Writer-in-Residence

CHAPTER ONE

".… saucy little bird sitting over there on the windowsill with that gleam in his eye and his head cocked over, looks like he’s casing the joint for worms. Beat it, bird, this seminar is for seniors only. All right, the bird stays, but one peep and he’s out. So, first day together, let’s get to know one another. How about a singalong? No? How about an in-depth analysis of the defensive line of the Washington Redskins? How about a meaningful rap on the meaning of life?.… we’ll all wear our jammies and I’ll make the cocoa. Still no? What say we trade recipes on how to cook chittlins? Anybody here know how to do it? Anybody here know how to spell it? Anybody here know what the hell I’m talking about? I know, I’m rambling, but don’t despair, I’ll think of something. I always do, but one thing, students, this may be a seminar in creative writing, but sure as Booth shot Lincoln we’re not going to sit here for the next three hours and talk about art and literature. Yes, students, it’s time to admit it, Booth definitely did shoot Lincoln. No matter what else they may have taught you here in Chadwick, North Carolina, it wasn’t the Russians, it was Mister Booth all the time. Of course, we won’t tell Dean Hummel about that, he still thinks that.… what’s this? Smiles on your open, honest faces? Grins of derision invoked by the name of the Dean? Look here, I won’t have the Dean derided in my seminar, even if he is a bit of a shmuck. Hold it, does anybody here know what a shmuck is? I didn’t think so, not in Chadwick College. Look, forget that I said it, okay? If anybody asks you if I called the Dean a shmuck, you just play it dumb. You put your hands over your ears, and you say, lawsy me, I don’t even know what that nasty word means, but it sure does sound disgusting.

"Got it? Good, and that goes for you, too, bird. You look as if you can keep your beak shut, so shtum’s the word. You know, I think he likes me. The bird, not the Dean. That bird hasn’t moved a muscle in minutes; either he’s dead or he’s fascinated. Very few humans stand still that way when I’m spouting off, most people tend to wander. Not you folks, you don’t count because you have no choice, but that bird is a natural-born volunteer listener. My first Carolina conquest, and by sheer luck he happens to be a magnificent specimen of the male Richmondena cardinalis, or common cardinal. Mean anything to you? Right, the cardinal is the official bird of the proud state of North Carolina. Didn’t think I knew that, did you? Bet you figured that all us Yankees don’t know beans when it comes to matters of the southern persuasion. Well, Max Levi-Morris is not your standard-issue carpetbagger. I believe in being prepared, and you see before you a repository of perfectly useless information about the state of North Carolina. Sit still, bird, while I demonstrate.

"We’ve already discussed the cardinal, but did you people know that your state flower is the dogwood, and your state tree is the pine? Fascinating. Now, most states would stop right there, but not the Tar Heels, no sir. They’re obsessed with labelling things. Thus, the state mammal of North Carolina is the gray squirrel, the state insect is the honeybee, the state reptile is the turtle, the state gemstone is the emerald, and the state seashell.… silence, you scoffers, I’m serious. The official state seashell of North Carolina is the Scotch Bonnet, which sounds like something I drank last night. By mistake.

"Did you know all that? Be truthful, now. No, of course you didn’t, and why should you? I was born in New York City, but I’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty or the top of the World Trade Center. It’s the same thing. Everyone says that homegrown is best, but it’s the alien corn that makes grist for our mills, it’s always the foreign that intrigues us, and North Carolina is as foreign to me as I can get. All of this is new to me: the south, Chadwick College, the simple act of being back in the states after twenty years of living abroad. All new, all strange, all weird to me. Until just a few weeks ago I lived in a bucolic dream on a tiny island in the Mediterranean where the loudest sounds that intruded on my day were the cackling of hens, the grunting of sheep, and way across the valley the faint voice of a farmer calling to his mule. That was only weeks ago, but Carolina called, Chadwick beckoned, and Max Levi-Morris responded. Here I am, and I have come prepared, as witness my facile identification of our little friend, the cardinal. I may be new to this part of the world, but I am determined that Chadwick will find in its new Writer-in-Residence not just another bizarre genius, not just another wise-ass Yankee, but a man who cares about his local surroundings. And I care, students, I care. I have a hunger to know about this part of the earth that I now inhabit. I want to bite off chunks of Carolina, spit out the seeds and gulp it down whole. I intend to digest you all.

