-give-it-to-my-worst-enemy task that
has to be done eventually, but never has to be done today. I say: “Mary, you
don’t need to submit to self-flagellation. You’re too good for that project. At
some point we’ll hire someone new and they can do it as a rite of passage.” She
says: “That’ll just chase them away before they’ve settled in. I can do it
faster than any new person. Please, it’s what I want.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“All right,” I say, “but I’ll allow
you the option of changing your mind later.” I retrieve the file from a drawer
and hand it to her. She clasps it firmly, as if it holds the key to her new
beginning. “I’ll set up a meeting to discuss with you,” she says, “once I’ve
worked out a timetable.” “We’ll do it over lunch,” I say. She and I have never
eaten lunch together in our lives, except on occasions when I’ve taken out the
whole team, for which we’ve almost always been at opposite ends of the table.
As she leaves, she says: “Sometimes you find yourself moving in the wrong
direction. You know it, you know that just the slightest nudge will be enough
for you to change, and yet you can’t do it without someone’s help. So thank you
again for that.” I give her shoulder a little squeeze, something else I’ve
never felt like doing before either. I wonder now whether every single person
in my vicinity is waiting for such a little nudge, whether my grand purpose in
life is to figure out those needs and to address them. This reminds me of
something else. Even though I must have two hundred tasks of greater urgency, I
call someone in human resources. I get a voice mail, but I don’t want to lose
momentum, so I say: “This is Kevin in the chief accountant’s office. I’m
calling about Chris Hedges, in my group. I’ve concluded it’s necessary to let
him go. I haven’t laid any groundwork for it – no reprimands, no warnings or
anything – but nevertheless he’s hit the limits of his capability, and we need
to replace him with someone who can grow. This needs to be a top priority, so
we can put it behind us and move on. Call me back, schedule a meeting, whatever
we need to make this happen.” It seems to me that if I’m the new Cedric, even
if only temporarily and for some purposes, it’ll be much easier to push through
things like this, so I may as well exercise that power now.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Coincidentally, Kayla comes in to
tell me Chris isn’t going to be in today because of some issue with his kids. When
I do fire him, I suppose I’ll run a risk of being seen as intolerant of
families, unsupportive of work-life balance, and so on. Maybe it’s true that
I’m more sympathetic to unconventional choices and stresses. Anyway, I move on,
the work absorbs me for several hours. I feel like I’m in intellectual flight –
seeing solutions before I’ve even heard the full articulation of the problems,
scooping up all pieces of a sprawling discussion and pasting them together into
a workable exit sign, jumping into intellectual tunnels and identifying
undetected sources of light. I can tell I’m surprising and impressing everyone,
already shoving the previous day into the backs of their memories. In between
meetings, Cristina looks in again and says: “You talked to Mary didn’t you, I
can tell already. I didn’t think you’d get round to it for a while.” “I think
it’s going to be OK with you and her,” I say. “You might even end up as
friends.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">At around lunchtime, I’m summoned
back to Bob’s office. He’s late for something and in a rush; I’ve never seen
him look so disheveled or preoccupied. He says: “Cedric told me he talked to
you already, he told you he’s out. It’s a huge loss to the organization, to me
personally. What worries me most though is that it’s a big loss to him. I’ve
known Cedric for a long time and this doesn’t make sense to me. I tried to
persuade him to take a long vacation or a leave of absence, but he insisted on
pulling the big trigger.” Bob looks like he took the resulting bullet himself.
“I asked him what Leslie, his wife, thought about it, but he dodged the
question. So then I called Leslie directly and he hadn’t told her a thing. All
she had from him was a text message saying he’d been called away and couldn’t
tell her when he’d be returning. It’s ridiculous to lose a CFO under
circumstances like this. Completely ridiculous. What did he say to you about
it?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “He didn’t tell me anything
specifically either.” I can see that won’t be enough, so I go on: “I don’t know
if he’s leaving his wife, leaving everything. I don’t think he’s doing this so
he can work on his golf game. I think he has a bigger shake-up in mind.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Bob says: “I once had someone quit
on me out of the blue, somewhat like this. I only found out later he was in the
early stages of Alzheimer’s. He was too ashamed to tell me. I don’t think this
is that kind of situation though.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “Well, it might have aspects
in common. The sense of embarking on a final chapter from which there’s no
coming back. The sense of shame. I’m only speculating.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I suppose you are,” says Bob. His
assistant Linda looks in to remind him how late he is. For a second he looks
like he’s going to fire her, just to remind himself he retains some kind of
power. He says to me: “Anyway, it means you’re coming to Lisbon. Assuming
there’s no problem.” I say it’s fine. “Talk to Linda about the arrangements,”
he says. “We should only be away for two nights. We’ll have dinner together. We’ll
talk about this, and much else.” He gathers up his things, then it occurs to
him he doesn’t have my cellphone number; we never had a direct relationship
that would have required it. We exchange numbers; I briefly entertain a fantasy
of now being perpetually woken up by him in the middle of the night.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric’s assistant is now
forwarding invitations to me for various things he was supposed to attend, and
messages he didn’t respond to; other people I’ve barely even heard of are
trying to set up meetings with me, or are calling and texting just to see what
I know. My calendar looks like a dog vomited all over it. I realize I’m
ascending to a new level of busyness, in which I never have to apologize for
anything. I suppose I should feel stressed and potentially overwhelmed, perhaps
even resentful at what this is going to do to my life, but for now I feel
shielded from the noise, the frustration, the dread. I feel lighter than I have
in ages, almost ethereal, capable of bending time. Even though I have at least
ten tasks claiming to carry an only-five-minutes-to-save-the-world level of
urgency, I slip away from everyone, out of the office. I put in my earphones
and start walking. I listen to Stevie Wonder at his most funkily celebratory,
to some of the extended tracks from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Songs
in the Key of Life,</i> and it’s hard not to sway in time and to sing out loud.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I enter the sandwich store. There’s
a line of six people, and I patiently take my turn, switching off the music
only at the last minute. Cindy doesn’t even see me until the person before me steps
away and she starts on her mechanical welcome; then she laughs and beams. I
order a vegetarian anything and a cookie, but I tell her I’m really only there
to talk to her. Fortunately, the line dries up a few minutes later and we
snatch a conversation while she runs around distributing orders. I tell her
Cedric is out permanently and that for now I’m doing at least part of his job;
I tell her I don’t need to worry about the other guys again and that I believe
Cedric when he told me that; I tell her I’m going to Lisbon tomorrow, and that
I wish I could take her with me, but that it’s not the right time to start
grafting pieces of pleasure onto such business. She says: “You don’t need to
apologize for that, why would you take me to Spain already?” I say: “You
probably don’t realize this, and it’s not something I’m able to explain, but
you’ve already helped me a lot, probably more than I know yet. If I look at
causes and effects, you’re certainly not to blame for why I was in a mess, and
you’re not directly instrumental in why I’m climbing out of it. And yet, I’m
certain I only feel this good because of you. We’ve hardly done anything
together, I mean, we certainly haven’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">done</i>
anything, I don’t really know what you think of me, but I just wanted you to know
you can ask for anything, we can do this any way you like.” At least one of the
customers hears most of this, but I don’t care. Cindy doesn’t respond; six more
people come in all at once, and I step to the side. I watch her at work, almost
ghostly in her pallor, but not weak-looking, reticent and disconnected but
projecting capability and certainty. I don’t know if she’d inspire many wild
fantasies, but I’m certain she could substantially shut down the need to
fantasize of others. I realize then how little I’ve thought of Eliza today, but
once I’ve registered the realization, I move on from it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I go into the kitchen to look for
Ryan. He’s constructing a chicken sandwich; another guy is running around. I
thank him for helping me out; I give him the hundred dollars I never got a
chance to pay him, and also another hundred dollars; he accepts the bonus
without comment. “It wasn’t very pleasant,” he said. “For a while I thought
they were going to lock me up. I suppose it was a useful look at how the other
half lives or whatever.” I say: “I hope it didn’t increase your anxiety about
spreading Nazism.” He says: “That’s not such a joke. The people there mostly
looked like drones. If you’d told me they were under some kind of mind control,
I’d believe it.” I try to see the office through such fresh, skeptical eyes.
“How do you think you look back here?” I ask, “when people catch a glimpse of
you? There aren’t many jobs that allow people to function at their most
animated.” “Maybe you’re right,” he says. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “I didn’t want just to be a
one-time user. I hope we’ll stay in touch. Maybe that sounds like bullshit but
I mean it. I could be a useful contact, maybe. I do know people, sometimes even
the right kind of people.” He barely looks up or considers it before responding:
“All right man. I’ll let you know.” I feel comprehensively dismissed, no doubt
along with the rest of the other half. It’s especially damning as I suspect the
other half isn’t defined primarily by its money or its submission to corporate
values, but rather by its failure on some broader scale of engagement,
contribution or coolness. I want to win him over, but I realize that any
further coaxing will just seem like ever-more desperate entreaties from an old
man in denial. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">So I let it go and I return to the
front of the store, coming up behind Cindy, who interrupts her order-taking to
turn around and to whisper: “I won’t bother going to my other job tonight. I’ll
come to your place again after work. This time it’ll just be the two of us
right?” I say that’s right, although then I feel I have to add: “I’m
ninety-eight per cent sure that’s right.” That’s as high as you should ever go
on anything that isn’t directed by the laws of science, especially right now
when loose ends are still getting in my eyes. She continues with her work. I
stand there for a few moments, enjoying the dynamic, but then I realize the
customers probably think I’m the store manager, or a health inspector, and so
it’s better if I move on.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I take my order to go, and out in
the street I check my messages yet again, doing a rough mental sorting of them into
tiers of urgency, concluding many of them are indeed highly urgent, which from
this moment on I think I’ll redefine to mean “can wait.” I put my earphones and
resume listening to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Songs in the Key of
Life </i>as I walk back, and I even take a couple of detours on the way, to fit
in a song or two more, before arriving back at the office and slipping into a
different key for the remainder of the afternoon.</span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span></b>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Epilogue</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Six months later, I think the key
term in my life is “acting.” I’m officially “Chief Financial Officer (Acting),”
which of course signals to everyone that the “act” might end at any moment, to
be replaced by a new reality with a different Chief Financial Officer who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">isn’t</i> acting, because he’s permanent,
because he’s beyond questioning, with a firmer grip on power. People regularly
ask me when I’ll no longer be “acting,” on the assumption that I’ve done well
enough to keep the job, without any qualifying asterix or question mark. I tell
them I have no idea, and it’s true, because Bob and I haven’t talked about it
for a long time, not since the weeks immediately following Cedric’s
resignation. In fact I rather like the qualifier, because it allows me some
distance, to flatter myself that my place in the uncool half of the population
is ambiguous. Of course, looking at the hours I work, spread across late nights
and early mornings and Saturdays and Sundays and days that were meant to be
vacations, no one else would perceive an ambiguity. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Initially, I view the term as a
gesture of respect to Cedric. It’s virtually inconceivable that he could ever
come back, after leaving so abruptly, with so little regard for the transition
process, followed by complete and unbroken silence, and therefore by more
speculation about what he’s been doing during the silence than can ever be
satisfied. Still, the very abruptness of his leaving means he’s still there, an
image on all our retinas, and certainly on mine, as I sit in his office,
surrounded by most of his clutter because I never got around to clearing it out,
or to adding much clutter of my own. If I do become the Chief Financial Officer
without qualification, it feels like Cedric should still survive in the
structure somewhere, perhaps as Chief Financial Officer Father, in the way of
the Queen Mother. But given the father’s absence, it’s easier just to leave
things as they are.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Eventually I realize I also saw it
as a reaching out to him, as a small form of life support. I realize this after
it’s over, and Cedric is dead. Linda interrupts a meeting to tell me this. Her
face is twisted out of shape; she has trouble getting the words out. She tells
me they found him in Moss Park, a week earlier, with no ID and little money on
him, covered in snow. She says it took several days to locate his wife because
she was away. Bob’s also away in Asia, thirteen hours ahead and so presumably
asleep. Linda doesn’t know what to do. She starts crying and I try to comfort
her, but I’m very bad at it. I say: “Let’s remember the way he was,” and try to
continue in that vein, but remembering the way he was only makes it more
painful for her to contemplate the way he ended up. Then I switch tacks and
tell her it was a choice he made with his eyes wide open. “Whatever he was
doing these past six months,” I say, “it was a necessary part of his journey.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I send an email to the board
members and senior management, giving them the basic information, then another
one to the rest of the staff, mentioning only that he passed away and noting
his huge contribution to the company and to me personally. I send individual
emails to various contacts. People start calling and messaging for more
information. I cancel all my meetings. After a couple of hours I feel ready to
call Leslie. I don’t know her well, and I’ve only talked to her once in the
last six months, just about the disposition of various things I found in
Cedric’s office. I’m assuming she won’t pick up, but she does. “Hello Kevin,”
she says. “I thought you’d probably call.” She sounds entirely composed. I try
to string something meaningful together. She says: “I’d like to see you. Can
you come today?” I tell her I’ll be there in half an hour.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I call Cindy. She’s between classes
– I know this because somehow I memorized her schedule. She reacts more
emotionally than I expected; I wonder for a while if she’s thinking of someone
else. I ask her if she’ll come with me to see Leslie. She says she’s not
dressed for it but she agrees anyway. I leave the building and get a cab; I pick
up Cindy at King and Jarvis, then we head up to Rosedale. We hold hands the
whole way there. She admits to me that a couple of her friends were lurking to
catch a glimpse of me, because they don’t quite believe I exist, or that if I
do it must be some kind of sugar daddy thing and I would never be seen with her
in daylight. It’s understandable: they spend a lot of time hanging out with her
at our place, but I’ve never been there at the same time, I’ve always been
working. “I guess they’ll see me at our wedding,” I say. “I promise you I’ll be
there for that.” “Yeah,” she says, “but that’s probably a year away. After we
get the dog.” I’ve told her several times the wedding can be tomorrow if she
wants, that it doesn’t have to wait for our much-discussed but still completely
theoretical dog. but I don’t feel like getting into that now. I tell her
everything I know about Cedric. I don’t speculate on things I don’t know and
she doesn’t ask me to.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Leslie’s house looks like it ought
to be a dignitary’s official residence, set in grounds that speak of daily
tending with nail scissors. You look at the outside and it wouldn’t be
surprising to see horse-drawn carriages pulling up to it, to be met by rows of
maids and butlers. Inside it’s fresh and modern, in a bland, magazine-inspired
way. Now that we’re here, I wonder whether Leslie will see this as a bad time
to meet someone new, but she seems happy to welcome Cindy, amused by her
anxiety about not being better dressed. She asks Cindy about the tattoo on her
leg – a poorly drawn flower I can’t stand to look at, and that Cindy can only
ever weakly defend. Leslie says she often thinks of getting a tattoo, although
she doesn’t explain why. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We sit in her kitchen; I get the
feeling she spends most of her time in here. She brings us some water. She’s much
larger than she used to be; she gasps every time she takes a step. She asks
about our relationship. We tell her what we tell everyone, that one day I
bought a sandwich and we got talking and one thing led to another. It’s a true
story of course, but we don’t usually provide much detail on the things that
led to other things. On this occasion, I tell her the day we met was also the
last time I saw Cedric. I suppose that’s why I wanted to bring Cindy, although
I hadn’t realized it until now. “It’s almost the last time I saw him too,” says
Leslie. “He didn’t come home for several days afterwards, and when he did, it
was only to collect some things. We never did have a conversation about what he
was doing. Of course I knew he was seeing younger women, but then he always
did, you know. I also knew he was taking drugs, but that wasn’t new either. I
knew he’d been getting restless. I thought he was getting tired of work, tired
of me. Now I think he was tired of life itself. He saw the opportunity to kill
himself and he took it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I ask what she means exactly. She
says: “I think he met some people and decided to give them the keys to his
life. So that he could fuck and drink and warp his brain until there was nothing
left. He went through several hundred thousand dollars you know, just in six
months. Not even on hotels and cars and that kind of thing. The police told me
he was living in a rathole. That must be how he wanted it. I assume he even
intended to die out in the open, like the most wretched addict.” I can’t tell
if she’s dry-eyed now because she’s exhausted her tears, or because there never
were any.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I go back to her remark about the
women and the drugs not being new. She says: “He liked prostitutes and he liked
cocaine, and the combination of the two. He was very skilled at hiding it.” I
tell her he’d certainly hidden it from everyone at work. She says: “He was
bisexual too you know. He had many strange obsessions and ideas. He was
certainly a racist, a white supremacist. He believed in the occult, or some
such theories. Perhaps these things aren’t all true, perhaps some of them were
just experiments. But even that would tell you something about his appetites.”
I can’t help feeling vaguely envious – not of the specific attributes, but of
the capacity. I don’t feel I have time to be fully sexual, even less bisexual,
or to work out my views on anything. She says: “We lived largely separate
lives, needless to say. It’s hard in the first place when your husband has a
busy career.” She looks squarely and unsubtly at Cindy as she says that. “I
barely like to drink, let alone the other things. I don’t have much of a wild
streak to be honest with you. So naturally I was left behind. But in other ways
he treated me well: financially of course, but also emotionally, if I really
needed him. The big sorrow of our life was that our only son died in an
accident. I don’t know if you knew about that.” I tell her I’d heard about it,
but it happened before I knew Cedric, and we’d never discussed it. She says:
“We also didn’t discuss it, not as we should have done. Our relationship was
never the same after that.” She walks to a cabinet, picks up a framed picture,
brings it over. It’s a young man like any other. Cindy studies it for longer
than I do.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Leslie says: “I say it was an
accident, but we’ll never really know. Actually it’s relevant to something I
needed to tell you. Our son William was out late one night, coming home from a
bar where he worked. He fell in front of a car and was run over. There were no
witnesses except the driver, and he said it all happened too quickly for him to
register. But he was at least certain that William didn’t jump. If it had been
winter, with icy sidewalks, then perhaps we could conclude that he slipped. But
it was summer. So I always thought he was pushed. Cedric didn’t think so, he
didn’t want to believe it anyway. So that was another thing on which we
disagreed.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I take Cindy’s hand; it’s as cold
and tense as everything I feel in myself. I’m telling myself that Leslie’s
working up to the revelation that will cause everything to collapse in on
itself, that I was the one who pushed her son under the car, although I know
that’s impossible, that the events are separated by a decade or more. She takes
the picture from Cindy and places it on a coffee table, positioned as if to
allow the dead man to participate in the conversation. There’s an envelope on
the table – she hands it to me. It came through the mail, although the name and
address are barely legible. I don’t want to see what’s inside it, and so I
don’t look, until she tells me I should. It contains a single sheet of paper,
written in the same sad-looking handwriting. I strain to make it out. Leslie
tells me to read it out loud.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I falter several times, and Leslie,
already knowing the contents by heart, corrects me on several things. It says:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Dear
Leslie</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I
owe you an apology for everything I put you through but there was no other way.
I’m living the life I want to live but it’s not what anyone would call a good
life and I shouldn’t be remembered fondly for it.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve
done several things that count as crimes and I want you to know about them so
the record will be straight. A lot of them were the petty kind of crimes you
carry out when you’re living as I am now, but no one cares too much about
those.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Some
of them were what they call the white collar crimes. I was involved in some
insider trading especially with a man called Jack Gardien. He died before it
came to anything.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
worst was that to avenge what happened to William I pushed a man under a car.
His name was Tommy Queen. He didn’t die but I wish I had killed him.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I
know I always said that what happened to William must have been an accident but
perhaps I didn’t really believe that.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">All
my love to you and please try to forget about me.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cedric
</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I look at Cindy when I finish, and
see fear in her eyes, or perhaps it’s the reflection of my own fear. I feel
I’ve walked into a trap, although I don’t understand the nature of it. But if
that’s true, Leslie doesn’t seem to be the one who set it; she’s plainly not
motivated by calculation of any kind. She asks: “Does any of that make sense to
you? What about this Jack Gardien? Do you know that name?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I do,” I say. “He’s dead now. He
was certainly under investigation. The securities commission questioned me
about it, that is they questioned me about whether I’d leaked confidential
information to him. It never went anywhere.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“So it is possible that Cedric was
the one who leaked it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“If anything was leaked at all,” I
say. “There’s no point even thinking about it now. It’s not remotely relevant
to anything, if it ever was.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “I assume you don’t know
anything about this other thing, of pushing a man under a car.” I shake my
head, trying to look blank. She says: “I found the incident online. It was
about six months ago. When I looked through everything, it in fact happened the
day before Cedric left and started on this downward slide, if that’s the right
term for it. So I suppose he did do this thing, I’ll never know whether it was
spontaneous or planned, and then, I don’t know, maybe that was a kind of
release, or a push, or a catapult. Whatever it was, he couldn’t come back from
it.” We don’t say anything. She goes on: “The only odd thing is that according
to the reports I found online, this Tommy Queen was pushed under a car at
around midnight. But Cedric and I went out that night, it’s in my calendar and
I remember it clearly. We went to a benefit dinner at the Carlu. There was a string
quartet, later on a vocalist. We even danced a bit. I don’t think we were home
until midnight, certainly not long before. So it’s hard to understand how he
could have been responsible.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say, slowly and thoughtfully:
“Why would he lie about such a thing though? Maybe even small discrepancies can
explain it. Maybe you arrived home just a little earlier than you remember,
maybe the incident happened a little later than the reports said. At that time
of night, it wouldn’t have taken very long to jump in a car and drive downtown.
It would have been strange behavior, but then it’s a strange thing for anyone
to do.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t even think we were asleep
by twelve thirty,” she says. “I remember we were talking, just sharing gossip
we’d picked up from various people.” She disappears inside her memories for a
while. “I remember he was very tired, ready to fall asleep. I don’t think he
could have been pretending. And although of course I wouldn’t know, I never had
any reason to think he would leave the house after I went to sleep. If he
wanted to go out, he wouldn’t have come home at all; he’d have made up a story
about a last minute dinner or a meeting.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cindy and I continue to sit there
quietly. Leslie goes on: “Are you sure you don’t know anything about this? How
did you know it was downtown?” I need to rewind to catch that slip. “I don’t
know,” I say, “it just sounded like a downtown kind of incident. And I think I
do remember it myself on the news.” I shift and straighten up as if to signal a
rebooting of the conversation. “Maybe he didn’t do it,” I say. “Maybe he paid
someone else to do it. The ultimate responsibility would still be his. Maybe he
saw it on the news and decided to take moral responsibility. You know, maybe he
said to himself, I’ll take this on as my own, and then that facilitated
everything that came afterwards.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It’s possible,” she says. “It all
happened so quickly. Maybe he honestly didn’t remember by the end whether he
did it himself or not.” I think she’s trying to place herself there as an
observer, to peer into the darkness and discern the pusher’s face as Cedric’s,
or as not. She says: “I’ve been wondering whether I should try to find this man
Tommy. He’s still alive, according to this letter. I could hire a private
detective. Those exist, don’t they? But maybe it wouldn’t achieve anything.
Maybe he doesn’t even know who pushed him. Maybe he’s trying to forget and I
would only cause him pain. Maybe I’d learn something I’d rather not know. For
instance, maybe they already knew each other and Cedric did this to him because
things had gone bad. How much more do I need to know about all that?” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, I have a different set
of uncertainties. Would Tommy keep quiet about me, now that Cedric’s dead?
Would he see it as a chance to get another twenty thousand dollars out of me,
or more? Even if he accused me, would anyone believe him? It’s certainly better
for me if Leslie drops it. Even leaving aside the self-interest, I think it’s
better for her too. I say: “It’s up to you of course. But I wonder what clarity
it can ever provide. Either you’ll learn Cedric was telling the truth and the
discrepancies can be explained somehow. Or you’ll learn he was lying or
mistaken about this one thing, and then so what? It won’t change the other
things you know about him. And if it does, as you say, it might be for the
worst. Either way, it’ll be time you’re spending rooting around in the past
when you could be moving forward.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You’re probably right,” she says.
“I do have a lot to do. I’m going to sell this place. I’ve been here for twenty
three years, but that’s enough. You wouldn’t be interested in buying it, would
you?” I can’t imagine anything worse than living in an enormous old space where
I’d probably keep losing track of Cindy and finding traces of Cedric’s ghost
instead. “No,” says Leslie, responding to herself, “I’m sure you wouldn’t. It
would be a good family home though, if you were thinking of that. Not to pry,
but are you…”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Cindy says: “Yes, we’re thinking of
it. But not right away.” In fact, I’m only ever thinking of it as something to
be thwarted, or at least indefinitely delayed. I know it’s unwise not to
resolve something so fundamental before heading into a marriage, but I’m
gambling that she’ll evolve away from the idea, or that I’ll evolve toward it.
In ten years’ time, she might be acquiring career momentum; I’ll probably be
ready to call it a day. Maybe that means children will fall between the cracks,
or maybe I’ll become the world’s creakiest hands-on father. I’m happy to accept
the uncertainty and I know she is too. Cindy says: “Although I know we
shouldn’t wait long, considering how old he is.” That’s obviously not entirely
or even primarily a joke. Right now, our recurring bedroom dynamic of the
younger woman wearing out the older man is amusing to us both, or at least we
both pretend it is, but it’s not a joke that can run indefinitely.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Leslie says: “I don’t really
picture you living here of course. I like the idea of the continuity, of
passing on the place to someone we know. But then, you already took Cedric’s
place at work. I suppose it would be too much to do it at home as well.” She’s
quiet again, and frowning, as if following that train of thought to uncover
further and darker connections between Cedric and me. I ask about her plans.
She says: “I think I’ll spend most of my time in our place in Florida. Maybe
I’ll keep a smaller place here. But as we’re talking now, I’m thinking maybe I
shouldn’t be here at all.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We talk about the memorial service.
She asks me if I’ll speak; I say I will. She asks for help in locating some
people she wants to get in touch with. We talk about the remaining contents of
Cedric’s office; she says I should keep what I want and destroy the rest. She
muses about setting up a charity in Cedric’s name; I tell her I’d be happy to
help with that. Bob frequently tells me I should be on a charity board, to
“round out” my public profile, regardless that he also tells me the biggest
mistake I can make in my position is to stretch myself too thin. I’d rather
stretch myself thin in Cedric’s memory than for any other cause. After an hour
and a half, the conversation comes to a natural end. I summon an Uber; Leslie walks
us to the door. She says to me: “I can tell you don’t want me to investigate
any further. I know you’re hiding something. I think it’s out of kindness
though. There’s really no point my looking back, is there?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“For me at least, it seldom does
much good,” I say. Leslie looks from me to Cindy and back again. She says: “You
two embody looking forward. I should take my inspiration from that.” Cindy and
I are quiet for much of the ride back. I think about the woman and the kid on
the crosswalk, thirty years ago. Lately I’ve had entire blocks of days when I
haven’t thought about them, and even when I did, it was usually just to
register the wondrousness of not thinking about them. I wonder whether Cedric
would have taken the blame for that too, if he’d known about it. I wonder
whether, in some way I’ve never known about, it was in truth as much his fault
as it ever was mine. I’ve never told Cindy about it, and I’ve never intended
to, but I almost find myself telling herself now. Almost.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We get out of the car, outside the
location of her next class. She says: “By now I almost forgot how we met. I
mean, I remember you coming in as a customer, and that we had a connection, and
that I basically moved in with you right away. I just wiped out all the
memories we couldn’t tell anyone about. I don’t think we would ever have talked
about them again.” I agree, although for different reasons: my mind as it
exists now is almost entirely defined by the residue of those memories, by the
obligation to carry them alone, never allowing a speck of them to contaminate
anyone else. Without reviewing all the scenarios in my head for her, I tell her
I think we’ll be fine whatever Leslie does. Cindy says: “If the worst comes to
the worst, we’ll lie about when we met. I’ll say you were with me when it
happened. They’ll never be able to prove I’m lying.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Thanks,” I say, “but I want you to
be virtuous at all times. Except the times when I’m obviously trying to corrupt
you.” I hug and kiss her, with my usual awareness that this may look incongruous
to some observers, outright creepy to others. I tell her I’ll try to be home on
time, but by now she knows this is meaningless, like wishing a blessing on
someone after they sneeze. I watch her walk away. I sit and check my messages.
Most of them are Cedric-related; it seems the rest of my work life put itself
on hold. I have one message that startles me. I tell myself I’ll ignore it, but
then I immediately place a call. She answers right away, as she almost never
did before. “Hello,” says Eliza. “I suppose you’re surprised to hear from me.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I really don’t know,” I say. “It’s
been a day of surprises. Cedric died. I just went to see Leslie. You know, his
wife. I remember you met her a couple of times.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“That’s what prompted me to call. I
got an email telling me he died. I was on someone’s old distribution list I
think. It reminded me to get in touch with you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reminded</i> you,” I echo, the hollowness ringing on the line. “You
shouldn’t have needed a reminder. I was here the whole time. Your disappearance
was here the whole time. Did you forget you never said goodbye?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Maybe I did,” she says. “It all
happened so quickly. I don’t think I remembered all the bits and pieces, you
know, the ins and outs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m confident I
don’t love her anymore, and that I’m indifferent to most of what she might say
or do now, but it appears she’s still capable of making me mad. Or maybe that’s
a new capability, rooted in my indifference. I say: “I hope you remembered the
main thing at least. I was waiting for you in a hotel. You never came, you
never left a message. I had no idea how to interpret it. For all I knew you
could have been killed. Then a week or two later you came into my place to pick
up your things, when you knew I wouldn’t be there, so that’s how I knew you
were alive. And there it is. The bits and pieces you forgot.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m getting cold, so I enter the lobby of the
building where Cindy’s having her class. This conversation, all it evokes and
represents and connects to, it’s all far too intense to coexist with students
and their transient anxieties, but on the other hand, perhaps I can draw on
their relative lightness, extract something soothing from it. Eliza says: “All
right, I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I thought I’d told you or maybe I thought
Cedric had told you.” I’m not even surprised by now that Cedric is a
participant in my deepest intimacies. I ask for more. She says: “I was going to
come to the hotel, of course. I was getting changed. Then Cedric called. He
said you were missing from work, not answering your phone, he wanted to talk to
you urgently. I remember thinking he sounded very ominous, almost threatening,
I didn’t tell him where you were. But then I was worried, or maybe scared. I
decided to stay away.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Fine,” I say, “but not even to let
me know…”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“I guess I just didn’t want to be a
part of it. Maybe I could have handled it better. But after the initial flurry
of messages, you stopped trying to get hold of me. I literally don’t think I
ever heard from you again after that afternoon. So then I started thinking we
both wanted it to be over. I did see you one time with another woman, a much
younger one. So I thought, well, he’s fine.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I don’t say anything. She goes on:
“I know I didn’t treat you very well. I know you were frustrated with me, that
you wanted more. I suppose you got used to the frustration. For me, it played
to my sadistic side, but once it was over, I realized I didn’t feel very good
about it. And I was getting more into the idea of just being with Nora, just
being with a woman in general, so you had to suffer the fallout of that. The
irony is though, devoting myself to Nora didn’t work either, it just felt off.
So we broke up within a few months. I’m with someone else now, another woman.
Still early days.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">She says: “The only other time I
thought of contacting you was when I saw Cedric a few months ago. I was cycling
down Sherbourne and I saw him hanging out in Moss Park. Seriously, I nearly
fell off my bike. He was in the middle of a group, a woman who looked like a
hooker, a bunch of Moss Park guys. Seriously, he could have been orchestrating
a drug deal. I pulled over and watched for a while. He looked completely in his
element, as they say. I mean, there was no distance between him and the others.
He wasn’t a tourist, he was a part of it, maybe the main part. I Googled him
and you – that was when I learned you had his job. I wondered, is this
something I should tell someone about? Does his wife know, does Kevin know? But
he looked so present, so absorbed into the scene. I thought, well, it’s his
choice. So I rode on.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“You were right,” I say, “it was
his choice. It was a choice he made around the time you and I broke up. And
although it probably wasn’t in the email you received, it was a choice that
killed him, I assume. Which he also wanted to happen. I mean, I don’t know of
course that he had a specific vision for his death. But I think he wanted to
jump into that life and let it play out.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">We swap a bit more basic
information, then I tell her I have to go; as I say it, I realize that was
nearly always <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i> line. “One other
thing though,” I say, “I’m getting married, to that same girl you saw me with.
Don’t have a date for it yet, but it’s happening. She even has a ring.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">“Wow,” says Eliza. “Well, you’re
very lucky. She’s pretty. And of course young. Sorry, those words sound
skeptical. I’m not though. I know you wouldn’t do this unless she was entirely
right.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I say: “She’s not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">entirely</i> right. But it does seem like
the thing to do. People think it’s living a fantasy, to be with someone so much
younger. The truth is, it’s a big challenge. The energy level is different, the
references we carry in our heads. I’m often aware of how relatively little
she’s lived. She doesn’t have that much to draw on. But she has good instincts
so that helps. And she’s growing up fast. I expect you’ll meet her one day.
Maybe I’ll invite you to the wedding. Maybe we’ll have lunch before that.” I’m
about to suggest tomorrow or the day after, but I realize I should slow down.
“Sure,” says Eliza. “Well, I’ll let you go. Sorry again.” “That’s all right,” I
say, “it was all for the best.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Actually I see her just a few days
later, at Cedric’s memorial service. It’s a standing-room-only event; I’m
impressed and a little moved, even if over half the crowd is from the office,
past and present. It’s hard to maintain an air of gloom when you’re catching up
with so many people, but maybe gloom isn’t how these things are done any more.
I wouldn’t know: it’s the first such event I’ve attended in twenty years.
There’s a contingent from Cedric’s final chapter, maybe some of the same people
Eliza said she saw him with in Moss Park: they occupy a couple of rows near the
back. I’m sitting right up front, and I don’t see them until I go up to speak.
Staring at my notes, I begin: “I only knew Cedric for about five years, but
it’s fair to say I owe him as much as I owe anyone, perhaps more.” I pause,
scanning the room from left to right, and that’s when I see Tommy, sitting on
the aisle, staring straight ahead. I jerk my head away, and that’s when I see
Eliza a couple of rows behind him, also on the aisle. My first thought is that
they coordinated their attendance and their seats, and that if I keep looking
along the aisle, I’ll go on seeing one problematic face after another, like
spikes on a highway. So I look back to my notes, and after that I barely look
beyond the first few rows; I hope this comes across as deep immersion in my
thoughts and my memories.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">At the end, I say: “Many of us know
that to the very end, Cedric was experimenting with his life, looking for new
experiences and directions. We didn’t all understand the choices he made, and
we might wish he’d made different ones, but there’s no question they were his
own, made with his eyes open and his head high.” At that point it seems
disrespectful not to hold my own head high, so I look up and see them both
again. I don’t see any sign that Tommy recognizes me; he looks jittery and
strained. Eliza’s expression doesn’t betray anything. I return to my seat, next
to Cindy, and hold her hand tightly through everything else.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">At the end, we hang around talking
to people, and are almost the last ones to leave. I take a last look at the
coffin; he’s being cremated later, but Leslie says she wants to witness that
alone, except for Cedric’s brother. I didn’t know Cedric had a brother, and
somehow I miss getting introduced to him. I step outside very cautiously, as if
afraid of air and light; Cindy is laughing nervously at me. Tommy is gone, Eliza
is gone. “That’s it then,” I say. “It’s still pretty early. We should do
something.” Cindy says: “Like hang out in a mall? See a movie?” She laughs at
my unconvincing show of considering these options. “You know what?” she says.
“Don’t worry about it. Go back to the office for a few hours. I need to do some
studying too. Later on we’ll get drunk.” I agree at once; we kiss before we go
our separate ways. But as it turns out, I end up working later than I planned
to, and I go to bed with her without drinking anything at all. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-36379624019768866962019-09-25T14:37:00.001-07:002019-09-30T07:02:46.699-07:00Rwanda/Tanzania - September 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We left
Toronto at around 6 pm on Friday evening, and the flight to Brussels passed the
only test that seems to matter, that we registered very little of it. Flying is
like surgery – an expensive procedure that you hope mostly to sleep through. It’s
appealing to think of an alternative mindset where you spend the time actively
contemplating the improbability of what you’re experiencing, but the immediacy
of it is just too narrow and cramped. Anyway, I did a minimal amount of
reading; Ally was awake only a little longer. We saw hardly anything of
Brussels Airport, as the signs directed us to a stark lower-level gathering
point, and then via bus to another terminal from which, one imagines, the less
glamorous routes depart. That may be how they see it anyway – to us, Kigali is
about as glamorous as it needs to get.<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
In fact the flight was to Entebbe
with a stop in Kigali, which seemed even more glamorous. We slept through much
of that one too, missing the meal service (we probably wouldn’t have wanted it
anyway as we’d been unable to pre-order a vegetarian option, leaving a choice
of meat or fish). I watched the long-forgotten (if it was ever known at all)
1977 film <i>La menace</i>, in which Yves Montand ends up crushed between two
vigilante-driven trucks while driving to Vancouver; Ally watched <i>Kramer vs.
Kramer</i>. Our route took us over Egypt, some of it at low enough altitude
that we could see the desert.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We were far from being the only
obvious tourists on the plane (at Toronto check-in, we heard a gate agent
remark that almost everyone headed to Brussels seemed to be headed for Africa).
Kigali Airport is fairly bright – by no means the most chaotic we’ve arrived
at. The line moved quickly, just a few token questions and $30US per person for
the entry visa. Our bags arrived rapidly and then we entered the waiting
throng, where we rapidly found the thing that makes everything easy, a guy
holding up our names. This was Kevin who would be our guide for the Rwandan
portion of the trip, driving us around in a large Land Cruiser which felt a
little silly just for the two of us (but anyway…) It was already pitch black,
but the air was fresh and welcoming and we immediately felt relaxed and good
about the whole thing (not that we were carrying much anxiety).</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Most of the drive to the hotel was
through a new section of Kigali, all built as part of the post-genocide
reconstruction (we had wondered about the propriety of mentioning the genocide,
but he matter-of-factly brought it up very quickly) – the roads are straight
and modern and tree-lined, going past gleaming new hotels, and a Convention
Centre which looks like an illuminated party hat. People walked slowly along,
seeming to enjoy Saturday evening: the traffic was relatively orderly,
punctuated with motorcycles weaving in and out (mostly taxis). It doesn’t take
long though to see that Rwanda’s orderliness – he emphasized that we could walk
around safely 24 hours a day – isn’t just left to chance: we saw several armed
guards with guns, and the vehicle had to be swept before entering the hotel
grounds.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We stayed at the Serena Hotel,
which is apparently very close to the Presidential residence. It runs like a
smooth machine; a young man in an immaculate white uniform handled our check-in
and brought us to our room, which was huge, with easy wi-fi, an espresso
machine, a large balcony with a view of the inner courtyards and its several
restaurants and open-air swimming pool, and all the rest of it. We had dinner
in one of the restaurants, both ordering Indian food, which seemed peculiar,
but as always when leading a vegetarian life, you take what you can get. We
already had the feeling of the long flight being put behind us, and of the same
divided consciousness we almost always have: on the one hand marveling that
we’d made it to Kigali, while at the same time thinking we could be anywhere.</div>
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The food was very cheap – less than
$10 an entrée – whereas the wine cost more in line with what we’d pay back
home. The restaurant was pretty quiet, and most other patrons focused mainly on
their phones (as I said, they could be anywhere, or nowhere). We had a beer on
our balcony, watching staff wait around for the last few patrons. We slept
well, and so by the next morning we were comfortably on Rwandan time (not a big
adjustment anyway – it’s just six hours ahead). The breakfast was the kind of
absurdly opulent buffet that’s served in all high-end hotels everywhere. Kevin
was late picking us up because of some traffic-disrupting “sports day” that
apparently caused him to drive 20km out of his way. Our first stop was in the
old part of Kigali, at a shop that sells the work of 55 local women, and serves
at the starting point for walking tours of the area. It wasn’t the most
glamorous of walking tours by any means, but that was exactly the appeal – just
normal under-maintained streets crammed with little hole-in-the-wall
businesses, people living their lives. Based on this (probably
unrepresentative) survey, the main driver of the economy may be hairdressing –
we must have seen ten or more salons, mostly just one or two chairs and no room
to turn around otherwise, but apparently with all the tools and chemicals
necessary to deliver. We went into a milk bar and into various vendors, mostly
just with a product range you could inventory with your fingers; we went to a
water collection point (because around there plenty of houses do without
running water); we watched women mashing up cassava leaves. At the end we
bought a few items in the collective’s store. It was very satisfying and
informative and felt like we were seeing something real (this is the perpetual
unknown of being a tourist – how much does your very presence change the flow
of things). </div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Then we drove to the genocide
museum. We’ve certainly seen our share of such commemorations (Hiroshima,
Holocaust centres in Berlin and Israel) but this one still brings its own kind
of depressing horror, because of the horrible intimacy and immediacy of what it
depicts – one story after another of friends and neighbours and even family
members turning on each other in the most gruesome, savage way. The details are
more than you want to process; the country’s recovery from it is just a miracle
(if anyone wanted to study in depth the nature of reconciliation and
forgiveness, this would surely be the place). In addition to the unprocessable
exhibits (which extend to details of how individually named children were
killed) there are mass graves for over 250,000 victims, and a wall of names
(very much a work in progress). We couldn’t help noting that the wretched
display of clothing recovered from the dead included a little boy’s Ottawa
Canada T-shirt.</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We moved on (if that’s possible),
stopping at a little store to pick up two slices of pizza, and then driving for
two and a half hours or so to the Five Volcanoes Boutique Hotel, near the
entrance to the Volcanoes National Park in the city of Musanze, apparently
Rwanda’s second biggest. It’s a scenic drive (well, we both slept for part of
it, but I’m sure that portion was scenic too), rising above Kigali and on
well-maintained roads through a series of little communities, almost always
with mountains rising in the background. There was never a moment when we
couldn’t see someone walking on the side of the road, sometimes in great
numbers (apparently that was attributable to it being Sunday, Rwanda being a
great churchgoing nation) – you could easily imagine that the country is in
constant easygoing motion. Many of the women carry baskets or other improbably
large burdens on their heads; bicycles are similarly laden down; you see sheep
and goats, but not a single dog (we thought maybe this was because dogs had
fallen into disfavor since the genocide – when many were slaughtered for eating
the flesh of the dead – but our guide told us they’re still around, he even has
two himself, but they’re kept away from the road). Periodically we saw armed
police (not out to extract corrupt money as might be the case elsewhere, just
keeping the peace I guess) but among all these thousands of walking people we
did not see a single white face until we arrived at Musanze, and then just a mere
handful.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
So no surprise that when we asked
the receptionist if it was OK to leave the hotel grounds and go for a walk, her
only comment was not to mind if the kids called us Muzungu (white person in the
Kinyarwandan language). We did indeed hear that, and we were obviously objects
of wonderment to the little kids in particular. Then four teenage boys latched
onto us and kept peppering us with questions about ourselves, interspersed with
information about themselves, much of it along the lines of how they’re trying
to make a better life, about the difficulty of obtaining sufficient school
supplies, about how they don’t even have a proper soccer ball now because it
broke, and so on. I decided I’d give them enough money to buy a new ball at
least, but that I’d wait until we were back at the hotel (we turned back after
half an hour or so). Then some crazy-seeming guy chased them away and they
disappeared for a while. We met up with a Swiss guy who was also walking back
to the same place (apparently not quite as inundated with attention as we had
been); then they reappeared, and pulled us into a nearby church where a few
people were dancing around and they got me to join in briefly (the camera was
in my pocket at the time so there is no record of this). At the hotel gates I
gave them $50 – even if they were embellishing or outright inventing, their
need was certainly greater than ours, and they’d undoubtedly given us a
memorable encounter (having said that, our preferred mode of walking really is
just to be left alone).</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
So that was a memorable day by any
measure, and as the walk ended we hadn’t even been in the country for 24 hours
yet. As always, a day of immersed travel just fills your head and senses almost
more than you can accommodate (this is largely why we never feel we need to
take hugely long trips). Our room at the Five Volcanoes – off by itself down a
little path - was also very large and pleasant, and it had wi-fi too, even
though this was officially only in the common areas. It was dark not long after
six.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Asked about the pros and cons of
Rwanda, the kids spoke positively about the company’s security and safety,
citing lack of technology as the main negative – they said their school has
some 20 computers for 1,000 pupils (a contrast to the promotional volume in the
Kigali hotel, showing a little country school where everyone’s on a laptop).
Driving up from Kigali, we could see the divide between the old city and the
new – some of the roads we drove on were just a couple of months old (replacing
what appeared to be little more than dirt tracks). You instantly feel huge
affection for it, and excitement for its potential (the Swiss guy mentioned
that Uganda, where he’d just been, is far less impressive at this point).
Actually, even after a day, we were speculating about what we might do on a
return trip (we did not realize that the “Big 5” safari animals, along with
chimpanzees and of course gorillas, can all be viewed within Rwanda) but that’s
a topic for another time…</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We had dinner in the hotel – given
the minimal choice, Ally ended up having almost exactly the same Indian-styled
meal as on the first night. We finished the night with some wine on our
veranda. We had to be ready to go by 6.45 am on the next day, because it was
gorilla day!! This starts by driving to the central site where the day’s license
holders (there are only 88 a day) are allocated into groups (eight to a group)
– as you can imagine, the air is thick with excited anticipation. Kevin told us
that some groups walk about two hours where others walk for twice as long or
more, and yet the gorilla spotting is often better with the former, so he
advised us to claim we were incapable of doing the longer walks and thus to achieve
a cushier allocation. We achieved this without any playacting, and then had to
drive to the actual hike starting point (during which our vehicle’s off-roading
capacities were finally justified). Our group contained four Americans,
including one hefty gentleman who found the whole thing very arduous and made
sure we constantly knew that, and two Torontonians, one of whom I actually
recognized from my brief time at Deloitte. The walking portion of it took less
than two hours there and back and wasn’t too tough (just a bit steep) but the
experience was made more taxing by lots of pushing through dense growth,
potentially tearing your hands and clothes and so on. We were underdressed
compared to the others (no gloves in particular) but it really didn’t matter…</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Because the gorilla tracking was
everything we hoped it would be and more! Of the 24 gorillas in the family we
were assigned to, we saw 16 or 17 of them - we did not see the alpha male but
we saw three other silverback males and various females and infants. The guide
had said we should only expect to spend an hour around the gorillas, but we
spent over two hours, I believe (some of our group, incredibly, seemed to have
had enough by the end); she had also said we should expect to get no closer
than seven metres, but we were much closer than that, frequently almost within
touching distance, and several times well within, such as the occasions on
which they brushed right past us (one picture makes it look as if Ally is being
charged, which happily wasn’t the case). Mostly they were just hanging out,
eating or basking, showing limited interest in us, even when I was worried we
were crowding them. The effort was led by a fearless group of trackers who, as
mentioned, constantly hacked out new (sort of) paths for us with their
machetes, leading us to further awesome sightings (the trackers stay with the
gorillas until they settle down for the night, and then return early in the
morning before they’ve had a chance to move too far – it must be an exhausting life).
Everyone also hires a porter, which we didn’t need for actual porting, but they
were useful in assisting us during the climb (I don’t know if I’ve ever spent
so much time gripping another dude’s hand) - it seems to be pretty openly
acknowledged that hiring the porters is a semi-charity gig for locals who might
otherwise, in a worst case, turn to poaching. Anyway, it was just a thrilling
morning, a stand-out even among our wonderful existing safari memories: we felt
so privileged and lucky to be experiencing this (and certainly did not utter a
single word of complaint about anything…)</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
(I only remembered later that I’d
been paranoid for months about being prevented from coming because of having a
cold, as I almost perpetually do (they emphasize that this can get you turned
away with no refund, to avoid infecting the gorillas). As it was, my nose had
never been as clear (Ally had a similar fear, and managed not to draw attention
to the moments at which she felt congested). The temperature was very cool and
accommodating – it would be much tougher if it was hot (although apparently
that’s not common given the higher altitude) and even more so if it rained and
was muddy (which can certainly happen). We got lots of great pictures, although
we’re always wary of the experience being overly defined by picture-taking
rather than by just being there, of one’s memory being composed entirely of
what was caught on camera. For example, I recall the moment in which the
gorilla was standing right next to me, which isn’t in a photo, much more
vividly than the next few seconds in which it moved on, and in which I instinctively
raised my arms to take a picture. On the other hand, the resulting photo is one
of my all-time favourites, not least for recording the moaning American taking
a picture of his wife, and thus entirely missing the great moment happening behind
him.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
I mentioned the poor quality of the
road leading to the hike starting point; it was also a further window on the
more modest aspects of Rwanda – lots of farming (potatoes, maize, cabbage),
extremely poor-looking houses. It appears that Rwandans let even the youngest
kids run unsupervised, and so we had a steady stream of interest in our vehicle
(we must have waved more than the Queen). Private cars are relatively uncommon
outside Kigali it seems – on this day we mainly saw bicycles, again often impossibly
laden down. On the other end of things, we passed a sign for a research campus
to be built and named for Ellen DeGeneres, who’s become interested in Rwanda in
recent years and was apparently here just a few weeks earlier. We were told she
stays at a place that charges $15,000 a night, which seems absurd and obscene,
especially in this context (we tried speculating on what could ever justify
such a price tag, but it was beyond our imagination). Good to know though that
regardless, she and others still have to go through the same process in terms
of coming down to the central site, being allocated to a group of eight and so
forth, or that’s what Kevin says anyway. Yet more luxury hotels are under
construction.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-E9-SoxmX9uQUL6HozNClhSFZqGr0M49b2Gs58EZOCcpr9Q7bSrXGQA_xD6icUoqF2lt1YcKmOagXE13WNf9i-Mvi5YV88tfSeAH11-QxzNu-tJROniNRI8t4rxoNAyKeeJcnA7fDmq8/s1600/IMG_3361.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-E9-SoxmX9uQUL6HozNClhSFZqGr0M49b2Gs58EZOCcpr9Q7bSrXGQA_xD6icUoqF2lt1YcKmOagXE13WNf9i-Mvi5YV88tfSeAH11-QxzNu-tJROniNRI8t4rxoNAyKeeJcnA7fDmq8/s320/IMG_3361.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We returned to the hotel for lunch
at around 1 pm. Kevin relayed to us on the way back that some of the other ten
groups were still searching for gorillas (we subsequently heard that one group
arrived back after 5 pm). He said they’re always successful in the end though.
We could certainly have managed being assigned to a more arduous group, but it
was nice we didn’t have to.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIF7yh1QSTRQYF4kZscp76xT1vHqMNOQhdhldNFCVh75K4r8EAAxWJlBBvczb0Nb0nNyqTfrwf_g_ncECZCyelnpXr3Ky4NJxJ0t1m0DviKJu2DRWQaSdxBGcWtNch2zg4hRi6hhWc8Qs/s1600/IMG_3405.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIF7yh1QSTRQYF4kZscp76xT1vHqMNOQhdhldNFCVh75K4r8EAAxWJlBBvczb0Nb0nNyqTfrwf_g_ncECZCyelnpXr3Ky4NJxJ0t1m0DviKJu2DRWQaSdxBGcWtNch2zg4hRi6hhWc8Qs/s320/IMG_3405.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The planned afternoon activity was
a boat ride on a nearby lake - we were initially told this was going to be called
off due to looming bad weather, but then it was back on again. We set off, with
a fine view of the five volcanos, and little activity on the lake other than a
family transporting a big load of produce in an unsuitable looking craft. I
asked about an impressive-looking house on one of the islands within the lake <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Kevin said it was the boatman’s house – I
took this as a joke but it was actually true: when not working as a boatman,
he’s building a hotel and restaurant. We stopped off there for a beer-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>by then the weather was getting bad, and we were
also being told that the engine on the boat was not very reliable (thanks!) But
we made it back with no problem and then returned to the hotel, with both of us
in a constant state of trepidation as our massive vehicle hurled itself on the
wet roads past kids and cyclists (many of which, by the way, are also taxis and
so carry two people, which of course doesn’t make it seem any safer as you roar
past them). </div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv3Nwji5DzBlqOsfikpJ1QtGeKSeICIx-3su5fhOSvegKBQoDPj_d-TuGkbukoFg_Lh8631EohQpxy8YuL14Dc1r9DUPFOdte7kxDCyeARXYbxF5EvwHNQkgS8svTjmL3-08m9gbYw4bM/s1600/IMG_3407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv3Nwji5DzBlqOsfikpJ1QtGeKSeICIx-3su5fhOSvegKBQoDPj_d-TuGkbukoFg_Lh8631EohQpxy8YuL14Dc1r9DUPFOdte7kxDCyeARXYbxF5EvwHNQkgS8svTjmL3-08m9gbYw4bM/s320/IMG_3407.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
So that was a second wonderful day.
