Garbo’s Faces

a Novel — Part 15: The World

There was a heat wave in London that summer and early fall.

I didn’t mind all that much — this was nothing like India, after all — but those around me suffered.

A few days after I got back, I received a postcard from Harriet which she must have mailed from the Stockholm airport: it had a picture on it of the new traffic tower at Arlanda. “Change of plans,” she wrote in a hasty hand. “Going to Greece.”

This was followed about a week later by a letter she had written on the plane and mailed on her arrival in Athens. She had received an invitation from Onassis, she wrote. Seems he’d had a falling-out with Maria Callas, and she had accepted before he could change his mind, is how she put it.

She went on to tell me how nice he was, Mr. Onassis, and what a wonderful boat he had. “Well, you’ve seen it,” she wrote, as if she just remembered, which may well have been the case. “The Christina. Where we first met.”

And she really liked the Mediterranean, so good for her complexion, for her many little wrinkles. No trolls anymore to touch them away. And he’s such a funny man, and considerate. And, oh so deliciously rich.

I felt a little moth of loss in my chest at reading the letter. It was as if she was leaving me behind again, dockside, while she and her important friends were heading out into the Aegean Sea. I told myself to not be silly, she was telling me after all, wasn’t she? And she ended her letter wishing I was there, didn’t she?

Her next letter, mailed from Monte Carlo a few weeks later, signaled another change of plans: Onassis and Callas were apparently seeing eye to eye again, and since Callas didn’t much care for Harriet, and was quite vocal about it, Harriet had opted to leave the Christina and instead accept an invitation from a Sam Spiegel, producer of some renown apparently, whose yacht, the Malahne, was moored next to Mr. Onassis’s Christina. George Schlee, her friend from New York, had arrived too, and while again ending her letter by wishing I was there, off she went. To be swallowed, apparently, by her world, same as I was slowly being reclaimed, chewed, and swallowed by mine.

And what is it with the world that makes it such a bully? Such a jealous guardian of its onlyness.

I’m asking, because there were some days, within a month or so after our magical and quite impossible Christmas morning at the Gustavus Adolphus Swedish Lutheran Church — or what masqueraded as such — that I actually forgot that it had happened; so pressing were the details of now, the details of finishing the initial design, of answering this or that call, of meeting this or that deadline, of buying that milk, that butter, and perhaps some chapatti if only they would sell it nearby, that the world filled all there was of me with its many worries, large and small, leaving no room for memories, no matter how magical.

And now, again, just a few months after seeing Harriet, and a several-years-dead Oskar, and trolls for heaven’s sake — and their incredible performances — the world of London gradually poured itself into me, minute by minute, filled me up, took me over, and softly muffled these incredible and still-recent events.

And isn’t the world even more devious? Does it not at times — I guess by strength of its inconsiderate realness — even cast shadows of doubt upon the very certainties that fuel us? Does it not, by its persuasive everywhere, asphyxiate whatever does not agree with it — demanding its banishment?

And I say that, for had it not been for the tiger’s-eye, which I always carried in my pocket as a sort of charm and a reminder of the magic, the world may have succeeded in drowning the summer altogether — succeeded in proving to me (logically, objectively, common-sensely) that all had been dream: analyzable and psychologically interesting delusions. But whenever I touched the stone, by chance or intentionally, I remembered again, and again, and again saw that huge hand, the tiger’s-eye a little lamp nestled within it, and that would send the jealous world packing.

But the world is nothing if not persistent, and it assailed me, incessantly, that fall in London, and it never ceased to try to prove its supremacy. And I think that perhaps it was the same for Harriet during her summer of cruising, and then during her fall in New York. For while she still wrote me quite often, her letters grew shorter and shorter and her English more and more careless. About ports they visited: Capri, Palermo, Venice, the island of Ithaca, ending, always, with those almost obligatory, wish you were heres. About Mr. and Mrs. so and so coming on board, and then leaving at the next port. About Mr. Onassis, whom she called Ari in her letters, who had come aboard too, in Ithaca — Callas in tow, she said, looking at Harriet with Spanish daggers for eyes. Ari, she wrote, always playing practical jokes on people. Always so funny.

Then, October by now, it was back to New York with Mr. Schlee, and oh, so much to do to get settled again, and oh, how unbearably hot New York was, even in October, shouldn’t it have cooled down by now, it was nearly winter for heaven’s sake.

And in her hurried scribbles, there was no mention of trolls, or of Athansor, or of Mr. Lindberg and his magical psalm. There was only the real world, swallowing her bit by bit and digesting her to pieces.

As mine never quite ceased trying to.