"You people smile a lot, don’t you? I’m quite serious. This morning I spent only twenty minutes with the Almanac and I am now able to rattle off with ease the population figures for Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh, spiced with the current production rates on tobacco, corn, peanuts, and hay. Not only that, but I am also privy to the startling fact that North Carolina is the nation’s leading producer of mica and lithium. Can you imagine me dropping that stunner into my next conversation with the Dean, that shmuck?

"Have to do it casually, something like, Ah, good morning, Dean, I see by the papers that lithium production was up this month, but mica seems to be tailing off. We’ll have to do something about that, Dean, got to put the fear of God into those mica people, get the state moving again.

Students, do you think that I might get the tiniest of smiles out of him with that? Would those prissy little lips twitch even gently? Not likely, but it doesn’t matter. Knowledge is all, and I have the knowledge. And why? Simply because I spent twenty minutes with the Almanac this morning. Research, students, always research. Research is invaluable to the working writer. But use it judiciously, if you know what I mean. You’re all budding novelists, not journalists, and I’ve never seen the sense of ruining a good story just for the sake of a few solid facts.

Sir?

Yes? Which one are you?

Sparkman, sir.

Thank you. I’ll have your names married to your faces shortly. Yes, Mister Sparkman?

Sir, I don’t mean to be impertinent, but.… the bird?

Yes, what about it?

It’s not a cardinal, it’s a scarlet tanager.

Surely it isn’t.

I’m afraid it is, sir.

Are you quite certain?

Yes, sir.

How very odd. I would have sworn it was a cardinal.

No, sir.

Tanager, is it?

Definitely, sir.

Thank you, Mister Sparkman. We are all in your debt.

You little prick.

Max Levi-Morris slouched in his seat and glared the length of the boardroom table. He sat at the head with the students seated down the sides, three males to the left, two females to the right. The clean, white, high-ceilinged room was flooded with sunshine and with the odor of freshly clipped grass that crept in through the Gothic windows, open and arched. In one of those windows sat the offending bird, head atilt and gazing curiously. He glared at the bird, ignoring the cheerful, sunny room and the cheerful, sunny students, the heady aroma of magnolia and the visible slice of blue-green lawn bordered by low walls and elms. He ignored it all, glaring at the bird, and then transfering his glare to the five people seated at the table. Where were the raunchy college kids in cutoff jeans and tank tops? Where were the Indian beads, the mojo crystals, the garlands of hair? These kids were straight out of the fifties. The young men were all short-haired and clean-shaven, dressed in pressed denims, polished loafers, and white short-sleeved shirts open at the neck. The young women wore skirt and blouses, sandals, and an air of bread and butter. All five were white, southern, and as a guess, Protestant. It was a lousy piece of casting, irritating, and he shifted his irritation and his glare to the reedy young man with the ivory skin pulled taut on a fine-boned face.

Sparkman, what are you, Sparkman, some kind of a bird freak? So I didn’t know the name of the bird, so what? Am I a novelist or an ornithologist? Shoot me, burn me, nail me to the cross, but there weren’t any pictures in the God damn Almanac. Mercy, Sparkman, mercy. Oh my, that tiny curl of disapproval twisting those sculpted lips.

Max glanced down at one of the five index cards on the table before him. Richard Sparkman, twenty-one and a senior from Greensboro. English major with an honors program, history minor, Poetry Club, Lit Quarterly, no Greek, no athletics. No bird watching, either, and something else unlisted. Something in that terribly aesthetic profile, the air of calculated indifference, the aristocratic cock of the chin. Is that it, Sparkman? The aristocratic cock?

I’m afraid that I’ve disappointed you, Mister Sparkman. I’m sorry about that, but I’m also sorry to have to tell you that it won’t be the last time. Believe it, Sparkman, and you other people had better believe it, too. Our relationship has disappointment built into it from the start, and I’m not just talking about birds now. There’s a fine green thread of failed expectations woven into the tapestry of the academic year to come, and you might as well know it right now. Your expectations of me are doomed, of necessity, to disappointment. I can’t possibly deliver to you what you want of me. It’s like the man with the new suit. Remember that? Probably every new and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer’s expectations. Who wrote that, please? Miss.… ah, DuPlessis?