Notwithstanding those reservations, we were happy that our photos captured the
experience very well, and we were so excited to send them out that we even went
into the main hotel area for a while to get that done (as the wi-fi in the room
was too weak). We had dinner in the hotel – vegetarian empanadas (it seems the
chef likes to experiment with global culinary concepts). The following morning
we again woke up early and drove back to the same central site, this time to be
allocated to a walking tour for golden monkeys. The structure is exactly the
same – you drive to the starting point down a dirt road; there’s a guide,
trackers, porters – but the monkeys don’t move around as much as the gorillas,
and it doesn’t take too much walking to reach them, so the porters in
particular are not at all required (mine basically got paid for taking a nice
morning stroll). Still, once again, it serves to spread a little money around.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUZ6dBEagik_wN-OQEwPUkQN4hzcW_6NxBuOfadMipAWkuJkuf79XPiM7ILJCwJocNJiMJE6faNZLzcas8OYqknOUXyL9a4IZvEpJGN3br01nWX88c8H4M9CWFYU2vLNjxZ_3Xu_Qab4/s1600/IMG_3420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUZ6dBEagik_wN-OQEwPUkQN4hzcW_6NxBuOfadMipAWkuJkuf79XPiM7ILJCwJocNJiMJE6faNZLzcas8OYqknOUXyL9a4IZvEpJGN3br01nWX88c8H4M9CWFYU2vLNjxZ_3Xu_Qab4/s320/IMG_3420.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
All three of the couples with whom
we did the gorilla trekking were there for a second day of it, although the
Toronto couple commented they didn’t really need a second day, and as I
mentioned, some of the Americans moaned their way through the first. But I
guess you never know these things in advance. When we mentioned this to Kevin,
he talked about two Canadian couples who did it every day for a week, spending
every night at that $15,000 a shot location. The mind boggles!</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6716wGrq9PZx6vyzDIO9jDwF36B-PzClxEqVTQKr7da13pz-zO6hlVF_64caREqphosh3GUSDw7cOgu-bFiukyrWvl8K88uUoMs6eaPwJmbiRtsJmtqRSkBkbSUuHu_aVTEVaRHPeCKU/s1600/IMG_3438.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6716wGrq9PZx6vyzDIO9jDwF36B-PzClxEqVTQKr7da13pz-zO6hlVF_64caREqphosh3GUSDw7cOgu-bFiukyrWvl8K88uUoMs6eaPwJmbiRtsJmtqRSkBkbSUuHu_aVTEVaRHPeCKU/s320/IMG_3438.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The group was twice as large as the
previous day’s, made up largely of garrulous Australians (many of whom were too
mean to hire a porter!) The walk went through farmers’ fields, mostly potatoes;
the golden monkeys live in an adjoining forest, but like to swoop into the
fields and steal the crops. The guide tolerated this for a while, just to
facilitate amusing photos I suppose, but thereafter chased them away. Otherwise
they were mostly in the trees, and hard to observe (and even more so to
photograph) but putting on a nice little show. There’s something very odd
though about watching a monkey innocuously living his life in a tree, with ten
or twelve cameras pointing up at it. There are elephants in the national park
as well (we crossed some footprints during the gorilla walk) but they are
apparently seldom seen, and aren’t suitable for tourism as they keep their
distance (we saw the same thing on our last trip to Tanzania – the elephants in
the Selous, where there is a past history of poaching, avoid humans at all
costs, whereas those in the Serengeti, where there’s no such history, are happy
to be observed up close) (as will be happily reported later, the Ruaha
elephants very much take the latter approach).</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The walk was over before 11 am. The
official itinerary was that we were to have lunch at the hotel before returning
to Kigali, but we chose to head back right away, and arrived around 1.30 pm.
The drive was no less scenic than before, especially as Kigali came into view
and you could simultaneously see the small rural houses clinging to the
hillsides, the density of the old town, and the gleaming high-rise city beyond.
At regular intervals you see women sweeping the side of the road – apparently
something that’s expected of them for the portion of road near their house, but
very strange when the road is a tire-busting disaster, and yet the side of it
is being perpetually swept. Still, I must say Rwanda apparently has almost no
littering. We passed innumerable farmers’ fields with people at work, but I
don’t think we ever saw a tractor or any such machinery – everything seems to
be tended by hand, then delivered by bicycle. You certainly get a sense of the
near-impossibility of climbing out of such a life.</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Two things made the drive rather
heavy. Kevin told us about his 2-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy and
for whom the treatment is ruinously expensive, and so he’s trying everything he
can to solicit donations. Obviously the tour company would not at all approve
of him hitting up clients for money, and we promised we wouldn’t tell them,
while deferring any further answer. Assuming the story is true (and you always
have to be aware it may not be, but we chose to assume it was), it’s a
difficult moral question, whether this cause deserves our support more than
(say) poor Rwandan kids in general, or poor Canadian kids for that matter (the
Daily Bread food bank has been our main cause for some years). From this he led
(somewhat artfully, if you were being skeptical) into his personal genocide
history – other than his parents who were out of the country, he was the only
survivor out of 75 family members, with a story which involves witnessing
brutal deaths of his sister and others, being thrown into a crocodile and
hippo-occupied river and making it out alive, and a long solitary walk to the
Ugandan border. If it were a movie, as the cliché goes, it would be both
unbelievable and barely watchable. Anyway, these twin subjects drained the life
out of the party for the remainder of the drive.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We checked into our room at the
Serena Hotel – the room looked almost identical to the room we had the other night.
Then a brief panic followed because Ally had lost one of her credit cards, and
was on the verge of calling the bank to cancel it – we found it in one of our
bags. We went for a walk in Kigali. Everyone emphasizes how safe it is, and we
saw no evidence to the contrary, but of course being safe isn’t the same as
being left alone, and we were approached by numerous vendors, all with the same
limited inventory of local English-language newspapers, language guides and
(oddly) issues of <i>The Economist</i>, and by a couple of begging kids. They
all backed off fairly quickly – still, in more populous parts of the city it
suggests the harassment might be considerable. We stuck to the area around the
hotel, which has lots of modern development and wide streets and not much foot
traffic. It’s pleasant, but not of great interest other than as a symbol of
progress – still, we were happy just to be walking in Kigali! We found a modern
restaurant called Fusion, tied to a boutique hotel called The Retreat, where
the clientele was certainly made up heavily of visitors rather than locals, and
we had a pleasant late lunch there in quiet surroundings, before walking back
to the hotel. And there we had an email from the guys to whom we gave $50,
showing themselves posing with a nice new ball! This is what they had to say:</div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="background: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Hello our dearest friend </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">How are
you doing there? We are very happy to email you for a purpose of show you
a ball you give us and we are going to attend the champion very soon we have to
tell you result from in</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">It was
nice to meet you in our life </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">We will
tell you about more our selves very soon and our term information </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Please
greet for us your wife we are walking very well and sport but also as we told
you </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">We are
also students</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Still
have good time </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Your
friends Seth,Paul,valence</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">We are
waiting your forward soon</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "helvetica neue" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Heard
of term Seth</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Well, the details may be fuzzy, but
I’m happy that we did them a favour. We spent the evening at the Serena Bar –
the place again didn’t seem very busy. The next day we had breakfast and were
picked up by Kevin at 7.30 am – he said he’d been at the hospital all night
because his daughter had a fever. No doubt his job (like any job that gives you
access to tourist dollars) makes him better off than the average Rwandan, but it’s
still precarious – he didn’t know when his next client would be assigned (he
said he sometimes waits a week, or even two), and he only gets paid on the days
he works. His ambition is to work for himself but no doubt it’s not easy to get
something like that going. It’s rather astonishing how many people he knows –
whether at hotel reception, at the airport drop-off, at a traffic red light,
he’s always catching up with someone. He’s on his phone constantly – in this
regard, Rwandans are certainly part of the modern world.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
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Kigali rush hour traffic was
predictably chaotic. We drove on yet another new road – open just two weeks
apparently (the roadsides lined with remnants of recent demolition). The main
entrance to the airport was closed, perhaps for the President’s use, said Kevin
(or Ellen’s?) and we took another entrance at which we had to get out of the
car and unload our bags to be checked out by the canine unit (like all such
working dogs, he really seemed to enjoy his work). The check-in itself was easy
enough, although it transpired that our flight was leaving half an hour later
than we’d been informed. With hindsight, Ruaha in Tanzania is not a very easy
logistical fit with Rwanda, and we probably would have planned things a
different way (maybe just to spend the whole trip within Rwanda as I said
before). Having said that, spending one night of your life in Dar es Salaam
isn’t such a bad thing to have done. We always thought we might get to the
hotel too late to do anything meaningful in the city, and the later flight just
made that more likely. Actually though we did better than we might have – our
hotel, the Southern Sun, is quite close to the ocean, so we were able to walk
along there for a while (including the portion of it named after Barack Obama),
observing local kids with an impressive commitment to fitness, and past some of
the embassies which are on the same street (Canada, UK, Germany…) The hotel
literature also emphasizes its proximity to the city’s botanical gardens, but
this seemed mostly like a dusty semi-wasteland, and likely a contender for the
worst “botanical gardens” in the world (as surely as the Serengeti is in
contention for best national park in the world, as our driver was telling us).</div>
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Our flight initially landed in
Kilimanjaro (at the airport where we arrived on our previous Tanzania trip)
before continuing on to Dar. At various times we did have some fairly
spectacular view of mountains and deserts – at one point we could see what
seemed to be the loneliest road in the world, just stretching out for tens of unpopulated
miles. The arrival process was horribly slow and convoluted – first you go to
one place to fill out an immigration form, then you go another place to get
photographed and fingerprinted for a visa, then to another place to pay for the
visa ($50US each), then to another place for passport control, which is itself
subdivided between two different people. Each of these stages moves extremely
slowly, so I can’t imagine how long it would take if you were at the back of
the line from a big plane (Rwanda, you may recall, involved one quick check,
mostly for the purposes of collecting the cash). Then the drive to the hotel
took another hour or so through horribly congestion - Kigali traffic chaos was
nothing by comparison, so the investment in new roads may be paying off. On the
other hand, Dar es Salaam appears to have far more cars (and therefore
relatively fewer motorbikes). While waiting in traffic, the vehicle was
approached by a constant stream of vendors – for ice cream, peanuts, cashews,
maps, flashlights, razors: strangest was a guy with a tank of ornamental fish
on his head – or beggars. It often seemed too that every patch of sidewalk – to
the extent not dense with people - was occupied by a street vendor. Between us
we spotted only one white person during the whole hour (I note this only for
anthropological interest). We therefore assumed we might get harassed during
our walk, but actually we were entirely left alone, even more than in Kigali,
which we deeply appreciated (however, as I mentioned, we were walking through
more rarified areas). The hotel itself is a bit more basic than the Serena, but
completely fine – they start serving breakfast at the unheard of hour of 4 am,
which I think speaks to how many guests just touch down briefly there before an
early morning departure to more exotic things, just like us (in fact, we later
learned that some book a room just for a few daytime stopover hours, although
that would make better sense if it were closer to the airport).</div>
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The restaurant had the widest
selection we’d encountered so far – five vegetarian entrée choices! I had a
“Swahili vegetable platter”: Ally made a more conventional sandwich choice. We
were sitting outside and were entertained by two cats flagrantly trolling the
tables for scraps, and two very young kittens apparently learning the ropes
(and visibly growing in confidence as the night went on). The waiter said they
are not strays but rather live in a nearby building – they certainly make good
use of their freedom. He also told us that his wife and two children live near Kilimanjaro
(because she works for the telephone company and they transferred her there,
but he had to stay with the job he had) and that he only sees them a few times
a year, sometimes catching the bus after work and traveling all night, then
turning up to take them to school in the morning. Life here certainly does run
on different prevailing assumptions.</div>
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We were the only ones at breakfast,
and left the hotel at 6.30 am, before the city’s congestion hell had kicked in
– the journey back to the airport took only a fraction of the time, with most
of the street vendors not yet in place. This was our second time at the Dar es
Salaam light aircraft terminal – everything seems very ramshackle by usual
airport standards, but all holds together somehow. We flew off on an
eight-seater plane, with three other passengers. The first stop was at the
little airstrip in Selous, the same one where we got off two years ago (one
might get used to multiple visits to, say, Frankfurt Airport, but being back at
the Selous airstrip seemed like pretty rarified territory). Two more people got
on there, and then an hour later we touched down in Ruaha National Park,
Tanzania’s biggest, although certainly not its best known or most visited. We
lost and gained two passengers there, and then flew another ten minutes to an
airstrip further inside Ruaha, where the flight ended. This was a relatively
busy spot, with ten or so vehicles from various lodges dropping off or picking
up passengers. We met our guide for the next five days, Goodluck, and the
English couple with whom we’d be sharing most of our drives.</div>
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Ruaha felt vast and parched (far
removed from the last rainy season), but dense in vegetation, often with huge,
richly green trees standing out against shades of yellow (during the rainy
season, it’s apparently all green and dense, to an extent that makes the
animals almost impossible to find – the camp closes at that time for several
months). Over our five days we would come to appreciate the diversity of the
terrain – sometimes the ground looks like a stretch of dusty copper, sometimes
it’s pitch black. Some sections look like a nuclear blast hit them – the actual
explanation is usually elephants. If one were a student of vegetation and/or
mineralization, I’m sure it would be entirely as rewarding in a different way
(maybe even more so). Anyway, the initial drive to the camp took about an hour,
during which the highlight was a leopard sleeping in a tree, stretched out
languidly on a branch, as relaxed as perhaps only the supreme predators can
allow themselves to be. Near there we saw ten or so elephants standing around a
tree, all facing outward, the arrangement suggesting some grave act of
communion. We saw several other elephants – at one point, a wide angle lens could
simultaneously have captured an elephant, two warthogs and a baboon. We saw
impala, zebras, and five giraffes who stared uncaringly at us when we stopped,
seeming far less anxious about the people than their Selous equivalents
(likewise the elephants). Overall a fine collection of sightings for the first
hour.</div>
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The Nomad Kigalia camp, built on
the banks of a currently dry river, only has seven tents – on our first night
there were four Americans and two Germans. There’s a nicely upholstered central
area where everyone gathers for meals, and then the tents are all spaced out
along the river. We had lunch and I could overhear the Americans discussing
Trump (they didn’t seem like fans, but still, that’s literally the last thing
you want to hear about in such a place). It appeared the camp might initially have
overlooked the information about us being vegetarians; still, we got by just
fine on the bread and salad. Our tent was off by itself at the end of the camp
territory – as we initially approached, a couple of bushbucks sprung past
(actually, I rewrote that sentence a few times – initially I referred to “some
kind of antelope,” later changing it to kudu, and later yet again to what I
believe is the final correct answer). They allow you to take the path alone
during the day, but after dark you don’t do anything without accompaniment,
which you can summon on a walkie-talkie; the tent also has an emergency horn, an
emergency whistle, a couple of solar-powered electrical outlets, a big comfy
bed, a little veranda with a table and two chairs (also not to be used at
night), a flushing toilet, an electric fan, and much more space than the term
“tent” typically evokes. There’s a sufficient water supply for a little sink,
but for a shower (of the outside bucket variety) you need to place an order in
advance, and then they bring over the warm water (the leftover water gets
poured into a nearby drinking basin, where it’s happily consumed by monkeys,
birds and others). It’s simply a remarkable place to be. We both had a nap –
when we woke up we were observed by several black-faced monkeys (also known as
velvet monkeys, blue monkeys, or based on recent news stories as Trudeau-faced
monkeys), who we know from past experience would certainly steal some of our
stuff given the chance (the room also has a big wooden chest with a lock on
it). Not that we are super-experienced old hands at this, but we rapidly fell
into the same exotically peaceful frame of mind we felt on our last Tanzania
trip.</div>
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Other pieces of the routine rapidly
fall into place. The afternoon game drive starts at 4.30 pm, after grabbing a
coffee and a snack. On our first evening we drove to a nearby area called
“Little Serengeti” for its openness. We saw a huge number of elephants – in
particular a herd of thirty or forty of them crossing the river. We saw five
sleeping lions, not caring about our presence – one of them even rolling on its
back to show how little we mattered – and not far from that, a herd of impala,
no doubt the lions’ main project for later. We saw many more giraffes, and many
unusual birds – the two British people sharing our vehicle were birdwatchers
and so that took up a greater part of the conversation than when it’s just Ally
and I (but all for the better). We only saw a couple of other trucks – mostly
we were alone in this vast beautiful landscape. The question sometimes comes up
of what’s your favourite of the animals, and you might answer this way or that,
but the glory is that they’re all so distinct and beyond replication and so deserving,
and they’ve kept it going for centuries, and will into perpetuity if they’re
allowed to.</div>
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Going back to the routine – on the
way back, the guide can call in your request for a shower so that it’s all
ready to go when you return. As we had ours, out in the open, we could hear a
creature enthusiastically drinking from the basin, presumably another monkey,
but by then it was too dark to see. Someone came back (when summoned) to take
us to dinner, which typically starts around 8, after drinks and somewhat
stilted chatter around a camp fire (not usually my favourite part of the day I
must admit – if there’s any good conversation it comes later). There’s a
perpetual gentle humming in the background – cicadas, frogs, I don’t know – and
the occasional more interesting rustling. Dinner passed pleasantly – the
Americans far away at their own table, everyone else at another. Most of the
talk was of Africa – well, why wouldn’t it be? As so often happens, we were the
last ones left and chatted with Raj the manager for a while before being walked
back to the room, where before going to sleep we could hear further energetic
drinking and other unidentifiable motion. </div>
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We had our wake-up delivery of
coffee and tea at 5.45 am. Apparently an elephant had been trampling around the
camp during the night, trying to get into the kitchen to steal fruit (we were
told later it made off with all their bananas) – I think we did hear it trumpet
at one point, but for the most part we slept undisturbed. We headed off at 6.30
am, returning over six hours later, spending most of the intervening time in
the vicinity of a not-dry river (an obvious strategic ploy for maximizing
animal sightings). We again saw many giraffes and many elephants, zebras, many
varieties of antelope and deer, mongooses, monkeys, baboons; sometimes in their
own majestic slab of space, sometimes mingling. The portion of conversation
devoted to bird identification only continued to grow (the British guy, Barry,
commented afterwards that Goodluck’s skills in this respect are shaky, citing
some wrong calls). We saw a lion separated from her pack and moaning as she
tried to find them again; we also saw her on the way back, having made no
progress (Goodluck said the back story might be as simple as one lion falling
too soundly asleep and missing the departure of the rest of the pack). We also
saw two other lions lying in the bushes, surrounded by several trucks hoping
they’d emerge into the open; the lions outlasted all of them.</div>
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Such morning drives are chilly at
the outset – the truck helpfully provides blankets and hot water bottles (yes,
in Africa – actually we had them at the Five Volcanoes hotel also) but of
course by the end of the drive that’s the last thing you need. A couple of
hours in, we stopped for breakfast in a scenic spot where we could see
elephants in the distance. The breakfasts are of course outstanding – cereals,
juices, yoghurt, French toast, pancakes, sausages. I think all four of us
passengers subsequently dozed briefly off at one point or another, which of
course isn’t to say we weren’t loving it.</div>
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We had lunch around 1 pm. Another
piece of the daily routine – some people go, in this case the Americans; some
new ones arrive, in this case another British couple (their names were Richard
and Lindsay, but over the next few days I would consistently amuse myself by
pretending to forget their names, referring to them instead as Ken and Margaret
or whatnot). They were serving burgers and had made two veggie ones for us with
a beetroot base. The kitchen is really astounding, especially considering they
only get deliveries twice a week. In theory it sounds like you have a big
period of downtime in the afternoon, but in practice once you’ve had lunch and
the inevitable nap, it might not be much more than an hour. We woke up from our
nap to another visit by the monkeys, who were circling our tent and watching us
as much as we were watching them, and by several bushbacks, who also seemed to
know we were there and not to mind. Some dung in the vicinity suggested the
elephant might have been closer than we knew during the night. The little
drinking spot near our tent was dry so I refilled it from our own supply – this
seemed to be much appreciated by the monkeys and by various birds.</div>
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We set out again around 4.30 pm,
retracing some previous territory (it seems that only a relatively small
portion of Ruaha is actually available for such drives, which means some
animals may not appear at all if they’re choosing to stay in the other
section). The main new addition to the repertoire was the hyena, followed by
the eagle owl, but otherwise the focus was very much on elephants, the
highlight being a river bed in which a family of five was excavating water –
despite the dry-looking surface, there was water not too far below which they
were adept at using their trunks to remove (after first shaking out the dirty
sandy stuff). Four of the elephants, including two very young ones, stuck very
close together through all this, and we reflected yet again on how they have
their own kind of complex intimacy, and on how they belong in this kind of
space where they can live as they choose to, and on the cruelty of sticking
them in any kind of confinement, let alone the even greater cruelty of slowly destroying
their homeland altogether.</div>
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We stopped for a drink near a huge
and ancient tree, with a hole in the trunk capable of hiding several people
(and apparently used by poachers in the past for that very purpose). Sharing
rides with people you didn’t like would obviously be a drawback, but the
British couple, Barry and Jill, were quite easy to get along with, and we
readily agreed on some plans for the coming days. We talked to them a lot at
dinner, at which we were served a vegetable curry (under more stars than we
could ever hope to see at home – perhaps some time we should spend an entire
African evening just looking up); the Germans were celebrating their daughter’s
birthday, and the staff marked this by performing a communal song and dance and
bringing out a bottle of champagne (I’m sure they find an excuse to do this
every few days). We again shut down the place, and yet were the first to arrive
for our drive the next morning. The night in between was very quiet, with no
reported elephant visitations.</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /></div>
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Funny, the German guy remarked that
his earliest impressions of Africa came from an American TV show of his youth
called <i>Daktari</i>, which featured an animal doctor and a cross-eyed lion. I
would never have thought of it, but the same might be true for me (neither of
us could recall anymore how the cross-eyed lion fit into things). I don’t think
the show was a big long-running success or anything, but it must have had an
extremely accomplished foreign sales agent. Anyway, the highlight of the morning
drive was a grandstand seat on one side of a mostly dry river for an
entertainingly primal narrative on the other side. We were watching a male and
female lion lying in the water, taking things easy with no particular plans. A
herd of twenty or so buffalo slowly emerged into the scene behind them,
tentatively moving down to the river to drink, initially unaware of the lions
but then tuning into them, clearly weighing caution against thirst. Based on
observation and Goodluck’s commentary, the buffalos’ odds always seemed pretty
good, and so it transpired. After a few false starts, they descended to the
water, never losing their focus on the lions; the male lion watched them
closely but the lioness seemed to view it as a lost cause. Eventually the lion
did get up and run toward them, but with little hope of achieving anything;
maybe he just couldn’t stand watching them anymore. The buffalo easily made it
back up the slope, their ambitions fulfilled, and the lion returned to his spot
in the water. You can watch things like this for hours, as engaged as in the
most dynamic of movies. We returned to the scene a while later, to see the
lions walk toward the shade, stopping for a final drink before lying down in a
secluded spot and disappearing from view. Later we saw a larger group of lions,
with another herd of buffalo well within their sights; although separated by
water (to the lions’ disadvantage), the buffalo assessed this one differently
and withdrew.</div>
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The river generated some wonderful
views of (for example) impala and zebra and giraffe within the same frame, all
peacefully mingling, enjoying their water and their space. Our choice of
breakfast spot (a common choice, based on a clump of used toilet paper located
behind a bush) disrupted the peace of some giraffes; they withdrew, but later
resumed watching us from another spot – once again, you wonder who’s putting on
a show for whom. On the whole, the animals seem quite accustomed to trucks. The
morning passed as smoothly as ever. There were no new arrivals, and the Germans
departed, so we were down to three couples, and Margaret (or whatever her name
was) was under the weather and skipped lunch (vegetable fritters in our case –
Jill complained that the lunches were sub-standard and undercooked, but ours
were fine, so perhaps they put more effort into the vegetarian alternatives).
The afternoon was disappointing only in that the monkeys failed to make an
appearance (actually, that’s what I wrote originally, but then a few of them
turned up after all). At this point, by the way, we still had not been in
Africa one full week, which when we reviewed our experiences and memories
appeared hard to believe. It certainly sums up why such vacations are so rich,
and why they don’t really need to be that long to leave your senses satiated
(at some point we heard someone say they were in the course of a six week trip,
but that to us would be like people who cram five movies a day into the
festival, so that the memories merely start erasing each other).</div>
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Although the vacation was all
prepaid, it felt in Rwanda that we were constantly being obliged to tip someone
or other, and I was certainly glad I’d obtained a stack of smaller denomination
bills. In Ruaha the tipping is only at the end, and money need never make an
appearance. Well, for that matter, nor need anything else from the outside
world. On our third evening we went on a night safari, starting and ending
later than usual, and so in theory allowing sightings of nocturnal animals (the
premise was that we would ignore the animals we’d already seen, focusing only
on finding new ones. Because of the (albeit slight) additional danger, we had
to sign waivers, and were accompanied by a park ranger with a rifle. Although
their exchanges were all in Swahili, it appeared that the ranger was certainly
the dominant personality, and that Goodluck basically did whatever he was told.
We also had Justin, an assistant guide, along to drive the vehicle, while
Goodluck was scanning with the search light. Sometimes they stopped the vehicle
and switched off the search light and we were in complete darkness, less
well-equipped for survival than the lowliest mammal.</div>
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Despite all these resources, we
didn’t see many new things. Notwithstanding the premise I described, we spent
most time on six or seven lionesses, amassing not very far from – once again - a
herd of buffalo (seeming like much better odds for the lions than the meeting I
described just above). But it seemed they were taking their time, so we moved
on. The most sustained sighting of a nocturnal animal was of a hare; we also
glimpsed genets, jackals, mongooses and a honey badger, but for the most part
very fleetingly. The best part was the first hour, before darkness fell: we saw
a leopard that had recently killed an impala and carried it up a tree – having
eaten its fill (for the present anyway) it was stretched contentedly out on a
branch, the dead creature’s head and front legs hanging downward, as if
displayed as a trophy. On driving to the other side, we could see the impala’s
hollowed-out torso, but it seemed the leopard would get a bit more use out of
it before abandoning it to the scavengers. We also saw four tired lions lying
in a row, occasionally rolling over or briefly raising their heads, but
basically with no agenda. We had something to drink as we watched them, just a
few metres away; has a Sprite evet had a better backdrop?</div>
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Shirley (or whatever her name was)
was still under the weather, so Bob (or whatever…) joined us alone for dinner.
Between him and Jill and Barry they had quite a volume of complaints about the
camp, but Ally and I said we didn’t care about any of those things, and they
did seem to concede we had a point. For the third night in a row we were the
last to leave, and we had to make a slight detour because an elephant was
moving in the vicinity; apparently he came quite close to our unit but we
didn’t hear him. However, when we stepped out the following morning, we had an
immediate view of a giraffe!</div>
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On our last Tanzania trip I was
having incredible vivid dreams and initially attributed this to the
wondrousness of Africa, but Ally suggested it might more mundanely be a
side-effect of the anti-malaria medication. It went on for a long time after I
stopped taking the pills – perhaps it never completely stopped – but now I was
taking them again and the dreams were back in full force. I don’t like it – the
dreams are invariably more arduous than soothing – but as the long list of
possible side-effects goes, I suppose it beats hair loss and daytime
hallucinations (and those are among the more palatable ones). Anyway, the
dreams were always curtailed as there was always a new reason to get up early.
On the Sunday, it was a three-hour walking safari (the longest route that they
offer – the shortest would just be an hour), starting at 6.45 am. We actually
walked for about three hours and twenty minutes, although I doubt we were
moving unusually slowly. The ranger was there again to lead the way, and
another ranger brought up the rear. There’s no expectation of getting close to animals
on such a walk – either they run away or they’re avoided – but I was surprised
how close we came to a herd of elephants at one point. The main purpose though
was simply to be walking in Africa, through an at once uniform yet endlessly
varied landscape, receiving a stream of instruction on identifying footprints
and dung and so forth. For example, you can tell whether elephant dung came
from a male or a female because in the former case the dung and the urine will
be slightly apart whereas in the latter they’ll be intermingled; if you’re ever
lost in the desert with nothing to drink, you can squeeze water from the
elephant dung (or alternatively, roll it up and smoke it). The leopard aside,
they identified fairly recent deposits and/or footprints from just about every
animal in the vicinity. The walk passed quickly and without too much strain,
but of course the temperature only continued to rise, so it’s probably just as
well it wasn’t any longer.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We arrived at a picnic area where
our breakfast had been set up by Justin, and then spent an hour or so driving
round, during which everyone again fell asleep at some point. We saw some lions
eating a recent kill, but only from a distance (as we had two rangers in the
vehicle, it appeared Goodluck was being more of a stickler about not leaving
the marked paths). Once again we had lunch – Ted and Vera (or whatever their
names were) were all excited because Michelle, the manager from their previous
camp (the same Selous camp where we stayed two years ago, although she didn’t
work there at that time) was flying in for the day. Whether she was as happy at
having them descend on her was harder to tell. I had an afternoon nap, but Ally
was distracted by the wondrous intermingling outside our tent – the monkeys, bushbucks
and impala – and couldn’t get to sleep. I put more water in the drinking basin
and they consumed all of it between them – later I put in some more (just about
exhausting our supply!) and they came back for more.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The highlight of the nighttime
drive was a massive herd of buffalo – perhaps four or five hundred, a few of
them watching us while the others peacefully grazed. We also saw (elsewhere) a
pride of nine lions lying in the sand, content from recently eating (evident
from their bloated bellies) – apparently Serengeti lions will often hunt every
day just because it’s easy, but Ruaha lions will more likely wait a few days
between kills. As we watched (again while enjoying our drinks) several of the
lions rolled onto their backs with their legs in the air, a position that can’t
help but evoke Ozu on our couch. An elephant walked by in the background – we
all continue to love these layers and juxtapositions. Just as we arrived in the
camp, we heard a massive, almost electronic-sounding noise escape from the
darkness – this was identified as a female elephant disturbed by the lights of
our vehicle. As we were accompanied back to our tent, I spotted something which
I correctly identified (according to Joseph who was walking with us) as a honey
badger, so I was obviously happy with my developing skills!</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The guys who work at Kigalia
(they’re all guys) are all very engaging, and although I expect it’s a “good”
job in many respects (not least in allowing access to tourist dollars), it’s
obviously isolated, with long hours (we see the same faces when we leave at
6.30 am and when we shut down at 11 pm or later – I asked one of them whether
they had a nap anywhere in between but he said not). Many of them live far from
home – Goodluck for example has a wife and 5-year-old daughter in Arusha: sometimes
he can get a standby flight home for around $40, but otherwise has to take the
bus, which takes something like a day and a half (you’ll recall a waiter in Dar
es Salaam described a similar life structure). The staff sleep in ordinary
low-to-the-ground tents, which are shared, so could not be blamed if they
regarded our quarters as horribly decadent. They have a shared TV in a mess
area, which we’re told is frequently tuned to soccer. It seems Nomad does like
to transfer people between different camps to some extent but that would also
have pluses and minuses (Goodluck only recently relocated here after fifteen
years in the Serengeti, which is far closer to his home). Anyway, at the end of
the trip I think we allocated $230 in tips - $120 to Goodluck, $40 to Justin
the assistant guide who accompanied him on about half the trips, and $70 to be
divided between the rest of the staff: it doesn’t seem very proportionate
perhaps, but each of those is slightly more than the recommended amount.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
At dinner, somewhat prompted by the
presence of Michelle, the other two couples spent yet more time moaning about
the deficiencies of this camp compared to others they’d visited. We couldn’t
comment on some of it (the unsatisfactory quality of the cooked meat was a
recurring issue), and didn’t really buy into much of the rest (such as the
undefined notion that the place needs more of a “female touch”). We thought it
was an amazing place to be. I woke up a lot during the night and had extreme
trouble gearing up for the morning of our final day. Barry and Jill and Cliff
and Phyllis (or whatever that other couple’s name was) were heading to the
airport that morning in another vehicle, taking in a few final hours’ viewing
on the way, so we had Goodluck to ourselves. You have to pay extra to be
guaranteed a non-shared guide, but based on our experience it often ends up
that you get at least a few drives by yourselves (last time round we were
lucky, and only had to share on a few occasions). We didn’t connect with
Goodluck quite to the extent of the two guides we had on the last trip – among
other things, they were better storytellers – but he’s an amiable person who
certainly delivered on what mattered. </div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The highlight of that morning was
likely the same huge herd of buffalo we’d observed the previous evening,
stopped in their tracks by our presence and that of another truck. We patiently
waited, and eventually one very brave buffalo tentatively moved forward,
crossed between ourselves and the other truck, and made it into the desired
territory on the other side. A second buffalo quickly followed, but then the
momentum was immediately lost, and it took a long time for a third buffalo to
risk it, after which the migration was on and we were watching a river of
buffalo. Even as they moved on and disappeared to our right, new members of the
herd were still coming into sight on our left, so it would have taken a very
long time to observe the entire passage. It’s quite reminiscent of the
wildebeest herds we observed in Serengeti, although the wildebeest are far
easier for the lions to kill (at the time of our visit, there were no
wildebeest in Ruaha, this being the wrong time in their migratory cycle).</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The main new sighting was a leopard
tortoise – despite its shell, a most vulnerable seeming creature in this vast
predatory landscape (sometimes, said our guide, they do get turned over and
eaten; or sometimes lions just play with them). We also enjoyed watching a
baboon on look-out – as we’ve seen before, a member of the troop positions
itself high up and watches for predators, sounding the alarm if trouble comes
into view. The look-out baboon was taking its role extremely seriously and
seemed most unlikely to let anything slip by. We also saw the same pride of
lions from the previous night, in the midst of moving from the open sand into
the shade. A male lion tried to mount a female one and was loudly and violently
rebuffed, after which he stood and tried to repair his dignity before slowly
moving away. As always, we had a fine open air breakfast with a view that went
on forever. Lunch was quiet, the day’s new intake of guests not yet arrived. I
refilled the water basin; we had our afternoon siesta. At one point, we both
heard what sounded at that moment distinctly like a big cat roar, very close
by. Naturally we went into high alert, but nothing else happened (probably it
was an elephant again), and soon afterwards the bush bucks wandered into view,
sensing no danger, once again seeming to enjoy our presence. And of course the
monkeys made a final appearance.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Our final evening brought an influx
of four Americans, from New Jersey and Buffalo (they flew out of Toronto, just
like us). Our evening drive with Goodluck was probably the quietest of the
trip. In the summaries above I’ve described the conventional “highlights,” but
there are often long stretches where nothing much happens. We never mind this
at all, because the worst that can happen is that you’re driving through the
heart of Africa in an open-sided vehicle, drinking in these vast, spectacular
landscapes. But obviously a trip that generated few or no animal sightings
wouldn’t be judged a success. Anyway, we spent some beautiful moments watching
a female elephant with her cub (maybe just six months old, learning the ways of
things) and a female baboon with her even younger offspring, variously clinging
to her belly or riding on her back or trying out life on the ground, and we did
log one previously unchecked box – the rock hyrax (although actually we spotted
a couple of those in Rwanda too, even though I didn’t deem it worthy of
recording at the time). We stopped for a drink while overlooking the sunset
from a beautiful look-out point, and among other things I astonished Goodluck
by describing how I work 72 floors above the ground.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Among theoretical sightings that we
didn’t achieve in Ruaha are cheetahs, hippos and wild dogs (there are no
rhinos), but we did see all of those on our previous trip (particularly hippos
which we saw in the hundreds in the Selous – it was horribly sad to hear that
their habitat is threatened by a new dam). As I mentioned, a large area of the
national park is inaccessible to game drives, so it’s no surprise if some
animals just vanish from view from time to time. Talking of the Selous, we were
told that our guide there two years ago, Deio, was bitten in the hand by a
crocodile while fishing and therefore missed several months of work, which must
be tough. Still, he’s better off than the guide Goodluck told us about, who
also went fishing in the Selous and was never seen again (except for the bits
they located after shooting and cutting open a crocodile). </div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The evening evolved in an<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>unexpected direction. Dinner was just us and
three of the Americans, the other being under the weather. The conversation was
of no particular interest, over-dominated by sports, but none of them were
drinking so at least it seemed likely to be short. Two of them were gone in
little more than an hour, and the other, Howie, was hanging around smoking a
cigar. We got into a much more vibrant conversation with him, which lasted two
more hours, to all our surprise I’m sure. Among other things, he vented a bit about
his issues with the other couple (the friendship is really between the wives);
he talked about his days of teaching primary school science to Donald Trump’s
son Eric and of trying to communicate with Trump and his then-wife Ivanka (as
fruitless an endeavor as you’d expect), also of teaching John McEnroe’s kids
and various others; he talked about memories of long-forgotten Broadway shows,
which I was actually able to keep up with (when we ran into him briefly the
next day, he said he’d been racking his brains and that I was right – his
memory of seeing Michael Caine on Broadway was likely a false one). The saddest
thing though was that he and the others had yet more complaints about the site
– they’d been on their first drive that afternoon, and found their guide (Raj,
who is also the site manager) overly talkative, superficial and under-informed
(examples included not knowing that the rock hyrax is more closely related to
the elephant than the rabbit – actually <i>we</i> knew that! – and of spoiling
the mood by quoting <i>The Lion King</i>). Howie had been deputized by the
others to deal with this issue, but didn’t really know what to do about it, and
so seemed to appreciate us serving as a sounding board. Anyway, yet another
example of how the random encounters you have in such a place often generate
something memorable (see my Albert Brooks (or as Ally still insists, “Albert
Brooks”) story of two years earlier…) It was a real shame though that so many
of the conversations at Ruaha had a negative element.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We left the lodge for the last time
at 6.30 am on Tuesday morning, taking our bags with us. The drive was
abbreviated because our flight was due to take off at 11.45 am, and even when
it’s just a dusty airstrip with no check-in and no security they still tell you
to arrive early, but it generated a fine array of closing memories. A local company offers early morning balloon rides, followed
by a “champagne breakfast” – we never considered doing it because it’s too
expensive ($500 or $600 a person) and just not necessary anyway, but it’s
pleasant enough to watch the balloon, even if looks dirtier than in the
publicity materials.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We watched
an eagle pecking at what little flesh was still attached to a pair if impala
horns – probably the animal was killed by a lion or leopard, then the remaining
carcass was dragged by a jackal or hyena, gradually becoming minimized to the
remaining grisly sight. We watched six or seven lions bask in the sun – our
views of lions were heavily dominated by such activity – before slowly moving
off into the shade. We had breakfast at a look-out spot with a family of
elephants hanging out below, and later watched another group of elephants cross
the road in front of us (I think several of today’s elephants found our arrival
unwelcome, but they sucked it up). Even as we waited for our plane, we could
see elephants moving around on the slopes above the airstrip. And we did see
one creature which had evaded us to that point – the waterbuck. So just a
wonderful last few hours. We did wonder how the other group fared with Raj
though, and we didn’t really do anything to help – they were taking much the
same route as us, but arrived too late to see most of the lions, and also
missed out on the best of the elephant action. And we took the best breakfast
spot. Hopefully it all worked out for them.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNr8PK9ww115i1TMdB735sZLdkelorXfOhri92zQBo3izs85hW91bYf00ugnTLyvqzMfHfYIqyuXGPVkCVOCwoPfSF63_n39OEJnH5lnrWpIWOmB-_UdT4qB7sQwAortRDLGNnp7DDlmk/s1600/IMG_3800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNr8PK9ww115i1TMdB735sZLdkelorXfOhri92zQBo3izs85hW91bYf00ugnTLyvqzMfHfYIqyuXGPVkCVOCwoPfSF63_n39OEJnH5lnrWpIWOmB-_UdT4qB7sQwAortRDLGNnp7DDlmk/s320/IMG_3800.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
Goodluck was also heading home on
leave and failed to get a stand-by flight, so was embarking on that long bus
ride (much of which, he said, he spends listening to country music, Kenny
Rogers being a favourite): someone else was there to drive the vehicle back to
camp. It’s clear that Coastal Airlines operates in a somewhat ad hoc kind of
way, stringing routes together based on who wants to go where on a given day.
The plane was there at 11.45 am, but we waited and waited for the last two
passengers, coming on another plane from another Nomad camp. The arrival time
in Dar es Salaam was amended from 1.45 pm (three hours before our flight to
Dubai) to 3 pm. We stopped for refueling in Dodomo, a pleasant-enough town as
seen from above, but probably not a major destination: much or most of the
airport staff was sitting around playing cards. We took off again and delivered
those same two passengers to a different air strip in the Selous, before
continuing to Dar es Salaam, where we arrived at 3.45 pm, only one hour before the
departure of our next flight, and from a different terminal. But this is where
being in the hands of a locally-connected organization really paid off. A
Coastal employee pulled our bags off the plane and whisked us through the
terminal, delivering us to a waiting Nomad driver who basically ran with the
bags to his vehicle, speeding us to the international terminal and into the
hands of another Coastal employee who was waiting to take us to check in, where
they knew all about the situation, and we made it. We went through departing
immigration (nothing can be done to speed that up it seems) and security and
the airline people were again waiting on the other side to see us on board. We got
on at the same time as what seemed to be a local military dignitary, whose
arrival I suppose had been timed for the end. Anyway, we made it!</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
We were incredibly impressed with
the dedication and organization of this final flourish – I don’t know that
Toronto’s airport would have come close. As I said, it put Nomad in an excellent
light. And despite the stress at the end, it’s far more entertaining to be on a
Coastal Airlines flight, flying over national parks and exotic looking houses
and communities, than it is to be sitting in a departure lounge. But it did
mean we barely registered the end of our trip – one moment we were in Tanzania
and the next, it seemed, we were gone.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
</div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
The flight to Dubai, five hours or
so on Emirates Airlines, was fine. We had an empty seat next to us – the plane
wasn’t that full in general. Ally watched Tarantino’s <i>Jackie Brown</i> on
her ipad. As usual, we did far less reading on the trip than we’d prepared for
– almost all my downtime was consumed by writing this blog and looking at our
photographs. In the course of transferring to Dar es Salaam from Kigali I’d
watched the 1960’s Italian anthology film <i>The Dolls</i>. Arriving in Dubai,
we went online for the first time since before Ruaha and checked the news, and
it was hard to care about any of it; in one way or another, it all spoke to
decay and corruption. Our few hours there passed by quickly, and the flight
home was on time. Those thirteen or so hours passed by fairly rapidly also – I
read the latest <i>New Yorker</i> and watched yet another old European movie (<i>L’horloger
de Saint-Paul</i>) and I suppose the fact must be that I slept for most of the
rest. Ally watched <i>Election</i>. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was
nice (even if merely relative) that Howie said we were the youngest people he’d
met on the trip – it does seem true that such trips are mainly the province of
the over-sixties (for obvious reasons of time and money). And yet, if Africa
has transformational power – and we think it does – then that shouldn’t just be
invested into easy sightseeing and pretty pictures, taken by people who are too
old to change. But maybe the transformational power I’m talking about is largely
a branded illusion – it’s certainly not the real Africa as measured by the
lives of the millions of people who try to get by in Dar es Salaam. And yet, I
think those wondrous, tender, purposeful families of elephants are as pure and
worthy as anything I’ve ever seen, even as it sometimes filled me with huge
sadness, wondering if a little six month old elephant will be allowed to live
the long, peaceful life he deserves, and what kind of sanction should be placed
on humankind for placing that in such doubt.<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
</div>
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the
last line of the story, as always, belongs to the happy homecoming of an
entirely different animal!<br />
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</div>
torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-80726508069563523782018-09-27T17:40:00.002-07:002018-09-27T17:40:20.526-07:00Portugal, September 2018<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAMrFN_KmkHsf8UYiTTZDemmzeJMQXkqwed64ALH1H28sAhoWb9wOTzD-tgJArN9yGGSDLk6PL9h4Df_Z_Jl1pbx5QDVMX9tsTlALA7WNB2NapuNrJbt2irKs54ROiiEBiVJbCClY6QHw/s1600/IMG_2497.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAMrFN_KmkHsf8UYiTTZDemmzeJMQXkqwed64ALH1H28sAhoWb9wOTzD-tgJArN9yGGSDLk6PL9h4Df_Z_Jl1pbx5QDVMX9tsTlALA7WNB2NapuNrJbt2irKs54ROiiEBiVJbCClY6QHw/s320/IMG_2497.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We flew out of Pearson terminal 1 on Friday evening. It
struck me even more than usual how Pearson fails to achieve the romantic
promise of airports: it tries at once to awe you with its scale and to seduce
and entertain you by drawing you into yourself – almost every available place
to sit in the central area is equipped with a busy ipad-sized screen – but of
course the screen means you to order food or beer from it, and then to play a
game, or to do the online stuff you always do, and it’s all about a hollow filling
of the experience of being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">here</i>, unrelated
to and uninterested in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there</i> that
you’re going to. But at least Pearson is almost always efficient now: we left
on time and then flew for six and a half hours or so (sleeping fitfully) to
Porto. The plane itself had no screens except in business class (Air Canada now
has an app allowing you to download its movies and shows onto your own devices),
which was otherwise the least impressive business class I’ve seen on an
international flight for a long time, so I believe it tells us that only
tourists fly between Toronto and Porto, and there’s no big corporate money to
be squeezed out of the route. Especially as a fair number of the tourists
appeared quite elderly.</span></div>
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<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our hotel sent an email last week to ask if we wanted an
airport pick-up – we said sure, but then it never showed up. No matter, as the
taxi was a little cheaper than the price they quoted. The cab driver told us
some selected highlights of his life (he started out installing air
conditioning; now he works in a place that makes local packaging for iPhones
and tablets and suchlike, and drives a cab once in a while for variety).
Initial rides from the airport are all underwhelming in the same generically
industrialized way, but Porto sheds that a little quicker than many do, and we
were rapidly in what people would say is the good bit, that is the postcard
section. It was a busy, pristine Saturday afternoon. The hotel presented us
with a nice welcome letter, made out to “Mr. Barclay and Mrs. Hughes” (later,
they sent up custard tarts and port to the same addressees – I pointed out the
error, but they allowed us to keep them regardless, so that was nice of them). </span></div>
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<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We couldn’t immediately get access to our room, so we
wandered round for a while, which is always the best way to start a trip. Our
hotel, the Pestana Vintage Porto, is the yellow building in the middle of many
iconic waterfront shots – we’re on the second floor overlooking the Douro river.
We walked along the Cais da Ribeira – just teeming with people happy to
contribute to the teeming, or to sit and watch it. Early on we stopped at a
street vendor and remarked on the cool-looking cork-based bags and watch straps
and the like – then we saw the same stuff on sale in ten other places within
half an hour, and at regular intervals for the rest of the trip (isn’t that
always the way). We crossed the Dom Luis bridge by the lower of its two decks and
walked along the other side of the Douro, eventually leaving the masses behind
and climbing into a quiet neighborhood area, where everything is hidden behind
shutters and heavy metal gates, as if anticipating a pending uprising. We
hardly passed anyone at all except an old woman and a dog. </span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We circled back down and luckily found an indoor market
which included a very good vegetarian buffet place (it was always clear that the
search for vegetarian food that isn’t pasta or pizza would be an ongoing theme
of the trip). Then we returned to our hotel, gained access to the room, and
rapidly fell asleep for a few hours. Later on, after the usual set-up
activities (which are pretty much all electronic – we never actually “unpack”
in any formal sense) - we went out again. The light was fading by then, and the
temperature had dropped off quite sharply, but the Riberia was no less lively.
We walked in the other direction, quite soon leaving the activity behind – the
buildings soon become less carefully maintained, often obscured by clothes and
sheets hanging out to dry (one could make a nice exhibit from photographing
this alone). Ally had seen a reference somewhere to Porto as a city of “fading
grandeur,” but if applied to this inner section, the “fading” isn’t quite right
– it’s more like crumbling. Everywhere you look, there’s a façade of what was
plainly a once-imposing building, now with nothing behind it except rubble.
Even at the very heart of the city, there’s a lot of (perhaps) prime real
estate lying derelict – often, a well-maintained property sits adjacent to one
in total disrepair, often decorated in spreading blue foliage (morning glory, I
think) (the Internet suggests that failed rent control policies of the past may
explain some of this). It’s as if Dorian Gray carried his decaying portrait
around with him. During the trip we also saw a few more recent construction
projects that seemed to have been abandoned – perhaps remnants of the last
financial crisis?</span></div>
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<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We returned to the centre and wandered the streets – the
muted lighting (by North American standards at least) giving everything a
rather furtive feeling. Restaurant followed restaurant, but the menus seldom
had the difficult likes of us in mind. However, I’d spotted a vegetarian place
on the way in from the airport and we ended up there – as it happens, it
belonged to the same family, Daterra, as the place we had lunch (so the
challenge at this point was revised to search for vegetarian food in any place
that isn’t called Daterra). After that we had more wine in the hotel bar, with
a live DJ who by the end had basically no audience except us. I went up and
complimented her on one choice she’d made, but she seemed only to know it in
its sampled form and not to recognize my reference to the original; I tried to
tip her, but she wouldn’t accept it.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We slept for something like nine hours, long enough to miss
the window for the hotel breakfast. We crossed the bridge again, this time by
the upper deck. It embodied one of those emblematic tourist mysteries we always
encounter – you hardly see anyone walking to or from the location, and yet the place
itself is crammed with people (it’s not really a mystery – it’s mostly thanks
to tour buses). We had a snack at the same market (not at Daterra’s though, so
that’s something) and then we walked along the Douro for a couple of hours,
through the Vila Nova de Gaia area. Eventually this brought us to a series of
17 beaches, although we didn’t make it to the last of them. I expect there are
times when the beaches are crammed – certainly the volume of beachfront
restaurants seems prepared for that – but today it was foggy and surprisingly
chilly and they were largely deserted. We stopped for ice cream. I swear that
every TV screen we’d seen to this point, in whatever establishment, whatever
the time of day, was showing a soccer game (this held mostly true to the end of
the trip).</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As our route from the hotel had certainly been a “scenic” and
inefficient one, we decided to try finding a more direct one back. This took us
through what I take to be normal middle-class neighborhoods, which is always a
useful reality check on the fakery of the tourist areas (and by the way, it
seems the middle-class people all own driers). We hardly saw anyone outside,
until at around five the streets started filling up as if responding to a bell.