I guess immediate matters are immediate because you need food, and you need a place to sleep, and you need clothes, and so your attention rivets to the groceries and to the newspaper headlines, and to what your clients like and don’t like about the design you are explaining in great detail as they ask a thousand questions while caressing their pipes or using their stems as pointers, unmindful of whether little drops of saliva, brown with tar, fall on the drawing you’ve so carefully prepared: what if we put this window over here?

And then this letter arrives.

Wit’s End

24 November, 1959

Dear Nachiketa,

What happened to time? It seems like it was just the other day that you and I were eating ourselves silly in Dalarna while Karin, bless her heart, insisted on feeding us more. Do you remember?

New York has finally cooled down and I can breathe again, I can have the windows open and feel the moist air rush off the river and into my living room. I wish you were here, with me, and we could talk again.

I’ve heard from friends that Mercedes has finished a book, an autobiography, and that she plans to publish it. I hear there are pictures in it from when she and I visited a little island in California and sunbathed topless. There, I’ve said it. So, if you see this book, and these pictures, you will believe me, I hope and pray, when I say that there was nothing else going on, just sunbathing.

And, oh, I have another confession. I cannot find the necklace. You know the one, the one with the crystal. The one the queen of the trolls gave me. She did, did she not? It did happen, did it not? Sometimes I am no longer sure, it seems so misty, somehow, so far away and hardly possible, and when I last went to find my necklace to make sure I wasn’t making it all up, I could not find it. I still cannot.

I wish you could come for Christmas again, Nachiketa, but George Schlee and his wife have made elaborate plans to “keep me from brooding” and I mustn’t let them down. Their plan is to keep me busy, keep me doing things. Parties, which I hate, but feel I have to go to since they’ve all gone to the trouble of inviting me, and it seems to work, for I do brood less, I think less, I talk less to myself. But I can’t find the necklace.

I hope the weather is fine in London and that you are doing well in your job and that you’re making lots of money and investing it wisely. Real estate is the best advice I can give in that regard. Seems like prices of buildings are always going up, never going down, no matter what happens with stocks and bonds. Try to save some money and buy yourself a building or two. That’ll see you through.

Many kisses,

Harriet

To this day I have not laid eyes on the book Mercedes de Acosta published.

I think it was called Therein Lies the Heart, or something like that. Cecil Beaton made mention of it sometime later, said the book was out and about, as he put it. I never bothered to find it, but I was touched that Harriet had warned me about it.

But the necklace.

I wrote back the same day.

London

November 28, 1959

Dear Harriet,

It is good to hear from you again, and to hear that New York has finally turned habitable. I tried to call you earlier today, but you did not answer. You were probably out, visiting museums or something. Or maybe you thought it was Mercedes de Acosta.

When it comes to weather, you should try London. We had frost last night, and the temperature has barely made it above freezing today. It spells a cold winter if you ask me. Not what I cherish. Far from it.

I, too, wish I could visit you for the holidays, but I can see that you have a busy season in store, and, hoping to not sound too peevish, I see that I would not fit into those plans very well.

Thanks for telling me about the book. Please do not worry, I will always believe you, for you always tell me the truth. That I do know. And appreciate.

I am sorry to hear that you have lost the necklace. When did you last have it? Can you remember? I still have my tiger’s-eye — I touch it many times a day — so I am certain that it all happened, Harriet. It really did. Still, I wonder at times. That is, until I touch the tiger’s-eye again, for when I do it winks at me and tells me the truth, just like you always do.

As far as making money goes. Well, ends meet comfortably, thank you. Jiddu calls me now and then just to make sure, and I always tell him not to worry, and he seems happy about that. My profession carries considerable financial reward, if you’re good at it, and I have come to find out that I am good at it, although I do not have enough saved yet to consider buying buildings. When I do though, I will certainly keep your advice in mind, for I agree with you, buildings are probably the best kind of investment you can make.

But back to the necklace. You must try to find it. It all happened. Please don’t ever doubt that. It was you who found the shieling. It was your face they touched. It was you they honored with their juggling and song. The necklace will prove it to you. Perhaps that is why the queen gave it to you.

Call me if you find it, please. Something tells me that without it, we may not see Athansor again.

Meanwhile, I hope New York stays livable.

I Love you,

Nachiketa

Two weeks later she rang. It was the 13th of December, Santa Lucia’s Day.

“I found it,” she said.

When I didn’t respond right away, “The necklace. I found it.”

“Where was it?” I asked.

“Well,” she began, then hesitated. “It was more like it found me.”

I waited for more to follow over the hissing line, marginally aware of the hard, cool receiver against my ear. I cupped my hand around it, the better to hear.

“Were was it?”

“In an ankle boot,” she said.

“Ankle boot?”