"Dickens? Great Expectations?"

Quite so. Thank you.

Max looked down at the index cards again. Adrianne DuPlessis, twenty years old and an out-of-state student from Alabama. English major, music minor, Tri-Delt, pom-pom girl, oval eyes, matte skin, touch of auburn in her hair … dear God, I must remember to take an oath or two when I get home.

Doctor Levi-Morris …?

No, Miss DuPlessis, not doctor. Mister, if you have to use a handle, but that’s as high as I go.

Oh, dear, Ah didn’t know? She made a pretty show of concern. Ah just wanted to say, well, nobody’s made you a proper welcome yet, and somebody should say it?

And you’re just the one to run the Welcome Wagon, drawled Sparkman. To Max, he explained, She doesn’t look it, but she’s very much the mothering type.

Why, Dick Sparkman, it’s just common courtesy?

You’ve got the adjective right.

She wrinkled her nose at him. Ah just wanted Mister Levi-Morris to know that we’re all thrilled to have such a famous author here at Chadwick? Absolutely thrilled? She smiled brillantly at Max. And Ah want you to know that Ah’ve read every book you’ve ever written? Every one, no foolin’?

You’re very brave.

No, not at all? Ah’m so excited, Ah just can’t believe that Ah’m going to be working with you this year? Me and the famous Max Levi-Morris? Ah mean, really?

You’ll have to put up with the rest of us, Sparkman told her. We’ll try not to get in the way.

Why, Dick, you’re never in the way? That’s what I love about you, honey? You always know your place?

You guys play a nice game of hardball, said Max. Miss DuPlessis, not that I don’t find it charming, but why do you end every sentence as if it were a question?

Do what?

That’s just her Mobile talking, said the girl sitting next to her.

Mobile? Max looked up, half expecting a descending Calder.

Mobile, Alabama. The deep south. Don’t worry, she can turn it on and off. We all can when we want to, at least the females can. It comes with the franchise.

Why, Daisy Ellen Rankin, that’s a terrible thing to say? Ah always talk this way, and you know it? Ah’m not ashamed of where Ah come from?

Actually, there’s a good reason for it, said Sparkman. He had slid down into his seat, and now he slouched there displaying an admirable languor. Traditionally, the southern lady is supposed to be helpless and dependent. That little lilt at the end of the sentence, that hint of the interrogative, is supposed to indicate how unsure she is of what she is saying. It’s a social signal. She’s saying that she’s ready to be corrected by the nearest available male.

Which only goes to show, said Adrianne, that you know exactly doodly-squat about southern ladies?

And I’m doing my best to keep it that way.

Daisy Ellen Rankin ignored the squabbling. She said to Max. I think I may be in the wrong seminar. Are you going to be asking us a lot of those questions?

What questions?

Like that quotation from Dickens. I’m no good at that sort of thing. Names and dates, facts and figures, quotations from the classics. Those things don’t stay in my head.

What sort of things do?

She made a whirling motion with her hand. All sort of things.

Sunsets and dusty lanes? The taste of cold milk and hot cornbread? Your first bike? Your first bruise? The shyness of a smile, the glee of children, the sureness of youth, the wastage of age, the sadness of faraway stars? Is that what your head holds?

She flushed, and turned her head away.

Am I embarrassing you?

She shook her head, not looking at him. In a small voice, she said, No, you’re patronizing me.

Is it patronizing to be told that you have the thoughts of a young artist?

Now you’re embarrassing me, she murmured. She turned her head in time to see his eyes flick down toward the index cards, and stopped him by saying, Don’t bother looking me up, there’s nothing much to see. I just turned twenty, and I come from right here in Chadwick. I’m majoring in Romance languages with a minor in English. That’s all there is to me, I’m nothing special.