A while later, we saw and heard fireworks, so maybe they were gathering for
that. Fireworks don’t work too well in bright sunlight though, to be honest. After
getting about a third of the way back just on instinct, the streets became too
complicated and we called on Google Maps for help, and ultimately we just used
Uber for the last stretch (so there you go, saved by technology). There was a
procession taking place on the Ribeira – a very solemn-looking affair which
seemed to constitute some kind of religious commemoration, although for all I
know it could have been the Freemasons. Anyway, it attracted a lot of
attention.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We returned to our hotel for a while. As always, we checked
in on Ozu on the webcam – even at this early point, his strategy seemed to be
to occupy the same blue canvas bed in the corner of the room being allowed to
come home, poor dog. It already appeared likely to us that this wouldn’t be an
immersively stimulating trip in the way of traveling to Africa or to Asia, that
the engagement and the pleasures would be more scenic and fleeting. That’s
largely what we expected though: we just wanted to see Portugal (it’s been in
the annual vacation conversation for years, but it’s always come in second or
third, the Glenn Close of destinations). <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was trying to think of a Portuguese song but I kept coming
back to Hugh Masakela singing “Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine,” which didn’t
seem like the right note of celebration. Anyway, we ate at a restaurant close
to the hotel, actually attached to (and in the basement of) another
cool-looking hotel, just because they had two types of risotto. The food wasn’t
so memorable but it was an interesting space. We ended the day with some drinks
outside the hotel, and it’s certainly among the more beautiful places we’ve
ever sat in – to the left a view of the old town with a church and its cobbled
narrow streets, and straight ahead the bridge, and to the right the river and
the stores on the other side, and the varied happy people wandering around, all
in one (slightly drunk and sleepy) turn of the head! By the time we finished,
things were rapidly dying down and it seemed unlikely there would be much
happening in the early hours, but of course you never know…</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At home when we sit on our balcony and read out the
super-lit signs, they all belong to banks and accounting firms and suchlike.
Our view across the Porto river held almost as many brand names, but they all
belonged to port wineries and retailers: Sanderman’s, Cockburn’s, Burros, many
others. Port is everywhere in Porto – sometimes it seems rather crass, like the
idea of a really lame branding consultant. There are endless opportunities to
sample or observe the process, but we never ended up trying it (we did buy some
at the duty-free on the way home, but it may sit unopened for many months).</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Monday morning we had breakfast in the hotel for the
first time (there would only be one more, on our last day in Lisbon). No doubt
it was a fine buffet, but I don’t much like hotel breakfasts – it always feels
like observing a mass of lurching desperation. We made the extra effort though because
we were being picked up at 9 am for our visit to the Douro valley. There are
many ways to do this from Porto – we thought a private tour most likely to
maximize the value (or put another way, to minimize annoyances). This was
likely correct – our guide Miguel (at least we think it was Miguel) was
exceptionally articulate and apparently limitlessly informed about every aspect
of the subject matter: history, geography, culture, botany, etc. etc. – if I’d
transcribed it all I’d be halfway to a guide book (I believe I also impressed
him with my knowledge of Portuguese cinema, which although appallingly shallow
is probably still better than any other random visitor is likely to
demonstrate). Apparently most of those who take the private tour spend at least
some time in one of the wineries, but we left that out in favour of maximizing
our exposure to the landscapes. The hills and the banks of the valley rise in
layers, created by the laying of the vines or the other crops, by the density
of the growth, often looking like complete stories laid out in some lush
private language. Among them, we stopped in several immaculate towns, sometimes
reminiscent of immaculate tropical outposts like Bermuda, at other times
providing imposing direct links to the 18<sup>th</sup> century, or the 15<sup>th</sup>,
or the 12<sup>th</sup>.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We spent an hour on a boat tour, and stopped in the towns of
Amarante, Pinhao and Lamego, getting dropped off in each location for a walk,
and in the second instance for lunch. Along the way we saw such sights as a
park named after B B King (apparently a frequent visitor to the region),
bakeries selling penis-shaped bread (part of the fertility myths of Amarante)
and the house where Magellan was born. The wine and port brand names are
everywhere, often bearing down on the boat as you travel through an otherwise
unspoiled stretch of water. In contrast, our journey back was along a
super-fast highway: we were out for just under nine hours in all. As we did the
previous day, we stopped in at a nearby bakery near the hotel – it’s good
stuff, but it takes forever to get served, because loudness seems to win out
over any notion of who was there first.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We mentioned to Miguel that on our walk to Gaia the day
before, we’d seen what appeared to be abandoned domestic dogs living in a
designated nature reserve. He said that some old-time Portuguese will simply
drop off their dogs for the day in a field or suchlike and then pick them up at
night. Needless to say, this wouldn’t work for Ozu (who as I wrote this bit was
curled up on that same platform I mentioned). But the trip so far had been
punctuated by dogs and cats happily wandering around without an owner in sight.
Anyway, at this point we were living fully inside the alternative reality of
vacation time – already feeling well acquainted with certain parts of Porto,
and with enough memories and new impressions that it felt we must have been
away for ages. But as we left for dinner on Monday evening, we hadn’t yet even
missed a full day of work (given the time change). We ate in the Cantinho
Avillez, which we’d reserved after noticing a better than average vegetarian
selection on the menu (i.e. three starters and three appetizers). It’s a busy,
happy place with a young staff: I had a view of the kitchen and got to watch
one woman assemble the scallop and avocado appetizer thirty or forty times.
After that we sat by the water for a drink; one of the servers – another happy
guy – told us of his plans to move to Calgary next year (and assured us that
he’s ready for the cold, because he once lived in Boston).</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We got going much later on Tuesday, too late for the hotel
breakfast, if we’d had an interest in returning to it. So far most of our
exploring in Porto had been around the river, so we went in the opposite
direction, spending the day wandering around the streets, moving very generally
westwards, but with no great plan or hurry. It was a very laidback kind of
summer experience, often of the kind where you could forget where you are, as
the wide boulevards and marble facades and pretty cobble-stoned side streets
evoke any number of European cities (well, maybe Europeanness itself). Among
other things, we went into a train station famous for its blue and white tiled
panoramas in the entrance hall (the blue and white tiles are everywhere in
Porto, both inside and outside, often evoking old English china, which I
believe is something to do with the relative ease of preserving that colour
scheme in the kiln compared to others); we searched for an old historical
market (which unfortunately is currently occupying antiseptic alternative
premises while the original site is being repaired); we had cheese omelettes
for lunch; we happened on an open air book fair (not very well attended
unfortunately); we walked to the “Crystal Palace” (also closed for repair) and
to the immaculately descending tiered gardens below, which eventually started to
seem like a trap as we tried one path after another to get down to the river,
finally giving up and climbing back to the start; finally we made it down to
the Douro by another route and walked back to the hotel. It was another good
day, certainly filling out our sense of the city, particularly in emphasizing
the extreme unrepresentative nature of the main riverside sections (not that
this hadn’t always been self-evident).</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We passed any number of small bakeries, all pretty much with
similar displays of custard tarts and semi-chocolate covered cookies and
croissants and so forth, but all hard to pass by nevertheless; we saw the high
end retailers you always see, but somehow missed seeing much in the way of
electronics or cellphones, and hardly saw any of the American chains in Porto
except a couple of Starbucks and a Pizza hut. However, we did see Jesus
everywhere we went – for sale in countless poses and representations (riding a
bike, in the one that most caught my eye) , or else just up on the wall inside otherwise
secularly-oriented stores. Porto has a university which apparently imposes a
dress code on its students, so that on Monday and Tuesday we passed all these
young people dressed in severe black suits and (not very temperature-friendly)
woolen capes: you might think you were moving among a city of austere
magicians. And on that topic, we wandered into the front section of a bookstore
which apparently inspired J K Rowling in writing Harry Potter – this now
requires that you line up to purchase a voucher before entering the shrine
itself. We didn’t do that, but plenty did!</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As you see here, we passed a sign commenting obliquely on
the mixed blessing of tourism. I don’t know what kind of consensus exists in
Porto, but the economic inflow to the city must be so huge that I assume any
concerns about erosion of infrastructure, destruction of local culture and so
on will remain largely theoretical for the foreseeable future (on the other
hand, we were here in mid-September and the tourist volumes seemed very high –
perhaps in July or August they would be outright oppressive). Our guide on the
previous day told us there’s high demand for vacation properties in Porto, and
indeed we passed several real estate agents in which the window narratives were
entirely in English, suggesting this is their main market (prices seem
competitive but by no means bargain basement).</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We returned to the room for a while – Ally was fighting off
a bit of a cold by now. We found a different restaurant which sort of worked,
but it fell into a frequent trip of vegetarian food, that no matter how it may
be described on the menu, it often ends up as the same starchy, cheese-laden
eating experience. We wound up earlier than usual because of Ally’s cold, and
so mostly sacrificed our last night in Porto, but never mind. She was somewhat
better the next day and therefore <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>we
didn’t need to call off the rest of the trip (I’m joking – this was never under
consideration). We checked out, reflecting for the last time on the loveliness
of the hotel – the concrete floor of the lobby perfectly matches the street
outside, and as the entrance is all clear glass, you can sometimes hardly tell
the difference between being inside and outside. Outside, some of the
black-caped students had assembled a large bunch of (presumably) freshmen in
rows facing the river; it was impossible not to think they’d shortly issue a
command for all the minions to rush forward and jump in like lemmings, and
perhaps with no better a survival rate.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Apparently there was to be a taxi strike in Porto that day
but we’d already booked our ride to the airport (it’s often said that Portugal
is a cheap place to visit, but our bill from the Pestana proves that there are
also dramatically non-cheap ways to do it). As usual with us, the whole process
was smooth and uneventful. We took a one hour flight to Lisbon, in which the
most notable event was that we slept through the distribution of the
complimentary custard tarts, and then immediately joined the line for the
connecting flight to Madeira (at the very next gate). This was an hour and a
half, a bit behind schedule but nothing worth writing about (and yet, here I
am…). On the trip so far I’d solely been reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Yorker</i> back issues; Ally was reading Philip Roth’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Plot Against America</i>. I started
watching a movie on my laptop but didn’t finish it. Even some fairly hardcore
movie fans would not likely be aware that Italian art movie goddess Monica
Vitti spent a day or two in the sixties filming in industrial Sheffield (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Girl with a Pistol</i>)…</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Contrary to my earlier comment about arriving from airports,
the route to Funchal is entirely along the coast, and all breathtaking. At
every stage, white-walled, red-roofed houses rise away – it looks like every
home in Funchal must have a view, and also like they were all freshly painted
last week. Also, in our limited experience, the main highways also all look
new, as do all the cars on them, which is just as well given the demands made
on their accelerator and braking capacities. Many of the Funchal hotels appear
to be resort-type, and located somewhat away from the centre, but we wanted to
be close to things – the one we chose, the Vine, isn’t the most prepossessing
from the outside (the entrance is inside a shopping mall) but it’s very modern (maybe
a bit too much so, in that we had all kinds of trouble figuring out how to work
the lights) and comfortable (although a bit plagued by hard-to-place banging
sounds) and we did have a view of the ocean.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We walked about twenty minutes along the water to the “old
city” district, now mostly occupied by restaurants with mostly
indistinguishable menus (although contrary to our expectations, the search for
modest vegetarian variety turned out to be a little easier than in Porto).
Street art is everywhere in that district – on the doors, on the windows,
certainly enlivening an area that might otherwise appear a bit dilapidated. We
circled down to the waterfront and walked along, taking in a departing cruise
ship (that’s an experience we’ll certainly never have, being on board one of
those numbing creations) and the Cristiano Ronaldo museum (he’s from Funchal
and we’d been told his image is everywhere, but based on our experience this is
an overstated myth) and the usual mix of happy activity. It certainly felt more
island-like here – more humid, more concentrated, more distanced from the rest
of the world, but maybe that’s largely the palm trees.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We returned to the hotel for a while, and it got dark
outside. We never once turned on the TV during our trip; however, I did
remember after a few days that I had Spotify on my laptop, and started to use
that with almost the same relentlessness I do at home. It seemed later that the
activity in tourist-central Funchal dies off much faster than in Porto – foot
traffic was sparse and long lines of taxis hardly moved. We wandered through some
elegant-looking streets before settling for a spot on the waterfront where we
shared a pizza and a dish of stuffed peppers (which, in another manifestation
of the trap, ended up tasting almost exactly the same as the topping on the
pizza). A singer performed lame cover versions of songs like Hey Jude and Mamma
Mia – the atmosphere much improved once she stopped. We walked back to the
hotel. On the top floor of the Vine there’s an open air <span style="margin: 0px;">swimming
pool and a bar with a sweeping view of the surrounding hills – after dark all
decorated in strings of lights. There was no one else there. We stayed until
midnight, when it shut down (we briefly returned the following afternoon – at
that time there were maybe ten people in all, distributed as far from each
other as the space allowed).</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The following morning we walked to the
cable car station, and up to the suburb of Monte. According to Wikipedia “<span style="color: #222222; margin: 0px;">the length of the cable car line is 3,718 m and the
height difference 560 m; the journey takes approx. 15 minutes.” It felt like
less. As we all know, people love cable cars, and it was pretty busy at the
top. There’s an impressive church up there – built in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century to replace a previous one – and several formal gardens, numerous eating
places and several trails. There are numerous ways back down, including (for
some of the way) by toboggan – two or three riders to each toboggan, each with
two white-suited operators (the elevation is quite steep so their main task
must be to prevent the vehicle from acquiring runaway momentum). According to
the signs, CNN once called this one of the world’s seven most striking
commutes, although I doubt anyone uses it for that specific purpose (given the
line-ups, you couldn’t often count on getting to work on time). We decided to
walk back, without knowing how easily that would be – as it happens, there’s a
road from the top that goes pretty much straight down (you’d never find it from
the bottom though, if you didn’t know where to look). We wandered around a bit
more, entering the market building and exploring some surrounding streets, and
then returned to the hotel for a break.</span></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Later we walked into the resort district.
Not unlike Toronto, but in a very different way, much of the waterfront is
generally inaccessible because it’s been parceled off to various hotels. But
there’s still a very scenic path through all this, and it’s rather remarkable
how one huge location follows another. We stubbornly walked until there were no
more resorts, and then for some distance beyond, taking a taxi back. We’d never
seen anywhere with so many long lines of taxis – and all immaculate (mostly
Mercedes). By the time we were finished, between our morning north-to-south
walk and our later long trek to the west, we’d largely conquered the tourist
map of Funchal. In the evening we walked just a few blocks, to a place called
the Ritz. The name conjures hotels, but actually it’s just a restaurant (before
that, according to the waiter, it was a car showroom) with a large open air
area along one of the more elegant Funchal boulevards. We ordered a vegetarian
curry and a salad and for once the pairing worked perfectly, without any of the
excess starchiness that had been plaguing us. We stayed until no one else was
staying, and gave some money to an old man and his dog who at some point showed
up and hung around in the hope of earning a few Euros.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They say it's Paris that's made for lovers, but at
night Funchal too is almost entirely a town of couples, of all ages, of all sizes.
It’s not a place to come if the lack of a tan makes you self-conscious though. The
Vine Hotel has some pretentious narrative about how the whole place is inspired
by the wine-growing cycle and how each floor represents a season. I assume our
floor must have been “winter” given its empty, unproductive feeling, but I may
be wrong. The place felt massively under-occupied and figuratively cold, but
it’s comfortable enough and a convenient location so it didn’t matter. On
Friday morning, a mini-bus picked us up at around 8.35 – after stopping at a
few hotels to pick up others, we were on our way to Rabacal, about an hour
away. Our guide Sara switched effortlessly between languages – for the purposes
of today’s group, between English, German and Spanish (she also speaks French
and Italian). Rabacal is one of the many walking areas built around levadas –
irrigation channels dating in some cases back to the 16<sup>th</sup> century.
There are some 1,300km of walking trails, and many tour companies built around
them – as we drove around in the morning, the roads seemed dense with similar
vehicles, scooping up tourists for the day.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rabacal is one of the more popular
locations – because portions of the trail involve doubling back, there were
often long waits and/or tight squeezes. The walk takes you first to the
imposing Rabacal waterfall, and then to “25 fontes” where there are 25
waterfalls (indeed I counted exactly that number, although many of them are
very thin) distributed around a high rocky semi-circle. This latter site was
especially busy when we got there, with people clambering over the rocks to get
as close as possible to the water and the photo opportunities. In some of the
photos, the crowd seems obsessed by religious mania, as though surging forward
for a cure. We ate our lunch near there and then started the journey back (a
bit less crammed than we’d anticipated - most people come in the morning it
seems) – the last 800km or so was through a very dark tunnel, from which we
emerged into a chilly mist, as if we’d passed from one world into another (Ally
thought a bat brushed past her in the cave, but we were told that couldn’t be
the case).</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The walk was rated “easy/moderate” in the
company’s brochure and took around five hours I think. Some sections are steep,
but it’s essentially easy – the main challenge is in the concentration required
by the narrowness and occasional slipperiness. We also stopped in a
café/grocery on the way there and back so overall it was about an eight-hour
outing. After that, naturally, we needed a break. We didn’t interact that much
with the other people, several of whom seemed to be using their phones with the
same intensity that they presumably bring to the task in their living rooms.
But I think everyone had a good time. You wouldn’t come to Madeira for the
bird- and animal-watching though – there’s very little of the former and
virtually none of the latter. Even the lizards are really dull-looking. At
least you’re never far away from seeing a dog having fun (I couldn’t say the
same for Ozu, who as I wrote this section was looking put-upon and just tired
of the whole thing).</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ally had noticed a tapas place in the
resort district, so we walked back there for the evening. They had plenty of
vegetarian options (not a given – we’ve seen plenty of tapas menus that had few
or none) and a lively atmosphere, although with all the screens across the
street showing sports (mostly soccer but with a smattering of golf), the preponderance
of English language signs and the like, it would be easy to forget your
location. I overheard a woman at another table, obviously underwhelmed by their
desert choice, look over at ours and say to her husband: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">They</i> have ice cream.” We got a cab back. It was perpetually strange
to enter the hotel from the elevator in the shopping mall, and from there to go
directly up to the room without ever needing to enter reception. We never saw
anyone on our floor either, so we started to wonder after a while whether we
were in a real hotel at all. I suppose it’s the best explanation though. For
example, people did come by and clean occasionally, albeit not
super-thoroughly.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">O<span style="margin: 0px;">n Saturday we got picked up by another
mini bus in the same spot at much the same time. Our guide was called something
like Hobina (we didn’t catch it exactly) and there were five others in the
group – this time all using English as a common (not first) language, overall
an older and more reserved bunch. We walked the “Camino Real da Encumeada” – an
old paved Royal Path which goes through some of the island’s higher elevations,
with amazing views in all directions. The walk is some 13km and rated as “hard”
in the company’s brochure, but if you’re the kind of person who would want to
do a 13km walk in the first place, then it’s not so tough. We were descending
more often than we were ascending (I think she said the walk starts at an
elevation of about 1400km and ends up at around 950km) and as the path was far
less busy than Rabacal (during five hours we met maybe twenty people coming the
other way, and were overtaken by only a few people, and one dog) our progress
was pretty smooth (although we only noted later how our legs got scratched
around by gorse and other protruding plant hazards). We ate lunch at a spot I
imagine the old Royals might have chosen. Another fine day, and as with every
drive in Madeira it seems, with hardly a plain-looking stretch on the drive
there or back (excluding the frequent tunnels). On the way out we stopped in a
dark little store/café that was populated solely by women, largely looking like
refugees from 1920’s Sicily. A little dog wandered in alone and sniffed around
before being chased out. Perhaps in the darkest heart of Portugal, where the
tourists never go, it’s all like that.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Friday we didn’t think to tip the
guide and didn’t notice anyone else doing so. On Saturday though we did notice
the guide being tipped by the first or second person to get off the bus – it
appears everyone else noticed too, so she got tipped by us and by all the
others. Such arbitrariness aside, Portugal never seemed like a big tipping
nation – it’s not pushed as an option when restaurants process the credit card,
and as I mentioned earlier, the hotel DJ in Porto actually rejected one. On the
whole, we likely spent less than we do on the average vacation – food and wine
bills are pretty cheap. However, as I indicated, we did not choose very
economical hotels (particularly in Porto and Lisbon). Despite the relative low
spending, we went through cash more quickly because electronic payment often
isn’t available in smaller places. I recall that in Helsinki a few years ago we
only encountered a single place where cash was required (a small ice cream
vendor), so Portugal is far behind that (mind you, so is Germany). </span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On our last night in Madeira we spent
over half an hour trying to find a restaurant Ally had been reading about
online – we eventually concluded it must have closed. Still, not a bad way of
exploring some new streets. We ended up at one of the many tourist-facing
places, Café Funchal, where we again made out pretty well by splitting a
risotto (the fourth or fifth risotto on the trip to this point) and a salad. We
made one last visit to the hotel roof bar – it had a smattering of people when
we arrived, but when we left, just a bit after midnight, it was down to just
one British guy and his beer. Well, and his really ugly shirt. The next day we
had time to walk for an hour or so before heading to the airport, so we got to
see Funchal in sleepy Sunday morning mode – streets that would later be crammed
with tables just sitting empty. On the drive to the airport we could see a
couple of pages of a little notebook in which the driver lists all his fares –
all 5, 7, 8 Euro rides. The airport ride is 40 Euros. They must love those, but
there probably aren’t enough of them to go round.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had the slowest check-in we’ve gone
through in a while – no electronic check-in – but after that everything was
smooth (we bought a sandwich in a concession place called Cockpit – and I’d
just started rereading Jerzy Kosinski’s Cockpit – and the plane in which we
were about to fly had a cockpit – what are the odds?!). The airport has a
little outdoor area from which you can watch planes taking off. There’s only
one runway, and it was extended at some point after a plane didn’t have enough of
it to take off and ended up in the water. We watched a British Airways flight
which was never in danger of such a mishap; neither, later on, were we. Lisbon
certainly has a bigger and busier airport than we expected. We couldn’t get a
taxi because of a strike over Uber – the strike started while we were in Porto
but we didn’t realize it was still going on (Madeira wasn’t affected because
Uber doesn’t operate there). It’s a little annoying that the hotel hadn’t
warned us. Anyway, we found our way by metro easily enough, although it’s never
very desirable to be on public transit with all your stuff (usually for
instance we only have one credit card with us, leaving the others in the safe).</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, those logistics were forgotten
soon enough. Our final stopping point was the Hotel do Chiado, right in the
heart of Lisbon, “in the historical building of ‘Armazens do Chiado’ as result
of a project of reconstruction elaborated by Alvaro Siza Vieira, the famous
Portuguese architect winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1992.” There are only
sixteen rooms – ours had a French balcony overlooking the street below, with a
view of the Castle of St George. The hotel also has a roof top bar which was
pretty crowded when we checked it out – the hotel in general seemed instantly
busier than the Vine ever did, although with only sixteen rooms, this
presumably can’t really have been true. Anyway, it’s very pleasant, and we had
custard tarts and cherry liqueur waiting for us in our room (and unlike in
Porto, there was no indication they might actually be intended for someone
else).</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was hotter here than in the previous
locations by a few degrees – we immediately registered this, along with a
greater concentration of visitors (of the kind that again sometimes leads to
frustrated locals, which I believe has occasionally been an issue in Lisbon)
and a slightly rougher big-city edge. We walked directly south to the
waterfront, which is wider and calmer than Porto’s – a large section was
occupied by the razzamatazz surrounding a six a side soccer tournament (within
a few hours of arrival, we’d seen players from England, Wales, Russia, Bulgaria
– apparently it’s stipulated that they wear their identifying shirts at all
times), obscuring historical monuments in a way the architects surely never
foresaw. We walked up to the historical district of the Alfama – a warren of
narrow, winding streets (lots of those on this trip!), dense with fado
restaurants – and to several look-out points crammed with people looking out.
We found our way back to the hotel pretty easily – the surrounding streets are
full of restaurants, and we noted at least a few plausible choices in passing.
We walked<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>back to one of those places,
which turned out to be so-so in terms of the food and the ambiance, but never
mind. We ended the night on the roof top bar, which died off fast - when it
closed at midnight it was (once again) just us and one other guy. Although it’s
only seven floors up, it shields you almost entirely from any sense of what
might be happening below, for better or for worse, I’m not sure.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This trip certainly illustrates the
success of our division of labour – typically, after we decide on a
destination, I book the flights and the hotels, and then hardly think about it
again until we’re there. Ally usually takes the lead in suggesting day-to-day
activities. It worked almost perfectly throughout this trip, and I only add in
the “almost” to accommodate some glitches on our first full day in Lisbon. The
first stage went as planned – we walked down to the waterfront (calling into
the Bertrand bookstore, which has a Guinness book certificate as the oldest
operating bookstore, since 1732) and headed west, eventually passing the port
of Lisbon (from which I recall Bruno Ganz emerging at the start of the film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the White City</i>). It’s not the most
eye-catching walk – much of it is rather derelict and graffiti-laden, although
the occasional block looks like home to a new media company or suchlike, or
else lights up with some imposing art creation. We were heading for the LX
Factory, an old industrial neighborhood now populated with cafes, designers,
retailers and general funkiness – in Toronto terms it’s somewhat like the
Distillery District, but not as stuffy. Like much of the surrounding
neighborhood, it’s overshadowed by a massive and loud overpass which might as
well have been specifically conceived as a symbol of capitalistic disregard for
neighborhood integrity (and we continued to encounter denunciations of tourism
and of Airbnb in particular at a fairly steady pace).</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had lunch there in an Argentinean
themed place and wandered around. After that, Ally’s idea was to wander up to
an 18<sup>th</sup> century aqueduct from which one can apparently enjoy great
views of the city. In crow-flying terms it seemed pretty easy – just to head
north – but we tried several routes and gave up on all of them. Eventually we
committed to one route and walked up on the side of a busy highway for quite a
while before quitting on that too (the question may arise of why we didn’t
consult Google Maps but I think we were both too hot and tired to think of it).
We retraced our steps for a while and then trudged back to the hotel through a
new combination of streets. We were pretty wiped out by the end of it (if the
iPhone can be trusted, we walked further that day than we did on our 13km
Madeira hike, and in more oppressive heat) and much of the walk was through at
best undistinguished (if not downright unsafe) areas, although we returned to
gentility at the end. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, but it’s probably fair to
conclude that if we wanted to see the aqueduct (which we never ended up doing)
there would have been better ways of going about it.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we were ever going to get a tan, today
would have been the day (we didn’t). But it’s nice that Portugal provides sporadic
evidence that not everyone conforms to the cliché – for instance, the porter at
our hotel looks like Jesse Eisenberg (and just as white). The guide in the room
says: “You are not allowed to bring your pet to the hotel, but we can advise
comfortable places where your pet can stay. Please contact reception.” This
evokes an unlikely scenario of someone who, having somehow smuggled their
little dog into the country and through the lobby into the room, reads this
prohibition and realizes it’s all over for them (by the way, by this point in
the trip Ozu had been moved from the big dog room, probably due to being
overwhelmed, and was living among the little dogs) We had dinner in a nearby
place called Fabulas, which we’d noticed earlier for its vegetarian options. It
shares a large terrace with three or four other restaurants: the atmosphere was
very lively and happy, and it was one of the best meals of our trip.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It seems we’ve dropped one of our
traditions – of always going to see one movie during each foreign trip when
possible. Actually we hardly saw any movie posters on this trip, let alone the
theaters themselves – they must all have been chased out to the suburbs, or
else into total extinction. We did on Tuesday, our penultimate full day, come
across a place showing Spike Lee’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blackkklansman</i>,
which might have been a possibility, but only at 9.15 pm, which was too late.
Anyway, back in the hotel, I did start watching the somewhat obscure 70’s
French film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le secret</i>. Ally continued
to read Philip Roth. We spent the day wandering around various portions of
downtown Lisbon, from its grand squares (one of them occupied largely by taxi
drivers, who continued to be on strike, although it didn’t seem that 100% of
drivers are participating) to its narrow streets, from tourist throngs to
almost unoccupied parks. We walked through the “Bairro Alto” area, which only
comes alive at night, climbing up in the direction of the Castelo de Sao Jorge
and then beyond that to the Graca district, which provides some long views over
downtown. We had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant near there (it was very nice
to eat quinoa and tofu again), then wandered around a bit more before
returning. In all we were out for around five hours, so it was a somewhat
lighter day, reflecting our end-of-trip-flagging state. </span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lisbon may be starved for taxis (perhaps
that’s why we seemed to have seen more people dragging their luggage around)
but it has plenty of little tourist vehicles – some of them three-wheelers (a
correspondent loftily informed me these are called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tuk-tuks</i> and originate from India), others looking like they might
be designed for sand dunes more than cobbled streets. Between the inherent
slipperiness and the elevations, I kept thinking how someone might slip into
the street and perish under one of these odd contraptions. There are also
yellow trams, clearly a big attraction to tourists – I doubt they are a big
contributor to the efficiency of Lisbon transit as a whole. As usual, we spent
very little time in stores during the trip, but Ally did buy a Lisbon-themed
iPhone case, so that will be a frequent reminder. Oh, and some bookmarks from
the oldest operating bookstore. I was somewhat taken by a Massimo Dutti coat in
the window of a nearby store, but not enough to go shopping for it here. We
overheard a (I think) Australian tourist lamenting that he should have bought a
pair of pants he’d seen and liked in Venice. Honestly, in his case, I don’t
think it’s going to affect anything.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’d made a dinner reservation for Tuesday
at a place called Organi Chiado – funny to have done that in Canada having no
idea of the restaurant’s location, and then to have it be right across the
street from our hotel. The menu is mainly vegetarian – Ally had a chickpea
curry and I had tofu again (yep, twice in one day!) so that was very much like
being at home (a bit too filling though). Afterwards we wandered back to the Bairro
Alto, much busier by then (although inevitably with a calculated tourist-facing
vibe to much of it), and eventually went into a tiny hole-in-the-wall type
place with only a few tables and just a handful of other customers over the
couple of hours we spent there, and yet with a rather wonderful atmosphere
(maybe it was the weird auto-tuned cover of Close to You). The woman said it’s
the family business, owned by her mother. After that, we were most definitely
done for the day, and for a fair chunk of the next morning. </span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On our last day we again walked west
along the waterfront. Actually we did not realize first time round that the
waterfront trail picks up again on the other side of the port – that stretch of
it feels much more resort-like with its slow pace and frequent cafes. The trail
is sometimes quite close to the water – if and when the oceans rise, it’s
evident some sections of Lisbon will be challenged. Our initial plan was to
walk to MAAT – the museum of art, architecture and technology – but we overshot
it by unnecessarily walking north and away from the water. So we continued into
the district of Belem, another tourist magnet for its 16<sup>th</sup> century
lighthouse tower, its more modern “monument to the discoveries” and its
imposing church and monastery, all of this offset by large, graceful parks and
walkways. We had lunch there (a last piece of evidence of the challenges of
vegetarianism here - we both took a buffet helping of what appeared to be a
chickpea salad, but it turned out to contain tuna). Then we walked to the MAAT,
which comprises a former power plant and a newer building in a modestly
Gehry-like style, including a large curving roof you can walk on. The
exhibitions featured a heavy emphasis on ecological and environmental issues
and their portrayal in art and culture – it was all quite diverting and
stimulating. We walked back, stopping for a snack on the way. In all, close to
another 17km trek, in often blazing heat, but a fine way to fill our last day.</span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCFwq_nuQC6E26F0D5PMcSrhd3yWi5V76NP5Ic7sZ7TVTPyo7pnMGVsNTCA35wAQPjdvwrvNLatt1C4-gVnoOZeIT-lvpfDQM4wJM1FxuvYIrtNA59GfliQE1PaHB6z_edqe2fnTZv1oA/s1600/IMG_2927.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCFwq_nuQC6E26F0D5PMcSrhd3yWi5V76NP5Ic7sZ7TVTPyo7pnMGVsNTCA35wAQPjdvwrvNLatt1C4-gVnoOZeIT-lvpfDQM4wJM1FxuvYIrtNA59GfliQE1PaHB6z_edqe2fnTZv1oA/s320/IMG_2927.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As far as can be ascertained online,
Portugal isn’t among the top ten tourist destinations in Europe – in fact, it’s
far behind Poland for one. Maybe that’s just a function of the Polish diaspora,
I don’t know, but we both detected that our colleagues and acquaintances were
more excited about the idea of Portugal than about most of our previous destinations.
It certainly doesn’t feel, as of this September 26<sup>th</sup> writing, that
the tourist season will be running out of steam anytime soon. It’s a wonderful,
easy, sensuous place to be, insofar as you can ever draw such conclusions from
twelve days of highly unrepresentative experience (that is, not very far at
all). Anyway, our last night was one of the most entertaining. We wandered
around some of the main tourist dining areas, somewhat amazed at the barrage of
menu touts trying to get our attention (sometimes in most offputtingly
aggressive manner…should that ever work?) and at the sheer density of people
and tables in some locations. In the end we went back to Fabulas, because its
spacious, serene terrace seemed even better by comparison, and we’d already
noted they had enough vegetarian options to order a completely different meal compared
to our first visit (wow!) The guy bringing the wine and water dropped the tray,
sending broken glass everywhere (at least the wine bottle survived intact) –
they never did manage to clear that up entirely. Later we were eavesdropping on
the four Texan women at a nearby table, and their interactions with the wry
young waiter, Tomas. After they left, we made a mildly disrespectful remark to
him about Texas, and he really opened up in response, neglecting his other
duties to chat to us on such matters as his romantic status (just out of a
five-year relationship), other dating stories (a tale of picking up a woman on
the late night bus), cultural differences of customers (at least Americans tip
well; the Portuguese aren’t as pleasant to deal with as they seem) and
Portuguese literature and cinema, on which he seems like an aspiring
intellectual of the kind you seldom encounter outside French movies. We gave
him a 20% tip and he was careful to note he’d keep half of it for himself and
put the other half into the pool with his colleagues. And that was that. We
returned to the hotel bar for one last beer, leaving at midnight when it
closed.</span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 10.66px;">
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">During that day I had two odd instances
of heartburn or something like it, and my left sandal was starting to dig into
my heel for the first time on the trip, and then I woke up on Thursday with
something of a cold, so it was very plainly time to go home. Not that we didn’t
know that already. We had breakfast in the Lisbon hotel for the first time,
noting that we’d never seen room 609 (we were in 610) without its “Do not
Disturb” sign on the door. Maybe it was occupied by a honeymoon couple. We got
a cab to the airport (not sure if the strike was officially over – if not, the
volume of rebels seemed to be increasing). Two large cruise ships were docked
for the day, with at least seven or eight double-decker buses and assorted
other vehicles waiting to whisk their inhabitants around the city. Yet another
glorious day – we didn’t see a drop of rain throughout the trip, and only a few
situational instances of mist or relative chilliness. Lisbon airport was
surprisingly busy, but we’d left sufficient time for it all. Our flight took
off on time. Ally watched some downloaded episodes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Better Call Saul.</i> I reviewed this journal, finished the most recent
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Yorker</i>, continued with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le secret, </i>started another even more
obscure movie. The flight touched down before 4 pm and we were home by 5.30 pm.
It was hard not to compare the grey, overcast, concrete-enclosed journey
downtown to our memories of Funchal and wonder if we’d made a wrong decision in
life. But then Ozu came home, and there was no doubt we were exactly where we should
be!</span></span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-50881931244597416022017-10-18T14:00:00.001-07:002017-10-22T03:58:04.001-07:00Tanzania, October 2017<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0heMdIYvS58XCkECkT-mLYIw86G4sTsm6pMY2dbbM-wj08wUYPBJjDfPX746foXnwTKo46hdCF_jw_AXhZKE9E_UWhvLg_1vyATL5l-1KQ4EI_4pa-Y6Gio64CmAGQbreDxWSozHj-XM/s1600/IMG_2076.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0heMdIYvS58XCkECkT-mLYIw86G4sTsm6pMY2dbbM-wj08wUYPBJjDfPX746foXnwTKo46hdCF_jw_AXhZKE9E_UWhvLg_1vyATL5l-1KQ4EI_4pa-Y6Gio64CmAGQbreDxWSozHj-XM/s320/IMG_2076.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I start writing this at around 8.30
am on Sunday morning, sitting in Amsterdam airport directly facing the Rolex
store. The store has a steady stream of visitors, only a few of whom put on a
credible show of being potentially serious buyers, and has made one sale in the
last hour. Perhaps this is about the same ratio you’d observe in any Rolex
store, but it’s tempting to think the fact of being in an airport, of being
open at such an hour on such a day, encourages an unusual volume of
substanceless engagement. We’re particularly attuned to such a state, perhaps,
because of the rather unfriendly timing of our flights – leaving Toronto at
5.15 pm, arriving at Amsterdam at 6 am local time, leaving for Kilimanjaro some
four hours later. Landing in Amsterdam, we’re up late and up early at the same
time; the airport is quiet (but rapidly gets busier) and yet studded with patches
of dazzling mercantile light in which you can spend thousands of dollars on
things you don’t need. Like all airports, it’s a rather stunning event space,
even if the real event for everyone here will always be elsewhere, at the end
of the departing flight, or the connecting flight after that. Anyway, the
flight from Toronto was fine enough, although we would have chosen to sleep for
more of it, or else for better sound quality on the earphones (neither of us
ended up watching a movie – I gave up after two minutes, Ally persevered a
little longer). In Amsterdam we eat a little and then sit here facing the Rolex
store, which I keep thinking may seem suspicious to the store employees, whom I
feel are attuned to notice small if essentially meaningless things (and, once
in a while, to sell small and essentially meaningless items for $10,000). I
read the news for what I expect to be the last time for quite a while, actually
the longest while since the internet became an actual everyday Thing. We are
both calm and serene, because this isn’t yet the event.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I pick it up again in the final
third of our nine-hour flight to Kilimanjaro. This time we’ve both slept fairly
well. I watched the recent French film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’amant
double</i> (even in the era of personal video screens, I was amused that such a
sex- and nudity-ridden movie could make it onto an airplane menu) and Ally
watched the scandal-free Canadian film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maudie</i>.
We have lots of legroom (economy comfort class!) and no real complaints – like
the flight to Amsterdam, we’re not just on-time but in fact scheduled to arrive
early. I think there are fewer black faces on the flight to Kilimanjaro than
there were on the flight from Toronto to Amsterdam (except for a slightly
higher incidence of “safari” pants on board, and an absence of cowboy hats, you
couldn’t tell from surveying the passengers whether we’re headed for Tanzania
or Texas). This seems wrong, but perhaps it’s an instant reminder that this is
to be, from most perspectives, an exercise in experiencing an imagined Africa
more than a real one…</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">At the airport, arriving at around
7.30 pm, the passengers divide into those with and without visas. The former
sounds like the best group to be in, but in fact both groups seem to move at
much the same speed – that is, hardly at all. This is another respect in which
being in premium economy seriously pays off though – if row 14 takes 45
minutes, what of row 48? The process involves being photographed and
electronically fingerprinted, although it’s hard not to think this is largely
theatre to make you feel better about paying $100 to get in. It also involves a
large, somewhat randomly choreographed cast of officials. As we’ve experienced
in China and elsewhere, Tanzania seems from the outset to create
multi-participant chains out of activities which elsewhere would be done by one
person, if not automated. When we arrive at the inn for the first night, the
process of getting our bags to the room seems to require three or four
changeovers. That was after being met at the airport and then driven along a
very dimly lit road for 35 minutes or so. Apparently during the day we could
have seen Mount Kilimanjaro. As it was, we only caught passing glimpses into
small, square rooms, while hoping not to knock over the people walking to and
from them (at first glance, foreign traffic always seems impossibly perilous).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqpaDsQxYDW4y_-lJWHHgRrTc5dVGEQsqO-ktS95YRqJiB74yOTPYuivVQ0LRMo6TN5HVfuigU3-_9fDTG2HzFI6gJ1jyHhVLFdCM3JFfSLmn01PPJ83YPRZXtkpJkxfEdtdccXLHklUY/s1600/IMG_1690.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqpaDsQxYDW4y_-lJWHHgRrTc5dVGEQsqO-ktS95YRqJiB74yOTPYuivVQ0LRMo6TN5HVfuigU3-_9fDTG2HzFI6gJ1jyHhVLFdCM3JFfSLmn01PPJ83YPRZXtkpJkxfEdtdccXLHklUY/s320/IMG_1690.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We spent the first night in the
Rivertrees Inn, a pretty collection of bungalows on 10 acres, ably conveying a
sense of privileged, serene separation. Our room had a church-like roof and a
small library which included a 2002 guide to restaurants in Spain and Portugal.
We ate dinner around 9.15 pm – everyone else in the restaurant was probably
like us, starting a trip or ending one. We got up early the next day and left
around 6 am, continuing along the same road toward the town of Arusha. For most
of the way it looks like a torrent of small-scale capitalism – countless
“supermarkets” and “pubs” and car washes and the occasional more esoteric
enterprise like the “Shalom Israel Stationary” store. We passed mini buses
elaborately decorated in praise of Jesus, or of the Los Angeles Lakers, kids
walking to school in green uniforms, overladen motor scooters, cluster after
cluster of early morning negotiating and settling; and then in the middle of
this the occasional astounding assertion of modernity – a shiny office tower,
or a huge cultural centre of such striking design that we were still trying to
figure out which way was up when we left it in the rear view mirror.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM25QTtQVukuu9s4GXYTL4O4sCOEqVS4NmDo7NtMrEJKIASpMylwc6Ly6AKRK_N6rJYENFpLMLwg5Uj6XEBnOSDoJtJp-35El9KJE2yCh06EJuapdtt7i8WlX7Kjr4oSPFs2kzIKQJV3E/s1600/IMG_1704.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM25QTtQVukuu9s4GXYTL4O4sCOEqVS4NmDo7NtMrEJKIASpMylwc6Ly6AKRK_N6rJYENFpLMLwg5Uj6XEBnOSDoJtJp-35El9KJE2yCh06EJuapdtt7i8WlX7Kjr4oSPFs2kzIKQJV3E/s320/IMG_1704.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We arrived at the town airport –
another example of extreme distribution of labour, seeming fairly chaotic in
its approach to organization and to carrying out basic tasks, with more small
business – coffee stands, gift shops - dotted everywhere. And yet it worked
because we were plucked out of the twenty or so waiting passengers (again, all
evidently tourists like us) and efficiently directed to the right plane, with
our bags already on it. It was a twelve-seater aircraft, with an Australian
pilot, and except for brief periods above the clouds, we were able to observe
the ground throughout the hour and a half journey (which included two stops) –
over the Ngorongoro crater, over stretches that look entirely dead and burned
out and others that support sparse but thriving-looking trees and bushes,
always with the feeling of pushing deeper and deeper into the Serengeti. One
young woman on the flight spent almost the whole time playing games on her
phone, seldom looking outside.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2m_F6_MAjTb82gqEFwOX2fzwnnubrzoXRt0A70d6PkXc-hE7iknusES9ZDPSHkTLx6a8YeXtAr7IK5nQo0eNzBmK5SzpuPuUobB4XOul4IDlJKvgtz4JZsPrHs7LUElSyo5Qw4sr5xq4/s1600/IMG_1706.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2m_F6_MAjTb82gqEFwOX2fzwnnubrzoXRt0A70d6PkXc-hE7iknusES9ZDPSHkTLx6a8YeXtAr7IK5nQo0eNzBmK5SzpuPuUobB4XOul4IDlJKvgtz4JZsPrHs7LUElSyo5Qw4sr5xq4/s320/IMG_1706.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But again, everything involves more
infrastructure than you’d at first imagine – when we finally touched down, we
found a cluster of some twenty vehicles and a small crowd of guides and
visitors. We spent almost an hour there while the guy who picked us up (I think
his name was Pinda or Penda) put another departing couple on a plane and then
organized our permits. Based on that hour, small planes come and go every five
or ten minutes, and once we got under way, we encountered something close to
traffic congestion. But. of course, it is a big desert and this rapidly thinned
out. On the way to our lodge at Lamai Serengeti – in the far north of the
desert, just a few miles from the Kenyan border - we saw giraffes, hippos,
crocodiles, warthogs, mongooses, numerous kinds of deer, zebras and hundreds of
wildebeest, so it doesn’t seem animal-spotting will ever be a problem. Pinda/Penda
seemed masterful at glimpsing such creatures out of the corner of his eye; Ally
would usually tune in a second later; and then I’d be straining to focus and
catch up to what they were talking about.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjeaG2EScsYgzBbZHgVX15ZZ0h3P9aeORcZN8F9LYa9Z5FNYqraSlfhwVx3fPViuiPqpDyEHRkwDWxRkvDOW5kISTxZJvhlIfL5KvN_FA0pxHX0bJUqK2J1LLw804QSQeK9UUwx8Lr79A/s1600/IMG_1713.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjeaG2EScsYgzBbZHgVX15ZZ0h3P9aeORcZN8F9LYa9Z5FNYqraSlfhwVx3fPViuiPqpDyEHRkwDWxRkvDOW5kISTxZJvhlIfL5KvN_FA0pxHX0bJUqK2J1LLw804QSQeK9UUwx8Lr79A/s320/IMG_1713.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It's actually not so funny because
we’d forgotten to pack my contact lens solution, and I was worried about suffering
through the whole trip with impeded vision. But on arrival I mentioned it to
the co-manager Helen who said she’d email and get some sent over on the next
day’s plane. If this sounds rather decadent, it’s as nothing against the grandeur
of the Lamai camp. This is a series of stone-walled, thatched-roofed buildings,
joined by winding pathways and steps, constructed on the side of a granite
“kopje” – it’s absurd to think anyone ever thought of building a high-end
vacation location on such a remote and inhospitable mass of boulders, but since
they did think of it, and even actually managed to do it, it means that every room
(really a stand-alone cottage) has a vast, soaring view of the Serengeti (over
the course of our stay, we would see buffalo, elephants, wildebeest and baboons
merely from our window). It also has solar-heated showers, enormous canopy
beds, a full power supply, and basically anything you want. It has wi-fi in the
communal areas, but for the first time on vacation since wi-fi became a thing,
I’m not planning to seek it out, as I can’t think of any way in which knowing
what’s going on elsewhere would enhance anything we do here (and many ways in
which it wouldn’t).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhuxxjFCdYorj7yVRkHbTMlUGncEMtIkkufKf3xwzTMAue1JvBRkBnjbOoGC3wrBnixYC42b4Eau5fOT_Tv5wTU_02VSNFGWKfSLZ2jzhaUjbR-IJWjmFLQg9W1XtH4AdndaiBA5XWdb0/s1600/IMG_1726.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhuxxjFCdYorj7yVRkHbTMlUGncEMtIkkufKf3xwzTMAue1JvBRkBnjbOoGC3wrBnixYC42b4Eau5fOT_Tv5wTU_02VSNFGWKfSLZ2jzhaUjbR-IJWjmFLQg9W1XtH4AdndaiBA5XWdb0/s320/IMG_1726.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We had lunch (a fresh and varied
buffet, already speaking to the efficiency of the supply chain), we both slept
a bit, I wrote this diary. In the afternoon it started thundering and we
wondered whether the evening drive might be in jeopardy, but it never delivered
more than light rain. In the main area at around 4 they served coffee and cake,
and then we set out with our permanent guide Lazaro (I checked this spelling
with him – he says it would also be fine to use Lazaru, or Lazarus, or about
ten other variants) and a couple from Switzerland who’d arrived the previous
day. The next few hours unfolded almost as if governed by a software program
that ensures a new wonderment at ten- or fifteen-minute intervals. The guides
are all constantly in radio contact, so when one of them spots something
especially good, it’s never a long time before other trucks trundle up as well.
