The basic difference between Joe and me was that he was a poet: meaning he sought perfection, while I was a pragmatic opportunist with no ideals. To give an example: our daily routine in Villa Medici—reading to Percy, handling his mail, etc.—sent Joe into fits of despair because he was anxious to get on the road; while I was more than happy to pause in that beautiful villa, reflect a little, study Italian, and do some intensive reading beneath the net. Not forgetting the blessings of sun and sea.
Also: while Joe read I snuck down to the rocks to play with Sonia in the waves. So far she had only let me see her body underwater.
We have been here nearly two months. Percy receives a steady stream of visitors, all English, who have come to sit at the feet of the great man of letters, to listen to his tales of encounters and friendships with such literary heavyweights as E.M. Forster, Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Bernard Berenson. Lerici has an exotic English literary history—Keats and the Shelleys. Shelley drowned here. Byron is reputed to have swum across the bay, which Percy said was rubbish even though there was a plaque on the other side indicating where the crippled poet presumably hauled himself from the water.
Jocelyn visited to check on the old boy. He reported that Percy said we were the best readers he’d ever had. He was happier than in many blind years and would be sad when we leave (in ten days).
Percy is blind but not color-blind.
Lizzie Watts, a friend from New Jersey who was studying art in Rome, trained up for a visit.
Percy: “That is a pretty red frock you are wearing.”
And so it was.
For Joe Africa holds out the possibility that he might again feel the poetic identity he experienced in Peru. Therein, he feels, lies his only chance of genuine creativity, be it poetry or whatever. Now most of his creative energy is bound up in his seemingly unshakeable devotion to yours truly. All this reliance on our friendship, which he clings to like a drowning man: I’m not sure I can deliver on all his expectations.
She is a strong swimmer, my Sonia. Finally the mermaid consented to come ashore. We had a secret rendezvous in the olive grove after dinner while Joe read to Percy. I had concealed a rolled-up sleeping bag under an olive tree.
Joe said nothing gave meaning to his life at the moment, except our friendship. Statements like that trouble me. He seems to view us like two lonesome cowboys, riding along forever toward an endlessly receding horizon.
Sonia didn’t turn up for our tryst in the olive grove. I drove the machine to the German camping ground. Their tent was missing. They’d upped sticks and headed back to Lake Constance. Mother didn’t want daughter messing around with motorcycle man.
But I am happy to study Italian. Trouble is, it makes me forget my Spanish.
It is rewarding to study a foreign language in a foreign land, esp. the language of that land. You learn a few new words, step out the door, and start using them. Joe is a brilliant teacher, and I am his first student. Creative day, Joe more relaxed, because Sonia has vamoosed.
Percy’s library is shelved in the “sun room,” a westward-facing upstairs salon where we do our reading. It is not a huge collection, but eclectically English, with few European or American-authored volumes represented.
I read the books he chooses; we rarely discuss. It is a way of filling the empty hours until we can fill our glasses. Now reading Lionel Trilling’s biography of Matthew Arnold. Heavy weather.
Joe is having a livelier time with T. Williams’ plays. Percy loves the southern accent. He has never been to America. Joe is the first southerner he has ever met. The Alabama accent lends authenticity to the play. Joe spends half the time describing the Latin Quarter in New Orleans, what life is like down south. It turns out that Percy has a lively interest in the American Civil War. He is fascinated to learn that one of Admiral (“Full speed ahead! Damn the torpedoes!”) Farragut’s cannonballs has been lodged in an ancient live oak tree near Joe’s family home on Mobile Bay since 1864.
A heavy-duty session with Joe last night. His obsession with “purity” implies strong undercurrents of shame or guilt. Frankly, I don’t feel either. For me “purity” is not an issue. I don’t use the word “purity” all the time. Unlike Joe, I don’t have any ideals. I’ve already been through the mill (divorce), soaked up enough punishment, and am prepared to take life as it comes, as long as it is distant from my strife-torn family. Divorce, like shipwreck, makes a survivor of you. Or not.
Joe thrives on confrontation, while I avoid it. I’ve had enough confrontation. Every time I go home I get confrontation. People with hair-trigger tempers wandering around in an emotional vacuum. Abroad I stand on my own two feet; at home I am a coward. What I should have said, etc.
I have opted for “the path of least resistance,” as my father would have called it: in other words, “to get the hell out of Dodge” (leave home and everything that has to do with home), which has led to this gold mine of personal experience, thanks largely to Joe. This adventure would never have gotten off the ground without this intellectual and emotional powerhouse pushing. He is leading me to art, maybe to literature. Maybe.
From my point of view, the life we are leading, plus the expectation of what is to come, seems pretty darn good. What is this yearning for perfection? To me it seems a rocky path that can only end in self-flagellation. He is my best friend and teacher: that’s where it ends. Trouble is, Joe’s devotion is a powerful force. He puts me up on a pedestal, which is a place where I do not want to be. I am the beneficiary of his devotion, but to be the loved one is, in some ways, a heavy and tiresome burden.
My tragedy—my parents are divorced. This is not as trite as it may sound. Divorce has become so common, people have become so used to it they fail to detect the damage done below the waterline.
We were a fairly happy family, salvaged from the wreckage of my mother’s first marriage. My half-sister Niki and half-brother Jay called my father “Daddy,” because he raised the four of us—two stepchildren, my sister Susie, and me. He taught Jay to fish, which probably saved Jay’s life. Dad was a devoted family man but not a successful bread-winner. Divorce ruined his life. My mother chucked him out into the cold, away from the family Christmases and birthdays, the arguing, the reconciliations and the love, the family holidays and outings for popsicles. There were plenty of gay divorcées and merry widows about, but he never remarried. My grandmother said he was still in love with my mother. How she earned this fidelity, I’ll never know. They stayed on friendly terms because of us children. What went on beneath the surface no one will ever know.
He was replaced by my stepfather, Gurdon W. Wattles, a fabulously successful and generous Wall St. tycoon. When I graduated from Princeton, he gave me $5,000, which allowed me to go away and stay away. This is what Joe and I are living on.
Before we boarded the Saturnia, we went to the bank, where I turned the check into traveler’s checks. I pushed a pile for him to sign: half for you and half for me. He had not received a dime from his family in Alabama. Peru was cheap, and we hoped Africa would be the same. I paid for the White Nile but everything else we split down the middle.
I am becoming bored with reading. I am ready for action, ready to move, pining for Africa. Joe is on the rock.
This was it—the tip of my beak has finally broken through the eggshell.
Africa—the eager anticipation of travel across wilderness both arid and tropical; the excitement of ideas mingling with exotic adventure—a super-colossal flight of the imagination with the transformation to reality just around the corner.
Our farewell dinner with Percy. We have all become very fond of each other. He understands our itch to get back on the road. He cried when we hugged. At dawn we were gone.