Wrong, you write like an angel, thought Max, remembering the work that had accompanied her application to the seminar. He studied the lines of her face, the good high cheek bones. Her eyes were somber, but the rest of her was ready to smile, In a brisk voice designed to dispel moods, he said, Don’t worry about the quotations, that was the first and the last. This is a seminar in creative writing, not English lit, and I threw the quote to make a point, not to test your knowledge. Questions like that are for teachers, and I’m not here to teach you anything like that. Actually, in a formal sense, I can’t teach you anything at all. Ah, your faces, all of them. You should see them, confusion and consternation. What did he say? He’s not going to teach us anything? He can’t do that, he’s supposed to be a teacher.

Max lifted himself out of his chair, and stretched. Seated, he had seemed almost normal in size, but standing, his linebacker’s body shrank the room. He walked around the table putting his feet down softly, as if wary of the floor. He made a circuit of the table, stretched again, and stood behind his chair, his hands resting on it.

You see, that’s just it, he said. I’m not a teacher, I’m the Writer-in-Residence, and I can make that mean whatever I want it to mean. Remember, I warned you that you’d be disappointed, and here’s where it starts, here’s where I begin to fail you. You expect to be taught something, don’t you? You’ve been accepted into a seminar on creative writing, and now you want to be taught. Well, don’t you?

It seems like a reasonable expectation, said the young man at the far end of the table.

Which one are you?

Remminger, sir.

The cards again. Chauncey Remminger, twenty-two, and from Ransome. The usual English major and history minor, Kappa Tau, but what’s all this? What have I got here, a literate jock? Swimming team, varsity tennis, letter in lacrosse. Tall, raw-boned, suntanned with patches of peel on his nose and forehead, a bruise on his chin, and blond hair as wild as a haystack.

Do they call you Chauncey? he asked cautiously.

Maybe the first time. A smile came easily. After that they call me Chance.

So you expect to be taught. And what is it that you expect me to teach you?

The smile wavered. To write, obviously.

Max slipped into his seat with a sigh. He made a steeple out of his fingers and peeked over the spires. Remminger, you already know how to write. You have fine teachers of English here at Chadwick. They’ve taught you the essentials of the language and how to use your tools. You know how to write coherently, concisely, and with an active imagination. All of you can do that. If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t be here. I went through more than fifty applictions before I chose you five people for this course, and I picked you because you already know how to write. So what else is there for me to teach you?

Remminger frowned, and shook his head slightly. Max looked around at the others. Anyone else? Since you already know how to write, what is it that I can do for you?

Are you asking us to guess? asked Sparkman.

I’m asking you to think. There actually is an important function that I can perform for you, but I’d like to see you figure it out for yourself. Here I am, you’ve got me body and soul, so what do you want? How can I serve you? What do I have that you need?

Connections.

What’s that, Sparkman?

Connections, Sparkman repeated. He was up straight in his chair now, his eyes alert. Publishers and agents, people like that. Everybody knows how tough it is to get a first novel published. That’s what you can do for me, introduce me to the right people.

Oh excellent, Sparkman, excellent. Max clapped his hands, delighted. There speaks the true artist.

Now just a minute, I only.…

No, no, I’m quite serious. Do you know what writers talk about when they get together? Well, it sure as hell isn’t art. It’s advances, and paperback auctions, and film options, and above all it’s about the writer’s great love-hate, his publisher. In short, it’s about business, so your comment was a good one, Sparkman. For that, you are forgiven everything. Bird thou never wirt.

Are you really serious? Is that what you meant about what you can teach us? Contracts and connections, and things like that?

Yes, really serious, and I’ll give you all the help I can in that direction, but no, that’s not what I meant. I had something else in mind. Anyone want to take a shot at it?

Adrianne raised her hand tentatively, but at Max’s impatient gesture she snatched it down. Well, you say that you can’t teach us writing, but this is a course in creative writing so Ah reckon you’re supposed to teach us how to write creatively.

Max gave her an affectionate smile. It’s so obvious, isn’t it, my little magnolia blossom? All of life should be so simple, but one small problem arises.… yes, Mister Macready. It’s about time we heard from you.