The prime example on Monday evening was a leopard, whose relaxation was
undermined by one batch of camera-wielding gawkers after another. I think he or
she took it remarkably well under the circumstances. I’ll write much more about
our experiences with Lazaro and his vehicle (an open-sided heavy-duty Toyota
something with a canvas roof that seats six people in two rows of three, and
which is more comfortable than you’d think, if only because comfort is the last
thing on your mind).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiReCMrUSR_03qr6y8daHbuQwM50ICv40aWLh6OVfI94OSgGMM9zse92Vp7XYuZbyuCny00EQvBhaDRQFoUstzNOX3D-sAWW_DtL1iXTaN0w8pgy0NC1bQBU-GGdzpvqTFo2xZ7G0lngvc/s1600/IMG_1742.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiReCMrUSR_03qr6y8daHbuQwM50ICv40aWLh6OVfI94OSgGMM9zse92Vp7XYuZbyuCny00EQvBhaDRQFoUstzNOX3D-sAWW_DtL1iXTaN0w8pgy0NC1bQBU-GGdzpvqTFo2xZ7G0lngvc/s320/IMG_1742.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">To leap ahead momentarily, I woke
up in the middle of Monday night, hearing heavy footsteps trampling in the
undergrowth around our room. Initially I thought it was one of the guards on
patrol, but it soon became obvious this was implausible, and I came to think it
was an elephant. I woke up Ally so she could share in it, but as we felt we
should heed the instructions not to go outside, and as we had no way of
illuminating what was out there, we didn’t see more than a dark shape moving
beneath our window. The following morning though they confirmed that elephants
had moving around the lodge, so that was seemingly it (later information
suggested it may also have been a buffalo).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLd3fLg_HcPpk871j00pTYntONqgY6mX4EeavHe3TI3VUsy2aTX0lFCPbxi2_kGS1bX38uYAH5a9mQ5Y2qZH41oTNl6P_4n1HyUKl3kQusKRGHCSFWWFeBWaX7DGkdrCWesYde9HNYLXM/s1600/IMG_1740.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLd3fLg_HcPpk871j00pTYntONqgY6mX4EeavHe3TI3VUsy2aTX0lFCPbxi2_kGS1bX38uYAH5a9mQ5Y2qZH41oTNl6P_4n1HyUKl3kQusKRGHCSFWWFeBWaX7DGkdrCWesYde9HNYLXM/s320/IMG_1740.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I couldn’t get back to sleep for a
long time afterwards, and among the things to ponder was “Dennis,” a “retired
marine lawyer” who sat across from us at dinner, and who seemed physically,
verbally and attitudinally to be in fact Albert Brooks, the
actor/comedian/director. When I put this to him, he said that no one had ever
previously remarked on the resemblance, which seemed like too extreme a denial
to be true, and therefore to prove he was indeed Brooks. Further, among other
things, he said he lives in Malibu with a second house in Aspen, which he
conceded is very likely where Albert Brooks lives too. Anyway, we had a fine
and extended conversation, and if he was indeed Albert Brooks, I’m content that
I was able to entertain him in the manner in which he deserves (as I write this
real-time journal, I can’t go online in search of further evidence to prove or
disprove the theory, but I’ll return to the topic once I’ve done that).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s778XJ0CnQ3omIuBd0-g1NM1zozxdsh7896J-bZ0G9p7SiY4bCtyxVL_J6dHyoRfuMv7Hf5XVLT-m6y0jPlJ7ZXdumRem8_Q4rcujdqrSurPz_Pp9yOgKG6sDq5WfFP_0R6xNnkBrRk/s1600/IMG_1778.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_s778XJ0CnQ3omIuBd0-g1NM1zozxdsh7896J-bZ0G9p7SiY4bCtyxVL_J6dHyoRfuMv7Hf5XVLT-m6y0jPlJ7ZXdumRem8_Q4rcujdqrSurPz_Pp9yOgKG6sDq5WfFP_0R6xNnkBrRk/s320/IMG_1778.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">On Tuesday morning our drive lasted
approximately six hours, and didn’t feel anything like it. This is exactly what
we experienced ten years ago in South Africa and had wanted to revisit, but the
Serengeti is already proving a richer experience. In part, that’s just sheer
plenitude – the abundance of animals here almost seems falsified, or to
disprove your own senses, given what we know of endangerment, environmental
recession and so forth. Wildebeest in particular are so dense here that they
feel like the plasma between blood cells, often mixing with zebra in
particular, with smatterings of deer or antelope (our stay was not long enough
for me to reliably distinguish between steenboks, topi, waterbucks and the rest,
although I think I could pick an impala out of any line-up). There’s something
so pure and satisfying about seeing different animals mixing peacefully
together, even if one realizes the simplicity of looking to the animal kingdom
for symbols of constructive harmony. During the six hours we saw as many as
forty hippos in an extended group, perhaps ten of them squeezed together like
sleeping puppies against a sandbank, others in various stages of submersion or
activity; we saw elephants clumsily exiting the water and clambering up a bank,
trying things out on land for a while, and then just as clumsily changing their
minds and heading back; we saw a lion mating with another (we came the right
time of year for this it seems, especially as they apparently mate every
fifteen minutes and therefore sightings of the act, and of the preceding
proposal/acceptance, aren’t particularly rare at present); we saw ostriches and
hyena and baboons. Only one giraffe though, and we did not succeed in seeing a
rhinoceros, which are scarce in these parts.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzCwL4DcSvlTiv8XMnFNJIhTXaV1mlVbESaho54WZ2tH40BQckNTKDBXUIfDLoew432DRHBA2BnjEKRnHwIj1f5PhSoTsMHdzPvVByoW8yt3Ji-7fruaoqHDqX6NoJcF0feJ1UBKVu5JA/s1600/IMG_1815.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzCwL4DcSvlTiv8XMnFNJIhTXaV1mlVbESaho54WZ2tH40BQckNTKDBXUIfDLoew432DRHBA2BnjEKRnHwIj1f5PhSoTsMHdzPvVByoW8yt3Ji-7fruaoqHDqX6NoJcF0feJ1UBKVu5JA/s320/IMG_1815.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But the highlight of the morning
drive was the crossing of the Mara river by a huge herd of wildebeest. There
must have been thirty vehicles positioned near the river, watching the herd
prepare to cross – several times it seemed ready to enter the water before
succumbing either to fear or indecision and running off again (in this as in so
many things, it often seems that nature is merely toying with us, that what
we’re observing here is too perfectly scenic or dramatic to actually be “real,”
however that might be measured). But in the end the decision was made and they
went, and then all the trucks rushed forward to claim the best available
vantage point – we came out of this extremely well. With uncanny precision, the
wildebeest – surely well over a thousand of them – followed the same
single-file route down the bank into the water, across the river and out the
other side, and the same pattern of deceleration through the water and
acceleration when back on dry land, and our guide seemed genuinely elated when
every single one of them made it unharmed to the other side, because he said
he’s seen a hundred of them die, through misjudgment or bad luck or predatory
intervention.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This was an incredible,
stirring sight, although it was also satisfying later in the drive to leave the
other trucks behind and to feel alone in our small piece of the desert.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQS33T0m1iTd7yoZjlecHEuZBwEQAqjt97nyUt56eYwdllpNSJZT1MBE0hD7DBxnhrg5YGv64mSOXugkH20Q8J0mKIKXejdT3rQDAjwcFQFSIy0CJlu2Rao3Cjq1ECZrhGODAfOjzMGnc/s1600/IMG_1842.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQS33T0m1iTd7yoZjlecHEuZBwEQAqjt97nyUt56eYwdllpNSJZT1MBE0hD7DBxnhrg5YGv64mSOXugkH20Q8J0mKIKXejdT3rQDAjwcFQFSIy0CJlu2Rao3Cjq1ECZrhGODAfOjzMGnc/s320/IMG_1842.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">As I mentioned, wildebeest would
recur over and over as the connective tissue of the whole experience – the
creature who overwhelms you in vast numbers while you wait for the other
scarcer sightings. You can’t help but assume they’re among the dimmer desert
inhabitants, surviving by breeding prowess rather than by guile, and if they
ever do anything distinctive, it’s generally only to become possessed by sudden
spasms, as if electrically stimulated from the head down. But the river
crossing, and subsequent sightings of the vast herds majestically sweeping
across open plains, will stand among our most amazing memories. At such times
we’re watching aspects of the great migration, the slow formation of what will
turn into a complete abandonment of this area – in a month, we’re told, there
won’t be a single wildebeest to be seen. They’ll leave the grass of this area
behind to be replenished and recovered, returning perhaps in the middle of next
year, and the cycle will continue for as long as it’s allowed to (here like
everywhere else, people tell us that the pattern has shifted, presumably due to
climate change (unless you’re a Republican)).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1OSxdfPPkU4qQM9q4tqtlv8oDpO2THy263sC3p3Wn0iyHfMs_PrjUmHkZqAz6nMIPTRhKI6f3lJoa_8PcvTFinLuPdkPeg8spVJ0ALeEm5ODopgJWwTrD6IBJbr7Qi1uKxvP4e_LwpeA/s1600/IMG_1841.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1OSxdfPPkU4qQM9q4tqtlv8oDpO2THy263sC3p3Wn0iyHfMs_PrjUmHkZqAz6nMIPTRhKI6f3lJoa_8PcvTFinLuPdkPeg8spVJ0ALeEm5ODopgJWwTrD6IBJbr7Qi1uKxvP4e_LwpeA/s320/IMG_1841.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It thundered again on Tuesday
afternoon, again without delivering on its threats. One of the staff woke us
from our nap when he comes to turn down the canvas window protectors; he didn’t
knock but rather stood outside saying hello until receiving a response – we
would come to know this as the African way. It’s the same way they bring us our
early morning coffee and tea, which is passed to us from outside through a
hatch. Again, the lodge seems to be staffed by a vast number of people with
carefully delineated functions. At night it’s guarded by local tribesmen with
spears – we’re not allowed to go outside after dark unless accompanied by one
of them (and on the first night, in addition to the elephant, we could hear
what sounded like roaring lions, sounding not far away, so we don’t need further
convincing). The laundry is handwashed every day by men, but since they’re Muslim,
they won’t do female underwear (it wasn’t explained why women couldn’t have
stepped in for the sorting and for that one subsection of the task – instead
the room has washing powder and a clothes line so that the likes of Ally can do
it herself). There’s a large complement of waiting staff, and then of course
the no doubt constant churn of arrivals and departures. It’s hard to imagine
Nomad, the owner/operator of both the camps we’re visiting, and organizer of
everything in between, often trips up significantly on any of this. My contact
lens solution, by the way, was waiting for us when we arrived back from the
Tuesday morning drive, less than a day after I’d mentioned it.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjk4WrKXEBiugwKRnTDZoSTOb4ewh66W5Ja7dYl_6PZfUt-6fnqPRtC4oVZs-VzyKMRU4Oax8hD-Jfb0GLGY6ollGD8aDNUbjEcXNjX172q3VMmgJTwjE0zQzx1uDqy4yU4mBbnFke44/s1600/IMG_1754.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjk4WrKXEBiugwKRnTDZoSTOb4ewh66W5Ja7dYl_6PZfUt-6fnqPRtC4oVZs-VzyKMRU4Oax8hD-Jfb0GLGY6ollGD8aDNUbjEcXNjX172q3VMmgJTwjE0zQzx1uDqy4yU4mBbnFke44/s320/IMG_1754.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">On Tuesday, given the six-hour
morning drive, lunch and a necessary nap, we have barely an hour’s downtime
until the next outing, or just enough to update this (so when would I have been
able to go online anyway, even to check on Albert Brooks?) In the afternoon we
do a walking safari – four of us start out from the lodge, accompanied by Lazaro
and not one but two other men with guns. We don’t cover a great distance in our
hour and a half to two hours of slow walking, but we still manage to see
wildebeest (of course!), zebras, eland, warthog, all of which seem far more
nervous about people on foot than they do about (the perhaps boringly familiar)
trucks. We also hear a lion roar not so far away (apparently though they wouldn’t
have viewed lions as a gun-necessary risk, compared to potentially charging
elephants and buffalo). The grounds (and again, this is just steps from our
lodge) are a virtual killing field of remains from wildebeest, zebra etc., some
of them recent enough that the hair is still attached even if the flesh was
long wiped clean, others of them years old (but I guess there’s no bone removal
service in these parts). No doubt relishing the opportunity to communicate more
detailed knowledge, Lazaro regularly stopped to analyze the age and origin of
droppings (and even to identify how, for instance, monkeys had been digging
around inside the droppings to extract beetles) and to identify flowers and
trees. We finished as the sun was going down, and to our surprise (although
perhaps we should have seen it coming) someone from the camp had driven out
with drinks and snacks, which we enjoyed on a rock overlooking the sunset, and
apparently with a lion lying on a rock beneath the setting sun (although
neither of us was able to see it). So, truly, what a day.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I tested on our Swiss friends my
theory that “Dennis” was Albert Brooks, but I think they found it (while
certainly amusing) too complicated to take too seriously (to which I might say,
the more sophisticated the joke, the more likely he must have been its author).
We ate dinner alone on a plateau above the main dining room, if only to prevent
me from accusing one of the guests of being, say, Woody Allen. Our sleep was
again interrupted, and from the tracks they identified it the next morning as a
buffalo. I again had trouble getting back to sleep and felt the toll of it a
bit the following morning.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaddaymxjXEMkprXGL64tySM7CnvDwJ8nLd0fNwd2MtGsbhb0JazJXckljbdymZ5fEIe8umA6wf3z4p-uJdEGOMgrMf9BRdDWuxsWz9g1tnq2EEN91G4Gz1I7mSqfctRPmmgctx6mqQF0/s1600/IMG_1793.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaddaymxjXEMkprXGL64tySM7CnvDwJ8nLd0fNwd2MtGsbhb0JazJXckljbdymZ5fEIe8umA6wf3z4p-uJdEGOMgrMf9BRdDWuxsWz9g1tnq2EEN91G4Gz1I7mSqfctRPmmgctx6mqQF0/s320/IMG_1793.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But who can succumb to fatigue when
there’s so much to see? We had Lazaro to ourselves for the morning drive (the
brochure states you pay a premium for avoiding shared drives, but the occupancy
appears to have declined compared to the last two days so it seems we got
lucky). One might imagine the Serengeti as a rather uniform, parched expanse,
but even within our little chunk of it, there’s quite considerable variation,
reflecting differences in rock formation, tree density (often we pass as many
dead trees as live ones, apparently due in large part to the efforts of the
elephants), closeness to water and so on: boulders and termite mounds add their
own crude landscaping. It’s all in shades of green and yellow and grey though –
if you see a splash of bright colour, it’s more likely to be a lizard or bird
than a flower. Today we spent most of our time on the wide-open plains, under
the largest, most cloud-filled sky on earth. The wildlife was a little sparser
than yesterday, although that’s entirely a relative assessment – we again saw
everything I already listed, absent the hippos, and we made a crucial addition
– the cheetah. There are not that many in the vicinity, and sometimes they
cross over into Kenya and so are inaccessible to Tanzanian groups. We caught up
with two of them as they were serenely doing just that, strolling together
through the desert as if well-aware of their celebrity. We very briefly crossed
to the wrong side of the border (marked by stone pillars at kilometer
intervals) so we can say we have technically been to Kenya. Then we hung around
there for a while to greet a series of Kenyan safari trucks and taunt them
about having better wildlife than they do.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmCQQjygYpZ5oLajQVJX1gUmz3zVNsuO672fLu8LUVbfsDPHK-bzd_n09_tjjOS7S8w1QbxTOrmLjC-ESpWLXeBCy2NXBeaLJ7LLzDhJo63BWpdNDZWXjC_Wo6aRpFwTxtSYBteN3sDg/s1600/IMG_1939.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEmCQQjygYpZ5oLajQVJX1gUmz3zVNsuO672fLu8LUVbfsDPHK-bzd_n09_tjjOS7S8w1QbxTOrmLjC-ESpWLXeBCy2NXBeaLJ7LLzDhJo63BWpdNDZWXjC_Wo6aRpFwTxtSYBteN3sDg/s320/IMG_1939.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This started at 6.15 am, and it was
much chillier than yesterday, and remained overcast for most of the morning – I
spent a few hours huddling under a blanket. The safari experience is full of rituals,
and breakfast is another, requiring that the guide meticulously set up a
folding table and chairs, and lay out a spread of eggs, cereal, yoghurt,
coffee, tea, and more. We ate it in the middle of the plain, with elephants in
the distance, but no other trucks. At the very end of our drive, we saw two
lions together in the shade, the female walking over to a nearby watering hole
– their exclusive property of course – for a drink, the male trying to interest
her in other things. Once again, you worry only that your memory will become
too full.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">After lunch we slept – me for
longer than Ally, leaving little time to write this diary, virtually none for
anything else. We have been taking our shower in the afternoon because that’s
when the solar-heated water is available – if you want one in the morning they
need advance notice to heat the water electrically – but today the solar-heated
water ran out after a few seconds. Never mind. For the first time in my adult
life, I have gone three whole days without even a shred of news. It seems that
many or most other guests spend a chunk of their time in the wi-fi area, but it
seems like the plush equivalent of cramming into a foul airport smoking zone.
There currently appear to be two guests – both middle-aged women – who are traveling
alone; we always vacillate on whether this is poignant, or impressively
pragmatic. Of course we are at fault – what would be the term,
couple-normative? -<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>in thinking we need
to assess it as being anything at all. The lodge is managed by Helen and her
husband Clyde, a 30-ish couple from the UK and South Africa respectively. She
told us they met while working on cruise ships, and that she often finds it
lonely here, spending much time on Skype and so forth, but that it has many
advantages, which of course she didn’t need to expand on. Based on how quickly
the contact lens solution turned up, the supply chain may be capable of
addressing almost anything, or anything physical anyway. It’s interesting to
speculate on the process behind the super-fresh, varied salads they prepare at
lunch (but one suspects it may not always reflect the sustainability concepts
that Nomad emphasizes in its marketing).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-70u0D_rypptXy7ngGmkbClfmQbx-y1d3Nl2im4Z01GvZtPwSGLqlT8Sgc3eevRCVnJBdrec2DySPuFlFp8fW3vkKKNJgvrl3AIuUgj1_46NoDg3poWvItZOBfipxn00JMTtNWa1X-Z8/s1600/IMG_1961.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-70u0D_rypptXy7ngGmkbClfmQbx-y1d3Nl2im4Z01GvZtPwSGLqlT8Sgc3eevRCVnJBdrec2DySPuFlFp8fW3vkKKNJgvrl3AIuUgj1_46NoDg3poWvItZOBfipxn00JMTtNWa1X-Z8/s320/IMG_1961.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">For the third successive day, it
thundered and poured, requiring one of the men to again rush over and tie down
the covers. Today though, unlike Monday and Tuesday, it didn’t really stop. We
set out anyway at around 4.30 pm, the wheels displacing walls of water from the
start; the radio usually crackles with the sharing of information (or maybe in
part with gossip and dirt about the guests, who knows) but now was almost
quiet, most guides from most camps not having ventured out (and apparently one of
those who did, managed to get his vehicle stuck). We started heading between
the one thin, bright break in the grim sky, but it would have involved crossing
a creek, and we couldn’t make it. So we waited for a while, watching perhaps
seventy or eighty zebra move rather indecisively across the plain, and a few
buffalo waiting it out under the trees. We decided to head back, and despite
everything, we would have ticked off a pretty good chunk of the mammal spotting
checklist provided in our room, if we hadn’t done it already. The highlight, as
it so often is, was a family of elephants, huddling together and swaying with
heavy grace to the gentle music in their heads, before deciding to move on and
crossing the path in front of us, on the way to their next happy exercise in
tree destruction (Lazaro said however that rain such as this does a great job
of helping the trees to recover from their encounters with elephants).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT28Jfr8FSU5mpWPe6G-ouUv7J8-8q-L9SrMDiKPuXF8LqvXa9VBXisGoMDUT7yrQVWqohnTbLyf3AMY6Tccd-rFdomhC0Mkbo3cOQvNLPnvieTh43j5yZ1_9NcYHjUq_WZyz2b560CVg/s1600/IMG_1971.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT28Jfr8FSU5mpWPe6G-ouUv7J8-8q-L9SrMDiKPuXF8LqvXa9VBXisGoMDUT7yrQVWqohnTbLyf3AMY6Tccd-rFdomhC0Mkbo3cOQvNLPnvieTh43j5yZ1_9NcYHjUq_WZyz2b560CVg/s320/IMG_1971.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">When we left the camp, two of the
guys were catching a puff adder which had wandered into the area outside the
dining room, and manipulating it into a basket; when we arrived back, a group
of hyraxes which live in the surrounding rocks had moved into the same area and
were huddling together out of the rain, largely oblivious to the comings and
goings. We did some shopping in the little gift shop, where it appears a young
woman called Vicki sits alone for large chunks of the day. Despite the curtailed
evening drive, we still had little time to spend in our room before dinner. In
addition to writing this diary, I want to write a short story about a man who
goes on safari, and becomes obsessed with a (false) idea about another guest,
to the extent that he completely fails to appreciate anything before him. I’d
like to write it while I’m here, but I doubt I’ll even get started on it. You
will appreciate that only the tiniest germ inside this concept can in any way
be taken as personal testimony.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJQlW6fbIsyVK8w8gx7Vbu81246lQiVSjaJXbqYdqxk5QSU9jgD9JmwYn9j-tmF7w48hmJjM-AzRUaisfBNPaQRXpHblZ-E5pYpdCx2m3bL4cEUiaBaDOCwKw8dch_gKnBv5wVvUciw0M/s1600/IMG_1731.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJQlW6fbIsyVK8w8gx7Vbu81246lQiVSjaJXbqYdqxk5QSU9jgD9JmwYn9j-tmF7w48hmJjM-AzRUaisfBNPaQRXpHblZ-E5pYpdCx2m3bL4cEUiaBaDOCwKw8dch_gKnBv5wVvUciw0M/s320/IMG_1731.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We ate dinner with the group – a
traditional Tanzanian buffet, all excellent; our dinner companions included a
couple of Los Angeles lawyers and a retired Texas judge, one of the two solo
women I mentioned. We walked back to our room at the same time as a young
couple from Manila, and I conceded that my knowledge of the Philippines is largely
confined to what I’ve gleaned from the (excellent but very long) films of the
director Lav Diaz. He’d seen none of these himself, but he recognized the name
and seemed impressed. “Lav Diaz,” I heard him explain to his partner as we
closed the door, “National artist!”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I did ask Lazaro at one point whether he’d
driven any famous people, and he showed us a photo of himself with a famous
American actor that neither one us could identify from the name nor the
appearance (apparently the guy is best known for some kids’ show, so we may be
the wrong demographic). He also said he’d driven someone from the US Supreme Court,
but could only remember the man was called John. Based on this, and the general
description, it seemed it might have been Chief Justice Roberts. If so, one
only hopes any liberal guests in attendance at the same time found it not too
hard to remain civil. Lazaro opined that well-known guests might often not
volunteer their identities, which I found no difficulty in agreeing with…</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdct8MVG_zG3iG-cqndzPmLe8n1dgIOydLSTEmslXUxfmaAkpDgFw8olt9xYJCFXQmNSU3PvrVBfD9crWzuySnLk0Fy3MKGa6P13kyKBA62C4PscLfSITUifwt5BNhl7xfVk22POspqNQ/s1600/IMG_2019.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdct8MVG_zG3iG-cqndzPmLe8n1dgIOydLSTEmslXUxfmaAkpDgFw8olt9xYJCFXQmNSU3PvrVBfD9crWzuySnLk0Fy3MKGa6P13kyKBA62C4PscLfSITUifwt5BNhl7xfVk22POspqNQ/s320/IMG_2019.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">On our last day, in anticipation of
further evening rain, we extended our morning safari, and ended up staying out
for some nine hours. In a way, this might be the ultimate testimonial – I can’t
think of another circumstance under which one could drive around for that long
and not regret a second of it. We ate breakfast for the first time at the lodge
rather than taking it with us, and got to watch the daily routine of the
monkeys trying to raid the buffet (we saw one of them swoop in, grab a muffin,
and gleefully shove it down his throat). Our main objective after we set out was
to find a rhinoceros, and we drove far into the area where Lazaro (whom we
again had to ourselves) thought that might be achieved – we saw far fewer trucks
today, and many of those were just the same recurring ones on a similar quest.
We were often very close to the Kenyan border again, able to watch animals on
the other side, and at times Lazaro was unsure whether or not we’d strayed
across it. After some four and a half or five hours we stopped for lunch and
then started to reverse our steps. At some point – and again, the radio chatter
is an ever-present background to the journey – he got word of a rhino spotting
and started speeding off, displacing vast herds of wildebeest, and all but dismissing
a not-exactly-negligible view of two lions watching a passing family of
elephants (no doubt wishing they could just get one of the calves alone) to reach
the location. By the time we (and several other trucks) got there, they’d
vanished again (the area had plenty of dense clumps of trees where they could
hide indefinitely). We waited and waited, and then left for a while to see the
lions after all (by then the elephants had moved on) with a side visit to see a
lounging cheetah. Based on Lazaro’s analysis of a nearby fresh carcass and of
the vultures and storks (who knew storks were that way?) picking on it, the
cheetah had killed a gazelle in the last few minutes, already eaten its fill,
and left the rest for the other scavengers. I guess in these parts, a cheetah
can afford to be complacent about finishing up his meal.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZHjUhzZeZAvU4RGcPP28FFzWvcXd-2Ig3Ns8Y3yFIs9iIkd5fF5hP7yHT9IZwgfL6sIOMymQJ_m7krDFLKPNBioYQRGLHNpm1z6-i5yQcf2YWWqGDTGmuXXti0jBuGdnJWUPo7C7_VA/s1600/IMG_2038.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZHjUhzZeZAvU4RGcPP28FFzWvcXd-2Ig3Ns8Y3yFIs9iIkd5fF5hP7yHT9IZwgfL6sIOMymQJ_m7krDFLKPNBioYQRGLHNpm1z6-i5yQcf2YWWqGDTGmuXXti0jBuGdnJWUPo7C7_VA/s320/IMG_2038.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Lazaro then seemed to indicate we’d
have to give up on the rhino given the approaching rain, and then a few minutes
later we saw two magnificent rhinoceroses after all, completely out in the open,
walking majestically along (I am really not sure to what extent our guide
orchestrated this apparent disappointment followed by last-minute triumph). We
watched them until they disappeared again, and then he headed back, moving
quickly enough that he had to take precautions against his cushions and
blankets flying out of the vehicle, and got us back to the lodge some five
minutes before the rain (just as we always knew he would).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I mentioned before that the land is
much more varied than you might escape – today it seemed to have breathed in
the rain from yesterday and then to have exhaled in a richer shade of green.
Some bleaker areas look like the aftermath of battles or fires – sometimes
that’s the work of elephants laying waste to trees (as carelessly as cheetahs,
but with less benefit for other animals – we saw some giraffes standing in a
particularly wretched-looking spot as if trying to remember what had happened
to the lush trees of their memories), or of various tree parasites (sometimes,
plants invade others and break them open from the inside). But on the whole,
it’s lusher, and water is more plentiful, than we’d expected. It’s hot of
course – even spending so much time in the vehicle, you burn rapidly. But it’s
a different kind of heat compared to Toronto’s summer – I covered up today with
a long-sleeved thing we bought in New Zealand, and never felt overheated from
it. Another aspect of plentitude is the abundance of new-born animals – we’ve
seen baby monkeys, elephants, lion cubs, zebras, giraffes, and so on. You
wouldn’t usually expect warthogs to constitute a highlight, but it was so
joyous one day to see a family of warthogs just running around, apparently
simply playing, just because they’re alive, and they can. We saw numerous other
examples of play too, including unserious competitions between male buffalo and
giraffes. Of course, such showdowns often involve real stakes. Lazaro keeps up
a steady commentary of analysis on the structure of what we’re observing,
pointing out the males versus the females (the latter usually outnumbering the
former, sometimes by a ridiculous ratio), males who are plotting to displace
other males, and so forth – I only wish I had time to document it all here.
Sometimes he indicates that particular creatures are on alert because of the
proximity of predators – such as a deer calmly eating while its mate stands
guard like a sentinel, knowing a leopard is on the other side of the rocks. On
the other hand, he sometimes assessed various animals as being oblivious to the
danger they were in. This of course would be bad news for them.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQiQ_RTIXqI95Ez5nss9jjxjInPmNG5UflNwwzf1mgdKGfO8dy-P7a8szahsriwEGUkK96sMvYVi63geTcmfTEdXFROw_WuE6PaKSnqTR2K4kQROWFe99B3y17wW0vTfHUtJweLNcyLs/s1600/IMG_1943.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQiQ_RTIXqI95Ez5nss9jjxjInPmNG5UflNwwzf1mgdKGfO8dy-P7a8szahsriwEGUkK96sMvYVi63geTcmfTEdXFROw_WuE6PaKSnqTR2K4kQROWFe99B3y17wW0vTfHUtJweLNcyLs/s320/IMG_1943.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We learned that Lazaro actually
owns his vehicle and receives a daily rental fee from Nomad for it, contrary to
what we’d assumed; apparently this is under some Nomad micro-finance loan program
(which he said will take several years to pay back though). This and other
aspects of the company seem very progressive, but inevitably it’s possible to
have reservations here and there. Most obviously, there’s the basic structure
of two white managers overseeing what appears to be an entirely black staff,
which might suggest rather unfortunate colonial parallels (the primary owner of
Nomad is, we’re told, a wealthy Scotsman who has extensive business interests
in Tanzania – this somewhat explains why, months ago when I was transferring
money to pay for all this, the business address was listed as a tiny village in
Scotland). The staff quarters are hidden away behind some rocks but it doesn’t
sound like they are anything to brag about – tin-sided buildings occupied two
to a room, with little or no view, et cetera. The hours are self-evidently
grueling – you see people late at night serving dinner or tending the bar, and
then again serving breakfast (albeit they get some downtime during the day).
And of course there’s the isolation of the whole place and the consequent
separation from family, although that’s inherent in the premise. Anyway, it is
no surprise to hear that the life is not for everyone, but I must say that the
staff we encountered are all astoundingly pleasant and amiable-seeming.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzafcleF2t18VTzh1oxLGDaLmqpys_R4q5b6zw0dAM5nWcixi0TQkXuq1B5YH9kKZiGooUYFKSQ9nrLT2K2f5o8CrItrRtqNNoMsMDpLbFYUcDwyNf_saVZNcTH9FoG3AB3sRBulXBEwM/s1600/IMG_2016.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzafcleF2t18VTzh1oxLGDaLmqpys_R4q5b6zw0dAM5nWcixi0TQkXuq1B5YH9kKZiGooUYFKSQ9nrLT2K2f5o8CrItrRtqNNoMsMDpLbFYUcDwyNf_saVZNcTH9FoG3AB3sRBulXBEwM/s320/IMG_2016.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s possible to explore the desert
on a self-drive basis, although between the difficulty of navigation and not
having access to the radio intelligence network, it’s hard to see how you’d
locate most of the natural wonders. We came across one guy stuck in the mud – a
supply truck had stopped to help, and Lazaro joined in as well (the guy’s wife
stayed in the vehicle throughout). I was happy the guy gave Lazaro some money
for his help once he was finally out. He came up to apologize to us also and
said he hoped it would be the only farce we’d witness today (it was). I did
advise Lazaro to get away from the guy quickly before he got stuck again.
Regarding the radio chatter – we were told that while Swahili is common to everyone,
Tanzania also has 126 individual languages, all of which thrive within their
distinct tribes or subcultures. Of course, it would take much more time and
investigation to get a real sense of the country. Apparently it’s recently
become mandatory for children to go to school; however, the best schools are
private and beyond the reach of ordinary people (one staff member, telling us
about this, hinted very politely about his hope of finding a foreign benefactor
to fund this for his sons). Family structures are evolving toward something
more recognizably Western (as in Lazaro’s one wife versus his father’s five; we
heard another story like this too) but at the cost of well-established
traditional structures. I suppose everything is always a tumble of steps forward
and accompanying (hopefully smaller) ones backward.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAmc2LPeV7A5rT_nuSXZUsjCKGg58-LUeQPtOXIOGAucRAuWKo9nO5xeTEjxrE0cmxRplQI4YH_gWFAp2qBY0FA5zSRE48W67B5Jig3COdJxhJleX8akfjvZOAbfgYQIkwmqDrfNK5e0/s1600/IMG_2025.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlAmc2LPeV7A5rT_nuSXZUsjCKGg58-LUeQPtOXIOGAucRAuWKo9nO5xeTEjxrE0cmxRplQI4YH_gWFAp2qBY0FA5zSRE48W67B5Jig3COdJxhJleX8akfjvZOAbfgYQIkwmqDrfNK5e0/s320/IMG_2025.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">At dinner we talked to a neurotic
American from Portland and yet another Swiss guy – as often happens, we didn’t
necessarily start off strong with the group conversation, but ended up still
being at the table after everyone else had moved on. (Whenever I tell people
I’ve been completely off my phone, they usually start by claiming to be doing
much the same thing, a claim which then rapidly falls apart on further
questioning – it’s similar to how people like to claim they hardly eat meat,
again regardless of their actual habits). The lodge is much fuller than it was
yesterday, in part because one of the mobile camps was washed away by the storm
and so people had to be relocated. The buffalo were yet again moving around the
lodge during the night, but we didn’t hear them (the nights are far from quiet,
with a complex symphony of chirps and hums and rustles and even the occasional
roar, but we didn’t find any of this kept us awake). We had breakfast for the
last time here. We filled in our comment card and did not have a single
criticism.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Pinda/Penda drove us to the
airstrip, just as he’d picked us up. He said his great ambition is to be a full
guide – currently he is more of an assistant guide/jack of all trades (his duties
include doing the laundry). If nothing else, the tips are much much greater for
a guide as they are customarily the only ones who are tipped separately (I have
to admit we gave more to Lazaro individually than to all the others combined,
although this is not out of line with what the lodge recommends). We felt bad
for Pinda/Penda though because it seems he has a long way to go in overall
fluency. For instance, we passed a very freshly killed zebra, with the
victorious lion on a rock nearby, having eaten no more than a few mouthfuls out
of the underbelly. This surprised us, but it was only when we mentioned it in
Selous that we were given the likely narrative, that lions are often exhausted
after their kills and frequently take such respites before settling in to enjoy
their handiwork.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrcMk-9gl7jLGVFTGSdgrpqcwCyqqghLyaryAJNW3544EY_S7SxizrJ7OLLchIeS9Gj1RfkkwSGVNJI_WglVgy-4DGsY7UwY19VwA6RU3vA4KIgm7h5dSZJl8jxKNqUVZ_bxWnHTNXsI/s1600/IMG_2043.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrcMk-9gl7jLGVFTGSdgrpqcwCyqqghLyaryAJNW3544EY_S7SxizrJ7OLLchIeS9Gj1RfkkwSGVNJI_WglVgy-4DGsY7UwY19VwA6RU3vA4KIgm7h5dSZJl8jxKNqUVZ_bxWnHTNXsI/s320/IMG_2043.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Anyway, it is funny that the
Serengeti’s Kokatende airstrip requests that passengers arrive forty-five
minutes early, as the normal airport process is entirely absent – you just walk
up to the plane with your (entirely unchecked) bags, and if your name is on the
list, you get on the plane. The plane was a ten-seater, and that includes the
seat next to the pilot, which I expect would be a big thrill for some
passengers. We stopped in one airport to refuel – it seems there is a Four
Seasons Serengeti near there (must be quite something). Some ninety minutes
later we touched down in Zanzibar, so we got to see it from the air at least –
ranging from what looks from above like vast areas of tin boxes on one side of
the island, to (presumably) hotels with as much space to themselves as a
hundred such boxes, and then large areas on the other side of the island where
it was hard to make out much population density at all. Overall, it looked
smaller than we’d expected – we’d toyed when planning the trip with the idea of
spending a few nights there, but our impression from above was that there was
no reason to regret our decision to skip it. We took off again, and fifteen
minutes later arrived in Dar Es Salaam, a much bigger city, which at least from
our narrow entry angle seemed to allow its inhabitants a little more breathing
room. Our bags did get scanned there, and ten minutes later we were in the
departure area, where we spent a couple of hours (naturally, Nomad had supplied
us with lunch to take with us). We went on wi-fi for the first time since
arriving in Tanzania, but it wasn’t a particularly uplifting experience, so
we’ll revert to silence now for the next five days. I must admit that my
confidence in my Albert Brooks theory has now somewhat diminished, although I
could not research the matter enough to reach a definitive conclusion one way
or the other.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCkTR-sANmUngETGWHknxLN9jC-EM3GEKpxA4tTw0LQiQ0mVGkLn-_uqgK76_tTubsBgTsNtPE2UHIEKcGKoyV0V6GkBMM6467jVcu0PDjINPnqN8geY8Qd2PaVDNDVcJ5wDzoNNzOoBo/s1600/IMG_2050.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCkTR-sANmUngETGWHknxLN9jC-EM3GEKpxA4tTw0LQiQ0mVGkLn-_uqgK76_tTubsBgTsNtPE2UHIEKcGKoyV0V6GkBMM6467jVcu0PDjINPnqN8geY8Qd2PaVDNDVcJ5wDzoNNzOoBo/s320/IMG_2050.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Then we caught another small plane,
another ten-seater I think, to Selous, flying over dazzlingly mysterious
patterns of water and forest and sand. It took about half an hour to the Kiba
airstrip, which is literally just that, without even the tiny facilities of the
Serengeti strip. Another guy got off there, and it turned out he was the
manager of the place, Eric, returning from a brief leave. It’s instantly
apparent that we will be even more isolated here than we were in Lamai (where,
as I mentioned, we were always running into trucks from other safaris – we may
have registered as many as thirty different safari brand/logos there). The
drive to the lodge didn’t take long, and then we met the acting managers, Fabio
and Barbara - another young imported couple, this time from Germany – and we
got an introductory pep talk which was much like the one in Lamai, except that
the European accents make things sound more like commands than enticements. One
thing that’s different is that here the laundry excludes all underwear, not
just female underwear – this is a recent change they say they made for
egalitarian purposes (they acknowledged Eric may change it back). </span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fZ1Oo9QL6dEQP7QEHOPVj7VxwuV85vFTeRLTEFsf1UAGIfSAljuIHIWo_LV0k8T82K25HvfwJ9PU7XQPSOmseDK-R4FgDyLEtBTKxntD05JjWUEP32IhoiODFSebLSl7MEx3eEw1TX0/s1600/IMG_2061.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fZ1Oo9QL6dEQP7QEHOPVj7VxwuV85vFTeRLTEFsf1UAGIfSAljuIHIWo_LV0k8T82K25HvfwJ9PU7XQPSOmseDK-R4FgDyLEtBTKxntD05JjWUEP32IhoiODFSebLSl7MEx3eEw1TX0/s320/IMG_2061.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The lodge has a main “mess area”
with a library and a bar on the left, and a dining area on the right. Beyond
the bar is a swimming pool, and from there you can walk down to a beach (which
however you’re not meant to do without staff accompaniment, mainly to avoid
getting between a hippo and the water – more on this later). Our room is
similar to Lamai in terms of size (i.e. embarrassingly huge) and general
opulence – however, the walls are of wood rather than stone, and the front is
completely open, so that only a mosquito net separates us from, uh, all of
Africa. They say there is no risk of dangerous animals entering our room, but
monkeys or bush babies may come in and steal anything that seems edible, or
sweet-smelling, or otherwise appealing – various boxes are provided to lock
things up. We may have taken this too much to heart because as I write this – a
day or so later – I can never find anything because we’ve so meticulously
hidden it. Directly beneath our window there is a clearing, and some brush
beyond that, and then interwoven stretches of sand and water, with more trees
and mountains beyond. It’s very dark at night, but during the day there is
every chance of seeing hippos, and they may come up very close to the units as
well, even directly below. But I think the “bush music” overall is a little
quieter than it was in Lamai.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYu_IcwjoEMisdB59I37u2TWNLnb_fRiP6ynLbGAEshUCAFqiuV94ljuoQe4OT4KJl_l8IGyVvyvZRA4ruIY-J1oW5_BhcR_KCl-7L0tyRiGUOh5Si3ZzsQc2zq50bKLJzt3GP9iOjw3k/s1600/IMG_2062.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYu_IcwjoEMisdB59I37u2TWNLnb_fRiP6ynLbGAEshUCAFqiuV94ljuoQe4OT4KJl_l8IGyVvyvZRA4ruIY-J1oW5_BhcR_KCl-7L0tyRiGUOh5Si3ZzsQc2zq50bKLJzt3GP9iOjw3k/s320/IMG_2062.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">At dinner we met two older couples,
one British and one Italian. Overall the lodge is more dimly lit than it was in
Lamai and the staff are either more evasive or else fewer in number, giving
things the constant sense of being on the verge of slipping away altogether
into the night. But again, the Nomad brand rapidly comes across in the
structure and tone of the day. The staff vary in their command of English, but
the one phrase they all know is “You’re welcome.” I think some of them grab
onto it as an all-purpose substitute for “Hello,” or “Please” or “Enjoy your
meal” or whatever else evades them; it’s very endearing. The conversation at
dinner though was a bit monotonous, focusing almost entirely on past safari
experiences (both the other couples were double-digit veterans) and on great
photographs of their past or of their imagined futures (I had no idea that wild
dogs were such an evasive target). I imagine our little camera looks silly to
such heavy-duty people, but we would much rather rely on our senses and
memories than on photographs (I rather like the idea of coming here and not
taking a single picture, but everyone would think us crazy, and besides in the
absence of any photographic evidence might suspect us of having invented the
whole trip). We took two glasses of wine back to our room to end the night – we
never did this in Lamai because, as mentioned, we wouldn’t have been allowed to
drink them outside). We both fell asleep quickly, but I woke up at some point
and couldn’t get back to sleep, which made the following morning difficult at
times. I ended up sleeping through lunch the following day, so Ally had to go and
eat alone like a sad solo traveler.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC-YCKgC0hR_xNlCykIRdlfWVGQHKTX12e9YI124TA5apOst5_ssykDgHTZIPutqXrPw-sLIyzFi0JwxycgqIzs_T2IXKXTgEs7iGUApwmzFirOg9FZWJS8XDQZX4NnIuJ4SbvhqKae5c/s1600/IMG_2095.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC-YCKgC0hR_xNlCykIRdlfWVGQHKTX12e9YI124TA5apOst5_ssykDgHTZIPutqXrPw-sLIyzFi0JwxycgqIzs_T2IXKXTgEs7iGUApwmzFirOg9FZWJS8XDQZX4NnIuJ4SbvhqKae5c/s320/IMG_2095.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But there was nothing sad about the
morning drive, unless you adopt the perspective of the numerous dead animals we
encountered. We had heard two things about Selous – that it’s hotter than
Lamai, and that the animals are less plentiful. The first is entirely true – we
left at 7 am, and by around 11 am the heat was uncomfortable even in the shade
of the vehicle; we arrived back at 12.15 pm, which by that measure didn’t seem
like a moment too soon. They avoid scheduling anything during the afternoon,
which seems wise (even though our room avoids technology with regard to such
things as televisions and mini-bars, it does have an enormous electric fan
above the bed). The second is also true – we saw an almost comically small
number of wildebeest compared to what we’ve come to expect, and there were
often longer waits between sightings, especially again toward the end of the
drive when the animals had all scurried into various patches of shade. But
there were wonderful compensating benefits. We certainly saw giraffes in
greater numbers than in Lamai. We saw amazing sweeping panoramas, in which by
turning your head you moved from hippos to drinking giraffes to a herd of
buffalo to a lioness and her eight cubs, feasting on one of those very buffalo.
We drove closer to the latter sight and ended up watching it for well over half
an hour – various cubs deciding they’d had enough, then changing their minds
and coming back, fighting over the best shreds of remaining flesh; the mother
dragging the carcass deeper into the shade, over the objection of two cubs; and
for most of the time, the wretched hollow stare of the dead creature pointed in
our direction. Later we saw an even more ghoulish sight – a hyena tearing at
the neck of a fallen giraffe, long after the lions had moved on; we saw the
hyena move on too, just suddenly deciding enough was enough and trotting away
without a backward glance, at which the vultures moved in, plunging their beaks
deep into the little that remained. It’s an entirely efficient distribution of
spoils, as if constituting the bleakest possible ad for a project management
enterprise. We also saw various antelopes, eland, warthogs, birds (I’ve been
delinquent in saying much about the birds – I guess they’re more for connoisseurs
– but this is certainly some kind of birdwatching paradise I imagine) and so
on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjksbv4LHMLaHVNz4C6KqjgAc6BWI8GIsUhSw3PUThxCvkDe6WARwzat9WKuohgDLwN3kkNE8JFxeMOx7P0zbVYtIJ599OePBAYG_QQgqwXc3ynoR6o8jOLxvsfqkfrXOt-BUEoblPurxY/s320/IMG_2114.JPG" width="320" /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We drove up to a river bed that
seemed entirely dead, of interest only to baboons, but for a group of elephants
in the distance extracting with their trunks the little water that remained in
some subterranean reservoir and spraying it into their mouths (not quite as
efficiently as the events I just described). But during the rainy season (still
a few months away), it appears the river will be entirely replenished, to a
depth of what looked like over ten feet; likewise we drove through a “lake”
which couldn’t possibly be identified as such now, but will reappear when the
rain starts. There are a few more durably defined roadways which will be the
only supply lines during that season. For now the ground is mostly much
drier-looking than in the Serengeti, a study in yellows more than in greens,
although there are certainly exceptions, and few areas are completely devoid of
trees or bushes (I believe these are often acacias). The sense of reduced
plentitude also applies to other humans – we saw only a few trucks from other
lodges (even the nearest of them lies 35km away from us), a few self-drive
cars, and a guy driving a tractor who had gotten lost on his way to the
airstrip. I realize this can happen to anyone, but of all places to be
imprecise in one’s navigation… (he seemed to have retained his cheerfulness
though).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZXn1T-wRQ3Mm5DGSWyfMPcdA2cEf1Iij0dSGR4Iu6orubT2m3YKyUWlTZGihJdTOa4YkkYz2kILI6DQGNz2kJEbhyphenhyphenXTRtBEjIsrGeAiEYNVc_eNP4bEw4utGkbtvH99DaWpGz1hkhBA/s1600/IMG_2118.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYZXn1T-wRQ3Mm5DGSWyfMPcdA2cEf1Iij0dSGR4Iu6orubT2m3YKyUWlTZGihJdTOa4YkkYz2kILI6DQGNz2kJEbhyphenhyphenXTRtBEjIsrGeAiEYNVc_eNP4bEw4utGkbtvH99DaWpGz1hkhBA/s320/IMG_2118.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Our guide now is Deo, and we shared
most of the morning drive with a British guy called Nick who we picked up after
a night of fly camping (see later comments) and who was laden down with
cameras, although in his case it’s actually part of his job (providing new
visual content for an Africa-centric website, or something like that). Overall,
still writing this on the first afternoon, I think we may have designed the trip
perfectly – the bountifulness of the Serengeti provides an instant surfeit of
safari bliss, and then the Selous follows it up with something a little more
refined. It’s impossible as of now to say which of the two will be stronger in
our memories, not that it is an important matter to resolve. As I write, more
than halfway through the trip, we’re both surprised how little time we spend on
anything other than pure safari experience – we’re both still on the same books
we were reading back in Toronto for instance. This is of course exactly how it
should be. We can read any time!</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVsQyjCDbS4LJwUnVWsObGj1jgzjjJ85sSKjlBFk5bYxwDKF5EOXdaMrv7yPu-0l52Zuh4oRUgnCBBslFfHSqnAvSKWoVimci0vEKFD3z0Z-xQr85tU_YMIQ1faqytKI4DpzcH1WWsu_A/s1600/IMG_2126.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVsQyjCDbS4LJwUnVWsObGj1jgzjjJ85sSKjlBFk5bYxwDKF5EOXdaMrv7yPu-0l52Zuh4oRUgnCBBslFfHSqnAvSKWoVimci0vEKFD3z0Z-xQr85tU_YMIQ1faqytKI4DpzcH1WWsu_A/s320/IMG_2126.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The rituals continue – here too
they serve tea and cake at 4 pm at which time you meet your guide and discuss
the evening’s activities; he meets you again before dinner to plan the next morning,
and so on. A lot of it is scheduling – what time to leave, what time to have
breakfast, what time to have a wake-up call (and the early morning delivery of
tea/coffee, delivered here in the anti-monkey box, rather than through a hatch
as in Lamai). It could seem like being tied down too much, but on the other
hand, when will the time spent on activities ever be as precious? For the
evening drive, Nick dropped out and it was just us and Deo (they charge a
supplement if you want to guarantee your drives won’t be shared, but we were
lucky in that the great majority of our drives worked out that way regardless).
It was relatively low-key by some measures – only a smattering of significant
animal sightings (which is just as well as I’d forgotten to reload my camera
battery after recharging it) – but had one great incident which summed up how
you get drawn here into great narratives. Deo heard some baboon sounds which he
identified as a possible reaction to a leopard; then by watching the movement
of the baboons he deduced the possible location of the leopard, and then he
drove a little further and there it was! I expect it’s largely down to
experience, but it still seemed pretty masterful. The leopard only spent a
little time in the open though before disappearing into the bush, where we and
another vehicle were reduced to grabbing at shadows and faint flickers of
movement, with both Ally and I straining to catch even the faintest glimpse (it
helped when it moved its tail). We left for a while to look at other things,
and when we arrived back the leopard had relocated to a sturdy tree branch,
where it lay with all its legs hanging down, as if lacking a care in the world.
By this time it was getting dark, although on the way back we still got a kick
out of a group of hyenas rolling around in a mud puddle and refusing to move
for us (I guess they feel much ballsier at night).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5MBb4lBieebT1lgk9Dn9TzbOS1cw-4FfyzeRKymckzQE45Hu4Oi0C680f00eW2QutfNt4rs07U-JNPaIOqYKOnyuJElqJkUKl7Sgbi0tozby5BNrr0c3sJKF8i9rJyl430HWcfxFVMg/s1600/IMG_1958.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5MBb4lBieebT1lgk9Dn9TzbOS1cw-4FfyzeRKymckzQE45Hu4Oi0C680f00eW2QutfNt4rs07U-JNPaIOqYKOnyuJElqJkUKl7Sgbi0tozby5BNrr0c3sJKF8i9rJyl430HWcfxFVMg/s320/IMG_1958.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Deo says the leopards do come into
the lodge area sometimes, but that the total lack of protection in our room
isn’t a problem because they avoid humans. We accepted this, but it’s not hard
to see how some might be concerned. He told us he started as a waiter here and
rapidly became a guide. Another employee with aspirations to be a guide was
sitting in the back of one of the other trucks tonight, monitoring events and
exchanges as they drove around. His challenge, we’re told, will be fluency in
English rather than technical knowledge; this seems to be a common thing given
the similar situation we described in Lamai. But it’s a sad necessity – the
guides aren’t just here to point out animals (although that’s hardly a
negligible skill) but also to hold you captive through the spaces in between.
Anyway, observing the rituals at the lodge continues to be interesting in
itself. We perceive now some slight disorganization because the regular manager
Eric has returned, but the relief managers are still here trying to do their
thing, so that (for example) we were asked twice about our plans for the night.
This hardly matters. Eric seems to be born to the task by the way – a white
Tanzanian who has the host thing utterly down while also speaking fluent
Swahili (he co-manages the place with his girlfriend Natasha, who has also
returned now after being away). Fabio is also trying to learn Swahili, and gave
us several facts about the language, but some of these were subsequently
contradicted by others. Whether in management or lower down within the labour
force, I guess there are always challenges….</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We ate dinner at a table set far
away from the main group table, and again took some wine back to the room
afterwards. So far we’ve seen but one lonely monkey in the vicinity of our
room, and there was no real indication he was planning on stealing (funnily
enough, as soon as I wrote that I went to check on some rustling sounds, and
about ten or twelve at least have now arrived, but their intentions remain
unclear). In general, the animals here are clearly more cautious than in Lamai.
Most prominently, the elephants up there didn’t seem too worried about all the
trucks and the gawkers, but the elephants keep a severe distance here – Deo
says this is learned behaviour flowing from the local history of poaching. It’s
a bit sad to be told that parts of the Selous national park are set aside for
hunting, and that one can obtain a licence (albeit only very very expensively,
unless you bribe a crooked ranger or something) to kill just about any animal (the
giraffe is one exception, being Tanzania’s national animal, and so is the
elephant). It’s hard not to feel contempt for someone who would see, say, a
lion, and want only the experience of killing it, but perhaps they are more to
be pitied than scorned.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl01NIvJuGCwpygZ8pP3c7vGwwgLF19IjYdMxUvhYdWo74DODoxeGhk0DWwMIH6bAebmTfOL1cOT9XiR-7t_WjRR68VMujtD5TX4Z3mkshNbxMGgO-js-1FWYTJW-v7r_I7W1i781gToA/s1600/IMG_2162.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl01NIvJuGCwpygZ8pP3c7vGwwgLF19IjYdMxUvhYdWo74DODoxeGhk0DWwMIH6bAebmTfOL1cOT9XiR-7t_WjRR68VMujtD5TX4Z3mkshNbxMGgO-js-1FWYTJW-v7r_I7W1i781gToA/s320/IMG_2162.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We both slept well on Saturday
night, and then on 7 am on Sunday morning we set out for a boat trip on the
river. We only saw two other boats during the subsequent five hours or so. We
saw – and I’m truly not exaggerating – perhaps a thousand hippos though. Time
and again, we saw them from a distance, partially out of the water; then as we
approached they submerged themselves up to their eyes and ears, leaving us
under scrutiny by ten or fifteen suspicious hippo craniums, then as we drew
even closer they submerged completely (an underwater camera would have yielded
some astounding mass hippo groupings). Obviously they are very reticent about
humans, which is just as well, because plenty of Tanzanians have been killed by
stumbling upon a grazing hippo and inadvertently blocking its path back to the
water. The other main feature was crocodiles – for all their fearsome
reputation, apparently as skittish as the hippos; we had the recurring sight of
a crocodile basking on its little patch of sand, and then sliding into the
water as we approached.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyxVohC4Xx0IHwsmNW8zkl4L0_WcLt_EVy1lufn7oMUjtRHbsdY4mJd8GoBEFe671pwt2NXt_jcK8J6kdX96_v8OjCTZHL52GEzywqFcM1180WGqDjgW15D-tfGdBtcQZizU1f3lLAxsk/s1600/IMG_2169.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyxVohC4Xx0IHwsmNW8zkl4L0_WcLt_EVy1lufn7oMUjtRHbsdY4mJd8GoBEFe671pwt2NXt_jcK8J6kdX96_v8OjCTZHL52GEzywqFcM1180WGqDjgW15D-tfGdBtcQZizU1f3lLAxsk/s320/IMG_2169.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Throughout the trip, we passed by
what would be stunning, soft-sanded, secluded beaches, if one had a way of
getting to them, and of being sure they were not areas of interest to
crocodiles (at this time of year, there are many unhatched eggs secreted in
that sand). Other creatures made guest appearances on the banks – a solo
drinking giraffe, elephants (but to prove the earlier point, they disappeared
as soon as they registered our presence, even in a boat), impala (in terms of
guaranteed sightings on any particular outing, impala are to Selous what
wildebeest were to Lamai), baboons, fish eagles, kingfishers. After about two
hours, we stopped at a spot within a towering gorge (plainly they often stop at
the same spot, indicated by the evidence of a discarded flip-flop sole). Deo
set out breakfast there on a table-sized rock, and we ate overlooking the
water. We headed back, with the heat rising again for the last hour or so, and
arrived back just before noon. Fabio and Barbara have departed now and Eric is
back in control. Perhaps this is why the gift shop, which they’d told us was
open for us to wander into twenty-four hours a day, was securely locked up when
we tried to check it out. No doubt the original laundry directive is already back
in place!</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKcf4zjbLn84z9bDjhJ8Mhahyphenhyphen8yvTi878LZZOyq2pTV5a2r4iLiUY1MWeeLV2ON45N1kWjpwPxsHdTdC369GrEaWdsOXafZc0w1IcmX-IPAXhd6mJJBiLyMfrDSvkLr1f119c6NbjVng/s1600/IMG_2183.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKcf4zjbLn84z9bDjhJ8Mhahyphenhyphen8yvTi878LZZOyq2pTV5a2r4iLiUY1MWeeLV2ON45N1kWjpwPxsHdTdC369GrEaWdsOXafZc0w1IcmX-IPAXhd6mJJBiLyMfrDSvkLr1f119c6NbjVng/s320/IMG_2183.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">If we were people who tanned, we’d
be impressively brown by now; as it is, we must settle for avoiding the worst
potential for sunburn (which I think we’ve achieved adequately). The monkeys
chose to move on without invading our room, which might be viewed as a bit of
an insult. The only regular visitors are ants – I think the staff sprays for
them every evening. We ate lunch (carrot baklava – hard to fault the menus
here) with hippos in the distance, and then spent a few quiet hours in the room.