“Yes, that’s what they are. Brown, and lined. They’re warm. Winter shoes. This morning when I reached into my closet for my gray walking shoes, I came out with one of the ankle boots instead. I was about to put it back when I noticed it felt heavy. As if, you know, there was something in it.”

“And there was?”

“Yes. The necklace.”

“You hadn’t searched there before?”

“In the boots? What would it do in the boots?”

Good point.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“The thing is, Nachiketa, I meant to wear my gray walking shoes. I knew where they were, I use them every day. I reached for them, you know, without even thinking or looking. My hand knew where they were. But it was as if the boots and the shoes had traded places. My hand went in for the shoes and came out with a boot. And what was the necklace doing there?”

“I don’t know,” I said again.

“You think I’m crazy?”

That is a question you should never let anybody wait for a reply to. “Of course not.”

“But that’s how I found it,” she said. “Or it me. But it seemed smaller somehow. The chain a little thinner. The crystal a little darker.”

“Maybe it was sad,” I suggested, more as a joke than anything.

“That was my thought, precisely,” she answered, not joking; and we both fell silent. Me into an amazement at what she had just said, and perhaps the same for her.

When she returned she said, “You don’t know the half of it. When I put it on, it clasped itself at the back of my neck, Nachiketa. As if the ends of the chain were little hands, reaching for each other. When I brought them close enough they simply clasped.” Then, “Am I going crazy?”

Again, a quick: “No. No, you’re not.”

“Then I went into the kitchen to show it to Claire, to let her know I’d found it, and she began to ooh and aah about how beautiful it was and how it sparkled and shone, and as I looked down at it, I swear, it was back to the size and color I remembered. And the crystal was sparkling and shining.”

“Happy,” I heard myself saying.

“Yes,” she said. “It was happy.”

Then neither of us said anything for what must have been five long breaths.

“Did they make a sound?”

“What do you mean?”

I’m not sure I had meant to ask that, but I did wonder, and I must have wondered aloud. “The hands,” I said.

“Clasping?”

“Yes.”

Another short silence while she thought about that. “No. Not that I remember.”

“Well, hands that small,” I began.

“Wouldn’t make a sound,” she completed.

“Considering where it came from,” I said. “It’s no wonder…”

“It wanted to be found,” she interrupted. “I’m sure of it.”

I agreed.

“Well, I wanted to let you know,” she said, suddenly all business. Which sounded a little odd, and more than anything struck me as an attempt to swim back up to the surface and pretend that you’re not a fish. Then, “I have to go.” Just like a normal person with normal things to do.

But we were fish. We could breathe underwater. There was no denying it.

Though what I said was, “Thanks, Harriet. I really appreciate your calling and letting me know. It had me worried.”

Another short silence. “I have to be somewhere,” she said then, feeling, I believe, she owed me some sort of explanation.

“No, that’s fine,” I said, knowing that if she said she had to go, it meant she had to go, for I don’t think she ever lied to me.

“Bye,” she said.

“Bye.”

She hung up.

We are fish, I thought again, able to breathe underwater. As uncommon and unreal as people come. We are also lungless, wingless birds, able to fly and breathe among the stars, where anything is possible.

After I replaced the receiver, I brought out my tiger’s-eye, just to make sure.

:

I didn’t sleep much that night. Or, in any case, not very well. For I dreamed, and in my dream, the real world — the one with refrigerators and television sets, football games and drawing boards, telephones and gainful employment — was looking at me, watching my every move, with suspicious doors, furniture, pens, telephones, what have you.

And what it accused me of, again, and firmly, and sensibly, was delusion.

I awoke in a slight sweat. My wristwatch luminesced two-thirty in the morning. It was dark outside. With the help of filtered streetlight I could make out the ceiling, but barely. Had everything been a dream then, as the world claimed? Even the tiger’s-eye?

I had to get up, to touch it, hold that other reality in my hand and see it wink back at me, knowingly, reassuringly. To know that it was found and touched by, maybe even made by, trolls: imaginary beings that disagreed with the world.

I reached for it, but it was gone.

I kept it on my bedside table, every night. I carried it in my left-hand trouser pocket, every day. Neither place. Nor was it in the right-hand pocket. Jacket then? No. At the office? No, I remembered looking at it last night after Harriet hung up. In which hand? The left, yes, slowly up and down in my left hand. And then back into my pocket, as always, right?

No, no, by the phone, I put it down by the phone.

Out into the hallway, turn on the light, over to the phone. And yes, there it was. Thank God. It looked darker, smaller, against the dark wood of the phone table. Forlorn. Lost, I said to myself. It looks lost, unhappy.

I picked it up, embraced it — if you can embrace something the size of a pinball — and it hugged me back, I swear. Happy to be found.