The fifth student at the table was of average height with an angular build, his deeply suntanned face topped by a mass of thick black hair that, had it been allowed to grow, would have hung in ringlets to his shoulders. There was dark curly hair on his forearms as well, and a mat of it showed at his open collar. His index card announced that he was Peter Macready, twenty-one and a senior from Brunswick County, a double honors student in English and economics, a Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, a Deke, and the editor of the Chadwick Chronicle.

I hate to stomp on Adrianne’s question, he said slowly, but I wonder if creative writing can really be taught. I know that’s what we’re here for, but it seems to me that it’s sort of like trying to teach a woman to conceive, or a tree to grow. Either you can do it, or you can’t.

This course is being offered by the English Department of Chadwick College. Are you suggesting that the department doesn’t know what it’s doing?

Well, I didn’t mean it quite that.…

Don’t backtrack, Mister Macready. You’re quite right, the department doesn’t know what it’s doing. The department is made up of teachers, and teachers tend to think that anything can be taught. In this case, they’re wrong, and you’re right. There you have it, creative writing cannot be taught. It just can’t be done. The creative process is self-generating. You can teach someone to write a sentence, or a business letter, or a training manual, or a piece of advertising copy, or even, God forbid, a book review, but you cannot teach that person to write creatively. The mechanics of art are teachable, but not the art itself. Teaching creative writing is like teaching a little boy how to whistle. First you tell him to pucker up, and then you tell him to blow, but that’s all you can tell him. After that he bloody well has to whistle by himself. Is that clear?

Not to me, said Remminger. What am doing here? I already know how to whistle.

I never could learn, said Daisy Ellen. She said it thoughtfully, as if it were a matter of great moment. When I was a little girl my boy-cousins tried to teach me how to whistle, but I never could get the hang of it.

Just as well, said Adrianne approvingly. Girls don’t whistle, not where Ah come from?

Max said. That’s nonsense. Anyone can whistle.

Not me, said Daisy Ellen. My cousins said that it had something to do with the shape of my lips.

Max bent over, and leaned across the table until his face was only inches from hers. He stared at her intently, then drew back. There’s nothing at all wrong with the shape of your lips. Pucker up.

Daisy Ellen smiled, but she puckered her lips.

Blow.

She blew. Nothing happened. She smiled again, and shrugged. You see, I just can’t do it.

You weren’t blowing, you were exhaling. You have to tighten your throat and force the air out. Blow it hard up toward your palate, past your teeth and through your lips. Now, pucker up.

She puckered.

Blow.

She blew. Nothing happened.

Harder.

The exertion showed on her face, but still nothing happened. Max put the tips of his fingers under her chin, touching her skin lightly. That’s too hard. Ease up. That’s right. Now push.

A piercing whistle filled the room, tuneless but steady. Daisy Ellen’s eyes widened, but she kept on whistling, staring at Max. He nodded encouragingly. She clearly wanted to grin, but she did not dare for fear of losing her pucker. She held it for as long as her breath would allow, then stopped and let the grin come.

I whistled, she said breathlessly. I don’t believe it. I really whistled.

You also scared the bird away, Sparkman noted. They all looked. The windowsill was empty.

Daisy said cockily, That chicken bird couldn’t stand the competition.

Stick with me and I’ll have you whistling Dixie, Max assured her. No tanager in town can make that statement. I’ll teach you all the things that your boy-cousins couldn’t.

No thanks, said Daisy Ellen with the smallest curl of a smile. They tried that too.

Hush up, I’m talking about serious stuff like mumbly-peg, and knuckle-down marbles, and how to skin a frog.

Is that all you really can teach us? asked Adrienne. Ah’m not so sure Ah like that part about the frogs.

Max laughed at the look on her face. You still don’t get it. None of you do.

Walking softly and warily once again, he went to the blackboard, found a stub of chalk, and wrote in large letters:

PARENTS

UNCLE SAM

MARRIAGE

He turned back to the table. How many of you have wealthy parents? I mean big money, rich enough to support you for the rest of your life? Anyone?

Heads turned around the table, looking, and then the heads shook silently. No hands were raised.

Max drew a line through the first word. How many of you qualify for a government grant, something big enough to live on for at least five years?

Again the shaking of heads.

He drew another line on the board. How many of you have plans for marriage to a rich husband or wife? Someone who can give you financial security while you work on your fiction. Anyone?