In the afternoon we had a very peaceful drive, with the animals mostly seeming
very mellow. I have not even tried to write down all the insight into animal
structures and behavior. You try to resist viewing animals as broader versions
of humans, and yet time and again they seem to invite that kind of parallel. We
learned for example that when you see buffalo by themselves, it’s usually
because keeping up with the ever-moving herd has become too much for them with
age, and so they choose a smaller area in which to spend their remaining days.
Today we saw three such old male buffalo, all ambling along the side of the
lake together, then collectively venturing into the water; Deo says that as
long as the three survive and stick together, they’ll be safe from lions and
leopards. In the upcoming movie version, they’ll of course be played by Michael
Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin. Also very entertaining is the forward
movement of the baboon troop, always with a lookout in the trees scanning
diligently for leopards, ready to shriek when they do (which is bad news for
them, but as previously documented, good news for tourists with alert guides).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWMX98P_OVuShbd9Hy5vpEm8Ob5VTv1J13OU9lJQvZ-dCJa3yp_lkFLHWx1Gz9tP3Igl0mgbT4DRrTcRi4U79yhGED8tFWzXYH9ebT8XJK7k1NLCglBRahlgRl9ZM6eo6_DCV5b55EdxY/s1600/IMG_2228.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWMX98P_OVuShbd9Hy5vpEm8Ob5VTv1J13OU9lJQvZ-dCJa3yp_lkFLHWx1Gz9tP3Igl0mgbT4DRrTcRi4U79yhGED8tFWzXYH9ebT8XJK7k1NLCglBRahlgRl9ZM6eo6_DCV5b55EdxY/s320/IMG_2228.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We arrived at the “fly camp” as the
sun went down. This is a mobile camp, allowing visitors an even more rarified
and separated existence – it only accommodates one group a night. They had set
up a tent for us to sleep in, overlooking the lake; a tent behind that in which
to change; a bucket shower, which we didn’t end up using; a drop toilet (with a
proper seat and everything though); a fully set table for our dinner; a bar
area; and a bonfire with seats around it. In addition to Deo, who spent the
whole night awake on guard, it comes with a waiter, a cook, and a general
attendant – the latter two stayed well out of the way, to protect the refined
nature of the existence. The truth is, it was a little too much pampering for
us. At dinner they served I think six different kinds of vegetable dish, and
then apologized to us for having unnecessarily barbecued three different kinds of
meat which we didn’t want (perhaps the suggestion was that if they’d realized
we didn’t want the meat, they would have bought <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ten</i> different kinds of vegetable dish?) It was a beautiful spot though
– a bird watcher’s paradise of eagles and kingfishers and geese and herons and
others, with hippos and crocodiles entering or exiting the water, and other
animals occasionally visiting on the other side. After it got dark we saw the
stars more clearly than we have in years – neither of us is sure we’ve ever
really seen the Milky Way before. Deo occasionally swung his flashlight to
illuminate the fish (tilapia) jumping from the pursuing crocodiles. We chatted
occasionally to Deo and to<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Jimmy the
waiter (yet another person who expressed his desire to be a guide, and for whom
language will be an evident difficulty), learning among other things that the
most popular sport with the guys is English soccer (the previous day, they’d
been collectively watching Liverpool versus Manchester United in the staff
quarters; Tanzania has never even qualified for the World Cup finals) and that
their current favourite musicians include Rick Ross, Chris Brown, DJ Khaled, 50
Cent, Beyonce, Rihanna and Kanye West (I mentioned we had actually seen some of
these perform live, but it seemed like too abstract a concept to fully
register). Sample names such as the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen evoked
not the slightest glimmer of recognition. No one has seemed overly interested
in asking about our lives – hard to say whether that’s a matter of policy or of
disinterest. Jimmy asked the occasional question that stumped us though, for
instance: where would we obtain the firewood, if we were to heat our home using
firewood rather than electricity? (Of all times to have wished for the
Internet!)</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8l2nBjiiwryv7CvxLW1EtW_T7zyNZCz7Ib9724enKUdfKSh2Wij7yAwGXvDPN16hbttYvUuGVh2gXuvKN-iIxIlavDJOrB-Yyvvtf6jsIXKj9KM9SvIrgCi6MBC-YBv8a_gH_QpT6Pk4/s1600/IMG_2236.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8l2nBjiiwryv7CvxLW1EtW_T7zyNZCz7Ib9724enKUdfKSh2Wij7yAwGXvDPN16hbttYvUuGVh2gXuvKN-iIxIlavDJOrB-Yyvvtf6jsIXKj9KM9SvIrgCi6MBC-YBv8a_gH_QpT6Pk4/s320/IMG_2236.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We retreated to our tent around 11
pm. It’s strange that once we zipped ourselves up in there, we actually had a
thicker barrier between ourselves and the Selous than we do in our room, where
there’s only the mosquito net. We fell asleep quickly and slept well, although
I had much longer and more vivid dreams than I usually do, perhaps a gift of
the stars (or perhaps, Ally points out less poetically, a side effect of the
malaria pills we take every day). Sometime around 5 am, they started setting up
our breakfast table and preparing our meal – once again, of course, far more
than we needed (we had eggs and toast and a little of the fruit, but declined
the yogurt, cereal, sausage and bacon). Deo reported hearing several leopards
during the night, and a passage of elephants not far away, but I think it was a
largely uneventful night in the African wild - it certainly seemed quieter than
we expected, at least until dawn, when the hippos return to the water after a
night of grazing and call out to each other.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rhoMIokP95kxxtDG5vWZzHp_69hh6Yg0UDIVlTLmLi7XoPXH-KqAcEY281CewX7_1IjiCJC1LN05fsTdQleSeYu3Pp4aOydqeZuiUfcIzdLT4pNQllx4B0L27crapWbU-9VoIm6gbxM/s1600/IMG_2237.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1rhoMIokP95kxxtDG5vWZzHp_69hh6Yg0UDIVlTLmLi7XoPXH-KqAcEY281CewX7_1IjiCJC1LN05fsTdQleSeYu3Pp4aOydqeZuiUfcIzdLT4pNQllx4B0L27crapWbU-9VoIm6gbxM/s320/IMG_2237.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At around
7 am, we set out to walk back to the lodge. This is not the typical end to the
fly camping experience – it’s usually followed by a morning game drive – but we
requested the walk. It took about two and a half hours to cover the 7 km – it
seemed that we took the most direct route possible, ascending and descending
over rocky terrain that would be inaccessible to the truck. It was hot from the
start, with minimal clouds today, and the route allowed little shade, but at
least we had the occasional breeze. To attempt the same walk at noon might
perhaps be virtually suicidal. Poor Deo not only had to do all this after a
sleepless night – we hadn’t realized when we made the arrangements that he
would be on patrol all night, we assumed it would be someone else – but also
had to carry his rifle, a first aid kit, and who knows what else. I assume
there’s only the faintest chance the rifle would ever be necessary, as we
encountered very few animals, and then mostly only brief sightings as they ran
away. It might seem that animals would be more scared of big mechanical trucks
than of people on foot, but experience has taught them the opposite. The
bravest were the wildebeest, or perhaps they were only the most reluctant to
give up their nice patch of grass (which I think they circled round and
returned to as soon as we passed out of sight).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPHCkjAGOMpGTxa864TJcv5hkSTBsAVEdOFYjgWhL0SHMPvVzrLWZx5UNp6SA38f9Y40fV_KDG9KkdYkF9cyuXq52vzuQnGETz959t64yoEY1k-nPq9H3lSHmpK0Iqr6x5HbA4AlIOK0/s1600/IMG_2242.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPHCkjAGOMpGTxa864TJcv5hkSTBsAVEdOFYjgWhL0SHMPvVzrLWZx5UNp6SA38f9Y40fV_KDG9KkdYkF9cyuXq52vzuQnGETz959t64yoEY1k-nPq9H3lSHmpK0Iqr6x5HbA4AlIOK0/s320/IMG_2242.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Ally is continuing
to try to develop her guide skills, but her ability to recognize animal
footprints remains a bit haphazard (it is interesting though to learn from the
prints that the dead zones we passed through this morning were, within the past
few hours, virtual highways of activity by intermingled zebras, buffalo,
baboons, civets, etc.). The camp failed us to greet us with cold drinks and wet
towels – somehow I feel Lamai would have been more on top of this! Oh wait, I
said we didn’t want to be overly pampered. Ally ventured bravely to the main
area to get the drinks herself. The morning passed easily by; we napped, Ally
finally finished reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Swing Time</i>,
I wrote this. We had a shower – the room has its own solar-heated water supply,
and given where we are, it must the most scalding solar-heated water in the
world. But then I don’t think it is stored in an insulated tank or anything,
because during the night it all gets cold. The monkeys did not return, and the
beach and river below our window appeared barely disturbed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We ate
lunch – Eric came over and commented on how Deo had been dripping with sweat at
the end of his walk. The lodge has five rooms and three somewhat larger
“suites,” which incorporate a private plunge pool – I think it is currently
just over half full. This includes a British family, parents and two boys, who
seem (from our merely superficial impression) to embody teenage alienation –
one of the boys seems disinterested in everything, and has skipped at least one
of the family outings altogether, seemingly preferring just to hang around the
lodge by himself (later we were told he was working on an essay, which seems a
bit odd in a different way). We walked around the grounds for a while and
checked things out. Like all such places, the library is a mystifying mishmash
of curios (an outdated guide to aviation theory and practice, a German
translation of one of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo</i> trilogy, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Life on the
Road</i> by Charles Kurault, and so forth). A heavy wooden box decorated in
handsome giraffe carvings opens to reveal a backgammon set. And so on. We’d
been told not to go down to the beach without some accompaniment, and we
considered requesting that, but then decided it was too hot anyway. We spent
more time in the room. Among other things it is equipped with sarongs, which
Fabio earlier went out of his way to position as the ideal evening wear for the
fashionable male – he and Eric both adhere to this at dinner, and at least one
male guest so far has followed suit. For me it was enough of a fashion leap to
have worn something other than black for our daytime drives (probably a wise
decision here, but I don’t think the white T-shirts will see much action at
home). In addition to writing this (as if that wasn’t already more than anyone
would ever read) I’ve started writing the short story I mentioned earlier. Ally
is now reading a recent edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
New Yorker</i>, even while lamenting that it makes her think too much about the
real world. We won’t be removed from it for so much longer.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifeb9srrgrk11sZIasYyqJOdJh0dGXSiyNCzJhd_tx_cX1k3NnpuD0sNRESFSdljVfnKmZ0F8zq2KYR56RiUmF0oZInmKAWbmGqB5YriVhmZWB3TMQuUQd4rVFogai6RHtvcdPvhxhjhE/s1600/IMG_2275.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifeb9srrgrk11sZIasYyqJOdJh0dGXSiyNCzJhd_tx_cX1k3NnpuD0sNRESFSdljVfnKmZ0F8zq2KYR56RiUmF0oZInmKAWbmGqB5YriVhmZWB3TMQuUQd4rVFogai6RHtvcdPvhxhjhE/s320/IMG_2275.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But
first, more game drives. There are very few female guides, Deo tells us,
because “they do not want to spend too much time in the bush because they want to
be taking care of the babies.” So there you are! On the topic of guide
diversity, we saw no white guides in the Serengeti; we did see one down here
though, from another lodge – apparently the guy can speak Swahili and so isn’t
frozen out. We are both quite taken by Deo’s manner of speaking, and the kind
of deliberate poetry he gives to lines like (regarding baboons) “it is the
noise they are making when they are seeing the leopard” or (regarding hippos)
“they are moving from the shallow water to the deep water.” He's also very adept at mimicking various animal sounds (I teased him that he probably practices this in his room). Our game drive
tonight was mostly quiet (apparently we missed no exciting sightings this
morning either) until we saw the leopard, and although it was a close call, I
think Ally may have analyzed the situation and identified the leopard a fraction
of a second ahead of him, so I was very proud – she studied the impala and the
way they were staring in one direction, and then she scrutinized the relevant
portion of the bush, and she located the prowling leopard! Because the leopard
is very shy – we also like the way Deo calls every animal “very shy,” except
for the few exceptions he identifies as “not very shy” – it skulked away into
the bush, and then we and another vehicle spent some time circling until it
came out. It ended up posing nicely on a sturdy tree branch. We also saw the
civet for the first time, although not as much more than a furtive silhouette.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSA4KfzZfPuWkme3P3-vvTjmmbIkakHiMwX85I8e8g1-9DKmrty-dr6i4N8JzmjYtLcKEx3V1Iex6ibkGnz4uVJ6ciXTbJ4cvsb8fGWQQCE9BTAauhQOREoYaR1uzsAO5qRXKdkIzAmvY/s1600/IMG_2277.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSA4KfzZfPuWkme3P3-vvTjmmbIkakHiMwX85I8e8g1-9DKmrty-dr6i4N8JzmjYtLcKEx3V1Iex6ibkGnz4uVJ6ciXTbJ4cvsb8fGWQQCE9BTAauhQOREoYaR1uzsAO5qRXKdkIzAmvY/s320/IMG_2277.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>An
English woman at dinner was very jealous of our two leopard sightings here,
having scored none herself, but at least she has two more days to remedy it. We
sat near yet another Swiss couple, and another British couple – the man was
from Liverpool and they were very familiar with the part of Wales where we go
to visit. The conversation was fine except for the times when it veered into
Trump and Brexit. I am seriously thinking on how to spend less time going
forward on monitoring and absorbing the endless depressing sludge of “news,”
and more time on mental engagement that’s elevating (without, that is, being
merely escapist). It’s been easy to do here, but the state of mind you
cultivate in Africa probably won’t make it through Canadian customs. </span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimqmg5O_eXPsweyq-aT-pmvJMe-t7Ocdsjmx95OWeSNyhiPNEOAZ5E_w96pFWjSwXRMlN1nFyVrMAgcM6GvU8HDaBO5BrKSdpMuonvQ9h-18IHyhGEiHi95AD25_NaaE8p8mtBihbims4/s1600/IMG_2331.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimqmg5O_eXPsweyq-aT-pmvJMe-t7Ocdsjmx95OWeSNyhiPNEOAZ5E_w96pFWjSwXRMlN1nFyVrMAgcM6GvU8HDaBO5BrKSdpMuonvQ9h-18IHyhGEiHi95AD25_NaaE8p8mtBihbims4/s320/IMG_2331.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We again
had a last glass of wine in the room, and set off the following morning at 6.30
am. I mentioned before that one of the rarer sightings, to our surprise, is
that of the wild dog packs, because they roam so widely and unpredictably. A
truck ahead of us got a good sighting this morning of a 14-dog pack retreating
into the bush with its kill, a baby impala; we arrived in time only to see the
last of the fourteen disappearing from view. For the first time today we saw
the kudu, regarded as perhaps the most beautiful of the antelope, especially
the male for its distinctively twisted horns. They were in a particular area
where they often congregate for the dense availability of a particular
yellow-flowering tree. As I sometimes do, I was whispering in Ally’s ear my
imagined translation of an extended radio exchange between Deo and another
guide:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Hamadi: Deo, you lied to me man, there’s no kudu anywhere
around here.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Deo: They’re where they always are dumbass, near the yellow
flowers, you just need to look harder.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Hamadi: Oh I screwed up, I thought you meant away from the
yellow flowers, I always get that wrong.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Etc.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>As it
turned out, the first part of that imagined translation was essentially
accurate.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX41u9cdZtg9nDVCeClQ4o6E5Nc-BcvQjbyiQkPpV5AchSoelqVhDphnXv_XY53VRCP3an8m5d86CLzIE2sU0c1pPz7FLwVj-lO7Z-DlGeRmPE7-vpHpw1rVGlrbgpgBgB22xYDBgdUYk/s1600/IMG_2301.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX41u9cdZtg9nDVCeClQ4o6E5Nc-BcvQjbyiQkPpV5AchSoelqVhDphnXv_XY53VRCP3an8m5d86CLzIE2sU0c1pPz7FLwVj-lO7Z-DlGeRmPE7-vpHpw1rVGlrbgpgBgB22xYDBgdUYk/s320/IMG_2301.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The main
event of the morning though was the lions, the same mother and eight cubs we
saw the other day feasting on a buffalo. We encountered them not far from that
spot, moving regally down towards a lake at different speeds and in varying
configurations, the cubs eventually settling in the shade, where some of them
ended up rolling over on their backs as they slept, basking in the kind of
entitled relaxation that few non-domestic animals can allow themselves. The
lioness positioned herself with a wide view of the lake and of the action
around it, but few animals arrived to drink, and most of those were on the far
side, away from imminent danger; a herd of buffalo managed to come and go
without incident. A warthog toyed with entering the danger zone, but thought
better of it and withdrew. We drove to a nearby spot for breakfast and then
drove on before returning later. Our timing was very fortunate – we arrived as
a family of giraffes came to drink on the far side of the lake; the parents
moved away too soon, leaving a young giraffe behind, still drinking. The lion
immediately reacted to this opportunity, murderously circling the lake like a
dark surge in the sand itself, closing in on the distance (10 to 20 metres)
from which it likes to attack. The various impala in the region tuned in and
took off, but the giraffe didn’t seem to sense danger; we were certain its fate
was sealed. But the careless parents came back into view, the calf closed the
gap, and the lion pragmatically started to return without ever going in for the
kill.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HK1ppmMpbbd4Sz26GQ9UpjMcN8ArDiQBl-EHKRApj0qQo5oD5W74ugrMsvFgjFEmHvdNBeO_r52ykpJRs9J-NVlaSwhXaAquVYDBvldSIqQi2W7n27ar72Emh7BEj7xvvZPJLZrulac/s1600/IMG_2312.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HK1ppmMpbbd4Sz26GQ9UpjMcN8ArDiQBl-EHKRApj0qQo5oD5W74ugrMsvFgjFEmHvdNBeO_r52ykpJRs9J-NVlaSwhXaAquVYDBvldSIqQi2W7n27ar72Emh7BEj7xvvZPJLZrulac/s320/IMG_2312.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But then
an even more gripping drama developed, because the warthog returned, now with a
companion, stumbling into a patch of beach that now held lions on both sides.
The prowling lioness refocused and drew closer, but the warthogs thought better
of it and withdrew to safety. Deo’s assessment was that the lions would wait
there all day and that the better hunting opportunities would return in the
late afternoon as it cooled, so we headed back for lunch, etc. Not the least
entertaining part of this was that most the lion cubs had been dead to the
world through the whole thing. Presumably they would have been happy to wake up
to eat though; indeed, the lioness would likely have insisted they eat first.
Again, one can satirize this in human-like terms (kids today are just too
entitled!) but that would only obscure the beauty of it rather than
illuminating it.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1P8nL_Oa-Fg12I1dyH25BLbbBeRFf91ZhusNF95ymFYQUcTTNDEEmgFxRT9bkKHK88Anc_cDNCgDASU5VRMniHVBIv4rTmYdr1izYwne9DzEYk8HkUqxJQwmFnOrMOkka3oHSAAdWW80/s1600/IMG_2304.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1P8nL_Oa-Fg12I1dyH25BLbbBeRFf91ZhusNF95ymFYQUcTTNDEEmgFxRT9bkKHK88Anc_cDNCgDASU5VRMniHVBIv4rTmYdr1izYwne9DzEYk8HkUqxJQwmFnOrMOkka3oHSAAdWW80/s320/IMG_2304.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Ally started to organize our
baggage, to extract the clothes we intend to wear on the way home and so forth,
an obvious sign of things winding down. But neither of us is too sad. The trip
has been relatively short by the standards of many trips to Africa, but our
memories and our senses are already full enough. The big question, as so often,
is how to make this an experience that lives on in Toronto in some form, rather
than solely in the rearview mirror. The other big question is how soon we’ll
return to Africa, or even to Tanzania specifically. At the moment, we’re
thinking it should be very soon, but we may remember in due course that the
world has other choices with other worthy cases to argue for themselves, even
if limited by the absence of lions and giraffes.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxRKTGr7AAGmnRuVc832AUuU530yW9G1MOgc6iToc0cRWavUi5A0Ow8hwzyMZGlX1GRPtvqGgKEI-FAXR3eNWG5DFxGV5EVq93IKzXn0bntrK32Njs7APHrjNgDBFXfNqUUz1OgjEg4f0/s1600/IMG_2362.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxRKTGr7AAGmnRuVc832AUuU530yW9G1MOgc6iToc0cRWavUi5A0Ow8hwzyMZGlX1GRPtvqGgKEI-FAXR3eNWG5DFxGV5EVq93IKzXn0bntrK32Njs7APHrjNgDBFXfNqUUz1OgjEg4f0/s320/IMG_2362.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">On our final evening drive, we saw
twice as many wild dogs as we did before, that is, two of them. Having said
that, we got to see them for an hour as they lay right in the middle of the
road, occasionally standing or shifting before sitting back down again. Of
course, it’s all too easy to compare them with domestic dogs as they sit there
happily panting, to imagine you could feed them treats and teach them commands,
but they are ruthless killers – Deo says that they can pass through an area and
wipe out all the baby impala within it. Anyway, other trucks showed up and
apparently it was a rare day when all the guests at the lodge got a really look
at some wild dogs. Ironically, it almost turned into too much of a good thing,
because no one wanted to leave, for fear of disturbing the dogs, or missing
some great event (such as the return of the rest of the pack) and so all the
evening light got used up. Eventually the dogs just got tired of hanging out
there and ran away, and by then it was too late to drive on to see the lions.
So we drove around a little more before returning to the lodge, without any
further breakthroughs; it’s no doubt fitting that our last sighting was, I
think, of impala, the Coca-Cola of the Selous.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq0qSpa-zcCfG4cbHw1t09QIK9-UY8-kYxbh6A3KSIqBuYbwiBIAMAjIJpAAXclCbB4EOm164Pn6WfUBRTHF3M1U7na7p5VrpsFDI3lNlhePFVM1nd7iQLyMXVX88pbzO0yJfIpX0K0l0/s1600/IMG_2339.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq0qSpa-zcCfG4cbHw1t09QIK9-UY8-kYxbh6A3KSIqBuYbwiBIAMAjIJpAAXclCbB4EOm164Pn6WfUBRTHF3M1U7na7p5VrpsFDI3lNlhePFVM1nd7iQLyMXVX88pbzO0yJfIpX0K0l0/s320/IMG_2339.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In the end, the heat of the Selous
wasn’t as oppressive as some had warned – the mid-afternoon break built into
the schedule protected us from the worst of it, and anyway, the heat doesn’t
have the vicious humid edge we’ve experienced in some other places. We were
happy the trip was organized as it did – the first stop, in the Serengeti,
overwhelmed us from the start with its abundance, allowing us the rapid
satisfaction of having seen the things people expect you to see (without ever
feeling merely crass and touristy); the second stop, in the Selous, was like
stepping back and slowing down to apply deeper layerings of colour and texture.
Oh, and except for some very brief incidents of “upset stomachs,” we had
anything to report in the malaise department. We did not, of course, drink the
water.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQroAWjEi7_9LqyHvw2da5hzV9fHbWDRUbpyiBjhAVLdX8BpGbU4spn_c1mChIpeP33F1YI1B9X4o3tyGGaEeXaOZKegRepu2m1h88hWyARaF1sHcL2LAh1Iv7KOlmLK9UbxhbEcrGiAI/s1600/IMG_2249.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQroAWjEi7_9LqyHvw2da5hzV9fHbWDRUbpyiBjhAVLdX8BpGbU4spn_c1mChIpeP33F1YI1B9X4o3tyGGaEeXaOZKegRepu2m1h88hWyARaF1sHcL2LAh1Iv7KOlmLK9UbxhbEcrGiAI/s320/IMG_2249.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We joined the group for our last
dinner – it was all people I’ve already mentioned, and not very galvanizing.
Eric was at one end holding people captive with his knowledge of travel logistics
and local geography and the like, and Natasha (whose initial charm rapidly
wears thin) was at the other delivering a long monologue about her days in the
German reality TV business (I wonder if any guest gets out of here without
hearing about that). We took a bottle of wine back to our room. In the morning,
a monkey scrutinized us in great detail, but left without making any move on
us. It’s a little disappointing to have been so uninteresting to the monkeys –
they did reportedly descend on another room the other day. At least we had our
own lizard who liked to hang out by our toilet. We also saw, once again, but
with undiminished pleasure, hippos and crocodiles and impala and a nice array
of birds. We had our last breakfast, and left the place at 8.30 am. Deo (who
was free for this task only because another family had canceled at the last
minute, which one imagines would be a wrenching decision) drove us to the
airstrip, accompanied by an armed guard (required just because of the extra
time spent out of the vehicle I assume). They goofed around with saying bye bye
to the animals on our behalf. The plane arrived almost immediately, and just
like that we were gone, although Ally did make a few final animal sightings
from the air.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We made two brief stops to pick up
more passengers on our way to Dar Es Salaam (or as those in the know call it,
Dar). One woman was lamenting that her only reason for coming to the Selous had
been to see the wild dogs; she’d been in a truck that received a call of a
sighting, but they got there too late. We said nothing. She and her husband
were headed for Zanzibar; someone else was going to the Seychelles. As for us,
Nomad surprised us one last time by having a guy waiting for us at the airport,
just to transfer us from the domestic terminal to the international terminal –
a nice gesture, but something we could likely have managed. Still, it gave us a
brief taste of the rush of activity on a Dar street. The international terminal
is fairly modest, with little energy surrounding the duty-free shops, or surrounding
anything really – although a group of schoolkids seemed to be enjoying their
guided tour. Ally observed a staff member carrying a loaf of bread through security
– just not something you really see much in airports. We flew to Abu Dhabi –
the flight wasn’t too busy so people were able to spread out. We both slept a
bit; the five hours went by easily enough. To balance out my earlier comments
about the flight from Amsterdam, this flight was a multicultural celebration of
sorts – rows of bright head coverings, immaculate white linen outfits, merely a
few white faces like ours looking like refugees from a glummer, worse-dressed
place. The three steps from the plane to the airport bus afterwards may constitute
our only direct time on UAE ground.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUeHffE-EvswajcFqQxjdXoaW817hFcJ97qCthOHvdLWFCRXOihUcIpkEYNBRF0aFFBuUm3yzzjJrcy4eDdy4NHv0GVnua-nALZ982U00XIjMYW_2_kAsc6DmL4VFuCtrLZ3fr3bCnFo/s1600/IMG_2232.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUeHffE-EvswajcFqQxjdXoaW817hFcJ97qCthOHvdLWFCRXOihUcIpkEYNBRF0aFFBuUm3yzzjJrcy4eDdy4NHv0GVnua-nALZ982U00XIjMYW_2_kAsc6DmL4VFuCtrLZ3fr3bCnFo/s320/IMG_2232.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It was dark when we flew in, but
the city below looked like a different and much newer world, with precisely
measured intervals between lights, and a sense of immense scale and scope. The
airport reinforces the impression – the planes and trucks and other amenities
all look as if they came from the factory just yesterday. A tired mass of
people were moved most efficiently through a security check; perhaps it’s just
coincidence that the Muslim women seemed more inclined than the men to take the
stairs. I’m sure the airport has plenty of possibilities, but we ignored them
and paid to use one of the lounges for four or five hours. I used the Internet
a bit, not least to get a look at Ozu via the webcam, but he had a cone on his
head for some reason, presumably because of a mishap of some kind. This only underlines
something we discussed several times during our trip, that Ozu’s chances in the
wild would not be high. Even after five technology-free days, it seemed
unlikely the rest of the web would generate anything much better (maybe I
really have changed in this regard!), so I turned back to this diary instead (the Albert Brooks-inspired story would have to wait a few more days, but I did finish that too).
There’s no doubt our vacation is over, and yet we’re still more than half a day
away from home, following up (as we must) one of the most glorious and beguiling
and stimulating periods we’ve ever had by spending time being nowhere at all.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7ozCPMQwUXPEP6VwBiO6S9ADv3Vy00p9W-4wj1d5jguufYMi8fuxKWP21JcBaztV1q-QG-S_6HLB7nKWQHtiuNOfNNyA269nYQu8bjnnpXFtoKcmTrxscL-PVWErQ8uvZKcUEinANwY/s1600/IMG_1716.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN7ozCPMQwUXPEP6VwBiO6S9ADv3Vy00p9W-4wj1d5jguufYMi8fuxKWP21JcBaztV1q-QG-S_6HLB7nKWQHtiuNOfNNyA269nYQu8bjnnpXFtoKcmTrxscL-PVWErQ8uvZKcUEinANwY/s320/IMG_1716.JPG" width="320" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-86014990656158261472016-07-12T17:09:00.003-07:002016-07-12T17:09:48.324-07:00Germany mini-trip - day 5<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVP9UAJC28ohD7gNcp7ufMs59_db1z7IpNQO7X-Nx_9eOTO1OBnIqeONPa7Kyq5XAxMfbwUco8jYJv_nwsUATfDgthvB0PMmfVkjn6NTHT6LifXJc5pFRvzSPay1fyu0Y1G3yH-yXBA_o/s1600/IMG_1633.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVP9UAJC28ohD7gNcp7ufMs59_db1z7IpNQO7X-Nx_9eOTO1OBnIqeONPa7Kyq5XAxMfbwUco8jYJv_nwsUATfDgthvB0PMmfVkjn6NTHT6LifXJc5pFRvzSPay1fyu0Y1G3yH-yXBA_o/s320/IMG_1633.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It’s
been a long long time since I traveled alone in a foreign country, but that’s
where the plan took me today. As you recall, this little vacation was triggered
by Ally’s business trip to Cologne, which commenced today, Tuesday. She left St. Goar at
around 6.30 am, which would allow plenty of time to be at her 9 am meeting (the
main foreseeable problem would be to make the mental shift). I went to the
station with her, saw her off, then went for an hour-long walk, to Das Boot, which I
described before (and which looked even more eccentrically desolate at this
time of day), and back. I went to breakfast by myself. “Are you alone?” asked
the guy with apparent astonishment, as he lit my lonely candle.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I was
scheduled to leave St. Goar at 9.21 – astonishingly, the train was late! As I
had only five minutes to make a connection at Oberwesel, I then needed to
decide whether to get off there regardless of having presumably missed that
connection, or whether to stay on the train I was on and work it out later. I
got off, and it turned out the connecting train was late as well – all immaculately
coordinated I’m sure. The whole check-in/security process took no more than
half an hour. The highlight of that was seeing an Ozu-like dog, apparently
about to be placed in a crate to embark on a flight, and looking too happy to
be aware of what was coming (I don’t anticipate we’d ever put Ozu on a plane –
it would only be out of utterly unavoidable necessity).</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9W8jXJeryeR2SKP9r9t2KDdT-XKJHLQyKQPnqxiLwgGD_mgcwtqImHyXBUbLWCJdLp8m4UmQehs2B_5R-c4NXIKb-eS_sEMG7wRgU93Z-M80_LLvJHRlRDM3kS2oulLtjAfHCmKXMZ2s/s1600/IMG_1685.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9W8jXJeryeR2SKP9r9t2KDdT-XKJHLQyKQPnqxiLwgGD_mgcwtqImHyXBUbLWCJdLp8m4UmQehs2B_5R-c4NXIKb-eS_sEMG7wRgU93Z-M80_LLvJHRlRDM3kS2oulLtjAfHCmKXMZ2s/s320/IMG_1685.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Then
I had three hours or so to wait around at the airport. I don’t mind such
waiting around too much, as long as I can use it to read or do things I would have
done anyway at other times (i.e. so that the time needn’t in any sense be
considered “wasted”) and I had more than enough of a to-do list to meet that
criterion for today’s waiting time, for the flight home, and for a big security
margin on top of that. I made pretty good progress on this list, largely
because of sleeping only minimally. I had an aisle seat, but when I arrived at it
I was asked by a couple who’d been separated whether I’d switch and take her
middle seat in another row. She was much larger than I was so I made a snap
decision that I would contribute to the common good by agreeing to this
(usually of course, my own well-being would have been greater by staying on the aisle, but
even that might not have held here, sitting next to a possibly disgruntled husband
for eight hours). Anyway, no doubt I did the right thing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
flight was on time, and Canadian immigration took no time at all, but then the bag took an
hour to show up (as they always seem to at Toronto Pearson unfortunately) and of course
traffic into the city was slow. But I picked up Ozu exactly at 7 as planned. We
ran home, and celebrated in our usual buoyant manner, and for me that’s always the official end of the vacation. Meanwhile,
Ally did a full day’s work, and when I called her from the airport, she’d had
dinner long ago, and had been in her Cologne hotel room for a couple of hours,
just winding down the day. We don’t have too many days when our trajectories
deviate so dramatically…</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4RUPLOkTgYkXrdkKQCsLchnv0ITfdAoQT61nXR9GgrNnAOCewTLtdb0V1S2q89h6NTspWr1vp8mnY1FUlj0xFh7kTuN-vFe2N9UYqxeA44WdHQ5DgDjTfYpoIpb4thWWwT_dn2L8QtP8/s1600/IMG_1688.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4RUPLOkTgYkXrdkKQCsLchnv0ITfdAoQT61nXR9GgrNnAOCewTLtdb0V1S2q89h6NTspWr1vp8mnY1FUlj0xFh7kTuN-vFe2N9UYqxeA44WdHQ5DgDjTfYpoIpb4thWWwT_dn2L8QtP8/s320/IMG_1688.JPG" width="320" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-47507123716939835122016-07-11T23:42:00.000-07:002016-07-11T23:42:17.532-07:00Germany mini-trip - day 4<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPHpisaJ-L_xgv6AeDxBxziUuBxsPD2tBQd4ZaPQeF5P7plN8tLQjZErjKgBPE9Slfl1xQATeVAgMdn2L9ofuuZ6qJRIOmL40Ye9xGnHqGYhSrUlrvjrXF1sbD0JcP9xCnF9HlEpanNg/s1600/IMG_1662.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPHpisaJ-L_xgv6AeDxBxziUuBxsPD2tBQd4ZaPQeF5P7plN8tLQjZErjKgBPE9Slfl1xQATeVAgMdn2L9ofuuZ6qJRIOmL40Ye9xGnHqGYhSrUlrvjrXF1sbD0JcP9xCnF9HlEpanNg/s320/IMG_1662.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Last
night was the Euro soccer final, although I suppose it would have had a more
galvanizing impact on St. Goar if Germany had made it to the end. As it was,
the Bistro Café Goar was showing the France vs. Portugal game on a TV screen inside.
After we’d finished eating and were having drinks, we moved to the terrace, a
perfect spot for monitoring both this and the river (the parade of grand
industrial barges continuing after dark, like stately elongated whales). When
normal time ended without a goal, some of the clientele left, apparently with
some mocking from the others for their lack of fortitude. We left around that
time too (to no mocking), counting eight or so mostly elderly remainees. And
that was the Sunday action in St. Goar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On
Monday we again had breakfast in the hotel (the guy at the next table was
surreptitiously assembling sandwiches from the breakfast buffet materials and
putting them in his briefcase) before heading off for another seven hour-plus
exploration. We climbed up behind town to the top of the gorge and followed a
trail for several hours, eventually coming back down at the town of Oberwesel.
As I mentioned, this is only really an achievement in climbing if you’ve artificially
placed yourself down at the bottom – following the trail, we frequently walked
past housing developments or resorts or whatnot, reminding us that’s where the
real world is, up there! The highlight of the walk though came during one of its more
deeply forested sections, where we came across an old man and woman dragging a (very
reluctant) sheep along the path. We should have blocked the way, chanting: Free
the Sheep! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Actually,
the real highlights were naturally the constant views down into the gorge –
every new look-out point gives you a new reason to stop and breathe it in. Oberwesel
also looked great from up above, but is rather dull and disappointing close-up,
even allowing that Monday seems to be a day off for a lot of small businesses.
The biggest comparative limitation may be that St. Goar has hotels and
restaurants with almost direct access to the river (excepting the road, which isn’t
too busy), but in Oberwesel the railway runs closer to the water,
holding back the rest of the town (there’s an old city wall in the way too). I
expect it made sense at the time to lay things down that way, but now it makes the place feel constricted.
We had trouble even finding a suitable place to eat, but eventually sat down
and had a couple of sandwiches, and five separate beverage orders between the
two of us. We watched a woman arriving at a nearby hair salon for what was
presumably a 2 pm appointment, waiting outside for the hairdresser to return from her
break, getting increasingly impatient, trying unsuccessfully to place a phone
call, eventually giving up at around 2.20 pm and leaving under a dark cloud.
The hairdresser turned up ten minutes after that, with her dog and her
shopping bag, beaming happily and without an apparent care in the world. That’s
probably how it goes down here in the small towns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">By
the way, if you climb all the way up from Oberwesel, someone (apparently an
anonymous artist) is carrying out a project of constructing large metal “troll”
sculptures – based on the dates, it appears a new one gets added every year. There’s
one at the roadside; the others are lurking in the woods. Here is Ally with a
representative example.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmAFaYFhNLwW9KG_qXyjkxjcr0IP2LLKuZH9t8yxumh7NQ_TFooOFEBJcgpyeWOqB-LJwUE0iGJ7QMwicBK83lSMSQYokYUeqp4og3VSiroXq1BrS1-3grvUKb7Se3TF1Jd__0XGP3t8/s1600/IMG_1671.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifmAFaYFhNLwW9KG_qXyjkxjcr0IP2LLKuZH9t8yxumh7NQ_TFooOFEBJcgpyeWOqB-LJwUE0iGJ7QMwicBK83lSMSQYokYUeqp4og3VSiroXq1BrS1-3grvUKb7Se3TF1Jd__0XGP3t8/s320/IMG_1671.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
then decided that if we walked on a further 6 km or so to the town of
Bacharach, we’d arrive in time to catch the hourly train back to St. Goar. This
was an easy 6 km by comparison with what we'd already done, all along the river, no climbing. We achieved this with time
to spare, enough to wander round Bacharach (which was also mostly closed) to find
an ice cream. The scenic highlight of the walk was the town of Kaub on the
other side, with its eye-catching white castle on a tiny island in the middle
of the river (it is called </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Pfalzgrafenstein Castle and was built as a
station to extract tolls from passing vessels – mundane functions were
discharged with so much style in the old days!).</span><b><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: "times";"> </span></span></b><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipe4Lygtmhyphenhyphent4P5i3Far75O_ElEd2I7Od0Sa1PHqAn1LLC2dxWZWJAReQO8808EmuRNmhidIKesKbGq8nEv0LYwjlomyGpME7jUHtl5vcdC9vtWPkzhW3_5zWwz5buKwH98YAih4vKeT8/s1600/IMG_1679.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipe4Lygtmhyphenhyphent4P5i3Far75O_ElEd2I7Od0Sa1PHqAn1LLC2dxWZWJAReQO8808EmuRNmhidIKesKbGq8nEv0LYwjlomyGpME7jUHtl5vcdC9vtWPkzhW3_5zWwz5buKwH98YAih4vKeT8/s320/IMG_1679.JPG" width="320" /></a>
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There didn’t seem to be as many cruise ships in the water today –
maybe business surges at the weekend; certainly the volume of motor bikes had
plummeted. I would have placed a bet that Bacharach would have held at least
one prominent tribute to its famous namesake Burt, perhaps a modest statue on
the theme of What’s New Pussycat?, but if so we missed it. It’s another very
picturesque town though, again with old walls and cobbled streets intact, so
that you could shoot a historical film on the back streets with minimal
cover-up of contemporary details.</span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKaErerlAWDsgA-Gc4lKxzy1G8vHBiTSBZWl0NSBkfKzRxvMieTbmuVu3tZ5IT4U_bo5M4QRjdoe5KmWe54DUe0TCD0KyI-sYNeAEinnFYiM8fRkGGG4zgggyF2txWc2owQg7BrahK7k/s1600/IMG_1683.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqKaErerlAWDsgA-Gc4lKxzy1G8vHBiTSBZWl0NSBkfKzRxvMieTbmuVu3tZ5IT4U_bo5M4QRjdoe5KmWe54DUe0TCD0KyI-sYNeAEinnFYiM8fRkGGG4zgggyF2txWc2owQg7BrahK7k/s320/IMG_1683.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">That
added up to a lot of walking today, a punishing achievement even if the weather
was slightly cooler than yesterday. We picked up another beverage (whenever we’re
in Europe we drink bottle after bottle of Fanta – we never buy it at home, and
if we do it doesn’t taste the same anyway) and then returned to the hotel. Once
again, we did not succeed in seeing Ozu at the pool. Some of the restaurants
were closed tonight, again because it’s Monday I suppose – we ate in a quiet
place in the middle of town, which also closed as soon as we left, and then
ended up drinking beer over the water. It becomes ever more clear that there
are fewer functioning businesses here than meets the eye. For instance, there’s
a hotel near us that looks open – there are flowers in all the windowboxes –
but we’ve never seen any signs of life there, and based on an online search it's not taking reservations. It’s quite sad, the sense that the world is
losing its taste for this kind of quiet location. St. Goar does appear to be a
regular stopping point for a Contiki tour bus – this is a company catering to
18 to 35 year olds, known for the partying nature of the experience – and this
may explain some of the young women we saw wandering around on previous nights.
Mostly though, it appears the Contiki groups stay in a hotel on the other side
of town, where they create their own self-contained world of fun. Can their
world ever overlap with the rest of St. Goar, to spark a new mutually
beneficial way forward...?</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8dS7ch_FruY_dCaQUTmkLv0LAn9PFr4mphu1Qjiku5DFlbqy-ZBYM5nyiDhyphenhyphen-757dXzitCbjSyeGwqDSSZGeA416QWAJw-n9CVgIUUkhrfsm6Ej9BvPNFHDw5S7lth81brm0S0VMsQ0/s1600/IMG_1676.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN8dS7ch_FruY_dCaQUTmkLv0LAn9PFr4mphu1Qjiku5DFlbqy-ZBYM5nyiDhyphenhyphen-757dXzitCbjSyeGwqDSSZGeA416QWAJw-n9CVgIUUkhrfsm6Ej9BvPNFHDw5S7lth81brm0S0VMsQ0/s320/IMG_1676.JPG" width="320" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-39623137565645512652016-07-10T23:21:00.004-07:002016-07-10T23:21:59.705-07:00Germany mini-trip - day 3<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4ZbZ-lT2q3DV_pEIljF-8A_GvVBHccAQ0p4FXFxkLYs9dSx9pbxMW27ms-gTgCM9Hsqw6-G75OuxXJRYwQTJjahYsUvpoYbgG804DLl4AtKyDWDCpG3yp7qbpQcOJQIwW5ahN8kknb4/s1600/IMG_1647.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4ZbZ-lT2q3DV_pEIljF-8A_GvVBHccAQ0p4FXFxkLYs9dSx9pbxMW27ms-gTgCM9Hsqw6-G75OuxXJRYwQTJjahYsUvpoYbgG804DLl4AtKyDWDCpG3yp7qbpQcOJQIwW5ahN8kknb4/s320/IMG_1647.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Rheinfels hotel feels largely empty, and almost haunted too, by virtue of
the motion-detecting light switches that illuminate the nighttime corridors as
you wander down them. But based on the breakfast room this morning, the place might
actually be full. It was a very nice buffet, with almost everything you could think
of, excepting chanterelles, and overseen very efficiently by a single aging
waiter in a bow tie. The tables had white tablecloths and, even at this time of
day, burning candles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
feeling of emptiness and under-utilization is pervasive to the town though. On both this
and the other side of the river, we see numerous closed hotels and
restaurants, suggesting more prosperous times in the past. Much of the activity
now consists of people arriving in tour buses, catching a ferry for a cruise on
the Rhine, and then disappearing, to be picked up elsewhere. Today we walked
past an old-fashioned caravan park, people reading and drinking beer outside
their camper vans, in their little square of river-facing space. There’s
absolutely nothing in the vicinity that feels in any way <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new</i>. Of course, this is the charm of the place, if you’re into it,
but it feels like much of the world may be moving on…</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrjM5bAoeAEY1pAO0W0Xz_GnJUMQgJduzzUdrF_hXA9ggrzfTBHrtYWBzz0icH5YN8PgFTk5wAjt383K58h1c1DbbkVK0FLtK-E3D1biMfC25cYbLweSCJD4FU8xVmDiykWeGQK_iz2ZM/s1600/IMG_1649.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrjM5bAoeAEY1pAO0W0Xz_GnJUMQgJduzzUdrF_hXA9ggrzfTBHrtYWBzz0icH5YN8PgFTk5wAjt383K58h1c1DbbkVK0FLtK-E3D1biMfC25cYbLweSCJD4FU8xVmDiykWeGQK_iz2ZM/s320/IMG_1649.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Well,
at least they have the two of us for now. The ferry to the other side is an
impressive operation, carrying over maybe as many as twenty cars on each run,
along with sundry bikers, cyclists, walkers and dogs. It goes every twenty
minutes, back and forth, until late into the night, loading and unloading with what looks like unceasing
efficiency. From where we're staying, you get the impression that the town on the other side,
minimally distinguished from St. Goar by calling itself St. Goarshausen, might
have more action, but when we crossed over this morning we found out it’s not true. We picked up a drink and some
snacks (from the one place that seemed to be open) and set off. In addition to
being able to walk along the river in any direction on either side, one can
also climb out of the gorge (I keep wanting to refer to them as hills or
mountains, but it’s not that they’re so high, it’s that we’re so low) and hike
above, again on either side in either direction. We did that today, selecting a
trail that should have taken us several hours, winding past several castles.
We managed to complete the most difficult stretch, the initial climb, but then
found out the rest of the trail was closed, due to a rockslide or something. We wandered
around up there as much as we could, but ended up coming back down to
where we started. Then we set off in the other direction, taking on another
tough initial climb, this time with greater subsequent success. We followed the
trail for a couple of hours, much of it along farmers’ fields and vineyards,
often clinging to the side of the gorge in a way that looks precarious. Of
course, the valley views from there are magnificent, endless compositions of water
and sky, and largely tasteful insertions by mankind.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
descended near the castle Maus and into the little village of Wellmich, which
doesn’t have too much going on. From there we walked back along the river to
St. Goarshausen. This was about five hours since we left the hotel, and it was
hot and often exposed throughout, so that was as much applied activity as you
could really expect in one day. We sat around in the shade for about an hour,
having a toasted sandwich, some ice cream, and lots of beverages. A lot of the
activity on the road seemed to belong to motor cyclists; all the bikes highly polished and shining in the sun, all the gear immaculate. Apparently this is regarded as a prime road for motor biking, so maybe we're watching (say) junior accountants from Frankfurt living their dreams for an afternoon.