Could everything still be dream, as the room and its many allies suggested?

I looked out at the silent street below. It was drizzling now, I could smell the rain, always a pleasant smell for me, at least in these quantities — the monsoons of India smell pleasant only for the first few drops, until they become a threat, which smells different. These rains never threaten, they only fall, and smell pleasant all through.

The rain outside was so fine that any finer would have been called a mist. The streetlight below my window, struggling to reach the ground, wore a discernible halo, globe almost. A car rumbled down the street, slowly, picking its way around the forming puddles as if afraid to splash nonexistent pedestrians. I looked down at the tiger’s-eye. Warm now, shining again. Real. We were real. As real as the street, surely. Very real fish.

The following morning I called Madhuri.

It is always an challenge to get her on the telephone. She does have one: Jiddu first, and later I, have made sure of that. But she does not like it and unplugs it from the wall as soon as she’s done talking. The ring (there is no way to soften those Indian telephone bells) could wake dead snakes, she says, and unplugs it again. So, reaching her involves first calling her neighbor, Nilima, and asking her to send one of the boys in to Madhuri to ask her to plug back in her telephone, or, if she ignores him, or doesn’t comply, to plug the phone in himself. But Madhuri usually cooperates when she hears that I want to talk to her, is what she tells me.

I tried Madhuri first, but as usual the operator told me there was no answer. So I called Nilima, and then gave it five minutes before I called Madhuri back. She answered immediately, to silence the loud ring in her living room.

“Hello. Nachiketa?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“How are you?” She was shouting to make sure I could hear her, so far away.

“I am fine, Madhuri. Fine.” The line, however, was not so fine, hissing and moving and complaining like the snake it was. “Can you hear me?”

“I am not deaf. Of course I can hear you.”

“Are snakes the only creatures that can talk snake talk?” I asked in snake talk.

“No,” she answered in the same language. It sounded like ‘of course not, silly boy’ and then I had to laugh: Of course not. I had just used that language myself.

So, I added, “Apart from you and me.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I think I have met some who can, who are neither snake nor us.”

She was silent long enough for me to say, “Madhuri?”

“I am here,” she answered, and continued her silence.

I waited. Then she said, slowly, and quite clearly, “They say that Hanuman, son of Vayu the wind god and Anjana, Keshari’s wife, received the language as a gift from Surya the Sun for saving him from Rahu the dragon, and that Hanuman then taught it to the Rakshasas who were then tricked into teaching it to the snakes. The snakes do not like that story.”

“I can see why,” I said.

“Who have you met that talk snake talk?” She wanted to know.

“Trolls,” I said.

“Trolls?”

“They live in Sweden, in mountains, and I think they must be related to the Rakshasas,” I explained.

“I know what trolls are, Nachiketa.”

“They speak perfect snake talk. Well, how snakes would talk if they were ten feet tall and had rocks where tongues should be.”

“I envy you,” said Madhuri, after a small silence.

“So, you believe me,” I said. Relieved.

“What is there not to believe, Nachiketa?”

Then I told her about our meeting with the trolls, and about the white horse that brought us there. Her reply made me shiver and almost drop the receiver. She said only the one word.

“Athansor?”

I had not mentioned his name. Now it was my turn to say nothing.

“Nachiketa?” she wondered after a while.

“Yes,” I said. “I am here.” Then, “You know him?”

“I know of him,” she answered. “I don’t know him.”

“You know his name.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve met him twice, Harriet and I, Once in New York. He was called Phantom then. Then in Sweden. Twice in Sweden, actually. As Athansor.”

“I envy you,” she said again.

“Do you know who he is?”

“Some say Athansor is the Lord Krishna, others say that he is Lord Krishna’s horse, others still, among them some very wise snakes, even Esh, the wisest, have pointed out that Lord Krishna cannot help but be his own horse.”

“I just wanted to hear you believe me,” I said after another heartbeat or two, and then realized how utterly true that was.

“What is there not to believe?” she said again. “Silly boy, you can talk to snakes, Nachiketa, and you wonder about trolls. You surprise me.”

“I surprise myself,” I said. “Most of the time.”

“I would like to meet her,” she said. “I would like to see her.”

“Harriet?” I asked.

“Who else?”

“You would like to come here?” I asked.

“You know I don’t travel,” she said.

“Of course. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I would like to meet her,” she said again.

“I will ask her.”

“No, tell her. Tell her. Tell her I would like to see her.”

I promised I would do my best. Then I thanked her and promised to call soon again. Again she told me that she envied me, to have seen trolls, and to have ridden Athansor, Krishna’s horse. And please to be sure to tell her.

© Wolfstuff