Again the heads shook silently, although Adrianne giggled at the thought.

He crossed out the last category, and looked at the group inquiringly. So, where does that leave us? The question before the house is still.… what can I teach you? Mister Remminger wants me to teach him how to write. Miss DuPlessis wants me to teach her how to write creatively. Mister Sparkman wants me to introduce him to important people. Miss Rankin, well, her career is assured now. She’s going to join the circus and specialize in bird calls. That leaves Mister Macready still to be heard from. How about it, Macready, do you know what you want from me?

Yes, sir, I do. Macready’s voice was steady and sure.

Max looked surprised. You do?

Yes. I didn’t know when I walked in here today, but I know now.

Their eyes locked. He knows, Max thought. He really does. He’s looked ahead, he’s figured it out, and he knows.

Go ahead, what is it that you want me to teach you?

I want you to teach me how to survive.

Yes.

That’s it, isn’t it?

Yes, said Max, deeply satisfied. That’s exactly it. That’s the one sure thing I can teach you. I’m going to teach you how to survive.

He looked at the others; their faces stared back at him blankly. Sparkman frowned, and put their thoughts into words. You mean survive, like in the desert?

Yes, just like in the desert. And the mountains and the jungle, because that’s what it’s like for an artist without any money. Writers, painters, musicians, it’s the same for all of us, and it’s going to be the same for you, at least in the beginning. Remember, the world out there is determined to reject you, determined to humiliate you, and it’s a world populated by sophisticated simpletons. Writers have editors and publishers, agents and book reviewers … all simpletons. Painters have the art critics and the gallery owners … more simpletons. Musicians have their own simpletons, a musical establishment that either flees from the unconventional or latches on to each new fad with a death grip. Powerful people, these simpletons, and each with a mind too small to grasp even the simplest of your inventions. That’s the world that’s waiting for you, and I’m going to teach you how to live in it, how to survive in it. That’s what I can do best for you, and if there’s anyone here who doesn’t want that sort of instruction, then now is the time to say so.

He waited. There was silence. Sparkman said softly, How do you propose to teach us something like that?

In the classic manner. I’m going to tell you a story.

The five students shifted uneasily in their seats, shot glances back and forth from under lowered lids. A story? said Remminger. "A story?"

A tale, a parable, a morality play, call it what you will. It’s going to be a very long story and it may take all year to tell it, but that’s what I’m going to do.

Sparkman smiled faintly. Shall I go home and get my jammies? Do I get a marshmallow in my cocoa?

If you sit quietly and don’t fidget.

Ah don’t understand, said Adrianne. This story, is it in the syllabus?

There is no syllabus, Max said patiently. In a course like this one the syllabus is what I say it is, and I’m saying that it’s this story.

What about our own work, our projects?

I will be available to you all on an individual basis every evening at six at my home. X-brand beer and Fritos will be served, nothing stronger and nothing tastier, and we will discuss your projects then. But these weekly seminars will be devoted to the story.

Adrianne asked suspiciously, What kind of a story are you talking about?

What kind would you prefer?

Why … umm … romantic?

How about the rest of you?

Daisy Ellen thought a moment, and said, Heroic.

Chance said, Humorous.

Peter hesitated, then said, Metaphysical.

Wow. Max cocked an eye at Sparkman.

Dirty.

Done, said Max, laughing. All of the above. We will begin the story today, and continue it each week until we’re finished. That will be our syllabus, but I’d like to ask you all a favor. Let’s keep this to ourselves. It’s not exactly a procedure that the teaching faculty would approve of, so remember, not a word outside this room, and particularly not to the dean.… He waited.

Five voices chorused softly, "That shmuck."

You’re learning already. Max reached into his pocket and tossed a handful of quarters onto the table. Let’s get started. Ten minutes to hit the coffee machine. Black without sugar for me.