Other aspects of the local culture <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i>
appear aligned with the biker culture too, given that we’ve seen ads not only for
Deep Purple but also for a Monster Truck show, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and
(sic) Thin Lissy, Of course, I’m engaging in wild stereotyping there, as
there’s no inherent reason why the bikers couldn’t be down here for (say) a
Goethe symposium.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3HUeZXPnNrEpc1mKzbQ2VSnOPbKbwhNATyRBDH-FMhS7211aAELi2jrRoDQfsu3aETWCgHSuzlbWlGID77SxQhULys7hj8tRQcYDjdCjo9EFcc1HiFh91rIE2jYoDOk8melcxISNecnU/s1600/IMG_1653.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3HUeZXPnNrEpc1mKzbQ2VSnOPbKbwhNATyRBDH-FMhS7211aAELi2jrRoDQfsu3aETWCgHSuzlbWlGID77SxQhULys7hj8tRQcYDjdCjo9EFcc1HiFh91rIE2jYoDOk8melcxISNecnU/s320/IMG_1653.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We caught the ferry back to the other side. I mentioned that St. Goar would have seemed to belong to the old rather than the new Germany, but as we arrived back the street was filled, rather mesmerizingly, by an Islamic pilgrimage (or, more likely, a tour group heading for the bus). But eventually they were gone and things went back to normal. While we were in the hotel for our afternoon break, Canadian Milos Raonic lost in the Wimbledon final. For the last few trips, Ozu has been staying in a new location, called “Park 9.” Once a day, the dogs get to use an indoor pool, and Ozu loves it beyond description – he dips his paws into the water, loses his head with excitement, and goes running around the perimeter like a maniac, then repeats the process endlessly. Based on past experience, and given the time difference, I thought we would taking our afternoon break at the optimum time to watch this display on the webcam, but we’ve seen little evidence the pool is ever used at all. Well, I suppose every trip has to contain at least one disappointment.</span><o:p></o:p>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjexwagMg9GV9C5o5mlVLgqXrBAc_FkpMQsf2rfudiBUcV7lPVZuOdItD3spc9L3PU5h-nF5wqMq4ZORJJORzdBsPuPTw8D-azHu6gRLktJrDwNkvu00dbhDVpA9hRvQA2IjFt4kCLJijg/s1600/IMG_1654.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjexwagMg9GV9C5o5mlVLgqXrBAc_FkpMQsf2rfudiBUcV7lPVZuOdItD3spc9L3PU5h-nF5wqMq4ZORJJORzdBsPuPTw8D-azHu6gRLktJrDwNkvu00dbhDVpA9hRvQA2IjFt4kCLJijg/s320/IMG_1654.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We were aware that things might close down earlier on a Sunday,
and so they did – we sat down outside the Bistro Café Goar just as the kitchen
was closing, it seems. It really wasn’t very memorable food though, even
allowing for our scaled-down expectations, so there may be little qualitative
difference between the kitchen being open and it being closed. An hour or so
later, a group of young women walked by, looking dressed up for a visit to a
nightclub or suchlike. Based on what we’ve observed of the town, they were definitely
misinformed; but on the other hand, they wandered off somewhere and we never saw
them again, so maybe it has its secret gathering places…</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjiXQo-GR6ZLjBDmuM3Zk4Bs6REGVfRYTf7m0bebZ_680psXPRjaCyLFXoOBpsD0O5gsA2e0N_RrtRnuePCxl_hZJ7bEEpVk2N0-MWHLV0S3bkEmJwQTCp-79UithlefRlp90OE-Tzdk/s1600/IMG_1660.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjiXQo-GR6ZLjBDmuM3Zk4Bs6REGVfRYTf7m0bebZ_680psXPRjaCyLFXoOBpsD0O5gsA2e0N_RrtRnuePCxl_hZJ7bEEpVk2N0-MWHLV0S3bkEmJwQTCp-79UithlefRlp90OE-Tzdk/s320/IMG_1660.JPG" width="320" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-23138560969954565012016-07-09T22:23:00.000-07:002016-07-09T22:23:30.499-07:00Germany mini-trip - day 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg014oDCkHZzPwevK3GITXI7MwpJSrwvSADsJxsaSyS9vz9x4zWKkKM9s_dr55CZVxQg9QeWqkYJJ1qzLeQdPfLNjN2ZqPIwdE6sG1XDbxX7lMyEBxdbqH9lQwEbheIsKY-9dAWH1nlk70/s1600/IMG_1620.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg014oDCkHZzPwevK3GITXI7MwpJSrwvSADsJxsaSyS9vz9x4zWKkKM9s_dr55CZVxQg9QeWqkYJJ1qzLeQdPfLNjN2ZqPIwdE6sG1XDbxX7lMyEBxdbqH9lQwEbheIsKY-9dAWH1nlk70/s320/IMG_1620.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
both slept very solidly, and woke up ready for a whole day of Germany! We spent
the morning seeing more of Frankfurt, and by the end of it we’d covered the
heart of things quite well, despite the time we lost on the first afternoon
(and by the way, we realized today how unlucky we were – if we’d been even a single block further east when we joined the street that caused all our problems, we would have had clear
access to the river, would have immediately realized we were turned around, and
then the rest would never have happened, although on the other hand then we wouldn’t have
our memories of Griesheim). We stopped for breakfast at a bakery (of course
every European city has a bakery basically on every block, the inventory never
changing too much from one to the next), retraced some of our steps from last
evening up to the Euro sign and the main finance district, and then continued
on into the main retail streets. It was a busy Saturday morning – the streets
were packed. We went into the Galeria Kaufhof department store, now owned by
Ally’s employer HBC and linked to the purpose of her visit here (so I suppose
you could call it research). It’s very reminiscent actually of HBC stores in
Canada – the food hall in the basement is particularly impressive (I’ve never
seen such a large and nicely arranged display of water bottles). The store was
busy too, although it’s always possible people are merely browsing before
heading home to place their orders online.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAh2PpjZJF0Oy-ArEoIXaHP2JICLZgr7hmu7Exct6Edos3L9gYELvcKI68DfXkaHzuv5PP4giRuP_vk_3Y9iEK7nnu2pnL1E6cFeCuct-m13kT7PgV9iWt-WRdOcD704AHT3B-PHypUM/s1600/IMG_1622.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAh2PpjZJF0Oy-ArEoIXaHP2JICLZgr7hmu7Exct6Edos3L9gYELvcKI68DfXkaHzuv5PP4giRuP_vk_3Y9iEK7nnu2pnL1E6cFeCuct-m13kT7PgV9iWt-WRdOcD704AHT3B-PHypUM/s320/IMG_1622.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We walked through
an open air market, notable compared to those elsewhere for the volume of
beer and wine consumption (based on what we've seen so far, the cliché still holds - Germans love drinking, and don't have too many restrictions on when and where it happens). We walked down to the river, wandering up one
side and then down the other. Frankfurt has some more than pleasant views along
there: some striking modern buildings contrasting with the older ones (or more
accurately in many cases, the reconstructions of the long-destroyed older
ones), but needless to say, if it does indeed replace
London as the European centre of finance, as has been speculated post-Brexit,
it has some catch-up to do in terms of overall scope and dynamism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
returned to the hotel to pick up our bags and then headed to the station. The journey to St. Goar took about an hour and a half, with a
simple change about a third of the way through. We splurged on first class,
which meant a nice separate carriage on the first train (although not with
working wi-fi, contrary to the legend) and then a barely differentiated space
behind a glass partition on the second. The journey became quite lovely in its
final stretch, overlooking the Rhine, traveling through a series of small
towns, regularly overseen by high castles. We'd read that one can walk along the river for a
long way - with regular ferries to the other side and easy access to
the railways, it should be hard to get lost or stranded. This is the premise
of the next few days anyway. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOmi3aa9zA1FxdF-4vAg0MS3We2LsuCzJCSuslD397NJy02Rr3p4DDjKqW6cLTtnQGlfaxetBs7cLIyolKz4ZmKpCjTbmjPGTeLj_WVPX9wEXkc0Pb-a4Ky7Ii1gCfQly9NDO7VwusxA/s1600/IMG_1628.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOmi3aa9zA1FxdF-4vAg0MS3We2LsuCzJCSuslD397NJy02Rr3p4DDjKqW6cLTtnQGlfaxetBs7cLIyolKz4ZmKpCjTbmjPGTeLj_WVPX9wEXkc0Pb-a4Ky7Ii1gCfQly9NDO7VwusxA/s320/IMG_1628.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
instantly found our hotel, the Rheinfels, where the guy at the desk seemed
highly amused that I have the same surname as a member of Deep Purple
(coincidentally, or not, Deep Purple are actually playing here soon, on the
other side of the river, although there’s nothing in sight resembling a
performance venue, or even say a large playing field) (actually Ally just
looked that up – they're playing in an amphitheatre somewhere among the rocks – might not
be such a bad gig!). It’s an older but well-maintained hotel; our room is quite
large and has a balcony overlooking the river, directly across from the nearest
ferry stop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqX6edx2d60S6yDwZznWHT0_w9oU262wlpZIDgAYg9VvPNHa_B9s63YBWYxmdvy5-8gUJ3s5fst6WO_OUOolOBDzOSEUg3Hzr8uNRrtf9LHHzHYbh7EEN-1nBLdp2WlNWCJxFYVz8lwY0/s1600/IMG_1641.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqX6edx2d60S6yDwZznWHT0_w9oU262wlpZIDgAYg9VvPNHa_B9s63YBWYxmdvy5-8gUJ3s5fst6WO_OUOolOBDzOSEUg3Hzr8uNRrtf9LHHzHYbh7EEN-1nBLdp2WlNWCJxFYVz8lwY0/s320/IMG_1641.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">One
thing we hadn’t considered is that walking along the Rhine isn’t necessarily
peaceful in the same way as many of the classic walks we’ve taken – there’s a
road that runs right above it, and there's the railway just above that. There’s a
cycling track and a walkway, and occasionally the trail dips down closer to the
water, but you could never succumb to the illusion of being away from
everything. That said, it’s very beautiful here, a completely satisfying spot
to spend a few days. St. Goar is really little more than a strip along the road
(at its most built up point, there’s a second strip behind that), but the
possibilities lead away from you in all directions. This includes the upward direction,
where we climbed the hill to an old castle – there’s a hotel up there too. We walked along the river to the west, a
steady stream of ferries and afternoon cruise ships and industrial barges
passing by (funny though that we didn’t see a single small craft – maybe they’re
restricted). We could have kept going indefinitely, but we stopped around the
time we reached “Das Boot,” apparently someone’s past brainwave of building a
hotel in the shape of the top half of a boat (I’m sure it was fun in its
heyday, but now it’s abandoned).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
town has six or seven reasonable-looking places to eat at night, although the
menus don’t seem to vary much from one to the next. We chose Hotel am Markt, in
the square in front of the town’s largest church (it has two). Most of the clientele seemed
pretty elderly, and in some cases that’s putting it mildly. The waiter was
initially attentive, but then seemed to lose interest entirely, reappearing
only on the two occasions when we gave up waiting and I walked over to the
building to look for him. Just as in Frankfurt, the main menu was supplemented
by the special seasonal chanterelle menu. It’s amazing though how prices change
when you get out of the big cities – our meal and what we drank were much the
same as last night, but the bill was over 40% lower (under 60 Euros). The same
thing goes for the hotel too. Anyway, I suppose the waiter had a point – there’s
no purpose in hurrying; once it gets dark, there’s nowhere else happening
around here…</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfw0iaQOU4_IEgXRbr8V1l6SRNG40bc4oMwYt6MUuYDg61gWWXsXOljzxnxoGM8aqml60I2AAN_JfQPhalSTOJnwWzig7ANpYl6ESq3X8F_X0JASQuc-rbUyn_zmCGPKj8Xmydw_k-IA4/s1600/IMG_1642.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfw0iaQOU4_IEgXRbr8V1l6SRNG40bc4oMwYt6MUuYDg61gWWXsXOljzxnxoGM8aqml60I2AAN_JfQPhalSTOJnwWzig7ANpYl6ESq3X8F_X0JASQuc-rbUyn_zmCGPKj8Xmydw_k-IA4/s320/IMG_1642.JPG" width="320" /></a>
torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-41815459418386424842016-07-08T23:27:00.000-07:002016-07-08T23:45:04.813-07:00Germany mini-trip - day 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoHnh2G2ZNax8zMWEccnEcYlR2VlchdcZqpwlZiou3eicuco0o1GRmTc4NOTBWs3jhtNhMhhmVB_fuv1GDa0QMek_3AeTjNec2A1h_hxM6quWgR-3fFs4_SMZiP6QklpCrXUQDxlVlQE/s1600/IMG_1608.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoHnh2G2ZNax8zMWEccnEcYlR2VlchdcZqpwlZiou3eicuco0o1GRmTc4NOTBWs3jhtNhMhhmVB_fuv1GDa0QMek_3AeTjNec2A1h_hxM6quWgR-3fFs4_SMZiP6QklpCrXUQDxlVlQE/s320/IMG_1608.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">So it
came up that Ally would be going to Cologne for work again, for the fourth time
in less than ten months. We’d vaguely discussed I might tag along on one of these trips,
and this seemed as good a time as any, so we quickly cobbled together a long
weekend plan. In brief: we fly out of Toronto on Thursday evening, arrive in
Frankfurt Friday morning, spend a day there before going to St. Goar in the
Rhine Valley around lunchtime on Saturday, spend two and a half days
there. On Tuesday I return home, and Ally goes on to Cologne to do her work,
returning on Friday. It might be seen as a lot of cost and effort for such a
short trip, but on the other hand, her flights are already paid for. Anyway,
for various logistical reasons we couldn’t add on any more days; it was this or
nothing, so we decided to go with this.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCI4J-KhiIbWgLF4dbZ_E3vYyveLo96UmbYmVrtvNFwhc48WB0_N1WGdsLgYPLprXr5ZbkERoN3l982U5ekW894l1O4-V3BJ8TcRse8PbK6v2UsLrg1Ez1Qk_g8xu3WZoRgk3Yw3q028E/s1600/IMG_1603.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCI4J-KhiIbWgLF4dbZ_E3vYyveLo96UmbYmVrtvNFwhc48WB0_N1WGdsLgYPLprXr5ZbkERoN3l982U5ekW894l1O4-V3BJ8TcRse8PbK6v2UsLrg1Ez1Qk_g8xu3WZoRgk3Yw3q028E/s320/IMG_1603.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It’s
been a long time since we had any real problems at airports, and that
held again here; both our arrival and departure took place at near-record speed (it
helps that we were flying premium economy, which gets you into the
business class check-in counter and moves your luggage up in priority,
among other things). We took a train to the main station, which of course
was as easy as everything train-related in Europe. We’d picked a
hotel near there to reduce logistical challenges, and located it easily
enough after a few initial wrong turns. As so often, the streets around the station
might not be regarded as the best invitation to the city, although it’s just life with all of its waiting and staring and yelling and scurrying. Certainly the
streets belong to the new heterogeneous Europe, not to the old guard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
stayed at the Hotel Bliss, oddly described in the room as an “exhibition and
design hotel for the discerning little closer.” The design is of a familiar
kind – lots of clean white lines: there are photos of
old Hollywood stars throughout, although it’s hard to see how that relates to
anything, thematically speaking (we were in the Audrey Hepburn room, at the end
of the James Stewart corridor). Our plan for the afternoon was simple enough –
walk to the downtown old city, which seemed like it should take half an hour or
so, then maybe walk along the Rhine, and return to the hotel for a break having lapped up the main
Frankfurt attractions, albeit not in much depth. So we went out, and after
stopping at a nearby bakery for a snack, launched into just that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
ended up as one of the more inexplicable escapades of our many travels
together. We’ve often started walking without looking at the map in too much
detail – usually it works out fine; when it doesn’t, it’s an experience
in itself. Today we wanted to stay more or less on track because of our limited
time here, so after initially wandering off track a bit, we consulted the map, adjusted our route
and kept going. We were walking directly towards the old city, but we kept walking
and it refused to appear. Eventually we came to some older residential streets and thought, this must be the start of it, but then that ended and we were merely walking along a highway. We couldn’t make any
sense of it from the map. Then eventually we realized we’d been walking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">away</i> from the city, the greatest blunder
possible. We’ve done this before, but always as a result of being caught up in
irregular street layouts where even a subtle shift in your sense of direction
extrapolates into overshooting the moon by about half a light-year. On this
occasion the streets had seemed largely straight, and straightforward, so it’s
especially perplexing. At least we blundered together – it’s not as if one of
us had overridden the instincts of the other, thus giving the latter something to bring up for
the rest of our days (if we were like that).</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv2Nn-hmOuHbtyLtYVKIu7q9z3gQB17obYBVNYiozCAJTJOQ6Msi0chEcobanjQD9w9wJLoSqjFKzDWvn5eo_WfA40N_hWFAzqyCQADP0XD1QroQ-7D-tTvPUCgLW8kUmD-Ay4lpTUeZk/s1600/IMG_1586.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv2Nn-hmOuHbtyLtYVKIu7q9z3gQB17obYBVNYiozCAJTJOQ6Msi0chEcobanjQD9w9wJLoSqjFKzDWvn5eo_WfA40N_hWFAzqyCQADP0XD1QroQ-7D-tTvPUCgLW8kUmD-Ay4lpTUeZk/s320/IMG_1586.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Anyway,
the residential streets that we'd taken for the old city of Frankfurt actually belonged to the nearby town
of Griesheim. We caught a bus to the Griesheim station, and then a train back
to Frankfurt (for all of our prolonged efforts, the as-the-crow-flies train journey took an embarrassing
four minutes). It was a pretty hot afternoon, so we were tired even if we hadn’t accomplished much. And anyway, it
wasn’t a complete failure. Other than having the story itself, we'd had plenty to
look at – we were surprised for instance at the volume of industrial activity so close to
the heart of a major city (perhaps as a sign of Germany’s status as the engine
of Europe), although even that observation tells you maybe we should have
realized earlier on that something wasn’t right…</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztQHSSHDJzqCU2_RYEgvvzshyphenhyphenf5JrWE2Le5t-WvKjAGPBV3igjsBU61WhF04sapH9WHmuEPIrHDTWT2HqUN7w0W2k_fufnN70FowaT5eoXsyly2Shgv7fRdArKolb9_U_NuOFstQGPOk/s1600/IMG_1595.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztQHSSHDJzqCU2_RYEgvvzshyphenhyphenf5JrWE2Le5t-WvKjAGPBV3igjsBU61WhF04sapH9WHmuEPIrHDTWT2HqUN7w0W2k_fufnN70FowaT5eoXsyly2Shgv7fRdArKolb9_U_NuOFstQGPOk/s320/IMG_1595.JPG" width="320" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We
went back to the hotel for a while, where we napped a bit and tried not to feel
too disappointed in ourselves. When we came back out after 7, we diligently
followed the map (there's an idea!). The first part of the walk didn’t yield too much of interest –
a lot of deserted restaurants winding up for the day. Eventually
we reached the business district and the big Euro sign sculpture outside the
European Central Bank, and from there the river. It was a warm but not stifling
night and the banks were filled with couples and groups hanging out, cyclists, summer
activity. We crossed to the other side, walked along for a while, crossed back
on another bridge and then into the old town. It’s quite compact, less
than a square kilometer, and of course teeming with our kind of people –
tourists! (in truth though it is a much more sterile-feeling environment than
the area around the hotel, which one might consider a good or a bad thing). Like all
European towns, the main square is filled with open-air restaurants, and we
ended up at one of those – the Zum Schwarzen Stern. It was emphasizing meals based on chanterelles, as they’re in season, so we both went
with that, and the time happily passed. It eventually got dark (maybe half an
hour later than at home) and we took a taxi back to the hotel. Then we noticed
for the first time a stylish-looking bar across the street, so we went there for
a final drink. And so in the end we basically achieved our plans for Frankfurt
after all!</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju5cIn_58Bg1akm2TeJatHCu0CQzrqL1TF2T9s_V0Yjsbod2ICc325YKs-tLt-04igkZsJmhDNFXc4QC7wMzAjjQFUZ9o92ZFLMylYGUeTEgxJfV0LGQvHX8B-CXm_FVR9X1JKFTWZKbA/s1600/IMG_1607.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju5cIn_58Bg1akm2TeJatHCu0CQzrqL1TF2T9s_V0Yjsbod2ICc325YKs-tLt-04igkZsJmhDNFXc4QC7wMzAjjQFUZ9o92ZFLMylYGUeTEgxJfV0LGQvHX8B-CXm_FVR9X1JKFTWZKbA/s320/IMG_1607.JPG" width="320" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-80997149632884375492016-04-24T15:44:00.002-07:002016-04-24T15:44:05.408-07:00A song
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The sky today was a smudged, sickly orange, a disturbing contrast
with the previous day’s soft yellow, even though the warm fronts always came in
that way. She could remember a time when they warned you not to go out
unnecessarily on orange days, but now they only issued those warnings on red
mornings, and not always then. Anyway, most people by now treated the warnings
as a ritual, as a wake-up chant in a meaningless language. Some were still
frightened, but it was increasingly hard to tolerate such an absence of
adaptive skills, even though of course everyone was supposed to tolerate
everyone else’s sincerely-held beliefs and fears.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Martin sent her a voice-stroke as she was walking to the park – Melt out 2nite? She replied right away – B
at Ur place 10. She’d decide later whether she meant it or not. She thought she’d
already arranged to be somewhere, but she didn’t check her time map. The last
time they had a melt-up, he was the one who’d forgotten, and when she got there
he was in the middle of an all-maler. He’d tried to pretend he hadn’t forgotten
(which was nice and old-fashioned of him) and invited her to join them, but she
didn’t like that combination, and she’d already promised herself never to get
into it again. A few years ago, she was sexually like everyone else, a believer
in never saying no, but recently she was getting into the Self-Zoom movement,
and asking herself every day what she really wanted. She wasn’t very good yet
at finding answers to that, but they always emphasized how much time you had to
invest in the questions before moving forward.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The park was just about as busy as ever, despite the greater
violence. The western half of it belonged to the tents now – sometime in the
past few years, the forces had given up chasing them out. She felt bad avoiding
the tents; most of the people in them were just like anybody else, but some of
the men were driven by obnoxious new doctrines that made them dangerous. The
eastern half belonged mainly to the dogs. It was the only good place in the
neighborhood to bring them, and it felt like there were more of them around
than ever, although she’d heard on an info-stroke that the dog numbers were
declining, because people preferred pets who fit with their insiding. It was
probably one of the many things where living in the country’s most affluent
city distorted your perspective, because people had more reasons to go outside.
Apparently most middle-sized towns now didn’t have a single coffee shop. That’s
what she’d heard anyway. She wasn’t sure if that was because of the price of
coffee or because of insiding. Maybe both. She still had three coffee shops
within a ten minute walk, and often thought she’d visit them more often, to
provide support, but she couldn’t see the point of drinking anything hot.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">About half the people had their faces uncovered today, the usual
number. She never covered up unless she was looking up at raging crimson. She sat and listened to info-strokes,
watching the dogs wandering in the dirty shade. A few of them ran in spurts,
but they mostly stayed by their owners. Dogs had once been symbols of loyalty
and companionship but now they seemed mostly like embodiments of everyone’s
eternal waiting. Maybe if dog numbers were declining, it was because people
suspected they sensed too much. One of them came briefly over to her and she
stroked its neck. It went away without looking at her, as transactional as
everyone else. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She was receiving constant info-strokes about disasters in Poland,
even though they didn’t match her settings. She didn’t even know where Poland
was, let alone care about it. But she let them continue, finding for now anyway
that the shards of misery made her other info-strokes seem almost refreshing by
comparison. She wondered whether this was in any way a profound discovery.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A man was walking toward her. He was a little older than her, with
more facial hair than you usually saw now, and with exposed arms wrapped
earlier-generation-style in painterly tattoos. On most people the combined effect
would have been comic, but on him it looked deliberate and purposeful. He sat
on the same slab as her, even though there were others available; some people
would have called the forces for not much more, especially from someone who
looked like that. For the next few minutes though, she wondered whether he’d
even seen her there, he seemed to be traveling so deeply through his own
forest. She knew he </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">had</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> seen her of
course, but she admired the concentration. She spoke first: “Are you from the
neighborhood?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He turned toward her, in a way that made her think he’d been waiting
for her to go first. He smiled in a comfortable, unshady kind of way. “I’m
trying to decide on that actually. I mean, I’m not from the neighborhood. But
maybe I could be. I’m walking around, trying to feel out whether this would be
a good place for me.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“How long have you been walking around?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Several days. Not consecutively. A few hours yesterday, a few hours
today.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I didn’t know anyone took that kind of care about finding a place.
Most people just check if there’s a clinic or a termination station, or a
school if they need that. Or somewhere to get delinked, but you can always find
that. Do you need a school?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I don’t need any of the things you mentioned. Just an atmosphere I
feel comfortable in.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“And you don’t just mean a cooling system that never ever breaks
down.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Well, I do mean that too. I believe in having a cooling system. I know
how they’re ultimately making our problems worse and I admire people who take
the ethical stand on that. But it’s very tough on a person, subjecting yourself
to that kind of constant discomfort.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Worse than that. They often die in their rooms. I don’t know if
it’s always an ethical stand. Sometimes it’s just checking out. I mean, I’m
going to take the pill, when I get to that point, but some people actually
think the pill is too fast. They want to feel the end, even if it’s
unbearable.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I haven’t made that decision for myself. I’m focused on staying
alive and maxing it.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I’m not arguing with that. It’s just that focusing on maxing it
doesn’t take you as far as it used to.” She sighed and looked at him like
someone looking to the bottom of oceans. “Anyway, that’s a heavy conversation
to have with someone who just randomly sits next to you.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“No, it’s the so-called light conversations that are heavy. Weighed
down and probably sunk by everything they try to ignore. Serious conversations
float at their appropriate level.” He laughed at himself. “I just pulled myself
out of an iceberg metaphor there.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That wouldn’t have been culturally correct for sure.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Maybe it’s safer to talk about the dogs,” he said. But the dogs
were doing even less now, except that one of them was rolling in the dirt, as
though coaxing the earth into accepting him to its clutch. A little time went
by. She didn’t want to say anything and didn’t mind waiting for him.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Eventually he commented: “You’re not listening to info-strokes or
music or anything.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You mean right now? I was giving you a chance to speak again.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It’s unusual for anyone to tolerate that long a silence.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I’m not that big a history lesson. It was on before you came.
Wasn’t yours?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I haven’t had it on for days. Look.” He moved a little closer and
angled his head one way and then another so she could see there was nothing
sitting in his ears. “It’s great.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“But don’t you get into trouble? What if someone needed you now.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That’s the great thing I found out. No one ever does. It will
always wait.” </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Obviously I noticed the tattoos and the…” She couldn’t remember the
word; he had to supply it. “Yes,” she said, “the beard. It’s a disruption. I
like them, but I don’t even know why. I think it’s a look we were all meant to
stop liking years ago.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah. But, you know, I’m not such a big history lesson either. And
I’m not an outlaw. I just believe we feel stronger and cleaner when we’re even
a little bit different. Except I don’t have the imagination to be different in
a new way, so I reached back into the past.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I’ve been getting into the Self-Zoom movement.” </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That can be good. It works for some people.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You don’t sound very impressed.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I am. It’s only that, for some people, it’s like looking away from
everything. It depends on how you do it.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“If I was looking away from everything I wouldn’t be sitting out
here.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I didn’t mean to offend you.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You’re right. You could probably use the Self-Zoom movement to
justify killing people. That’s not how I meant it.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Do you do the organized Zooms?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“No, I treat it as a personal thing.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That’s the better approach I think.” He took his shades off briefly
and rubbed one of his eyelids. Maybe he genuinely had an itch, or maybe he
wanted her to see his eyes, as some kind of message of sincerity. They were
smaller and darker than she’d expected, but then all his features were small
for his face, even his ears. If you were with him, you’d spend a lot of time
wondering how you ended up seeing so much of such an odd face. Maybe you’d be
happy to spend hours and years wondering about it.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She thought of taking off her own shades, but this wasn’t the place
for that kind of intimacy. He replaced his. “I wanted to do something,” he
said. “A sort of test of my comfort. It’s a little unusual.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“All right,” she said, laughing uncertainly. “Does it involve
prodding me with anything?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It may be embarrassing to you. You may prefer to move away.” She
nodded and indicated for him to go ahead. He sat quietly for a moment. He took
his shades off again and put them in his pocket. He got up and stood on the
slab. He was still, perhaps giving her time to move, but she didn’t think it
was necessary.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He took a deep breath, then exhaled into a loud musical note, high
and strong and clear, which he held for several seconds. She felt herself leap
back a little; she suppressed another laugh, before realizing immediately she
didn’t feel like laughing at all. People and dogs looked over. He followed it
with a second, higher note, then another, and a melody started to form. She
stood and moved away, not out of embarrassment, but to watch and listen. He
formed every note perfectly; each hovered in its own pocket of air before
softly expiring into the next. His song didn’t have words, but for her it
evoked – with strange and almost chilling clarity - a long-forgotten form of
pleasure, or a dream of it, perhaps an afternoon in a park like this when the
scene would have been founded in inexhaustible green, and the people would have
been dressed in white, and they’d have been laughing and running and eating and
drinking. A crowd gathered around him, and she felt they were seeing the same things
she was, that his song was a window that had suddenly opened to them.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As he continued, his body relaxed deeply; when his arms moved with
the music, they seemed controlled by an invisible operator. His eyes were
closed; his head nodded and swayed as if engaged in the most profound internal
conversation. She heard some people murmur something, but for the most part
they were impossibly quiet, their info-strokes obviously turned off. Of course,
you couldn’t tell who was recording it to play back later, but she doubted many
of them were doing that either. This was to be an experience and a memory. The
regret of it being gone, and incapable of being recovered, would be at the
heart of its beauty. The majesty of the moment was inextricable from the fear
of losing it.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He reached his highest note yet and held it for as long as a story,
then his mouth snapped shut and he drew himself up like a soldier. The air was
ringing. The city’s usual jagged hum was still there, but in temporary retreat.
It was like holding back the ocean with a whisper; perhaps a miracle, even if
it couldn’t last. A few people applauded, but others didn’t, perhaps finding it
wrong to follow a sublime sound with a dull and formulaic one. Some came up to
him; he stepped down from the slab to talk to them, shaking and clasping their
hands and looking deep into their shades like a priest or a politician. One old
woman even took her own shades off in return, that’s how far he’d taken her.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He didn’t look at her at all, but she knew he hadn’t forgotten her,
that he was still controlling his performance, and that when it was over, she
and he would continue. She was entirely content to wait, feeling no desire at
all to move, not even into the deeper shade that was just a few steps away. She
let others take their time with him, and as she watched him with them, it was
easy to imagine that the air around him had become a rich, sheltering blue, and
that he was glistening against it like life-giving rain.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-27705241616248460232015-09-04T16:15:00.002-07:002015-09-04T16:15:50.742-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 13<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdiRw58vDALqAgVecFU9qIucLjCr-3kvqbDoE4ezSPQg7PB1hHIefWzA0-diRaBpqwTulDdn1zCeeuymaFvDXUhh37UHnvm38moBig-dUHDefHCA3300wILGJf3NZmOVM82oHqG_tbodw/s1600/IMG_1457.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdiRw58vDALqAgVecFU9qIucLjCr-3kvqbDoE4ezSPQg7PB1hHIefWzA0-diRaBpqwTulDdn1zCeeuymaFvDXUhh37UHnvm38moBig-dUHDefHCA3300wILGJf3NZmOVM82oHqG_tbodw/s320/IMG_1457.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I didn’t
completely grasp the significance of the soccer game I mentioned yesterday –
Iceland beat the Netherlands (in Holland) and are now one point away from
qualifying for the European Championship. So <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of course</i> people were being noisy. They were watching the game on an outdoor
big screen near the hotel, but once it was over they dispersed quickly
(if nothing else, it was cold) and by the time we went out it was pretty quiet.
We wandered round looking for the ideal last-night restaurant – for me it would
have been easy (they all serve great fish) but if you strip away the burger and
pizza places, Ally usually has a choice of maybe two things, one of which is
always beef. Eventually we settled on a place called Torfan, where I had blue ling
and, after all of that, Ally had beef. But it was a charming spot, with a
feeling of being away from the fray. Actually, the main fray was over at the
next table, where a couple of (we assume) academics and (it seemed) one of the
academics’ somewhat younger girlfriend were discussing the whole span of twentieth
century politics and culture in the kind of way that Woody Allen used to
regularly parody. On this occasion, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i>
got to close the place down. As we walked back afterwards, late night Reykjavik - the <em>real</em> Reykjavik, some might say - was plainly settling into place.</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOwNcjOJ7wJWemEAl2Du8aZz6yj18y-pfEoGS2FXxIA8d9mtg69bs9wWMwFmiuAVsS94FkMMEQZE0JMT3Bce1A4iV1Sg0896Jhd7VW2dCvRDymsUDT563FjvBWJd2rNwRDGpR2uTV8aKM/s1600/IMG_1322.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOwNcjOJ7wJWemEAl2Du8aZz6yj18y-pfEoGS2FXxIA8d9mtg69bs9wWMwFmiuAVsS94FkMMEQZE0JMT3Bce1A4iV1Sg0896Jhd7VW2dCvRDymsUDT563FjvBWJd2rNwRDGpR2uTV8aKM/s320/IMG_1322.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We were up
good and early the next morning (I think the water in the hotel smelled like
sulphur, but in the circumstances that was a nostalgic reminder of our
experiences), and then for a while we flirted with disaster. Given Iceland’s
horrendous cab fares, we'd made an online booking for the airport bus; we
understood it would pick us up at the hotel at 7.45 am and get us to the
airport at 8.30 am, which seemed OK for a 10.30 am flight. Actually though,
the hotel pick-up only got us to the <em>bus terminal</em> at 8.30 am (if it had been on time, which it wasn’t),
with the airport an hour or so beyond that. This only slowly dawned on us along
the way, raising horrible fears of a brutally self-inflicted own goal –
obviously 9.30 is logistically early enough for a flight leaving an hour later,
but who knows how strict an individual airline might be regarding its stated policies? We tried to check in
online from the bus, and Ally managed it, but getting there a couple of minutes behind her, I
received a message that check-in was closed for our flight, thus raising a possible
scenario where Ally might be allowed on the plane and I wouldn’t be. Anyway, in
the end there was no line at the check-in counter, the woman seemed entirely
unperturbed at our lateness (does being in the mighty Saga class increase their
tolerance for such shenanigans? – it couldn’t hurt I suppose), there was no line
at the security gates either, we did some duty-free shopping and still had
twenty minutes in the lounge to calm down before walking to the gate. So I don’t know if we
ultimately learned anything from that. But for anyone thinking that this
vacation diary should contain at least a little bit of unbearable tension, we
did get a dose of it at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-oWohyphenhyphenmxxB43PigQ_gqIj2uM_-CvvE-3txu8MY_ODjcLKWLZ_CKSGPrsNXN2F8VToHSx94gUXxjqsOYDeMtqvVBD7nLeMDMBTQ89z3oi2oXlNapvhDyQmBHEgoIb-VG4rZ60wZ2q1-dU/s1600/IMG_1443.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-oWohyphenhyphenmxxB43PigQ_gqIj2uM_-CvvE-3txu8MY_ODjcLKWLZ_CKSGPrsNXN2F8VToHSx94gUXxjqsOYDeMtqvVBD7nLeMDMBTQ89z3oi2oXlNapvhDyQmBHEgoIb-VG4rZ60wZ2q1-dU/s320/IMG_1443.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Beyond
that, it was an uneventful flight home. The lunch selections were blue ling and
beef…seemed strangely familiar. I finished rewatching the old Japanese movie (by
the original Ozu) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tokyo Twilight,</i>
which I’d been getting through in brief chunks on various flights. I finished
this week’s downloaded edition of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New
Yorker</i> and started on this month’s downloaded edition (which conveniently
went online this morning) of the British movie magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sight and Sound</i> (which, astonishing to reflect, I’ve been reading
cover to cover since 1980 I think). Ally continued with the John Irving book
and watched Ben Stiller’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Secret Life of
Walter Mitty </i>(some of which may well have been shot on the same road we drove
along, given the prominent presence in one sequence of the pipe from the
geothermal plant). IcelandAir is a somewhat self-effacing airline – even their
safety announcement is in English with Icelandic subtitles. We didn’t watch
much TV in Iceland, but most of it also seemed to be in English, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">without</i> local subtitles. I mean, having
almost all your programming dumped on you from somewhere else…where are we,
Canada?!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwllZ2Bt_Qb_hSD8XHgGNmCUzEBMeDIVsRR4e9pJpaN8ieziwBU0MJzvV5oB0SuqF9KwYbkfaxR1N0FrS-Wk8z8wZF-OPJmG5BXzrL8XF6fFAJ0D0q6I2-95IPEsB5wpHQ8byMgiegSw/s1600/IMG_1273.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIwllZ2Bt_Qb_hSD8XHgGNmCUzEBMeDIVsRR4e9pJpaN8ieziwBU0MJzvV5oB0SuqF9KwYbkfaxR1N0FrS-Wk8z8wZF-OPJmG5BXzrL8XF6fFAJ0D0q6I2-95IPEsB5wpHQ8byMgiegSw/s320/IMG_1273.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, I
suppose it’s been clear enough how much we enjoyed the trip. Leaving aside the
complexities of the airport bus website, everything fell gracefully into place.
We now have reasonable maps in our heads of the downtown of two more notable
world cities. We spent time in some beautiful locations so unrelated to our
normal frame of reference that it’s hard to process we were actually there. We
went on long walks without seeing anyone else. We had great food and the usual
string of quirky incidents along the way. And this was all with the knowledge
of being lucky enough, and happy enough in our normal lives, that we didn’t
want or need anything more from the trip than it gave us – at the end, we just
wanted to go home. As I mentioned before, it would be wonderful to take that
extra benevolent, easeful vitality you have on vacation and keep it closer to
the surface of your normal life, but perhaps that would merely make normal life
dysfunctional, and so is a necessary failure.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Given
we have enough vacation ideas for several lifetimes, I don’t suppose the chances of us returning
to either country are particularly high. Iceland is a relatively easy direct
flight from Toronto, so maybe that will be a deciding factor in some future
calculation. On the other hand, it would be extremely beguiling to pick a
couple of more or less random Finnish destinations, as we did with Inari, and
build a trip around them. Well, we’ll see… As for today, we arrived on time and
got through Pearson in record time. We unpacked and settled in, and a while later I went to
fetch Ozu. As always, he was deliriously happy to come home, and we all celebrated by running around like idiots. Once again then, I conclude the vacation diary with
the key piece of evidence that all is back as it should be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-71206769820368904922015-09-03T13:16:00.003-07:002015-09-03T13:16:48.107-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 12<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXAHHqMv01lRAC3Yos6LVP64O6vdgS_y4U6KzyfjfY1R5_D22IXJNNqUhS1yhgPZ4N2bEgxEVz5jLfzBgQK9R-YFBemmj0hmwriDr7fe50hrS-zMakJkWVsCUuv7v-ZxZS5hYqOoZwRIg/s1600/IMG_1519.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXAHHqMv01lRAC3Yos6LVP64O6vdgS_y4U6KzyfjfY1R5_D22IXJNNqUhS1yhgPZ4N2bEgxEVz5jLfzBgQK9R-YFBemmj0hmwriDr7fe50hrS-zMakJkWVsCUuv7v-ZxZS5hYqOoZwRIg/s320/IMG_1519.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We returned
last night to the Northern Lights bar to close out the day. We were initially
one of just two couples, then one of three, then the only couple, just like
before. Because we too were obviously winding up, I imagine the waitress must have been
looking forward to calling it a night, but then a group of eleven loud Americans
came in and her prospects shifted, right in line with the reading on the noise
meter. I guess she's used to it. It may already have been a
challenging night because the fire alarm kept going off, apparently due to
over-sensitive smoke detectors in the kitchen (it’s happened several times
during our stay, but was more persistent tonight). Anyway, we left the waitress
to her fate, and walked round the outside of the hotel in the pitch darkness, which
was interesting for us, not least by virtue of the various guests who hadn’t
got round to closing their curtains. In our defense though, voyeurism doesn’t
count if it’s unintentional. No surprise, but we didn’t get to see the Northern
Lights (we would have received a wake-up call, but it was always a remote
prospect).</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No surprise
of course that there’s not a glimmer of a communication issue in Iceland. Also no
surprise that the trip has run entirely on plastic – I think the only vendor
who actually needed cash was the ice cream vendor in Helsinki on the first day.
Since then I’ve only used cash when we were trying to get rid of it (because, despite
being fully tuned into this shift, we still tend to bring too much, out of some
old-fashioned paranoia I suppose) or to get the 10% cash discount from the airport. It’s obviously all for the best, but traveling must have felt more
tangible and mysterious when you had to worry about the logistics of paying for
things, and about making yourself understood, and when you couldn’t possibly research
your destinations and accommodations as thoroughly as you now can online. We’ve
certainly lived through that shift – nowadays we plan and book entire trips in
a couple of hours. As with many things, you’d resist any attempt to wind back
the clock, but there’s plainly some degradation of experience, of perception, of
adrenalin. We can only hang on to our scraps of self-justification, parading, as proof of continuing life, the fact
that I’m here generating words about all the walking we did, rather than selfies taken on our
bus rides…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkyd7em9K3ofxWFrYHPk2_mxcs6LIi-Go0_ZWbttLphG27u8k-aaU9J7wjAdz7n6QpyS-Usvt2efIO5tENJyxBaAsLIdpUAzGq87v7IlLlYYRoKDVnkyHzNTlDbVtqH_3bCNSev2LidPY/s1600/IMG_1499.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkyd7em9K3ofxWFrYHPk2_mxcs6LIi-Go0_ZWbttLphG27u8k-aaU9J7wjAdz7n6QpyS-Usvt2efIO5tENJyxBaAsLIdpUAzGq87v7IlLlYYRoKDVnkyHzNTlDbVtqH_3bCNSev2LidPY/s320/IMG_1499.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway,
despite all that, it’s been a wonderful trip, exactly the intended blend of
experience and difference, but as I mentioned, our minds are just about full up
for now, so we don’t need any more. It didn’t matter then that it was raining
on our final day in Iceland (it would certainly have mattered on the previous
days, so our weather-related luck essentially continued) – if it had been dry,
we would have taken a final walk in the vicinity of the hotel, but we didn’t
have a specific plan in mind, Instead we drove back to Reykjavik, which as noted had never actually been very far away. It took almost as much time to
fill up the gas tank and to find a parking spot as it did to drive back – Ally was
weaving through the city like a seasoned local. We dropped our bags in the
hotel and had a bit of lunch. As we were walking from there, we heard Wagner’s
Ride of the Valkyries blaring away, and went to investigate, finding a crowd
surrounding a large yellowish building, multiple faces staring out from the
windows as if under siege. Suddenly, a large group of youths with painted faces paraded into view, wearing white togas and
skimpy dresses, a Grim Reaper character leading the way.
They gathered at the front of the building, then rushed toward it, running
around and symbolically trying to gain entrance. Failing at this, they
re-gathered at the door and entered into a ringing dialogue with its representatives. Presumably it’s some kind of student initiation ritual, perhaps
one that’s persisted in the same form for generations, perhaps just this year's model. Either way, it was quite a spectacle to stumble across. We left without
seeing the end, but I imagine it involves a happy coming together followed by
heavy drinking for the rest of the day.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For our
final outing, we decided to head to the nearby island of Videy. It’s only a
five minute ferry ride, but the ferry terminal is rather to the edge of
downtown, about an hour’s walk along the waterfront. Between that and the
ongoing drizzly weather (which never really let up today), we were two of only
four visitors to Videy during mid-afternoon today. We know this because we
walked the whole thing and saw only the same two girls, who passed by us a
number of times (no doubt muttering how close <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they’d</i> come to being the only ones on the island).</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5XPMY6VlqaHj_6pt8FtNDvAhu23XKLd25i79En728XgEMJWfcsAYYRXPlaVWLkurQOrfX-_8zgqD4sA_zSzKk-Iz5VE7z68kHISXwqNUsx6-0lIQNtgET-mU3Ssbsxln9DLq-1aspCOg/s1600/IMG_1508.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5XPMY6VlqaHj_6pt8FtNDvAhu23XKLd25i79En728XgEMJWfcsAYYRXPlaVWLkurQOrfX-_8zgqD4sA_zSzKk-Iz5VE7z68kHISXwqNUsx6-0lIQNtgET-mU3Ssbsxln9DLq-1aspCOg/s320/IMG_1508.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Videy was
occupied at various points through the centuries, the modern-day population peaking at 138 in 1930, but it’s been uninhabited since the 1950s. The old
schoolhouse though is outfitted with some modern furniture and a modest
kitchen, suggesting that something still happens there occasionally. Most of
the rest is in ruins. The most famous artefact might be the Imagine Peace
Tower, designed by Yoko Ono in the form of a wishing well, dedicated to John
Lennon’s memory. At certain times of year, a tower of light emerges from it,
but today, for all the impact it made, it might as well have been a utility
building. There’s also a Richard Serra artwork, consisting of stone pillars
arranged in various locations. Anyway, we spent an enjoyable two hours there,
but at the cost of extremely wet feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-RbE0E6zjpktvMzjt2OXhnPJapzEpJ2kvcW3zzS_j4daFmOe7qYY3gu2QrsQHXp3hh8OObreM7nn1_1VSZ2_uW56TypeSs14fZ43Q52xt6Ppcq-LVwEe-Ny5VfDK1AH_8-pB8MJ1fAYc/s1600/IMG_1521.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-RbE0E6zjpktvMzjt2OXhnPJapzEpJ2kvcW3zzS_j4daFmOe7qYY3gu2QrsQHXp3hh8OObreM7nn1_1VSZ2_uW56TypeSs14fZ43Q52xt6Ppcq-LVwEe-Ny5VfDK1AH_8-pB8MJ1fAYc/s320/IMG_1521.JPG" /></a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We walked
back along the waterfront and explored the town a bit more, walking for the
first time up to Hallgrim’s church, seeming as mysterious and aerodynamic as a
spacebird waiting for take-off. We’re staying for the final night in the
CityCenter Hotel, which is right in the middle of things – perhaps too much so,
because as I write this in the early evening, there’s an incessant booming in
the background, apparently linked to a soccer game tonight against the
Netherlands. But if it wasn’t that, I’m sure it would be something else! It’s
Reykjavik!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJVcgZAAb4OCYDyevietuerocMaKDaLqXGuAtXm9J3JaF6ucHsf_DUsiEymkNuF5IZ4dhfzxKEP5sLyYQrpSf9rR42cZK3MOZbEiUgHu19GwMI7t8fKRQNjuoQkRWISwkJoStq97cxlk/s1600/IMG_1505.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJVcgZAAb4OCYDyevietuerocMaKDaLqXGuAtXm9J3JaF6ucHsf_DUsiEymkNuF5IZ4dhfzxKEP5sLyYQrpSf9rR42cZK3MOZbEiUgHu19GwMI7t8fKRQNjuoQkRWISwkJoStq97cxlk/s320/IMG_1505.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-84900217353912064592015-09-02T13:22:00.001-07:002015-09-02T13:22:37.838-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 11<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4myqp5fD-8LqKdV_nxkcFyamMS8V53-I3-c2u0w6DYfts9vtTYa5NqVbfzqgHwY2SaWuztJQIKWAsUIaWGV5m-vH5SWawMax9MVh1SHRRyYD0d3eQ4Rncz161JQ0OywXGlJcpTTb_eA/s1600/IMG_1467.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4myqp5fD-8LqKdV_nxkcFyamMS8V53-I3-c2u0w6DYfts9vtTYa5NqVbfzqgHwY2SaWuztJQIKWAsUIaWGV5m-vH5SWawMax9MVh1SHRRyYD0d3eQ4Rncz161JQ0OywXGlJcpTTb_eA/s320/IMG_1467.JPG" /></a>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As everyone knows, we could be doing a completely different
kind of trip in Iceland, submerging ourselves in Reykjavik’s drinking scene,
which apparently gets going late and continues almost all night, at least at
weekends. We picked up a copy of the English-language “Reykjavik Grapevine,”
which dramatizes aspects of this life in colourful detail. Reporting on a
recent “Culture Night,” the author writes: “Every successive street corner
presented a new opportunity to see one or more people vomiting onto objects
that didn’t normally have vomit on them.” That’s actually one of the more
convivial sentences in the article. Or we could be having a less giddy, more
acerbically observant kind of experience. On the following page of the paper, another
writer paints the following image: “Imagine we – that is, people in Iceland –
are living on a boat. We have now been travelling up the western shore of the
Bullshit River for a number of years in search of answers to our problems.” And
on it goes. Actually, I’m unfairly quoting these articles, in a way that
misrepresents their overall wit and thoughtfulness. Just as a brief window into the Iceland
trips we’re <em>not</em> doing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Elsewhere in the paper, the issue’s “most awesome letter”
muses on the “tourist defecation issue” - the conclusion, happily, is that Iceland’s
doing no worse on this front (so to speak) than most other destinations. We
would agree, although it can't match the Finnish trails for outhouse availability(and, by the way, they're surprisingly clean and odourless, given their simple
composting facilities [a big supply of dirt and a little shovel]). Anyway, yesterday
we drove back to the hotel from Gullfoss by a slightly different route, with
only a single wrong turn which we immediately corrected (the map suggests this
is the only region of Iceland where there’s any serious possibility of a wrong
turn – elsewhere there’s usually just one major road so obviously you take it). Once
you get away from the tourist route, there’s very little traffic, very little
to see at all except layer upon layer of landscape, a vast long-written
immortal story that you barely pierce. Iceland does have concerns about the
environmental impact of increasing tourist numbers though (and not just the tourist defecation issue). I guess they can
always limit it by raising prices further!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTKsR8gGewmLCZieoBAD1X4kw1gqPRqIVXdb0Gmbmt_vlS6tHnvFkalMASO23ThWUGL74za59BwPe7NVmqCRjoBUDlG424Ip6-zT47arsSL1hsTwkQqEEYwCiNCiuxPsT213Z3BfejvM/s1600/IMG_1461.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTKsR8gGewmLCZieoBAD1X4kw1gqPRqIVXdb0Gmbmt_vlS6tHnvFkalMASO23ThWUGL74za59BwPe7NVmqCRjoBUDlG424Ip6-zT47arsSL1hsTwkQqEEYwCiNCiuxPsT213Z3BfejvM/s320/IMG_1461.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For the first time in the trip, we got back to our room and
stayed there, eating some sandwiches we bought in Laugarvatn. It was a
different kind of evening, but entirely fine – as I already mentioned, we don’t
really need any more big dinners. We went to sleep pretty early, and got out of
the hotel before 10 the next day. A forty minute drive took us to Hverageroi, a
pleasant but unremarkable town (guide book: “You’re not here for the
architecture, you’re here for Hverageroi’s highly active-geothermal field,
which heats hundreds of greenhouses.”). We had breakfast in a local bakery, and
then drove rather randomly to the start of a local hiking trail. Through sheer
luck, this turned out to be the way to Reykjadlur, a geothermal valley where
lots of people do the 7km (there and back) hike, to enjoy a warm bath up in the
mountains. Our visit coincided with a group of schookids,
among many others (the parking lot was overflowing) – it’s a spectacular walk,
one of the most memorable of our trip (although hampered on the way out by
pervasive clouds of insects, and to a lesser extent by sulphuric odours, which
have been a sporadic feature of our last few days), and not overly steep or
difficult. Most people stop once they reach the main gathering point, indicated by
boardwalks and not particularly effective modesty-hiding partitions for
changing, but we walked on, climbing up a further peak and onwards for a while.
To our surprise, a signpost indicated we could have continued directly from there to the
mountain near our hotel – we didn’t realize how little distance we'd covered
on a crow-flies basis (I made a similar observation in Helsinki a few days
ago). Anyway, we walked back to the car and then drove back into town.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had lunch at Kjot og Kunst, where Ally had an omelette
and I had vegetarian pasta. From there, our efforts today were a bit less successful.
