Over the past fifteen years or so, my habit has been to visit Jonathan Raban during fall or winter. I almost never see him in spring or summer. And so in my mind, his massive home (three floors), which is on the north side of Queen Anne Hill, is always in the dusk, always in the cold, always has a little yard that’s covered by dead leaves, and a white, worn, and creaking gate that’s been knocked out of ordinary time (our/animal/earth time) into the otherworld’s time by the deep and wintry shadow of an old evergreen. An outdoor staircase ends at the home’s main door on the second floor. Once inside, a wood-warm set of steps leads up to the third and final floor. This is where Raban entertains guests. There is something about this room that feels like the cabin of a ship. But I can never tell if this impression has to do with reality, with the actual facts of the furniture and design, or owes everything to Raban’s books, all of which I have read, and many of which (including my favorite, Passage to Juneau) are about or involve sailing. This is also the floor with a bridge’s view of Fremont and Ballard.
One evening in the winter of 2012 (ice on the little dark road leading to the gate, snow on the lawn between gate and stairs), Raban, who was born in Norfolk, England, in 1942, and who that night prepared a hearty lamb stew (spiced Indian style) and basmati rice, pointed out to me that the daytime view from the windows on the third floor of his home makes it look like he lives in the middle of a great forest. Trees are just everywhere; people are nowhere to be found. But at night, when the lights of human life emerge, the windows reveal that he does indeed live in a big city. Fremont and Ballard are actually dense, urban neighborhoods, but this fact can only be seen after night falls. And the city is there until sunrise, at which point it vanishes like some vampire. After the visit, as I walked to a nearby bus stop that was beneath a streetlamp and a clear sky with a few cold stars, it occurred to me that something similar must happen with the view astronauts have of our planet from space. During the day, Earth is all nature—green forests, blue seas, brown deserts, white mountaintops and clouds. But when the sun goes, nature goes with it, and the only thing one can see is the planet of apes.
On another night—this time in 2008, and this time we ordered pizza—he said to me the most curious thing. We were talking about sleep and dreams and death. I told him that dreams were the only place I saw my mother, who had been dead since 2003 and is now buried on a hill in Renton. She originally came from the hills of Manicaland, which is in eastern Zimbabwe, next to the border with Mozambique. I told him that these dream encounters were strange because it seemed my mother had somehow survived her terminal illness, that somehow the doctor’s prediction (six months to live) was wrong. She had more than five years to live. She could even live longer than that. But she was still so frail, still about to die, still sitting in the sunlight that fell from the skylight in our Central District duplex. (This was our last home as a family; the middle one was on 36 Dover Road in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and the first one was somewhere in Redcliff, also in Zimbabwe.) I always have to be gentle with my mother in my dreams. Raban, caressing with the tips of his fingers the stem of a wineglass, then told me that all of his dreams occur in England. “All of them?” I asked, looking at his face for a hint of mischief. I found nothing of the sort. He was very serious. He only dreams of a country he has not lived in for twenty years.
Raban moved to Seattle in 1991, after first visiting the city in 1988, when he stayed at the Josephinum building on Second and Stewart and was impressed with the city’s signs for adult businesses. (All of this is captured in his book Hunting Mister Heartbreak.) He has a daughter here. A boat here. A home here. And a failed marriage. But when he turns out the light beside his bed and falls asleep, he leaves this real world behind and returns to his old world of England—to its villages, its rivers, its ships, its pubs, its laughter. (The rural images just listed have more to do with me than Raban, who is really an urban creature, a man of the town.) But is this not the true condition or a writer? This kind of exile? Your body is here in a foreign land, but your whole mind never really leaves where you’re from. But I never dream of Zimbabwe.
Whenever it’s time to go, it’s always abrupt. While in the middle of a complicated conversation (something about a new book that everyone is talking about, about a big story that’s all over the news, about recent events or scandals in local and national politics), Raban suddenly says: “Listen, Charles, I need to close shop. We will have to continue the discussion at another time.” At that point, I realize how late it is and how tired he looks, and feel bad for being so inconsiderate. I always ask to help clean the mess I helped make. He always says no. He will take care of it later. I finish what remains in my wineglass, look out at the big city in the windows, stand from the table, thank him for being a great host, and leave the room that looks and feels like the cabin of a ship. What journey is this great writer on?