CHAPTER TWO

The story that Max Levi-Morris told to his seminar was about an American painter who had lived for many years on a small Spanish island in the Mediterranean, and in the language of that island he was thought to be esbojarrat. The language, which was a variety of Catalan, contained other words to describe a crazy man, but to be esbojarrat was to throw away money, and in a peasant economy that was as crazy as you could get. He was thought to be that way because of what he did with his paintings. He was a serious artist who worked every day that the light allowed, and during each year he produced about two dozen canvases. His work was much admired, was valuable, and had been exhibited regularly in London and New York, but for the past five years he had refused to show his paintings, and had refused to sell them. No one saw his paintings any more, and once each year he destroyed them all. He did this every June on Midsummer Eve, pitching the work of the past twelve months onto a fire, and on the next day, which was the fiesta of San Juan Bautista, he began the cycle over again. He had done this for five years now, and the canniest peasant brain on the island could not calculate the wealth he thus had thrown away. He had lived on the island for many years, and in other regards was admired, but in this one instance his conduct was considered inexcusable. Even the fact that he was an American could not excuse it. He was esbojarrat, and if he wasn’t that he was certainly foutous, which meant that he was finished.

The painter was no longer a young man, but he had trouble thinking of himself as middle-aged. On some days he felt as young as he ever had been, and on other days he felt old and inexpressibly weary. He took the youthful days as a bonus, and he thought of the weary days in terms of loneliness. He still had friends and he still had lovers, but people had died on him, and on the weary days he missed them badly. The two he missed most were a woman to whom he had been married, and a man who had been his close friend. Both had died too young, the woman by accident, the man by his own hand, and to the painter the losses seemed a form of robbery. He knew the concept to be a conceit, and on his youthful days he was able to reject it, but on the weary days he could not escape the feeling that his pocket had been picked. Slyly and quickly, his wife and his friend had been lifted out of his life, and even now, years after the losses, he wondered if they might be found again somehow. Lying on a beach like a single earring, a half-worn shoe. On those weary days he tried not to confuse loneliness with grief. He saved his grief for appropriate occasions, but there were days when he simply missed them too much to be anything more than weary.

The painter’s name as David Bloom, and the island on which he lived was called Ibiza. This was the Ibiza of other years, and it exists now only in memory. Today that island is raddled with age, and is diseased. Concrete headstones line her beaches, the scars of machines are carved in her hills, what’s left of her breath stinks of dreams gone sour, and she floats like a corpse on the surface of the Mediterranean. Nothing remains but her name, and her name is currency now. Ibiza is the label on a pair of jeans, Ibiza is the name of a chic boutique, Ibiza is a ballad sung to the brainless. Everything about her now is either cheap or dead, but there was a time when she was splendid.

It was to that splendid Ibiza that David and Christie Bloom came in the early sixties, innocents from New York in search of Arcadia. The island then was a flyspeck on the map of the Med, twenty-five miles long and eight miles wide at its narrowest point, and if labelled at all it was often called Ybeza, or Yebesah. It was nothing and nowhere, unknown and alone, and it was all that two kids from the city could ask for. That first year on the island they lived in a house in Talamanca, directly across the harbor from the port city and capital, which was also called Ibiza. The house was small and damp. There was no electricity, the roof was weak, and the water supply uncertain; but there was plenty of kerosene lamps, a smoking hearth, a butane stove, floors of cool tiles, a swayback bed to cuddle them, and a light-filled room where Bloom could work. There was wine on the table and food in the house, a one-eyed cat and a wandering dog, and a terrace that fronted onto a slim strip of beach along Talamanca Bay.

During that first year in Ibiza they spent much of their time on the terrace. From it they could see across the harbor to the town, and in the evenings watch the last of the sun bounce off the towering mass of Dalt Vila on the hill above the port, the whiteness of the buildings reflected in dark waters. Sitting that way at the end of the day they could watch the fishing boats come into port with sails down and engines ticking over, gliding past the inner wall of the jetty, past the night fleet making ready to leave, past the Transmediterranea pier and the cafes alongside, past the traders moored prow to stern like circus elephants, past the rickety landings of the Club Nautico stretched out into the harbor like the legs of a weary waterbug. Those evenings they watched the fishing boats come in, drank gin and cool water, and wondered at the marvel of their lives.

For their world was young, their veins ran green, and they leaped through each day from sunrise to moonset. The island was magical then, a primitive haven low on comforts, but high on the proteins that nourished the soul. They needed so little, a few pesetas