We drove south to Eyrarbakki, which was once Iceland’s main port. It has a
strikingly bleak, black beach, but you can’t spend much time there – we passed
through the rest of town without barely seeing a living person, let alone a
point of interest (maybe score a quarter-point for the neatly painted, box-like
houses). On the way out you come to a prison, Iceland’s largest – you can see a
lot of it, but no one was out playing when we passed. A few kilometres on we
came to Stokkseyri, another small fishing village, described as having “a fun
dose of quirky sites and summer art galleries” – I suppose that’s true, but it
didn’t seem like a large enough dose to stop for. We drove a bit further and tried our luck with
Urridafoss waterfall, which apparently processes a greater volume of water than
any other in the country. I guess that’s a function of width and constancy,
because it wasn’t particularly imposing compared to Gullfoss yesterday. More unfortunately, there aren't any walking trails around it, so all you can do is take a look and return to the car.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3CD3_-hM8gktQSiQ0O_q1vdUJ_Jx31IplVCPtlEA7y54CkDvfCmB0g_M9ZL7T9bRHjP3kGo5MX7q0lP6LRlt3PNcindZT2WfKsN1_v-DAmbRpwNHV1YJcCC8nd0obZf1RpgjVfT5oZPg/s1600/IMG_1478.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3CD3_-hM8gktQSiQ0O_q1vdUJ_Jx31IplVCPtlEA7y54CkDvfCmB0g_M9ZL7T9bRHjP3kGo5MX7q0lP6LRlt3PNcindZT2WfKsN1_v-DAmbRpwNHV1YJcCC8nd0obZf1RpgjVfT5oZPg/s320/IMG_1478.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That wasn’t too much return on a few hours of driving, but
of course it was still a funny experience, often giving the feeling of
traveling through utterly deserted flatness; overseen at other times by
astonishing mountain formations. On the way back we stopped briefly in Selfoss,
cruelly described by the guidebook as “witlessly ugly.” It’s probably the same
degree of wit as you see in functional towns the world over, which admittedly
isn’t much. Anyway, we didn’t see much of it beyond the inside of a supermarket,
where we picked up a snack for later, having decided to follow the same meal
strategy as yesterday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQQj3hUbfflPyJbxtPd9zdBLvsvuMkWuzWkBYhF4OSn5LlSLRR9WgmfyARY_IKxR_eypLuXt5kkmpLCPnN3Lgz1aFIbO1rEUm4ne6R1EikLdr9XTrlr6OB_6gcRFjibpvNpJ6-Jzsr3-4/s1600/IMG_1491.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQQj3hUbfflPyJbxtPd9zdBLvsvuMkWuzWkBYhF4OSn5LlSLRR9WgmfyARY_IKxR_eypLuXt5kkmpLCPnN3Lgz1aFIbO1rEUm4ne6R1EikLdr9XTrlr6OB_6gcRFjibpvNpJ6-Jzsr3-4/s320/IMG_1491.JPG" /></a>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We did get one pretty good walk at least, by stopping at a
trail just ten minutes from the hotel – we thought it would lead down to Lake <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thingvallavatn, but in the event it never
ended up getting close to it. Still, it was good to have an hour or so of
reliably spectacular isolation. We may have scored a notable sighting as we
arrived back at the hotel – a black Arctic fox, Iceland’s only indigenous land
mammal. Sightings in the wild are reportedly rare, but this one didn’t seem
scared in the least, wandering leisurely around in plain sight of us and
several others. I assume they’ve been lulled into complacency by the easy
pickings around the hotel. Still, you know there’s nothing better than animal
sightings!</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOWEaX5baJbywkY2sk1O5VS0J3-AOwY_hmo3M6bQL6KNbZn3SfJaNy9OylgDVkqdBvhcvKTJrb8nMhwzj5nX62iweXrjinL_JPhyphenhyphenDGt6_v2rkEorle4nLI4iS3mNbjVkmrFSkM_XwbEw/s1600/IMG_1483.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOWEaX5baJbywkY2sk1O5VS0J3-AOwY_hmo3M6bQL6KNbZn3SfJaNy9OylgDVkqdBvhcvKTJrb8nMhwzj5nX62iweXrjinL_JPhyphenhyphenDGt6_v2rkEorle4nLI4iS3mNbjVkmrFSkM_XwbEw/s320/IMG_1483.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-246280721377285002015-09-01T12:59:00.002-07:002015-09-01T12:59:25.503-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 10<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCBJXbjdkB3sHVa8VmKGH-0OTvdHu2iZSFZmI_9Z_jGTT9CbdUIoSndpnagYMF4QgdwXvPXaSI3EgKG_8mETdkuXCKWbKoJVr7CK2WOGxI9JkvSaPv3Jn-H3kfl0ypvHm6mXrZ8yVqTQ/s1600/IMG_1431.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCBJXbjdkB3sHVa8VmKGH-0OTvdHu2iZSFZmI_9Z_jGTT9CbdUIoSndpnagYMF4QgdwXvPXaSI3EgKG_8mETdkuXCKWbKoJVr7CK2WOGxI9JkvSaPv3Jn-H3kfl0ypvHm6mXrZ8yVqTQ/s320/IMG_1431.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before wrapping up yesterday, we went back out for a brief car
ride, just for the hell of it (something we’ve virtually never done in all our
time together). We drove twenty minutes further along the road that
brought us here and then came back. It didn’t yield much – just different
studies in isolation: isolated houses or small groups thereof; an isolated
(very pretty) church by the side of the lake; (most oddly) what appeared to be
an isolated kid’s adventure playground; an isolated golf course – but this was
all fascinating in itself, especially as by the standards of the country as a
whole, we’re virtually in a suburb of Reykjavik. Then we had our usual
afternoon time in the hotel, although we must have been super-energized because
we didn’t have a nap. Ozu seemed to me to be licking his paws in a way that
suggests we may still be dealing with his seasonal itchiness when we come back
(if it was really bad though I suppose he’d have been wearing his cone, so that’s
something, unless they’ve just thrown up their hands at him, which is a sentiment I
could understand). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had dinner in the hotel restaurant (Ally had celeriac; I
had plaice) and our 9 pm reservation was late enough to shut the place down. This surprised us as the hotel appeared to be full or close to it. There’s also a “Northern
Lights” bar with a huge window and sweeping view of everything that’s out there
- this might on occasion constitute a prime location for seeing the Northern
Lights themselves, but we're unlikely to get lucky on that so early in the year. Tonight the window
was merely reflecting the huge painting over the bar, which appears to
represent London being invaded by the devil, or something equally
site-appropriate. There were two other couples in the bar when we arrived, but
they soon left, so we shut that place down too. I really don’t think we were up very
late; perhaps everyone else is exhausted by greater exertions than ours.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eA_Jq-DdV1tSO_VXSJXt-1Hll_KCKqvDO4L9nV-Mf1eAdXuU8ml4ltuo5iGwqEytiGiWfVhcLohyphenhyphenjmVmUgDDNz1EdCVxg1Drr-nF-KVPdWfZ6tepXBka-kGsijImi0v79WXM0YMXzbQ/s1600/IMG_1412.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eA_Jq-DdV1tSO_VXSJXt-1Hll_KCKqvDO4L9nV-Mf1eAdXuU8ml4ltuo5iGwqEytiGiWfVhcLohyphenhyphenjmVmUgDDNz1EdCVxg1Drr-nF-KVPdWfZ6tepXBka-kGsijImi0v79WXM0YMXzbQ/s320/IMG_1412.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We skipped the hotel breakfast the next day (despite a lack
of certainty, ultimately quite unfounded, about when or if we might find any
food elsewhere) and embarked on a day of motoring around the “Golden Circle”,
described in the guide book as “an artificial tourist circuit…loved (and
marketed) by thousands.” Indeed, it was quite obvious that large volumes of people
(many of them transported by tour buses) were doing much the same as us, in
exactly the same order – you even get to recognize some individuals (like the two
guys with the apparent project of being photographed playing ping-pong in front
of each iconic destination, or the young guy with an apparent crippling fear of
driving on gravel roads [should have done what we did and got the gravel
insurance!]). First we went to Pingvellir, site of the world’s first democratic
parliament, and situated on a tectonic plate boundary; there's
a cliff edge so long and straight that it seems like the remnants of an
artificial fortress. We followed various trails for a couple of
hours before moving on. The next major attraction is Geysir, the original hot-water spout after
which all other geysers are named. Nowadays, Geysir is content to take place to
its younger companion Strokkur, which shoots out water every five to ten
minutes (“stand downwind only if you want a shower”). It appears that Strokkur is
constantly surrounded by a ring of people, cameras poised for the next perfect
selfie opportunity, many of which would probably just end up recording a wall of
white spray. There’s a rocky path up from there, allowing you to look down at Strokkur's efforts as if it were a mere common kettle. We </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">walked as far as we could
before returning to the car.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSROMhx5UoimQcOnhJTEmv3NBETamMZOofDmHbOas5htct5fJaMsNJgz7YHZd9jtaih5mOyjtNGlAMxiEoWVjlBkvfnPlcMSFyYKcVAPz3WiZG_BCE1kZibz4_wjQvmhGw71clHMD_3Q4/s1600/IMG_1438.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSROMhx5UoimQcOnhJTEmv3NBETamMZOofDmHbOas5htct5fJaMsNJgz7YHZd9jtaih5mOyjtNGlAMxiEoWVjlBkvfnPlcMSFyYKcVAPz3WiZG_BCE1kZibz4_wjQvmhGw71clHMD_3Q4/s320/IMG_1438.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Probably most impressive is Gullfoss, Iceland’s most
famous waterfall. Apparently it drops 32 metres (Niagara Falls for
comparison is 50 metres), but it feels higher, perhaps because it makes such an
impressive entry out of almost nowhere (you climb down a staircase from a
non-descript parking lot, walk along a bit and there it is). It creates a
tangible, magical wall of mist above it, and today was sustaining a perfect
rainbow. Like everyone else, we were suitably overcome with awe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMysTjykkYST6SBC4xCvyMUBCxgJlvelZsNIw6ERamtBF4y2J14U417mCTdIJ3MeK80jVfPVfV5Ace0YWvaKSonqHX2xIzya0IL_wVp7p8yf2va3_BmfUswnFvcxbjctGgoq9b1WeqbG4/s1600/IMG_1442.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMysTjykkYST6SBC4xCvyMUBCxgJlvelZsNIw6ERamtBF4y2J14U417mCTdIJ3MeK80jVfPVfV5Ace0YWvaKSonqHX2xIzya0IL_wVp7p8yf2va3_BmfUswnFvcxbjctGgoq9b1WeqbG4/s320/IMG_1442.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Although all three sites (especially Geysir) provide the usual opportunities for eating and shopping, they do have a
stirring collective coherence about them, attesting equally to the earth’s
fragility and to its strength. The geysers and the waterfall dramatize the
massive forces usually held at bay, acting up here as if the ground had lost confidence in its powers of containment. But at
the same time, the whole allure of this area is its rarity – elsewhere, water
scarcity if not outright drought is far more likely to be a threat. Iceland might
almost seem like the world’s Achilles heel, the pressure point where a strategically
malign application of force could usurp everything, or where a shrewdly benevolent one could redeem it. For now, it just marks
time, the tectonic plate boundary widening by a few millimetres a year…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Also today, we visited the little town of Laugarvatn,
primarily to visit Lindin, reportedly the best restaurant for miles. We ate in
the more casual bistro part of it, where Ally had a barbecued lamb sandwich and
I had bean patties (one of the nicest meals of the trip, but then I’m ready to
slip back into our usual predominantly vegetarian diet). Laugarvatn doesn’t
make much impact as a town, but it has some lovely lakeside views, a spa, and a
big swimming pool that looks as if it were built with grander ambitions in
mind. We walked round the local supermarket, and saw the two ping-pong guys I
mentioned earlier. They’d found some meat that clearly delighted them as a bargain
deal, especially when it was confirmed to them that the expiration date was
still a day away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So that’s basically the story of how we were almost entirely
typical tourists for eight hours or so, except that at the end of it we
probably got to come back to a nicer place than many of the tourists did! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVX5n-ifVjyX_AXKjRgzL6FS5y5WSmilphV2yCEl7NN1yqcbkr77XjKXtA_O1xEjsAIUNs5H5F6eNPZVTXxLyjZ0-l3HVdxsoesG7ze6Sq3z5eU6BnVrVHv0s9rNwyNeVHPQlFU5FXRn4/s1600/IMG_1444.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVX5n-ifVjyX_AXKjRgzL6FS5y5WSmilphV2yCEl7NN1yqcbkr77XjKXtA_O1xEjsAIUNs5H5F6eNPZVTXxLyjZ0-l3HVdxsoesG7ze6Sq3z5eU6BnVrVHv0s9rNwyNeVHPQlFU5FXRn4/s320/IMG_1444.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-9387950022294916342015-08-31T12:59:00.002-07:002015-08-31T12:59:21.678-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 9<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dReglCx0AeiUUeXMRkalDCi5lUYEHO8h5OEY_n2GtYXT8MjTW23zX7gJZYj9PRQ4QW95BmkYfGNplOAk0w0bF0msjn-XdsY0umJSbu8d3oT-PRg1nIkD_Wc67dz_DCSp2VgU36PqB3A/s1600/IMG_1377.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dReglCx0AeiUUeXMRkalDCi5lUYEHO8h5OEY_n2GtYXT8MjTW23zX7gJZYj9PRQ4QW95BmkYfGNplOAk0w0bF0msjn-XdsY0umJSbu8d3oT-PRg1nIkD_Wc67dz_DCSp2VgU36PqB3A/s320/IMG_1377.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Compared to the lush, varied views as you fly in and out of
Finland, it doesn’t take long for the stereotype of Iceland to assert itself
from the sky – vast expanses of grey, with not a tree in sight. The cab ride
from the airport reinforces the same impression – you can see some interesting
terrain in the distance, but the immediate view is just flatness, punctuated by
the occasional warehouse. We’re staying at the 101 Hotel, a boutique hotel
(“member of Design Hotels”) which Ally read about in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i>. It doesn’t take long to realize how expensive
Iceland is, even compared to Scandinavia. The cab ride came to something like
$160 (even with the 10% discount for cash – hey, nice gesture!) and the hotel
room is far more expensive than we would really have gone for, even given our
lackadaisical approach. But what can I say, neither of us had checked properly. You can
see the attention to design in the room, but it’s not always for the best – I
nearly walked into the bathroom mirror several times. Also, it has the least
stable wi-fi of any of our hotels so far, and it’s also the noisiest location,
with Ally having been bothered at various points in the night by music from an
adjacent nightclub, by voices, by traffic and by what sounded like horses. Of
course, design can’t fix that, but maybe better sound-proofing would have
helped a bit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-t5uy92Y-J896Ol8PHvRL3TgsWOBDpiV0rrULqwmxKOuBj4a3fCzLT6HeHVTVlVkE_CoUt2leHINvxey1CoSZgzhDly6o9I7kbwsy796hUVdU0FiVYPHTmxmkuGcLodfF_bfkmheIoAU/s1600/IMG_1371.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-t5uy92Y-J896Ol8PHvRL3TgsWOBDpiV0rrULqwmxKOuBj4a3fCzLT6HeHVTVlVkE_CoUt2leHINvxey1CoSZgzhDly6o9I7kbwsy796hUVdU0FiVYPHTmxmkuGcLodfF_bfkmheIoAU/s320/IMG_1371.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oh well, you can’t win them all. The hotel is on a very
plain-looking street, but Laugavegur, the main shopping thoroughfare, is one block
up. It goes a long way in both directions, crammed with distractions. We
arbitrarily chose a place to eat called Café Paris, although unlike the places I
mentioned in Helsinki, this makes no actual attempt to evoke Paris. We split a
cheeseburger and a Caesar salad, just for a change I guess, and walked a bit
more afterwards. The next morning we covered some of that area again, along with a
brief walk through the old part of Reykjavik, and then headed down to the waterfront,
where the main eye-catcher, excepting the mountains in the background, is a newish, lonely-seeming
concert/conference centre. There are more signs of construction around town than you might
expect – perhaps reflecting the country’s recovery from its financial crisis. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We seldom rent a car on our trips – I think the last time
was in Australia a dozen years ago – but it seemed like a necessary step this
time. A guy from the rental company brought it, a little blue Hyundai, to the
hotel at noon. We're spending the next three nights in the Ion Adventure
Hotel, which is actually only an hour or so from Reykjavik, but ought to open
up a whole different world (<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">it’s
just 18km from Thingvellir National Park, sometimes regarded as the country’s
most important - although also the most touristy)</span>. The directions sound
impenetrable on Google Maps, but actually only amount to taking the correct route
out of the city, and then not missing a particular left turn along the way. Of
course, we missed the left turn (well, I was navigating, so it was just me) and
had to double back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After that point we hardly saw any other vehicles until we
reached the hotel, and you quickly start to realize how you could bury deeper
and deeper into Iceland, to all intents and purposes limitlessly, reorienting
your entire sense of proportion and scale (we did briefly consider, during our
planning, whether to do a more extended driving tour, which I guess
is one of the iconic ways to spend time here, but we concluded it wouldn’t
really suit us). For most of the way, the road ran alongside a big pipe, and we
eventually came to the geothermal power plant from which it emanates – we stopped
at a lookout, and spotted the hotel a few kilometres away, so that was easy. It
might not immediately sound too appealing to say that the hotel, nestled against
a mountain on one side, faces a power plant on the other, but in this case it
really only means a soothing background of pristine white steam clouds. Also
not far in the distance is Lake <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thingvallavatn,
which is Iceland’s largest. The hotel is a base for helicopter tours among much else (the helicopter below is safely taking off, and not coming down in a disastrous whirl of smoke, as you might momentarily think).</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQyppJZH1ngTkXfQHMYhEuW087A5teBXESjQNTML-DPSpLem96vOjY-y-MhnHsEWjP1DtQdWmzS20cWnQXRgvk3EUz0JBt_zQeSJPs1GyN5KlCMg_hPsL-bv83MJsXbiSMHx5tw2jiyz4/s1600/IMG_1390.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQyppJZH1ngTkXfQHMYhEuW087A5teBXESjQNTML-DPSpLem96vOjY-y-MhnHsEWjP1DtQdWmzS20cWnQXRgvk3EUz0JBt_zQeSJPs1GyN5KlCMg_hPsL-bv83MJsXbiSMHx5tw2jiyz4/s320/IMG_1390.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Soon after checking in, we went out and randomly followed a
trail up the mountain. We ended up walking a loop of 9km or so, much of the
first half above the power plant, which has an aesthetically quite pleasing
geometric tidiness to it. After that we wandered through a craggy area of
boiling pools (signs warning of scalding temperatures) and warm
streams, and then descended down between the lava fissures, giving us a feeling
(albeit highly illusory) of isolated adventurism. We climbed out and walked back,
mostly through a big meadow (causing outrage among more displaced creatures, this time
sheep). And that was a very satisfying initial walk in what I guess is the real
Iceland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEO41XbYPmW2T0RFvudP_g_lWoUIdgueJz1CAZ157XP_d0eGWCdCDWQ2yg6ChzII9mxNSgmuuzssoEpzGh7ExQww65fcl0QqWeeZKEuZ2vKJlhYIQlWYwjxbv7P79hgRLQrXDdNWoQJ4/s1600/IMG_1400.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEO41XbYPmW2T0RFvudP_g_lWoUIdgueJz1CAZ157XP_d0eGWCdCDWQ2yg6ChzII9mxNSgmuuzssoEpzGh7ExQww65fcl0QqWeeZKEuZ2vKJlhYIQlWYwjxbv7P79hgRLQrXDdNWoQJ4/s320/IMG_1400.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I only emphasize that point because up to then, Iceland was
seeming rather artificial. The 101 Hotel was a mistake – even if we’d liked it,
it would only have buried us in a little self-contained design bubble which
doesn’t help to integrate you into a place. The Ion Adventure Hotel is actually
its cousin in the “Design Hotels” pantheon (it's on the very next page of the global
“Design Hotels” book they both proudly display in the lobby) but everything
about it is more rational and pleasing (even our room’s bizarre floor to
ceiling photograph of a horse’s eye doesn’t seem too grating). There’s nothing
you can do about the prices though. We had lunch here after we arrived, and
there’s basically no point even contemplating what it ran to (the modest chocolate bar
in our minibar costs $18). This kind of price-inflation environment isn’t alien
to us – we met in Bermuda for Pete’s sake! – but in Reykjavik it wasn’t really
clear that the trip would deliver the kind of memories and satisfaction to
make it worthwhile. But now it seems that it will, so we can just stop focusing
on it (well, more or less)…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_YElaPlo4pr1Lik9c7UDBav3bVQxyOrZskngv_FLZF2hgpmB88fz-7UaFNeMpCp7koZKIta4scp7ojV_UuXkR74UvUpL0F1OoyfQFNP1aNMv9y4q4VQUzTuDPaOLD98AFRT2Saz6UBQ/s1600/IMG_1405.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_YElaPlo4pr1Lik9c7UDBav3bVQxyOrZskngv_FLZF2hgpmB88fz-7UaFNeMpCp7koZKIta4scp7ojV_UuXkR74UvUpL0F1OoyfQFNP1aNMv9y4q4VQUzTuDPaOLD98AFRT2Saz6UBQ/s320/IMG_1405.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-69215969477503991862015-08-30T23:35:00.001-07:002015-08-30T23:35:28.625-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 8<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDFwZmfQEKat2X4P7o_2nAOlDGomtAPz8L1Aw3N5sl8enYqshmeUoHd1OmboLPjOOwMIjFSg3ZbgkjUOX4Kaycc_jEe5GDoNVs-G2_yTExVAlnfFMm_JtROrfp66_Fqq96y5ERygMSr-E/s1600/IMG_1352.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDFwZmfQEKat2X4P7o_2nAOlDGomtAPz8L1Aw3N5sl8enYqshmeUoHd1OmboLPjOOwMIjFSg3ZbgkjUOX4Kaycc_jEe5GDoNVs-G2_yTExVAlnfFMm_JtROrfp66_Fqq96y5ERygMSr-E/s320/IMG_1352.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Breakfast at the Skandic Grand Marina was a bit of a
surprise, after the sleepy rhythms of Inari – the buffet was vast and
frantic, surrounded by people with heaping trays desperately circling in search of a
free table. After surviving that we left our bags and headed out for a final stroll in Finland. We walked north from
the hotel, following a new section of the coastline.
After an hour of winding round the water, we were about ten minutes from the
hotel on an as-the-crow-flies basis. At one point we passed what may have been
Finland’s entire naval fleet; otherwise it was mostly elegant old buildings and
water views, an easy-going Sunday morning feel. There’s a little island called
Tervassari, connected by a bridge, and we walked around that. It has a dog run
and a playground, not too much else. Based on our admittedly limited
experience, Finnish dog runs are usually small and bleak. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDqHFydv7s7oCsKjm_xXnf5TFvMYaPREDqrG84Riy3u6PqB9THlODan5A78RphplyNJMGlqdJytKxYg98Dy9DgijwYYguCWG3fkviA14ogb2qB9tPusLt3txEQbt5S1zncBpfdciPUMqs/s1600/IMG_1353.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDqHFydv7s7oCsKjm_xXnf5TFvMYaPREDqrG84Riy3u6PqB9THlODan5A78RphplyNJMGlqdJytKxYg98Dy9DgijwYYguCWG3fkviA14ogb2qB9tPusLt3txEQbt5S1zncBpfdciPUMqs/s320/IMG_1353.JPG" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We walked back through the centre, reliving some previous
locations such as the biological gardens. We went into Helsinki’s big book
store. I think it’s the biggest, but seems to emphasize presentation and
carefully selected choices over completeness – the movie section had about
fifteen titles. I guess that makes sense when everything else is on Amazon
anyway. Even last night from here, since we were talking about it, I ordered some books
for Ally on amazon.ca. In the course of our trip we’ve done a little bit of reading. I
downloaded the latest <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Yorker</i> and
got through that; I also finished a short book on Michael Powell’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Matter of Life and Death</i> and I’m now
reading a book on Bernardo Bertolucci. Ally read all of Paul Auster’s <em>Sunset Park </em>and is just starting on John Irving's<em> In One Person</em>. We both read the news and
other transient Internet material more than anything else though. Certainly a
change from when we started traveling and the search for an English-language
newspaper (often a day or two old) was part of the daily routine. So far the
Wi-Fi has always been super-high-quality and always free (in the UK a few
months ago, hotels were still charging extra for it). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The strangest thing in this bookstore was that although they
carried <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i>, it was the
July 6th edition i.e. 6 or 7 issues out of date. Distribution obviously can’t be
that far behind. Maybe they think this was by far the best recent issue and
they’re stubbornly sticking to that until a better one supplants it. It did
have an interesting if not very uplifting account of trying to get hostages out
of the Middle East. Anyway, the lucky streak I mentioned yesterday continued
into today – the weather was gorgeous throughout our walk, then darkened as
soon as we were done – by the time we were settling down in the airport lounge
(courtesy of Icelandair’s “Saga Class”) it was pouring, although later it
cleared up again. The taxi driver told us that fares to and from the airport
are capped at 39 euros, regardless of what the meter says; funny how the
previous three drivers failed to mention that. We gave him the difference as a
tip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVYnivp-KIZswFoGIWyq-tPKmhvcuKhRHD9op0D4Ny9eFa509A-TQXgehV-gCuhO1hqMuVlTskd0JsqdsMhSZmpaDq7i90KQ6eMm9iiFHZF6TAkd2o-Sqc7bCd1TUTjsqTFXV03h8WF44/s1600/IMG_1354.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVYnivp-KIZswFoGIWyq-tPKmhvcuKhRHD9op0D4Ny9eFa509A-TQXgehV-gCuhO1hqMuVlTskd0JsqdsMhSZmpaDq7i90KQ6eMm9iiFHZF6TAkd2o-Sqc7bCd1TUTjsqTFXV03h8WF44/s320/IMG_1354.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that’s it for Finland. I don’t think we ever absorbed a
single word of Finnish, except for “ravintola,” which you soon learn means
“restaurant.” Of course, a restaurant that needs to include the word
“restaurant” in its name isn’t always of the highest quality. The three-and-a-half-hour flight to
Reykjavik took us a good chunk of the way home, although it didn’t exactly feel
like that. We seemed to be alone in the front section, until a half hour into
the flight when another woman appeared, from the direction of the cockpit,
disappearing back there half an hour before the end (she spent the intervening
time watching sitcoms). Is that how Icelandair flight audit works maybe? Now,
on all of our trips we like to go to one movie if we can. Ideally this involves
(a) a movie we couldn’t already just have seen back home, or (b) a different
kind of movie theatre, by virtue of its vintage quality, or quirkiness, or
whatever, or (c) ideally, both. It didn’t work in Helsinki because the movies were
all entirely familiar and everywhere just looked like another multiplex. But through
Internet research we’d identified that Reykjavik has a new art cinema, the Bio
Paradis, which is currently showing the French (but English language) film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love</i>. It’s on at 5.30, 8.00 and 10.30 –
given the time change (i.e. 5.30 would feel to us like 8.30) only the former
was really a possibility. So, much as this might seem like a strange approach to
a new country, we planned basically to arrive in Iceland, check into the hotel,
go to the movie, and leave all the other discovery for later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50-LDkSLzcJq8S7fNzOboCxegGy8KoS0Iaqu-aYGtjDZ5i2sWHKnc9bYGAKA4uWPQWBPR81AYpDkOdpQbDqylYVyYERszNL-bY7DodGj1xXlIip4q8NKHV4yL58ZKnNnEeC_dHbnOggU/s1600/IMG_1358.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50-LDkSLzcJq8S7fNzOboCxegGy8KoS0Iaqu-aYGtjDZ5i2sWHKnc9bYGAKA4uWPQWBPR81AYpDkOdpQbDqylYVyYERszNL-bY7DodGj1xXlIip4q8NKHV4yL58ZKnNnEeC_dHbnOggU/s320/IMG_1358.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It worked, but just barely – at 4.10 we were still waiting
for our bags, with Reykjavik 50km away (and of course 50km can take 25 minutes
or 75 minutes depending on local conditions). We got to the hotel at around
5.05 and it so happened that the movie theatre was on the same street so we achieved
it easily (especially because they had fifteen minutes of trailers, but then
you can never count on that either). It’s very funny to have had the experience
of essentially flying halfway across Europe to get to a movie on time. The film
itself was a bit of a gamble too, having not impressed too many people at Cannes
with its vast amount of explicit sex (and in 3-D!) and reportedly clunky
story-telling and character-building in other respects – there was a risk that
Ally in particular would just hate it, especially as it lasts well over 2
hours. But in the event we both found it very interesting, certainly not
unflawed, but with flaws (or ambiguities as the case may be) that sustained
several hours of conversation afterwards, which is really the main test. And so
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love</i> joins our classic pantheon of
movies – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brothers Bloom</i> in Jerusalem,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Weekend</i> in Copenhagen, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two Days in Paris</i> in Hong Kong, and the
rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, there was more to our first day in Reykjavik than
just that. But the rest can wait…!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpC0r0IkeEFxDoczUE0izF8DW_iEOZ93wbfal-swRXiPGJLJOYPwslBPNhyphenhyphenko1K-27pwfYhwD4kKAKNtzKH9QgEyd93Uhu4gOPGUGoVD9VXq_em0Q-yfg2Sv1oVQq-j9poFw9T8nAVV2s/s1600/IMG_1365.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpC0r0IkeEFxDoczUE0izF8DW_iEOZ93wbfal-swRXiPGJLJOYPwslBPNhyphenhyphenko1K-27pwfYhwD4kKAKNtzKH9QgEyd93Uhu4gOPGUGoVD9VXq_em0Q-yfg2Sv1oVQq-j9poFw9T8nAVV2s/s320/IMG_1365.JPG" /></a>
torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-89921979204690492562015-08-29T21:48:00.002-07:002015-08-29T21:49:40.984-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 7<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawBesRfHcsAgZxGHcm8mzToTJVMEAGSen74Ui7KlIaruZiY6foEZRloYcFrArMsL_4yFi4o9kIuWDivmrovoQ5FqaltEhibKEiEZjPjAPgHCRI18U_vDfTLBRoM_pQz77hw5lI75fVOg/s1600/IMG_1320.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawBesRfHcsAgZxGHcm8mzToTJVMEAGSen74Ui7KlIaruZiY6foEZRloYcFrArMsL_4yFi4o9kIuWDivmrovoQ5FqaltEhibKEiEZjPjAPgHCRI18U_vDfTLBRoM_pQz77hw5lI75fVOg/s320/IMG_1320.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was raining in Inari today, thus continuing our amazing
streak (which ran all through last year’s New Zealand trip) of always arriving just after or departing just before
the bad weather. We had breakfast and took a brief final
walk along the river. As always, the fishermen (I think it’s always been men)
were out there – in one place we spotted a little collection of chairs and rods
where the fishermen presumably gather and have a beer over stories of the one
that got away. On that point, we’ve yet to see any sign that the fishermen ever
actually catch anything. Maybe the pleasure is all in the state of mind.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, the rain would certainly have hindered our walks today.
That aside though, we felt quite attached to the place. Looking at a map in the
hotel lobby, we reflected again on the wonderful arbitrariness of being there,
the endlessly fascinating experience of dropping into a place and having it go
from tourist-guide abstraction to a very specific, if necessarily, short-lived
home base (stay anywhere for more than one night and you find yourself starting
to develop a routine). We’d ordered a place on the group taxi to take us back
to Ivalo airport – based on today's experience, it gets you there an hour and forty five
minutes before the flight departure, which seems over-cautious for an airport
with (today anyway) only one destination. The current section of the trip is a little choppier than we would have
chosen (four nights, four different hotels) but there wasn’t any other way to
make it work. It wasn’t possible to get back from Inari and catch a flight to
Reykjavik on the same day, hence triggering another night in Helsinki, and the
lodge where we’re staying in Iceland had limited availability, necessitating
splitting our time in Reykjavik. On the other hand, the transit between
locations won’t take more than a few hours on any occasion, so every day should
yield a more than adequate amount of fun and stimulation!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexEdtxW4OjbtGxGjSkIFp4d4P5lmg-IBVbzclvkXuI9GstNXIJkX5_ZdhmnQqsSQhMQWnwqIjqq0XLlVblPueBoFoR0JgA5JPtOm_0KQ9XOTMzzTTf6AtBcWP_81Mcw4oZiyaRy2v6Co/s1600/IMG_1325.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexEdtxW4OjbtGxGjSkIFp4d4P5lmg-IBVbzclvkXuI9GstNXIJkX5_ZdhmnQqsSQhMQWnwqIjqq0XLlVblPueBoFoR0JgA5JPtOm_0KQ9XOTMzzTTf6AtBcWP_81Mcw4oZiyaRy2v6Co/s320/IMG_1325.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Actually we did have a tiny amount of adverse luck today
because our flight had to circle Helsinki for an extra forty minutes or so, due
to a big wall of bad weather (which at least is optically interesting, seen
from above). But it didn’t really affect anything. We got to our hotel and took
off almost right away, catching a ferry to the nearby (15 minutes) island
(actually six linked islands) of Suomenlinna. This is on the UNESCO World
Heritage list as an unusual monument of military architecture – a sprawling sea
fortress from around 1750, which at various times has been controlled by the
Swedish and the Russians as well as the Finns. Some of the fortress itself is
in disrepair now, and you feel like you're wandering around a much older
ruin. But other parts of Suomenlinna, containing much newer, painstakingly
well-maintained buildings in pastel shades, have something close to a toytown
feeling. You can easily wander round for a couple of hours, following the
coastline, walking down to little beaches or exploring the inner streets, absorbing one postcard-worthy view after another.
People live there too, so the ferries go back and forth for about 22 hours a
day. It felt like every prime spot on the island had already been staked out by
some couple or group – it’s easy to imagine many of them would still have been
there well into the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4UVda0gwDN2QVe6GcLoojfjnOG8L1z4jAcOOKEia4HpF92YAqnVL6Si2FA6OG0pGnryMJcbP44q5UVE3xnbcdd6SeAffvwQh8MBbXFrJUoSq94jzFXyiW7rwUuGmeC4dDQJOeRReINY/s1600/IMG_1333.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4UVda0gwDN2QVe6GcLoojfjnOG8L1z4jAcOOKEia4HpF92YAqnVL6Si2FA6OG0pGnryMJcbP44q5UVE3xnbcdd6SeAffvwQh8MBbXFrJUoSq94jzFXyiW7rwUuGmeC4dDQJOeRReINY/s320/IMG_1333.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mentioned on the first day that we didn’t overhear a lot
of English, and now it seems this reflects how we weren’t really following a
tourist track there. Today we heard plenty of it, very often being used
within diverse groups of people apparently drawn from all over (I also heard one young English woman muse
on the disparity between “trash” and “rubbish bin”). I still doubt that
Helsinki is a major destination in the scheme of things, other than for those
making brief excursions as part of a cruise (two big ships docked side by side
today – the London Eye thing is positioned exactly to sweep up the passengers
as they disembark). It’s a difficult city both to photograph (everything’s so
big and multi-faceted) and to sum up (being a place of many small pleasures
rather than a few obvious major ones). But if you plunge into it with all that
in mind, I doubt anyone should ever be disappointed. Not in summer anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmiQiOYV8Og03AIObQZHctgZCxERfN6chH9zIF3VtAFPoF44CbbUq2PtGtYmqPqTx0xBVvul57hWKh7XwCw4oj4yD1WpK7-KQC2QnHVDOHXrZN9JCIu1hTcapnp6olgvxdjaz1U2nJyxM/s1600/IMG_1340.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmiQiOYV8Og03AIObQZHctgZCxERfN6chH9zIF3VtAFPoF44CbbUq2PtGtYmqPqTx0xBVvul57hWKh7XwCw4oj4yD1WpK7-KQC2QnHVDOHXrZN9JCIu1hTcapnp6olgvxdjaz1U2nJyxM/s320/IMG_1340.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Suomenlinna has plenty of restaurants too, but we came back
around 8 and chose a restaurant on the mainland – a place called Strindberg, on
a strip which seems to model itself after Paris (not the only such strip in the city) –
wicker chairs arranged in two rows, all facing the same way, etc. We ate
inside – Ally had croque monsieur and meatballs; I had asparagus soup and Caesar
salad with crayfish (all pretty good, but I probably had the better luck
there). When we left, the annual Helsinki midnight run was in full swing –
through most of dinner, we could see people heading over there in blue shirts.
It starts and ends from the square in front of the cathedral; I mentioned
that we’d had the space entirely to ourselves after dinner on Tuesday – tonight was
just about the complete opposite, filled with sponsorship booths, music stages,
and of course enormous hullabaloo around the finish line. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We saw some of the front-runners cross the line and then
returned to the hotel. To mix it up, we’re staying this one night in a different location –
the Skandic Grand Marina. In most respects it's not as good a choice as the earlier
one, being a little more off by itself and with a rather bland conference-type
ambiance, but even this paid off because on our entire walk back we were able to watch
the main pack of runners (the race has 11 staged starts),
accompanied by excited crowds, fireworks in the bay, blaring music, and the
London Eye thing (I guess it has a proper name, but who cares what it is) all lit up. It seemed like one of the happiest, most
trouble-free cities you could imagine. And so with that experience happily
under our belts, and given that we hadn't had a proper nap today, we more or less wound down our final night here, even though
Helsinki had plenty more to give. </span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rQkLi_cUs66wLR1usYEjkLCKfb1U75MF2afclljbreLEbf9P6Sara0RewR5vGvGWxZ6xt1jJboQk2GgOqeNpJF5unPh2tG3z5aSaXNjgpBOAuIQkb4Mr7rL-3BI1qzZyn1pDqKafeJA/s1600/IMG_1342.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rQkLi_cUs66wLR1usYEjkLCKfb1U75MF2afclljbreLEbf9P6Sara0RewR5vGvGWxZ6xt1jJboQk2GgOqeNpJF5unPh2tG3z5aSaXNjgpBOAuIQkb4Mr7rL-3BI1qzZyn1pDqKafeJA/s320/IMG_1342.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-30226829753843372962015-08-28T22:09:00.000-07:002015-08-28T22:09:15.012-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 6<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitBNAd2Ep1gAbChK4DtU-mUxrz7-Pgl2SlqIgMa4GuVlR_I7XqhTBYINbY3vW4V13BUzclB8jGL1RvXV_6Lmk43IJIz9eLLRb3hsqu46n26Na4_k2Xx4itFNcezFmx1777sAP8Ztlftzg/s1600/IMG_1300.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitBNAd2Ep1gAbChK4DtU-mUxrz7-Pgl2SlqIgMa4GuVlR_I7XqhTBYINbY3vW4V13BUzclB8jGL1RvXV_6Lmk43IJIz9eLLRb3hsqu46n26Na4_k2Xx4itFNcezFmx1777sAP8Ztlftzg/s320/IMG_1300.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At around this point in the trip, one of us always remarks
to the other that even if we were going home tomorrow, the vacation wouldn’t have
been too short. This doesn’t mean we’ve had enough, only that the
experiences are so dense and full and satisfying that you hardly feel entitled
to more. By the time the trip actually ends, after this much experience again,
we’ll feel so satiated that it’ll seem we must surely have been permanently
changed. Whether this feeling lasts beyond that, of course, is quite another matter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Again, we both woke up earlier than we needed to, but went back
to sleep eventually. I keep thinking I hear the sound of a kettle boiling, but
actually I believe it’s just the ceaseless rush of the river outside. Otherwise
it’s very quiet around here. I mentioned
that Finnish people aren’t the most convivial, and that seems even truer up
here. It wouldn’t be such a surprise if “sour-faced old bat” was actually part
of the job description at the hotel. Still, everything seems to run
efficiently. This morning, as we’d requested, they had a packed lunch waiting
for us, even though (referring back to yesterday) much of it seemed to consist
of the same stuff as the buffet breakfast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFnTN0kuClJk-VZQX9Pw62wThwZdLOlWNqFs58yXt7ajZRKfsoGC_85XPfyOftUWXgUGEoqo6oARGP3tJeBEl-lCFesLQOg_EQvQZL_5HddQmi5lyDfzf4nkC-EjTdgfk2YQsX8fp8XM/s1600/IMG_1311.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFnTN0kuClJk-VZQX9Pw62wThwZdLOlWNqFs58yXt7ajZRKfsoGC_85XPfyOftUWXgUGEoqo6oARGP3tJeBEl-lCFesLQOg_EQvQZL_5HddQmi5lyDfzf4nkC-EjTdgfk2YQsX8fp8XM/s320/IMG_1311.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We walked today on the Otsamo trail, for which (out of
post-walk exhaustion) I will copy the blurb from the local guide: “The trail
leading to Otsamotunturi Fell lies on the northern side of the Juutanjoki
River, alternating between a pine forest and the riverbank. The last three
kilometres of the trail ascends the slope of Otsamo, passing the mountain birch
zone and reaching the treeless fell top. The top of the fell provides a
panoramic view of the entire area: from Lake Inarijarvi down to the Juutanjoki
River valley, the Hammastunturi fells, the Lemmenjoki fells and the Muotkanturi
fells. The same trail is taken on the way back, which makes the total trip 18.4
kilometres long.” And they mean long. The combination of the extra five or so
kilometres or so compared to yesterday, and the tougher climb at the end,
certainly took it out of us. It’s distinctly satisfying though to do such a
walk and not to encounter a single person, there or back (all we saw at one
point was a fisherman in the middle distance), so that you get to the top and
have the whole sweeping view to yourselves. You also have the outhouse to
yourself, but given that it’s secured to its precarious spot by two
dodgy-looking wires, you may decide to steer clear of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTD1pTMmt3R_PbOocZxBGoAy1Msig82jBsu1faNLAdNiCjUA4O0YtFxv-W63BzPol0Fpjul6crOetdc0hMhGhff2xlgxRLM_RWbiiQ6Qk6QOuHCHbM8NkNe05yLfaP4d8Ik6BtmIFavso/s1600/IMG_1308.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTD1pTMmt3R_PbOocZxBGoAy1Msig82jBsu1faNLAdNiCjUA4O0YtFxv-W63BzPol0Fpjul6crOetdc0hMhGhff2xlgxRLM_RWbiiQ6Qk6QOuHCHbM8NkNe05yLfaP4d8Ik6BtmIFavso/s320/IMG_1308.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had our lunch up there, supplemented by a few wild
blueberries – they’re as ubiquitous under your feet there as grass in a city
park. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if the mountain had been teeming with
creatures, gorging themselves on blueberries. Actually though it feels oddly
quiet here too – I guess the red squirrels prefer the easy pickings around the hotel.
But we got our big wish – we saw a reindeer! Just a single one, wandering among
the trees. It saw us and gave us that quizzical/outraged look you get from wild
animals all over the world, before concluding we didn’t pose much of a threat,
and heading off at its own pace. Probably not a major wildlife sighting in the
scheme of things, but a nice authentic local touch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPt2iDvPORpDyzuuJiT8IxO4gwL5S0AYePSPBpCWAqyu_sEMoB6tWOmLOydpf7fUmkyYfhFbAkX5gqj1RXUicSXxUNxa_XHjOh9y_Y31ewdg3XIUD_Cl__193LD44uTzDC421Bkcxbf40/s1600/IMG_1313.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPt2iDvPORpDyzuuJiT8IxO4gwL5S0AYePSPBpCWAqyu_sEMoB6tWOmLOydpf7fUmkyYfhFbAkX5gqj1RXUicSXxUNxa_XHjOh9y_Y31ewdg3XIUD_Cl__193LD44uTzDC421Bkcxbf40/s320/IMG_1313.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Did you know that the Lemmenjoki fells are named to commemorate
Finland’s love for the immortal jokiness of Jack Lemmen? Anyway, it was fairly
cool today, and we made good time, faster overall than yesterday (we only ever
find this out at the end because we don’t have a watch and don’t bring our
cellphones, thus existing in perfect abstraction). We were understandably worn out
when we got back though. But this is one of the many fortunate things about us as a couple –
we always have the same ideas about what to do, and much the same amount of
energy to devote to them. The late afternoon/early evening rest period in the
hotel is certainly a key part of the vacation formula for both of us. We both
nap a bit, we check in on Ozu (looking good; hasn’t had to wear his cone for
several days), I write this, we read the inspiring news from back home, like the guy
who was lured into an alley last night, beaten unconscious and robbed. So it
sounds like they already did to him what the Republicans are trying to do to
America. (Drumroll!)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had a choice between heading back to PaPaNa or back to
the hotel restaurant, and decided on the latter, mainly because of the menu.
Ally had pasta (with reindeer of course) and I had Lake Inari trout (maybe the
same one that so recently was flaunting it on the fishcam). We had some wine
and then switched to our by-now predictable Karhu, for which we moved to the
hotel’s bar area. Two things I didn’t previously document about ordering Karhu: (1) it always
comes in a distinctive and no-doubt brand-mandated bear-themed glass, and (2)
Finnish servers always do what we would back home call an “underpour” i.e. they
pour it 95% of the way to the top and then consider that good enough, whereas
Canadian and I think British servers strain to pour you a full glass. So I guess they inherently have a glass-not-full mentality? We didn’t
expect to shut down the place, but we were by ourselves for the last hour or so
– the hotel seemed very quiet tonight (perhaps it’s at its peak in the winter).
Even at 11 pm though, there were still two people fishing in the river nearby.
On our (excluding the fishcam) ten channels (which I’ve been enjoying checking up here because
it’s so much more fun when it's only ten), excluding the one
that always shows landscapes, every single one was showing subtitled English
stuff (including yet another dating show, Hercule Poirot, Steve Martin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L.A. Story,</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grey’s Anatomy</i>, and a Canadian documentary about marijuana). Surely
Finnish culture, sour-faced or not, glass-not-full or not, depends better than this…?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjooMINzh53FsNxRPbyyu42IagBdXLEuGfCTc-mYa8LZ9J65Eaa-57mTqD90g5FagR-dOQcAczqM2hmG35I9qCKhOjbWQN4igYwC8r0PYupCTT8cz2JbASj9Td_fyEUKRrGsINZthCqmgw/s1600/IMG_1317.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjooMINzh53FsNxRPbyyu42IagBdXLEuGfCTc-mYa8LZ9J65Eaa-57mTqD90g5FagR-dOQcAczqM2hmG35I9qCKhOjbWQN4igYwC8r0PYupCTT8cz2JbASj9Td_fyEUKRrGsINZthCqmgw/s320/IMG_1317.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-27357101262308706892015-08-27T20:03:00.002-07:002015-08-27T20:03:21.841-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 5<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvwiaE9KciCd-hzSoOmJ_fgT_DEEfK3IGVkTg5b1Dyu0CsZCZM5aqHV-qIIOBpRt4ZqA_e8tw02knAsPKuhyuL9Tid5dIyDcuVbpA_VFNkO_Usy7-p8YzBcgzXUEQplRYROZYcW45yOY/s1600/IMG_1279.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvwiaE9KciCd-hzSoOmJ_fgT_DEEfK3IGVkTg5b1Dyu0CsZCZM5aqHV-qIIOBpRt4ZqA_e8tw02knAsPKuhyuL9Tid5dIyDcuVbpA_VFNkO_Usy7-p8YzBcgzXUEQplRYROZYcW45yOY/s320/IMG_1279.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today we had breakfast for the first time on the trip, which
always makes good sense before a long walk (handy tip for the day!) The hotel
has a nice buffet, along with a sign sternly informing the guests that the buffet items
are only for breakfast consumption and aren’t to be used to make sandwiches
for later. Our plans thus dashed, we walked to the nearby supermarket and
picked up some basic supplies, which came to the
ridiculous-even-for-Scandinavia total of 40 euros. I’m sure there was a mistake
there but sadly we didn’t really focus on it until later.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkyQT33ygztAthgTwahDm9pjpv-S1bGg8zIZWhRIWppz9uYg2U1VIR9lvqxzqoJ7N0pBstTYT3gGrwTuCEKw1WIiv5KlGBWYQBj-EHurWT_Cz0KW4hTINa3u4Del2hRIy5xJkfUzamyOI/s1600/IMG_1281.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkyQT33ygztAthgTwahDm9pjpv-S1bGg8zIZWhRIWppz9uYg2U1VIR9lvqxzqoJ7N0pBstTYT3gGrwTuCEKw1WIiv5KlGBWYQBj-EHurWT_Cz0KW4hTINa3u4Del2hRIy5xJkfUzamyOI/s320/IMG_1281.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our project for the day was to walk to the Pielpajarvi
wilderness church, 7 or 8 km each way from the hotel. It was built around 1760
by the shore of a lake, near a winter settlement area.
Entire years sometimes went by without a pastor ever making it
out there – even in a good year, the schedule was sporadic at best. It’s
surprisingly big though, looking capable of seating 500 people at a push, and
even now it’s sometimes used for special events, including weddings. Despite
apparent issues with maintaining it, it’s very impressive and beguiling.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-qzsjZwzesAtz_vHX0ErYWMxNW15g-3Fl7gS4f4hQzHXmRr2XA6MlZMRuAlv5qJ05KJCzPbkeBX88YKLeF3JjdH2kuNrO7i8yEdif8i55e6c72T5MgPvH93hjcWKtRu4uvAI7_5VgbA/s1600/IMG_1282.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-qzsjZwzesAtz_vHX0ErYWMxNW15g-3Fl7gS4f4hQzHXmRr2XA6MlZMRuAlv5qJ05KJCzPbkeBX88YKLeF3JjdH2kuNrO7i8yEdif8i55e6c72T5MgPvH93hjcWKtRu4uvAI7_5VgbA/s320/IMG_1282.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I assume wedding parties would charter a boat,
because the trail might be a challenge for the older guests at least. Actually
it’s not that onerous – the ground is very flat so there’s no great climbing
involved, but it’s often rocky and concentration-demanding. It winds
through quiet forests of conifers, passing a series of lakes. When the water's frozen, it creates snowmobile routes that go on for miles and miles. Today
was a good walking temperature, although the kind of day when you keep
changing your mind about how many layers you want on. Most of the buildings that
once surrounded the church are gone, but there’s a wooden sauna there, and a cooking
hut or something. It looked like one of the groups we passed on the way out might
have camped out there for the night. We enjoyed our super-expensive lunch on
the steps of the sauna, looking over the lake.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last night we overheard a British man at the hotel saying
how he did this same walk yesterday and he came across some reindeer. He told
several people this and it was obvious he’ll be telling the story hundreds of times in
future years. Mind you, one woman who seemed to have a bit of local knowledge
was obviously skeptical, so maybe it’s an outright lie. Maybe he’s lying about
the gluten intolerance too (you know, just to get out of eating his wife’s
lousy cooking). Anyway, we never saw a hint of any reindeer. You pass through a gated fence in a couple of places, apparently to keep the reindeer from
wandering, but we couldn’t even guess what side of the fence you might find
them on. Maybe it’s all just theatre for tourists, like airport security. We
did see a dog walking the trail, but only a very small and uninteresting one.
Otherwise all we have to report is the sizeable population of red squirrels around the hotel
grounds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, it was a very satisfying walk. As usual though, we
didn’t see too many people along the way, and, the Sami museum aside, you wonder
what else might draw people to Inari, if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>
to spend the day walking. It's the starting point for a two-hour lake
cruise, twice a day, but I can’t imagine that’s a great attraction in itself.
Maybe a lot of people just come here to fish. The town itself feels very much
like somewhere you might encounter in rural Alberta. I’m just saying that as a
true-life impression (which Ally shares) – take it as you will…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We were certainly ready for a rest by the time we got back.
As I mentioned, it’s a more modest hotel room, but you quickly settle in. It
has two tiny little single beds, but they can be pushed together (I mean, not
that we would ever know for sure whether they could be or not, but it looks
like they could be, you know, if anyone was ever to try). We both slept quite
well on the first night, although we both did spend some time awake at various
separate points. Maybe we’re not used to it being so dark and quiet. As I write this in the late afternoon,
the fish camera has struck gold - a big fish hovering right in the middle of the
screen. One of the other ten channels is showing America’s Next Top Model.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QUy2Q4pMtLfpr5CZs67tSsFWowcHwqEiPJ8KHgbEZoG88jNdguNmRt5g1f9HsWCj3scgzbLZXjofkv_zrz_0mKwttcE3mebpBeNPJ57X5qqzy5ktsbOwCwP1723rRVv-FtG8pgqfcr8/s1600/IMG_1292.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QUy2Q4pMtLfpr5CZs67tSsFWowcHwqEiPJ8KHgbEZoG88jNdguNmRt5g1f9HsWCj3scgzbLZXjofkv_zrz_0mKwttcE3mebpBeNPJ57X5qqzy5ktsbOwCwP1723rRVv-FtG8pgqfcr8/s320/IMG_1292.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We walked to a nearby place called PaPaNa, which received
some disparaging online reviews in the past ("There were four of us and we all felt ill after eating here") but at least seemed to constitute
an interesting change (notwithstanding the hotel’s reminder that “in our
restaurant we respect the clean northern flavours”). It worked out better than
fine – we had six Karhus, and a reindeer pizza (reindeer, mushrooms, peppers,
blue cheese) which would have held up anywhere (don’t know about clean and
northern, but certainly flavours). The establishment itself had a somewhat
sparse but enjoyable atmosphere, supplemented by a ramshackle pub-style
eccentricity (why a large African mask propped up over there? Who knows?) and a diverse clientele (crusty old-timers who paid no attention
to us, and just a little more in the two female visitors who came in later; the
local young brigade who mainly hung out upstairs, sometimes emerging for
cigarette breaks [it appears they’ve banned indoor smoking in such
establishments, but it’s clear that many Finns regret it]; obvious tourists
like us, some of whom we’d seen earlier in the day). The soundtrack was of
vintage quality – not one but <em>two</em> Jefferson Airplane tracks over the course of
the night. We'd also heard one of these ("White Rabbit") in the Helsinki Public Corner earlier in the
week, so it seems that there’s a distinct constituency in Finland that
doesn’t feel so great about the recent evolution of popular music. We left around 10 pm,
but could have stayed longer. Back in the room, I learned that the Academy has
voted honorary Oscars to Gena Rowlands and Spike Lee, so you never know when
the cultural temperature is going to soar!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZL7_U2D5qXmsssmNEmwe5ewc1yt039NvEo1AcHg2h7pfLw_MW_frZtHomvhFB8vOTWpiiCfuCtNIo_nJ1qVQmtjmkHjo-1EvoE7Ix8_VQKk6aTtatPMdNzOlv6sOXTzzIyTtpLXLga8/s1600/IMG_1276.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZL7_U2D5qXmsssmNEmwe5ewc1yt039NvEo1AcHg2h7pfLw_MW_frZtHomvhFB8vOTWpiiCfuCtNIo_nJ1qVQmtjmkHjo-1EvoE7Ix8_VQKk6aTtatPMdNzOlv6sOXTzzIyTtpLXLga8/s320/IMG_1276.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-76830916631426465152015-08-26T18:27:00.001-07:002015-08-26T18:27:18.998-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 4<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht7s3fhiHHQw4EzmLUlpkKjq3-DsBz3Rjfn9-UqTpPvQ_64VtUw5lS4TBmMRRQKUaMEoA9xDH8csh_AmNt0OMmsZJlA7mL14UPCpbPxoOOpFO5K2Wrc8HHrYUm9b9Kl3VcrSMefeMDme0/s1600/IMG_1260.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht7s3fhiHHQw4EzmLUlpkKjq3-DsBz3Rjfn9-UqTpPvQ_64VtUw5lS4TBmMRRQKUaMEoA9xDH8csh_AmNt0OMmsZJlA7mL14UPCpbPxoOOpFO5K2Wrc8HHrYUm9b9Kl3VcrSMefeMDme0/s320/IMG_1260.JPG" /></a>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe we should have wound down at the Public Corner last night
regardless of the four hour meal, because we both had unusual trouble getting
to sleep. In conjunction with my setting the alarm at 5.30 am, to get this
diary and other bits and pieces done before leaving for the airport, it meant
we went through the morning in something of a haze. I barely registered the
flight to Ivalo at all. But then it was only some 90 minutes. Helsinki airport
this morning might have been as empty as any airport we’ve ever seen. Anyway,
if I’d known at the time, as I do now, that today was National Dog Day, I would
certainly have found it easier to whip up some energy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s very exciting to feel you’re engaging fully (or at
least, some form of fully) with the world, that you can look at the possibilities
of the globe and through some mixture of past experience and research and
instinct conclude that of all those possibilities, we want to go <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there</i>. That’s what we did this year with
Helsinki and Iceland. But it’s almost as exciting, in a more whimsical way, to
pick the occasional destination almost at random. We decided this year that if
we were coming to Helsinki, then we’d also go somewhere else in Finland, but as
we all know, no one outside the country itself can name a single other Finnish location,
and the guide books don’t provide much help in shaping one’s sense of the
place. We decided then, probably because it seemed likely to provide the best
contrast with Helsinki and the best story in itself, to go to Lapland. For much
of the year, this plan might require a major commitment to skis and
snowmobiles, but even Lapland gets a break for a few months, and there’s
currently no snow here. It’s a brisk temperature though – around 14 degrees
today, compared with around 23 in Helsinki. Ivalo is Finland’s most northern
airport, and from there we went by taxi another 30km or so further north, to
the village of Inari. One could certainly travel up further, but stopping at Inari isn’t
doing too badly latitude-wise. </span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG27DKBhNiTcpe1pggMUmGEqkRnoDsisUi6m-vWJPQ8B3XGzAO_yh-cpzkBOYUUbjXGp4PwGHNKC-zBa4H5P76nyfI5UCj8P5mO_kzQGdawXziQ6-1zktlGOQjNmyYk4K6iwvV0WQPnZE/s1600/IMG_1268.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG27DKBhNiTcpe1pggMUmGEqkRnoDsisUi6m-vWJPQ8B3XGzAO_yh-cpzkBOYUUbjXGp4PwGHNKC-zBa4H5P76nyfI5UCj8P5mO_kzQGdawXziQ6-1zktlGOQjNmyYk4K6iwvV0WQPnZE/s320/IMG_1268.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’re staying at the Hotel Tradition Kultahovi, which is
much more modest than our Helsinki residence (three nights for the price of
one, basically) but quiet and pleasant: everything looks and smells like pine.
