Paul Theroux - Sir Vidia's Shadow - A Friendship Across Five Continents

He told me the story of Raleigh on the Orinoco, the play he intended, as we kicked through the snow.

In the light of a building entrance, a woman stood waiting in an area that had been shoveled. She wore a fur hat and a coat with a fur collar, so her foxlike face was framed by the soft pelts, the warmth of fur and skin. She turned away from us, not wishing to make eye contact, and just as we passed, an important-looking car swung to the curb and she rushed to it, seeming relieved.

“Did you see that woman? Pretty, don’t you think?”

When he did not answer me, I took his silence to mean that I had asked a silly question. But no, he was thinking.

“All women are built differently.” He spoke slowly, as though delivering a piece of news.

Closing his fingers, like a man plucking fruit, he made a scooping gesture with his hand. I took “built” to mean something more complex than their shape. He was suggesting contours, not an interior mechanism peculiar to each woman; he was implying something more urological.

“But you knew that, didn’t you?”

It was pleasant to be in a big city with him. We were both free, the snowfall had given New York a holiday, emptied of people and most cars. So the city was ours.

And after all these years I never took this friendship for granted. I felt lucky to know him, privileged to be with him, blessed for all his good advice, cautioned by his mistakes, stimulated by his intellect, enlightened by his work. I was aware of his contradictions. More than anything, I was inspired by the dignity of his struggle. Writing tormented him, he suffered through each book. And where were we now? I was thirty-six, he was forty-five, we were both working hard. I was writing a play and contemplating a trip to South America, and he was teaching — though he had said “Never be a teacher,” here he was, a creative-writing teacher in Connecticut. There could be only one reason: he needed the money. Our positions had been reversed so dramatically, I had to be careful not to wound his dignity by mentioning it or saying to him (as he had said to me so often), “You teachers make lots of money!”

We walked along — he was thinking about Raleigh, I was thinking about Kipling — and we told each other that these were great ideas.

The reassurance, the intellectual vigor of his friendship, made me happy. What perhaps mattered most was the trust, the mutual compassion, which was also forgiveness, and the fact that we understood one another. By now we knew each other well and had arrived at that point at which friends realize they cannot know each other any better, His friendship was a pleasure and a relief.

I was still reflecting on “All women are built differently” when he said, “So you see, we are seriously talking about whether the president of the United States knows how to read a book!”

“Jimmy Carter?” He must have been gabbling about Carter while I was thinking.

“Yes. Does he know how to read? I have seen no indication of it.”

“He talks about Dylan Thomas a little.”

“Oh, God.”

The philistinism of the U.S. government occupied us for the time it took to travel the short distance east from Fifth Avenue to Grand Central. We descended the stairs to the warmth and light of the Oyster Bar — not busy, another casualty of the blizzard.

We ordered. We talked. We drank. We ate. Vidia kept returning to the subject of Wesleyan. It was corrupt, a con, a cheat, the soft option of writing courses, the laziness of students.

“It’s crummy, man. Crummy. I should never have come.”

“Why did you?”

“I believed they were doing some good. And the pence, of course.” He made his rueful face. “But, you see, I have only myself to blame. I broke one of my rules.”

From time to time he lifted his eyes to look behind me, at a table where some people were speaking excitedly. I thought he might go over and tell them to shut up or stop smoking. But he was considerate: just a glance and then we kept talking, now about New York writers and how they were self-regarding. Vidia saw New York writers as shallow, cliquey, and envious, uninterested in the world, needing local witnesses, frenzied, not even very bright.

“I have my students reading Conrad. They don’t know him at all. They read — who? Kurt Vonnegut? But they respond to An Outpost of Progress’ and The Secret Agent . Some nice things in that.”

“I used to teach it in Singapore. Winnie’s a good character.”

“Of Winnie, Conrad says, ‘She felt profoundly that things do not stand much looking into.’”

“I also used to have the students read your Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion . I love that book.”

“You’re so kind, Paul. You know, I am assigning my students your Family Arsenal , for its depiction of London and bombers — excuse me.”

Interrupting himself as he looked up, he went to the table behind me while I held my breath and prayed that he would not make a scene.

When I looked around, I saw three people sitting at a table, sharing a bottle of wine, not eating, but all of them smoking cigarettes. A man and two women, and one of the women was Margaret from Argentina.

“Hello.”

She smiled and raised her glass. She looked a bit tipsy and rumpled. I had last seen her on a hot day in London, wearing a summer dress. On this freezing night in New York she was blotchy from the cold air and wore a thick dress. Her hair was windblown and damp. Yet with all this dishevelment she was as pretty as ever — perhaps prettier, the way some women look when their clothes are slightly awry, a blouse untucked, a button undone.

I got up to speak to her, and when I approached she introduced me to the others, her brother and sister-in-law. Vidia said nothing.

“How about this snow?” I said.

“Vidia adores it, but it makes life impossible,” Margaret said. “We live so far in Connecticut.”

Vidia said, “Paul, this has been splendid, but I think we must be going. We do have a long way to go. Margaret?”

“Just a minute.”

“Shall I see to the bill?” Vidia said, a trifle wearily.

“No. I’ll get it,” I said.

“Oh, good.”

Margaret frowned at him.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he said.

Once again, Margaret and I were together, but unexpectedly. I gave the waitress my credit card.

“It must have been quite a ride from Connecticut,” I said.

“I did the driving. Vidia hates to drive.”

Really? But I said, “If I had known you were here, I would have asked you to join us.”

“Vidia wanted to talk to you. You’re his friend. You never quarrel!”

“That’s us. Dos amigos ,”

“ Claro .” She laughed. “He has the students reading your book. I don’t know which one, I’m afraid.”

“I used to tell my students to read Mr. Stone .”

“It’s one of his books he doesn’t like.”

This was news to me. “Which others doesn’t he like?”

“ Suffrage of Elvira. A Flag on the Island .”

“I thought he liked those. And Mr. Stone ’s a little masterpiece.”

“He doesn’t think so.”

Seeing Vidia hurrying towards us, I thought of asking him: What was it that he didn’t like about these novels of his? But it was late and they were leaving, and I was the wiser for seeing my friend’s friend materialize in this distant place.

We said goodbye in the snow outside and I left wondering, but also feeling profoundly that some things do not stand much looking into.

Later that year, in London, I visited him at his tiny apartment and we had tea. Pat was in the country, at Dairy Cottage. I did not mention New York, or Wesleyan.