From our window we have an unimpeded view of the rapidly flowing tree-lined
river Juutuanjoki. We went to a local restaurant for a snack. They say the
Finnish are a taciturn people, and this place was full of glowering
construction workers who seemed to have little interest in each other, let
alone in us. Since the population of Inari is only about 600, it doesn’t take
long to cover the sights. We tried out a river-side trail, but it seemed mainly
to wind through garbage-strewn back lots, and even then didn’t go on for long.
We did briefly wonder whether a more rigorous approach to choosing a location
might have been useful on this occasion.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaacyKoIzvHtKf9pcdK2mcwGm8aQWTwvtGSKgI5FfwLz-O_VZmCSMPeeA-9Ry_UpuPVldYtN_fmL0IUy2eZvf7KglbQVgR5jZWU3W0Lo08LG-x84wyOOdRz10wu4qgiLRYmqGNG_8gZnA/s1600/IMG_1267.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaacyKoIzvHtKf9pcdK2mcwGm8aQWTwvtGSKgI5FfwLz-O_VZmCSMPeeA-9Ry_UpuPVldYtN_fmL0IUy2eZvf7KglbQVgR5jZWU3W0Lo08LG-x84wyOOdRz10wu4qgiLRYmqGNG_8gZnA/s320/IMG_1267.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But then, as they always do, our plans started to take
shape, as we studied the possibilities and worked out our ideas for the next
two days. We’ll see how that turns out. For today, we went to perhaps Inari’s
major attraction, its SIIDA museum devoted to the history and culture of the
Sami (the “Lapps” in Lapland). The Sami are the most northern indigenous people
of Europe, often associated with nomadic lifestyles, although the Finnish Samis
have traditionally been more settled (based around semi-domesticated reindeer
herds) than those in Norway and Sweden. The museum has a large open-air
section, preserving traditional Sami dwellings and structures – more than a few
of them constituting ingenious traps for foxes, wolves and other predators. There’s
a display of relatively provocative images, many drawing on mass media imagery
to argue for a better defined (and seemingly more aggressive) approach to
preserving Sami culture. Then there’s a more traditional series of exhibits,
seemingly not really updated since 1996 and so showing its age a bit. The whole
thing concludes, of course, with a classic filmed cabaret performance by the most
famous of all the Samis - Davis Jr.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-RbsUqAXgCJjJLzz9zx7r779w3CHeokclVR1FBcH8PsPeQ1sMGIsF31KXFSwfussumEiotFQ11RnilIdrRJJncZOJyk7473luFF8RYF7i2DH5S3ICBwTcJffALlzd7A8hjRCyvy_vzA/s1600/IMG_1265.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS-RbsUqAXgCJjJLzz9zx7r779w3CHeokclVR1FBcH8PsPeQ1sMGIsF31KXFSwfussumEiotFQ11RnilIdrRJJncZOJyk7473luFF8RYF7i2DH5S3ICBwTcJffALlzd7A8hjRCyvy_vzA/s320/IMG_1265.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We bought a few things in the gift shop. We don’t do a lot
of souvenir buying though – as I mentioned, we already have the wooden
Finnish sheep from a previous visit. Ally did buy a Moomin-themed umbrella the
other day, but that was a gift for someone else. The Moomins are “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">are a family of white, roundish fairy tale
characters with large snouts that make them resemble hippopotamuses</span>,” as
explored in various Finnish books, comics, spin-offs, and a theme park. It's hard to get away from them in Finland. I don’t remember whether I truly dreamed about being savaged
by a rabid Moomin or whether I made it up, but I certainly believe now that it
happened. It must say something that we didn’t buy the Moomin-themed umbrella
from some junky souvenir store, but rather from the serious and respectable gift
shop attached to the Museum of Contemporary Art. We didn’t see a Mapplethorpe-themed
umbrella – after all, you’d be arrested whenever you tried to use it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We ate in the hotel restaurant, which also has good views of
the water. It’s a well-used river – even after it went dark, at least four people
were still out there fishing, and two separate bonfires were visible in the
middle-distance. The TV was displaying the hotel’s “fish camera,” by which you
can watch a real-time feed of what’s happening beneath a strategic spot in the
river, but eventually it got too dark and dissolved into static (we can access the fish camera on our room TV as well - it might even be the best of the
ten available options, which as I write include that US show about naked dating
on a desert island [about half the shows are in English with subtitles]). The food was pretty good –
Ally had a reindeer/potato mixture (which somehow reminded me of school
dinners) and I had "organic root vegetable patties"; we drank some wine and then a couple of
Karhus. By then we’d outlasted all but a few tables. We took a brief walk
outside (so much colder than Helsinki!) and that was basically that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrShbENjTIcAwYwTW1V_Y8Tl1CYDjwjJI9Xufr7KRyVEuh0GlGZNRaW-JYgBFlhsLi0Sr_8AW9tKUteqCYSEbQ0qEznahYbCCT74CdVTtbjycUgZ2QrPhT2nZ4NMwbk3OeJ_yWD2yFGU/s1600/IMG_1261.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrShbENjTIcAwYwTW1V_Y8Tl1CYDjwjJI9Xufr7KRyVEuh0GlGZNRaW-JYgBFlhsLi0Sr_8AW9tKUteqCYSEbQ0qEznahYbCCT74CdVTtbjycUgZ2QrPhT2nZ4NMwbk3OeJ_yWD2yFGU/s320/IMG_1261.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-20173634649726056712015-08-25T19:59:00.000-07:002015-08-25T19:59:12.337-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 3<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVUap924xnpnhsNRUZELF-aGDkJtNhVZeLs9igBNjqjazAlr3IFhn0du5vpH4ls3b8MIiEEWQ07mrgI46l3TBqDSFROeB7m7eahjniBmZbQ44-TIMOlTwrB_zFRfrwancdmTIirOcQk8/s1600/IMG_1244.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVUap924xnpnhsNRUZELF-aGDkJtNhVZeLs9igBNjqjazAlr3IFhn0du5vpH4ls3b8MIiEEWQ07mrgI46l3TBqDSFROeB7m7eahjniBmZbQ44-TIMOlTwrB_zFRfrwancdmTIirOcQk8/s320/IMG_1244.JPG" /></a>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once again, the late night yesterday necessarily meant a
late start today. I complain about it every year, but it’s always true: I’m
getting slower and slower. At one time I would have written this diary, scanned
all my usual web sites and more – now I’m straining merely to tick off the
first of those. Mind you, almost everything on the web sites is transient and
barely worth knowing anyway – I’ve often wished I could hypnotize myself into
simply not caring about the news. Strangely, Ally spends much less time on the
web than I do, yet whenever I mention something I've come across, she seems to already know about it.
Even, for example, the article in yesterday’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> on the obscure topic of Japan’s high volume of abandoned
dwellings. Very annoying.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KhNj1BJ-vb0dnQ7KOsN-KwJKLClvEFSDdZ10KTz93byF4ZTDc2hgPLZ4Pmctl71GNpNvDfIrCH-JPJer4z8pZxgUnI6JCVlutyfDaFPLA4yBb1sFVKzxsPRxTU8jCXousr2tFari2d4/s1600/IMG_1240.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3KhNj1BJ-vb0dnQ7KOsN-KwJKLClvEFSDdZ10KTz93byF4ZTDc2hgPLZ4Pmctl71GNpNvDfIrCH-JPJer4z8pZxgUnI6JCVlutyfDaFPLA4yBb1sFVKzxsPRxTU8jCXousr2tFari2d4/s320/IMG_1240.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everywhere we go, we see posters for the forthcoming Helsinki
production of <em>Billy Elliott,</em> which sounds like an interesting cultural
transplant. Less widely advertised is the pending series of concerts by Motley
Cru <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> Whitesnake <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> Motorhead <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> Bullet for my Valentine! They’re all on the same poster, as
if it’s inherently a package deal. And maybe it is. We started out on a
weightier cultural note today, by going to the Museum of Contemporary Art to
see a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition. I’ve seen many or most of the images
before in various places, but they never get tired, nor do the ripples of
Mapplethorpe’s life and environment. The museum didn’t have too much else on
display unfortunately, although in the entrance hall a young couple was writhing
slowly and sensuously around each other on the floor (maybe it’s a set
assignment at the local theatre school or suchlike, because when we left it had
changed to a different young couple) and in a second floor studio, a trio sits as
if hypnotized, chanting mysteriously. Who’s to say what constitutes an “exhibit”?
Maybe the visitors are more on display than anything else?</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOV6FXNX4klDBXKPyvrwYCsq68bABSHIviX_fiBLqTOYVCxzUIYusI521FXpwIz2_bvxGURQ9u8FFm3POdRfw6Xci1PxR8w8GCZH1JXCohJ03eTj3nYkqwKNtslkVbiYpG58EpaVFBB8/s1600/IMG_1217.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOV6FXNX4klDBXKPyvrwYCsq68bABSHIviX_fiBLqTOYVCxzUIYusI521FXpwIz2_bvxGURQ9u8FFm3POdRfw6Xci1PxR8w8GCZH1JXCohJ03eTj3nYkqwKNtslkVbiYpG58EpaVFBB8/s320/IMG_1217.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We then walked up the north eastern part of downtown and took
in a couple of standard tourist sights, both surrounded by a larger throng of
tour-bus types than we’ve seen anywhere so far. First was the Rock Church, a
church built directly into a cliff in 1969, a pleasant if modest architectural
achievement. A short walk from there is Sibelius Park, containing a monument to
Sibelius in the form of several hundred steel pipes, evoking an evocative cloud
of creation, or perhaps a giant misshapen claw. Near to that there’s an effigy
of Sibelius’ face, set into something that vaguely resembles a steel fish. The
latter in particular seems to evoke an endless stream of silly photographs.
Walking through a non-descript but pleasant neighborhood, we came to the
Olympic Stadium, from Helsinki’s hosting of the 1952 games. It’s a
functional-looking but not overly dated structure, without the flourishes of such stadiums
now, and all the more commendable for that. We walked back alongside another
lake before arriving back downtown, more or less back where we started.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSNp62DiizdwT7DSV6nQbB2akMtJCOU4eU0o5-Q78Le7tyY8Nivepw4Yqs1pmMTZ9SweDi0w5XeX2bwkMvzRviGt-HDVNUh9CT5UOGG1KiSmGSYIVggaMfUz_XmA2ezDE85rBQ1ibEog/s1600/IMG_1229.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSNp62DiizdwT7DSV6nQbB2akMtJCOU4eU0o5-Q78Le7tyY8Nivepw4Yqs1pmMTZ9SweDi0w5XeX2bwkMvzRviGt-HDVNUh9CT5UOGG1KiSmGSYIVggaMfUz_XmA2ezDE85rBQ1ibEog/s320/IMG_1229.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s difficult to get one’s bearings in Helsinki – you’re
virtually never walking directly north-south or east-west, and we keep finding
that one familiar spot has bent into another in a way we didn’t expect. I’m
particularly unsure of things because I overly rely on Ally to do the
navigating. But it doesn’t matter if we sometimes end up taking the long way –
there’s always plenty to look at. As in all European countries, you
still come across stores that seem to get by on almost nothing. Last night we
walked by a place with a window display of light bulbs and hair dryers. It
wasn’t even in a cheap neighborhood. Or you see toy shops devoted to the kind
of heavy-molded plastic doll that you’d have assumed went out of production in
the 60s. Or convenience doors selling nothing but two kinds of juice and a
selection of two factory-made cakes. It’s very endearing. Anyway, we sat on the
stairs in front of the cathedral for a while, and explored further in that
neighborhood. We came back through the
harbour market, where I was on the verge of impulsively ordering some salmon
soup and reindeer meatballs before Ally basically shut down the idea. I had to
settle for a sandwich from the hotel lobby instead. Readers, this is something
I’ll never forget.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We spent a few hours in the hotel. It doesn’t look like Ozu’s
had to wear his cone again. He’s just curled up fast asleep, shutting
everything out. I bet Ozu would never have voted against salmon soup or
reindeer meatballs, especially not the latter. We had dinner in a place we’d
booked from Toronto, signing up for its eight-course tasting menu – Ask Restaurant.
In hindsight we might not have booked it if we’d known we would already have
had two such good meals, but it worked out wonderfully anyway. Spanning almost
four hours, the official menu reads: kohlrabi and beef; white fish and turnip;
chanterelle forest; potato and bone marrow; parsnip and pike perch; beetroot
and wild duck (actually two courses); blueberries and milk; gooseberries and
butter. Most of those descriptions though only give a vague idea of the actual
item; not to mention at least five other little servings that came out along
the way. Along with the accompanying wine pairings, it was a remarkable (and,
of course, expensive meal). As it got later, we engaged in more banter with the
servers, eventually ending in a discussion on the possibilities of a novel
called “Potatoes are in my Blood.” I hope I don’t forget about that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Afterwards, walking back after midnight, we barely passed
anyone on the street until we reached our square, which is a wonderful kind of
experience – three days ago we didn’t know Helsinki at all and now, in a
certain experiential sense, it’s all ours! We didn’t go into the Public Corner,
but walking past we could see that the woman wasn’t on the poker machine
tonight, so that was good news too. Unless of course she’d just temporarily
stepped away at the moment we happened to walk past…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tqg_siY_ep1918jCJAc8iQ5hxf4GQqSeAc1TlbsRdo2a5bEM-SPHoGIn-SS1V7JyapxpBAbO9e79SX0ISO-xl6KK6guzkxcJBsFCiplBKbTtnSktQnQQFsG7TVg5Vl76G0lUmXPTm5g/s1600/IMG_1242.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tqg_siY_ep1918jCJAc8iQ5hxf4GQqSeAc1TlbsRdo2a5bEM-SPHoGIn-SS1V7JyapxpBAbO9e79SX0ISO-xl6KK6guzkxcJBsFCiplBKbTtnSktQnQQFsG7TVg5Vl76G0lUmXPTm5g/s320/IMG_1242.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-30843475624278146882015-08-24T23:33:00.001-07:002015-08-24T23:33:52.512-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHtE0TQqzjmr5IU-IJfoMbc83TZDtzkyYxNlGXdmyquV1kMukOlFMWDixnsygLE264dMqEBJ6CRaG3D_49QNrPpYwcRkOR7XencHYNQJf1w3_dKjK2PkYan_ykOAPNizwxWropoOWozM/s1600/IMG_1209.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHtE0TQqzjmr5IU-IJfoMbc83TZDtzkyYxNlGXdmyquV1kMukOlFMWDixnsygLE264dMqEBJ6CRaG3D_49QNrPpYwcRkOR7XencHYNQJf1w3_dKjK2PkYan_ykOAPNizwxWropoOWozM/s320/IMG_1209.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not too surprisingly, we got going rather slowly today,
which didn’t matter at all. We spent the day covering more or less the entire
downtown map of Helsinki. At the end of this we decided that the market we saw
yesterday was indeed the one we remembered from a decade and a half ago, contrary to our impression
yesterday. In part, it wasn’t as recognizable yesterday because it was the end
of the day and they were packing up, but time had also distorted our memories of it a bit. Perhaps
nothing on those long-ago trips is quite as we remember it, including the bill. We
went into a store selling the same wooden sheep I mentioned, and it costs over
400 euros. Even allowing for inflation, it’s hard to imagine we were ever quite
that captivated by it. They also come in bigger sizes though so we did exercise
some restraint in that regard.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW5oGYT1hDbMrq36X6JVtp63K16GUweECR_ojuUqhev59EusFugcpXM_3pj4HWP8RVqmKGWcn1zWwspu2c6msmFZvkZoFpBJ5XyQCKdbMwe554FlOfOebC5TOiEiqWQdCVdoJGem4SjHc/s1600/IMG_1193.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW5oGYT1hDbMrq36X6JVtp63K16GUweECR_ojuUqhev59EusFugcpXM_3pj4HWP8RVqmKGWcn1zWwspu2c6msmFZvkZoFpBJ5XyQCKdbMwe554FlOfOebC5TOiEiqWQdCVdoJGem4SjHc/s320/IMG_1193.JPG" /></a>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was another warm but not scalding day today and Helsinki
confirmed itself as a fine walking city. Throughout our strolling, we were tempted
away from the street by a trail along the water, or an open-air market, or a patch of
shade. There’s a park right behind the hotel containing a botanical garden,
and behind that an inlet that defines the right shoulder of the downtown core, a
few paddle-boarders calmly moving along as if on a non-urgent errand. We eventually circled round
and walked back down to the southern end again, looping up with
the beach we found yesterday. As in all Scandinavian cities, there’s an easy
mix of transit – the volume of cars doesn’t seem too heavy, bikes are much more
prominent than back home (although not as much as in Copenhagen say), trams and
buses come and go regularly, and all of this seems to exist in a natural unstrained harmony. There’s a buried corridor right down the middle
of town, seemingly on an old underground railway track or something like that,
reserved solely for pedestrians and cyclists – I imagine most cities would envy
that. The city certainly has its modern flourishes – a new concert hall, a
modern art museum: it has plans for a new Guggenheim museum, although that’s
been subject to controversy. Still, perhaps inevitably, the spaces surrounding
those areas tend to be stark and rather unengaging, compared to the time-beaten
old squares (and Helsinki has a lot of those).</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvrK4YyjB3WzqSxnXltSOKfGbeDyOhuzFBK_M1P7lTkrMiCGcO6QDJ1Re6mRZuN8oNdJWH2rnMPJY5SuqXTAoo7X-OxtBl-YQD_3zeaoaQB2o9AJUFtThTYNcDFYxIUSKq11fejAdWhcs/s1600/IMG_1206.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvrK4YyjB3WzqSxnXltSOKfGbeDyOhuzFBK_M1P7lTkrMiCGcO6QDJ1Re6mRZuN8oNdJWH2rnMPJY5SuqXTAoo7X-OxtBl-YQD_3zeaoaQB2o9AJUFtThTYNcDFYxIUSKq11fejAdWhcs/s320/IMG_1206.JPG" /></a>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We happened on several markets, both interior and exterior,
and had lunch in one of them. Even by normal city standards, Helsinki seems
defined largely by eating – every block just piles one choice on another. Fast
food isn’t particularly prominent, but we’ve walked past dozens of open air
cafes, and just about every kind of ethnic speciality (we’ve seen at least four
Nepalese places, just for illustration). Local delicacies like salmon soup
recur frequently – I’ll have to try that somewhere. Perhaps it follows that the streets
aren’t necessarily bursting with physically attractive types as per the
Scandinavian legend. Apparently the government has a plan to stamp out smoking
within thirty years, but I’d say they have a long way to go on achieving that.
This is all only to say though that the city conveys a very easy, naturalistic quality;
it’s extremely easy to be in. I think we’ve been seeing more baby carriages
than we do in most places, which gives an impression of normal life winding
around the tourist attractions. Certainly more often than at home, these baby
carriages are in the custody of men rather than of women.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfWLXldtlIgzmvIASnpv9dJLUafwHGkWsGJgE4a_1XjVEtkxCK4-96AWZyVVBzwbgVnhV01xx_RuH1afwcWPCQNKBoZ_r2q8cjONQcHquF89RuksCWDoYvqXo9Bzvbg8ytMQrHYBPTEA/s1600/IMG_1198.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCfWLXldtlIgzmvIASnpv9dJLUafwHGkWsGJgE4a_1XjVEtkxCK4-96AWZyVVBzwbgVnhV01xx_RuH1afwcWPCQNKBoZ_r2q8cjONQcHquF89RuksCWDoYvqXo9Bzvbg8ytMQrHYBPTEA/s320/IMG_1198.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finland, of course, is one of the more expensive places that
one might choose to vacation in, and we’re dealing with this issue by choosing
not to think of it in the least. This seems all the more necessary because, the
web tells us, our investments back home are being decimated by the ongoing
market decline. Finland knows all about this, its economic situation apparently
being rather dire, in part because of the decline of Nokia and of its paper
industry. Of course, it’s hard to pick up on this when you’re just a tourist,
but I suppose the easygoing qualities I’ve described above could be taken for a
lack of economic vibrancy. I certainly don’t think we’re seeing quite as much forced
cellphone activity as you do everywhere else – I don’t even know if we’ve walked
by a phone store. Maybe people took the Nokia thing personally.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We returned to the hotel after five hours or so and both had
a bit of a nap. Naturally, we checked in on Ozu via the Urban Dog webcam. He’s
been licking and chewing on himself in recent weeks because of seasonal allergies, and although
that’s mostly behind him now, I felt I should leave them his protective cone
just for safety. Yesterday when we checked in, he was wearing the cone, which
makes for a bit of a sorry sight. Today he’s back to normal. Later we went out
in search of a restaurant called Juuri, specializing in Finnish tapas (or “sapas”)
– we once again covered a big chunk of downtown in search of it (although we
discovered on the way back that there would have been a considerably more
direct route). They had just one table available, but that’s all we needed! It
was a wonderful meal, and the only real caveat is that you just wanted the
tapas to be bigger. I don’t know if real Finnish people eat them though –
everyone in the restaurant seemed to be a visitor, and on the web I can hardly find the term "sapas" except in connection with Juuri itself. On the way back we returned
to the Public Corner, agreeing we wouldn’t stay as late as last night. We
managed that, but just by five minutes. Didn’t I say you can’t stop at one
Karhu!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It doesn’t take long to immerse yourself in little local
stories. We recognized several patrons from last night, one of them an Asian
woman who spent hours on both nights sitting in the back of the place playing
electronic poker or something. This can’t possibly be good and it seems to me
someone should stage an intervention. I don’t suppose she’d appreciate it from
us though…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrDSTPs7DZLgD_kobudYpcikjG7sO3wh7BEe7BhGO73T0WkSlKTT5x-Ghw8KsqNbHN0pynRAj9AnYMFeLNe1VX0urxbMJ85mWXUo7PwqGjL7txJMHWQDQ9iyBIatW92jCIA2rBfm2Xoeg/s1600/IMG_1199.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrDSTPs7DZLgD_kobudYpcikjG7sO3wh7BEe7BhGO73T0WkSlKTT5x-Ghw8KsqNbHN0pynRAj9AnYMFeLNe1VX0urxbMJ85mWXUo7PwqGjL7txJMHWQDQ9iyBIatW92jCIA2rBfm2Xoeg/s320/IMG_1199.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-55315451446316717082015-08-24T07:55:00.001-07:002015-08-24T07:55:33.912-07:00Finland/Iceland trip diary - day 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaaK6IFKgE7P79giRw_5KR2Yn3l5MRlkfAFcUM-eVVjgeoTd4rZip0vyyziVnYyCw_n8JEMaycfrCA06TdN1oU3tjBdsa7hl5EI3SYHp3mqHns556o4Miw5JNmmz8BSWAg56j8IUbze8w/s1600/IMG_1175.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaaK6IFKgE7P79giRw_5KR2Yn3l5MRlkfAFcUM-eVVjgeoTd4rZip0vyyziVnYyCw_n8JEMaycfrCA06TdN1oU3tjBdsa7hl5EI3SYHp3mqHns556o4Miw5JNmmz8BSWAg56j8IUbze8w/s320/IMG_1175.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We weren't very worried about our flight to Helsinki
because we were going on Icelandair through Reykjavik, and it’s so startlingly
cheap (compared to Finnair at least) that we ended up indulging ourselves and
booking business class. It’s a modest business class compared to some – no fancy
pods or fully horizontal sleeping quarters – but it’s certainly easier to sleep
in the larger seats, with no one sitting next to you. In fact,
we’re booked in the exact same seats, in the fourth row on the right hand side,
for all four legs of the trip. We flew out of Toronto just after 9 pm, having
gone to see the fine film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mistress
America</i> and then out for lunch earlier in the day, and were both asleep
before they served dinner. We arrived in Reykjavik about four and a half hours
later, and easily made the connection to Helsinki an hour later. We had
breakfast on that flight, but otherwise slept through much of that too. So by
the time we arrived in Finland, at around 2 pm, we’d more or less had the
equivalent of a night’s sleep.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBSnC88OOFr_iq3Z16AWkrrY5eMdnQcTYrSvdfiNQvM7YhAhn17TOH4a8luTwAVFI69DCl0ZIFMQHCOM2R5HZQy-_7ZtEC_mPtktSovTI3TsT-pB31l26LZuhyphenhyphenb1aLVCOd3Bfx-pYDlw/s1600/IMG_1164.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBSnC88OOFr_iq3Z16AWkrrY5eMdnQcTYrSvdfiNQvM7YhAhn17TOH4a8luTwAVFI69DCl0ZIFMQHCOM2R5HZQy-_7ZtEC_mPtktSovTI3TsT-pB31l26LZuhyphenhyphenb1aLVCOd3Bfx-pYDlw/s320/IMG_1164.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We took a taxi into the city. It followed the familiar
pattern (for us anyway) of many such initial European journeys – a rather non-descript light-industrial
stretch, although with more surrounding greenery than we’d probably get back
home (this portion of the journey passed very quickly, given that we had a
stereotypically aggressive cab driver); the slow build-up of the city (very
sleepy today, it being Sunday); then an escalating density that makes us think we'll be hitting the really good stuff in a few minutes; then the cab suddenly turns up a
pleasantly tree-lined side street and there’s our hotel (I’m quite sure our
European hotels are almost always on pleasantly tree-lined side streets). It’s
the Radisson Blu Plaza, a safe brand-name choice, which delivers those nice
little extras – not just a coffee maker in the room, but a Nespresso machine
too! – along with some semi-inspired local “touches.” Walking to the room, the
numbers are lit up in the floor, alternating with offsetting circles of light, suggesting
a budget-challenged sci-fi show’s notion of “futuristic” set design (we later
realized that the numbers are lit up in blue, red or green depending on the
status of the room occupant, which seems like a very gaudy way of asking not to
be disturbed). It’s the only hotel room I’ve seen that supplies the guests with
sunglasses. And there’s a TV embedded in the bathroom mirror. It doesn’t
actually work – it just displays abstract patterns of static, which is probably
more appropriate to the bathroom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We went out for our initial walk, with a map from the hotel
lobby, but no real plan otherwise. Actually, we had a small plan, because we
spent an afternoon here some thirteen or fourteen years ago on the way home
from Norway. We had a stopover which was long enough to take a bus into town,
where we walked around a harbourfront market area and bought a souvenir wooden
sheep, which we still have. It seemed like an obvious idea to go there again and
see how it compared to our memories, but we never ended up finding it. Our
hotel is centrally located, across from a casino, with many surrounding
restaurants and sidewalk cafes; today, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the neighbourhood
seemed to be aspiring to Paris. The “fashion district” is just a few blocks
away, then we started heading towards what we thought was the water – this
shouldn’t be hard to do, as the city is on a peninsula, with water in basically
every direction. But as often happens, we managed to bury ourselves right in
the centre, getting lost in street upon street. This didn’t matter of course –
it’s fun just to keep going and see what happens, or whether anything will ever
happen, just taking in the general European-ness. Our guide book comments that
Helsinki “isn’t quaint, it isn’t regal, it isn’t even terribly old,” and at
first impression that seems about right – it’s not particularly distinctive,
visually or tonally. But it also feels integrated, unforced, and at ease, and
if it’s not terribly old compared to say Rome, you should compare it to our
neighborhood of glass condos.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-vsgbqxGLzX1yGk42cOmj-5aoC85QYjFeK8iZtT_5XMkTR8eHsE4LfH3PWFVIr49IgwpQ1ZfX86yGczfzudXYlpS9lJX9WJZOP3dYD9utbLX1Fz5TELnsF4LZ9feBs8NVjXydk5Dsb_o/s1600/IMG_1172.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-vsgbqxGLzX1yGk42cOmj-5aoC85QYjFeK8iZtT_5XMkTR8eHsE4LfH3PWFVIr49IgwpQ1ZfX86yGczfzudXYlpS9lJX9WJZOP3dYD9utbLX1Fz5TELnsF4LZ9feBs8NVjXydk5Dsb_o/s320/IMG_1172.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Eventually we did hit the water, but at the south end of the
city, far from our original intention. We came to a beach – not a very big one,
but crammed with people (because the world over, you have to make the best of
what you’ve got) and we bought an ice cream from a vendor who identified
himself as Cyprian. Naturally, everyone speaks English if you want them to, but
otherwise we barely heard any English in the streets today – it’s probably not
a major vacation destination for non-Scandinavians (actually, the plane from
Reykjavik was the emptiest one we’ve been on for a while). We walked up along a
coastline path, dotted throughout with cafes – all very active and happily
occupied today. For most of the way, you’re looking across at various small
islands – some of them have restaurants, with boats taking customers back and
forth every twenty minutes or so; another has a museum; another a fortress. We came to a market
that was packing up for the day, but not the one from the earlier trip. Helsinki has its own London Eye-type wheel near there, because I guess that’s
what places do. We walked back past the cathedral, although we might have taken
the white columns and green cupolas to indicate parliamentary pomp more than spiritual
rapture. Earlier this year, a music promoter caused a minor scandal by placing
a thousand racy photos of rapper Nicky Minaj on the steps leading up to it, but
today they held only people.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAaVcJYhYXphaaq-qUk0yhit3if3YXjaFc2l_m5RXP4w-zKbUBJM2KTIeIiZRXgZXlgxMcvvAlKNP7b9bvKctRjGJnnkHQS_HyIVDN4UYntx-vkpA3xNpf5gbwcGkqPbq2qEMLSmS72c0/s1600/IMG_1191.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAaVcJYhYXphaaq-qUk0yhit3if3YXjaFc2l_m5RXP4w-zKbUBJM2KTIeIiZRXgZXlgxMcvvAlKNP7b9bvKctRjGJnnkHQS_HyIVDN4UYntx-vkpA3xNpf5gbwcGkqPbq2qEMLSmS72c0/s320/IMG_1191.JPG" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We went back to the hotel and slept for an hour or so. At
around 8.30 we wandered for a while and eventually went into a restaurant
called Aino, tempted mainly by my notion of ordering reindeer. It was entirely our
kind of place – white, clean design, modern wood surfaces, no nonsense. Ally
had cauliflower soup and a carrot crepe; I had salmon and the reindeer. It was
a wonderful meal, and went by super-fast so we decided to have a beer near the
hotel, in the outside space in a bar called The Public Corner. We ended up
staying until 1.20 am, so I guess it was more than one beer (you try drinking just one Karhu!). The Public Corner
isn’t actually on a corner, but is embedded into a row of cafes and apartment
buildings, facing an enormous square, with the railway station on the far side.
I assume the square is often used for events, but today it was just a huge
cobbled space – back home, developers would certainly be petitioning to build
on it. Even late on Sunday night, the people-watching was of excellent high
quality. I remarked at one point how, compared to home, more people were just
sitting by themselves having a drink; at one point I went to the washroom and
when I came back, after a mere two-minute absence, two of these single-person
tables had merged, and the man and woman were chatting away as if they’d been
together forever. Maybe Helsinki is the true City of Love? On the other hand, as
we’d seen earlier, the apparent attempt by some to create a bridge of love
locks doesn’t seem to have acquired much momentum…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiitTYA_obfh1XqjpAO3Q4qbrDbSaVxeLqScr1E4DwBRrnnyj4M3z2hnjjcH4Zx8xEqxuOdIpsVq1ilwuAsvw2jYy7fSyGx99B_kp5W9VhzbkL-lnrxbKGEtODZ1WYmWJ5_9ti_ZqiCu2A/s1600/IMG_1189.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiitTYA_obfh1XqjpAO3Q4qbrDbSaVxeLqScr1E4DwBRrnnyj4M3z2hnjjcH4Zx8xEqxuOdIpsVq1ilwuAsvw2jYy7fSyGx99B_kp5W9VhzbkL-lnrxbKGEtODZ1WYmWJ5_9ti_ZqiCu2A/s320/IMG_1189.JPG" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-13368884289584642802014-12-01T14:54:00.003-08:002014-12-01T14:54:57.407-08:00New Zealand trip diary - day 13<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgheJrC04J1szP_uC24mzIbTh7KFV9tqsRk_L5BkPA6D93xSzyJ-fGRF5SlKjO6lhZIHobJAaQwATB2TKFlaV5-IFCScJyt3wytJ0L1ctzR5Ew6gIYpva-RG-J-WtJXFifCMKuZjmtTB3A/s1600/IMG_1119+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgheJrC04J1szP_uC24mzIbTh7KFV9tqsRk_L5BkPA6D93xSzyJ-fGRF5SlKjO6lhZIHobJAaQwATB2TKFlaV5-IFCScJyt3wytJ0L1ctzR5Ew6gIYpva-RG-J-WtJXFifCMKuZjmtTB3A/s320/IMG_1119+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In contrast to
the first night, we spent our second night in the lodge among maybe seven
other couples, so dinner was more of a group affair. We most enjoyed talking to
a Scottish couple, of whom the woman in particular was refreshingly feisty and
happy to say whatever entered her head. And at one point on our table of eight
people, there were maybe three separate conversations about Christchurch going
on all at once; it constantly seems like a wound that’s nowhere near to
healing. Another couple on the table live there, and were just here for the
night, for their wedding anniversary; they hadn’t been downtown in three years,
and it almost sounded like they might never go again. Anyway, it was fine,
but as soon as dinner was over we left (perhaps not with the greatest finesse,
in hindsight). We sat up in our room for a while longer, and ended the night
looking at the stars, which were clear as we’ve seldom seen them – we could have been drawing textbook-quality constellations and formations. It was windy though, which presumably accounted for
the wireless Internet going down for a second night in a row – I guess it must
be a big recurring problem there. Anyway, early on Sunday morning I spent an hour or
so sitting in the library area, where it still worked. Strangely, since the
previous day someone had moved all the ancient volumes of Colliers’
encyclopedia from one bookshelf to another. However, Coz’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fatherhood</i> was still in the same spot.</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixOyWh77VXh2fqYKc_LilGT-_SN_QPdvM290JKtc9Lo4azq9g0fqobdzCuLo9qzshOiaDBtonPqGy0hb-VIw_UIayOG0Qw8HFxG4Er6wgCzTx0InK8SUHiez2cyALLBZphaR8cgvrC6g/s1600/IMG_1120+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgixOyWh77VXh2fqYKc_LilGT-_SN_QPdvM290JKtc9Lo4azq9g0fqobdzCuLo9qzshOiaDBtonPqGy0hb-VIw_UIayOG0Qw8HFxG4Er6wgCzTx0InK8SUHiez2cyALLBZphaR8cgvrC6g/s320/IMG_1120+(2).jpg" /></a>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After breakfast
we walked around for a couple of hours. We’d saved a little bit of bread and
pastry from our walk the previous day, to feed to Marcus the sheep (yeah, I
know how that sounds). We walked the entire length of the driveway where he’d
followed us the other day (which takeslonger than you could imagine) but
although we saw the other sheep, Marcus wasn’t there. Then we did the nature
walk we did on our first evening here, except in reverse this time, and not in
the rain; then we went into the gift shop and bought a few things – gloves, a
sweater. We were talking about how we wouldn’t be seeing Marcus again (and
hoping that didn’t mean he was the night’s dinner) and then suddenly there he
was, all by himself in a fenced off area, even with his own little kennel.
It turns out he doesn’t like bread and pastry, but he's ridiculously fond of company, putting up his front paws (I know that’s not the
term, but it seems like it should be) and lapping up all the petting he can
get. Later on, a woman who works at the lodge, and lives on the premises (as
they all do) said he’d escaped from the other area and come to her door around
7 am, crying to get in and sending her dog into a frenzy. He’s a wonderful
little character, but you have to be worried for his future (apparently though
they did have another similar sheep in the past, who after a couple of years
gave in and just accepted his role in life).</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWuVkzk_TnbcB9Ch8HW4OevQOklss43M4lYUHKRmtkcSxGMw2qBSZlbaprL63a3_tAp-yUVJYd0zr0_21zAmodUu_j4aG0GSijAGjZ6i6Qhsk7MGv1qhR0jDYx3bJMdgkqeOE3zeBqWQE/s1600/IMG_1133+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWuVkzk_TnbcB9Ch8HW4OevQOklss43M4lYUHKRmtkcSxGMw2qBSZlbaprL63a3_tAp-yUVJYd0zr0_21zAmodUu_j4aG0GSijAGjZ6i6Qhsk7MGv1qhR0jDYx3bJMdgkqeOE3zeBqWQE/s320/IMG_1133+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We were driven to
Christchurch, which took about an hour and a half – the driver was incredibly
well-informed on everything we saw or passed and delivered a more or less
seamless commentary, but I slept through most of it. In the past he’s driven
Bill Clinton, Bono and Shania Twain (who likes the region so much she bought a
farm). The flight to Auckland was uneventful, then we had four hours or so
there, which passed by well enough. Still, it’s a shame our last outdoor walk
in New Zealand couldn’t have been something better than the ten minutes along
the green line from the domestic to the international terminal. The flight back
to Vancouver was about as easy as it could have been – we both slept for a
satisfactory chunk of it. I watched the recent crime thriller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Drop</i>; Ally watched the New Zealand
classic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Once were Warriors</i>…I assume
New Zealand Air would be the only airline on which that’s a standing choice.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We were
originally supposed to fly out of Vancouver at 2 pm; which would have given us
a couple of hours there, but Air New Zealand called a few months ago to say that flight was
cancelled and we had to wait until 4 pm. Not only was the 2 pm flight <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> cancelled, we didn’t even get seats
together on the 4 pm flight (both having to occupy lousy middle seats).
Something smells rotten about that whole thing. And we had a brief period of
anxiety when it seemed that even the 4 pm flight might be delayed due to a
water main burst in the air traffic control room (or some such catastrophe).
But in the end we got off on time.</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8CI6EMotQ_-70-1jQhfRMuQjmo7l0d6tyUogT1z8i2xGlb61go8Znf5Gqf-LooAqSIkQrCEHart8jwomN8xlU-rKr8tKjsi_9rj_j_Qp6NIWE60O4XuouQOZhH0wpFllAHIaVEeu-ipc/s1600/IMG_1123+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8CI6EMotQ_-70-1jQhfRMuQjmo7l0d6tyUogT1z8i2xGlb61go8Znf5Gqf-LooAqSIkQrCEHart8jwomN8xlU-rKr8tKjsi_9rj_j_Qp6NIWE60O4XuouQOZhH0wpFllAHIaVEeu-ipc/s320/IMG_1123+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was a great
trip – we planned it fairly immaculately if we say so ourselves, seeing a good
cross-section of the country while minimizing the amount of time lost to travel
and other logistics, and luck was with us throughout in matters such as the
weather. People keep asking if we’d go back, and of course it’s one of those
things – in terms of the pleasure of being there, we certainly would, but it’s
on the other side of the world and there are many nearer places we’d also like
to revisit, or haven’t seen at all, so I suppose the odds are that we won’t... </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Many times when
we said we were from Canada, it was clear from the responses that the New Zealand image of
Canada is formed much more by the western Rocky mountains, and by towns like
Jasper and Banff, than by Toronto; many people told us they’d been to Vancouver
and on from there, but I’m not sure anyone ever mentioned our own city. At the
end of the day, I suppose Toronto is another arbitrary creation of glass and
concrete, in what would otherwise be an innocuous spot on the map. But despite
its limitations, we never seriously think about wanting to live anywhere else.
We arrived home around midnight, but of course things weren’t truly back to
normal until Ozu arrived home the following afternoon. And so here’s the end of
the story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hqGp1LGtL9YPiFozVxifoIrolHa22Oe2imvbrNpx-dODesC4m5CvRIL9955BYEmXHm_OrBRtrSmu6hJSdSAAJZOsjIBs4k4XcZFolQJXnyX2o3hKHIoffHIY8LMTrlwYpPkNG9ByoGw/s1600/IMG_1145+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hqGp1LGtL9YPiFozVxifoIrolHa22Oe2imvbrNpx-dODesC4m5CvRIL9955BYEmXHm_OrBRtrSmu6hJSdSAAJZOsjIBs4k4XcZFolQJXnyX2o3hKHIoffHIY8LMTrlwYpPkNG9ByoGw/s320/IMG_1145+(2).jpg" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2350400406150514457.post-21327085116799370622014-11-28T21:37:00.002-08:002014-11-28T21:37:17.496-08:00New Zealand trip diary - day 12<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkQVOE8tClqCZ1kzTFyKLIm4lf_YlK8p8Mvb8vVdg_pYUnKIqxg2-O1wwZcuff7Mo-TxX8vn6AU5SIIu-2bTl0UgNBKC_PakiqJgS5NsKkjeNNi2XynAP0ScijTcRrEPDzrjm0yolIvc/s1600/IMG_1114+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkQVOE8tClqCZ1kzTFyKLIm4lf_YlK8p8Mvb8vVdg_pYUnKIqxg2-O1wwZcuff7Mo-TxX8vn6AU5SIIu-2bTl0UgNBKC_PakiqJgS5NsKkjeNNi2XynAP0ScijTcRrEPDzrjm0yolIvc/s320/IMG_1114+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Grasmere Lodge
has a rather more formal approach to things than your regular shack in that you congregate for a drink
around 7 and then have dinner in 8, most likely eating in groups. We were a bit
unsure about this because we’re lousy in such situations, but it ended up as
yet another fine evening. We went first for a stroll on a nature trail that
surrounds the lodge, taking forty-five minutes or so; it was a very nice walk,
but it soon started to rain and we ended up drenched. On the way back
we walked through a field of horses, some of which started following us, so we
have the new marker of being stalked by cows, sheep and horses all within the
same day. Anyway, we soon dried off. On Friday night, as I mentioned, we were the only guests, and the only other people around
for dinner were the former operators and continuing part owners,
Olly and Vicky Newbegin, up here for the special Cass weekend I described before. They mostly
live in Christchurch, so we had yet another extended conversation on that
topic, among many other things (not least, Olly’s memories of his first visit
to the US in his 20s, seeing Miles Davis and John Coltrane perform on the same
night, and other musical wonders; subsequent Internet searching suggests he
could also have talked at length about his amazing Porsche collection, but we
never got there). Several hours went by most easily. Then we returned to our
wonderful room and drank more wine. I stood outside by myself for a while in the darkness,
enjoying the sense of total exclusivity and uniqueness, which our home city can’t
really provide for all its own marvels.</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8YERzTOV_Q0c7fgYdeM3gXNHgSt_GaZi0heh4R7oTkcPNQjOAuSTP1b7a3lD4HwZwR6yMk2MI4HAPxPhdWW7HEQP2vHXALp3ON3bNkE2tP0FeG-M7lxbCd0QKtTOmsM_RkdgH1kfj3xc/s1600/IMG_1093+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8YERzTOV_Q0c7fgYdeM3gXNHgSt_GaZi0heh4R7oTkcPNQjOAuSTP1b7a3lD4HwZwR6yMk2MI4HAPxPhdWW7HEQP2vHXALp3ON3bNkE2tP0FeG-M7lxbCd0QKtTOmsM_RkdgH1kfj3xc/s320/IMG_1093+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The great thing
about a place like Grasmere is that you express a wish and then everyone applies
themselves to making it happen. We said that for our last day we’d like to take
a good scenic walk, maybe five hours or so, and then everyone launched
themselves into figuring out what would be the best route, the appropriate accompanying
logistics and so on. In this particular case it became almost a family project
– the current and former operators, Tom and Olly, both drove us out to the
starting point; five hours later, Tom brought his partner and baby daughter along
when he picked us up (after dropping in on the Cass bash).
They’d selected a track which wouldn’t be too affected by the previous evening’s
rain nor by the predicted westerly winds, called the Hog’s Back Trail, leading
to a tiny village called Castle Hill (which Olly apparently had a hand in
founding – the more we hear about him, the more he sounds like a benign local
Godfather). It was a perfect choice, not just for the reasons stated, but also
because it complemented the other fine walks we’ve taken – somewhat drier
terrain, with a feeling of clay and gorse, but also with plenty of woodland
stretches; a somewhat softer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>grandeur to
the landscapes, but again with mesmerizingly designed skies (just look at the photos). We only saw a handful of other walkers, but there were plenty
of mountain bikers, especially as the day went on. It wasn’t a particularly tough
walk in terms of ups and downs, but still tired us out well enough.</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gR9kzgvi-nSdFZUM3yP6iko6fz1TA1woTUHisU-4J_FUqp_aPmu8tRSWKaclfAMrIyqN0tr8cECzCahn-dez01HYMZRzBV5uO7qm2mxS9rb-Lcs6MhAjcyZH_BAUYT-UF86VHzFItRw/s1600/IMG_1112+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gR9kzgvi-nSdFZUM3yP6iko6fz1TA1woTUHisU-4J_FUqp_aPmu8tRSWKaclfAMrIyqN0tr8cECzCahn-dez01HYMZRzBV5uO7qm2mxS9rb-Lcs6MhAjcyZH_BAUYT-UF86VHzFItRw/s320/IMG_1112+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The lodge chef,
Jean-Pierre (they have an actual French chef called Jean-Pierre) made us a
lunch which even included little quiche-type things that he’d cooked that
morning; I’m telling you, they were really on top of everything. The only
trouble was that by the time we were ready to eat it, the wind was picking up
despite their best planning efforts, so we had to wait a while to find
the right spot. The New Zealand climate is a bit of a puzzler. You often go
through huge temperature swings; on today’s walk for example we eventually
found a sheltered spot to eat our lunch, and ten minutes later my fingers were
white and twisted as if on the verge of frostbite. But almost as soon as we
started walking again, I felt overheated and had to take my jacket off (there’s
a lot of putting on outer layers, then taking them off, then putting them on
again, etc.) I mentioned before the ease of sunburning – apparently New Zealand
has the highest skin cancer rate in the world. On at least five days during the
trip we’ve felt moisture in the air in a density which at home would be a certain sign of
rain in the immediate future, but here it's always receded without coming to that (our luck with the weather continued
to the end; apparently things got much worse in Christchurch on the day we
left). But it’s hard to make sweeping statements about a country based on two
weeks, no matter how engaged you think you are. Someone at work had said to
Alison that one of her prevailing impressions of New Zealand is of all the
people walking barefoot in the street. We haven’t seen that at all. </span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6RLTfEIxsf_rZG0DWqPMiv0Y2dgJO-6_uI_XVUuJkNQz3o_FOzSpvXagHbUErZbAprld09NmGx8WzRcaP3SBSt3CKx1vfLMBPcQeV2fAowsKiToSW6SiOY3rf0nkje8pSOzutIamX7bI/s1600/IMG_1102+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6RLTfEIxsf_rZG0DWqPMiv0Y2dgJO-6_uI_XVUuJkNQz3o_FOzSpvXagHbUErZbAprld09NmGx8WzRcaP3SBSt3CKx1vfLMBPcQeV2fAowsKiToSW6SiOY3rf0nkje8pSOzutIamX7bI/s320/IMG_1102+(2).jpg" /></a>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">By the way, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chronicles of Narnia</i> films were
apparently shot close by, and so was a British production of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World</i>, at which time Bob
Hoskins and James Fox stayed in the lodge for a month or so (haven’t asked if
that’s the extent of the celebrity guest list). The only issue today was that
the Internet wasn’t working this morning, with the serious consequence that I
couldn’t take a look at Ozu in our room. However, while waiting for it to be fixed, I found
that I could get online by sitting in one of the library areas (I think the
place has three such areas, where people might play pool, chess or board games;
watch TV (the rooms don’t have them); or read such books as the Coz’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fatherhood</i> (to take an example which, by
divine providence, I found in my eyeline). Anyway, I monitored Ozu on and off
for half an hour or so, and he never moved from the same droopy position on the bed in
the little dog space. I haven’t seen him in the big dog space for days, which I
take to mean that he’s given up on trying to keep up with them, and that he’s
just grimly sticking it out before he gets to go home. Which won't be too long a wait as
a percentage of his entire stay, but unfortunately still isn't particularly close if he's counting the hours…</span></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqaGO31801QmEm2ySIureM4MMe0Nw0Sh9zBlUR4fmtVU1jDwNM52cd1YEV8H7dMrgn-aAQV7bSEvhyphenhyphenihdfewXeLyL9qGqQJJuvohhxa3nDSgayqxCsH-qwsuGEBo2VGkQbUfkbGfH3eH0/s1600/IMG_1097+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqaGO31801QmEm2ySIureM4MMe0Nw0Sh9zBlUR4fmtVU1jDwNM52cd1YEV8H7dMrgn-aAQV7bSEvhyphenhyphenihdfewXeLyL9qGqQJJuvohhxa3nDSgayqxCsH-qwsuGEBo2VGkQbUfkbGfH3eH0/s320/IMG_1097+(2).jpg" /></a>torontomovieguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17546481940057905714noreply@blogger.com0