Russell Hoban - Angelica Lost and Found

‘But that’s all anyone is; it’s the human condition. We’re given a name at birth and photographs are taken. We come to be known by name and face and from this we piece together an identity and fix it in memory. This identity is not physically part of us; a knock on the head can make it go away.’

‘I think mine might go away without the knock on the head. Some nights I’m afraid to go to sleep for fear that I’ll disappear altogether.’

‘You won’t though. Who are you in your dreams?’

‘Me, Angelica Greenberg.’

‘There, you see?’

‘I know that what you’re saying is meant to reassure me but it doesn’t.’

‘It really doesn’t?’

‘Yes, it really doesn’t.’

‘Perhaps I should take up another line of work.’

‘What else can you do?’

‘Maybe I’ll run away to sea.’

‘Doc, you’re being frivolous on my time.’

‘Actually, what you need is a frivolous day and a change of air. A little sea voyage on the bay might be just the thing.’

‘In what? Have you got a boat other than Dos Arbolitos ?’

‘I do, and I provisioned it this morning.’

‘What kind of boat is it?’

‘A yawl. It’s a replica of Joshua Slocum’s Spray in which he was the first man to sail alone around the world.’

‘Have you sailed alone around the world?’

‘Only the world in my head.’

‘What’s your boat called?’

‘ Mariposa .’

‘Butterfly.’ I sang two lines of Dolly Parton’s song about the butterfly character of love.

‘This butterfly,’ said Dr Long, ‘is from way back. There was a Chinese philosopher called Chuang Tzu. While pondering the meaning of life he dozed off under a tree and dreamt that he was a butterfly. It was a beautiful dream and the flying was a special delight. When he woke up he said to a friend, “I am puzzled.” And he told his dream.

‘ “So what’s puzzling?” said the friend. “You had a nice dream and that’s that.”

‘ “But it was so real,” said Chuang Tzu, “just as real as this conversation we’re having. I thought I was Chuang Tzu dreaming of being a butterfly. But what if, at this very moment, I am a butterfly dreaming of being Chuang Tzu?” ’

Here Dr Long paused and looked at me expectantly.

‘Does it matter which he was?’ I said.

‘Very good, Angelica. You think the same as Chuang Tzu. He said that all things are united by the life force within them, that all are one .’

‘There you go,’ I said. ‘Great minds.’

We got into Dr Long’s old Citroën 2CV and it rattled into life.

‘Please call me Jim now that we’re out of the office,’ he said.

‘OK, Jim. Where are we going?’

‘Schoonmaker Point Marina.’

‘Now that we’re outdoors, can I ask you some personal questions?’

‘Shoot.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Forty-one.’

‘Married?’

‘Was.’

‘She was one of the dos arbolitos ?’

He nodded.

‘We’re divorced now. She left me for a happiness guru.’

‘Then she couldn’t have been right for you in the first place.’

‘Now you tell me.’

‘Children?’

‘No.’

‘Thank you. It’s always a comfort to know what’s what.’

‘Good, I want you to be comfortable. I think I already know most of the personal facts about you.’

‘All the pertinent ones, I don’t think ephemera need to come into it.’

‘What kind of ephemera?’

‘The kind that don’t last as long as it takes to tell about them.’

‘Then don’t tell about them — I don’t want anything to interfere with this outing.’

‘I won’t let anything do that, Jim, I like being out with you; you’re a comfortable man to be with.’

‘Thank you, all encouragement gratefully received. In my office I’m reasonably confident, but out of doors with a beautiful woman I revert to my default position which is pretty shaky.’

‘I don’t believe a word of that but thank you for the handsome compliment.’ We had turned into a parking area and I saw a lot of water and a lot of boats. The salt breeze was full of promise. ‘Are we there?’

‘Yup, this is Schoonmaker Point.’ After parking the car he took an insulated bag out of the boot. ‘I thought we might have a picnic,’ he said. ‘Do you like burritos?’

‘Love ’em.’

‘ Carne asada and Jerry’s burritos from Balazo?’

‘My favourites.’

‘That’s the food. The drink is on board.’

‘ Mariposa has a fridge?’

‘Yes. Can you guess what’s in it?’

‘Bollinger?’

‘Right! How did you do that?’

‘I thought, if I were Jim and wanted to give Angelica a really great picnic, I’d get Bollinger and burritos for the occasion.’

‘What a mind! Beautiful! And the rest of you’s not bad either.’

‘You’re very kind. But we’d better go aboard before your compliments go to my head.’

‘And what happens then?’

‘Who knows? I’m a creature of impulse.’

‘Is that a promise?’

‘Every day is a winding road, Jim.’

‘Then let’s not delay. Mariposa ’s berthed over there, past the beach.’

There she was. When you get up close to any boat, even a rowing boat, you see that it’s a serious thing, the self of it bigger than the size of it. Because the sea is a serious thing and all water leads to it. Mariposa was thirty-six feet long, a proper seagoing vessel whose original had sailed around the world in all weathers. ‘Let’s do it,’ she whispered brazenly. ‘Let’s just do it.’

‘She’s very forthright,’ I said to Jim as we stepped aboard.

‘Only way to be,’ he said, and pointed out the mainmast, mizzenmast, and the halyards for mainsail, jib and spanker as well as those for main gaff. Also the topping lifts. Under his guidance we hoisted sail and eased out of the dock trailing the dinghy. The prevailing wind in the bay is from the west, and Mariposa heeled to it a little as the sails filled.

‘We’re going to Angel Island,’ he said. ‘It’s a beat all the way there, sailing as close to the wind as we can. Coming back we reach with the wind on the beam or we run with the wind behind us. The lines that control the sails are called sheets, so if I tell you to go forward and haul in the jib sheet you’ll know what to do, yes?’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘When we tack, I put the tiller down and I say, “Ready about!” so you’ll know that the boom is going to swing to the other side and you’ll get out of its way.’

‘Can I jump into your lap to be safe?’

‘Later, when we anchor. Ready about! Lee oh!’ The boom swung around with no danger to us in the cockpit.

‘Who’s Leo?’ I said.

‘That’s just an extra bit I read in a book. I learned my sailing from books. I started out with a twelve-and-a-half-foot Beetle Cat and worked my way up through a Chuckles 18 before I made the jump to Mariposa . I’ve always favoured gaff-rigged boats. They look more like boats to me, though I also like luggers.’

‘Albert Pinkham Ryder painted luggers, some of them on cigar-box lids.’

‘Probably not a lot of people know that. I’ll google for him when I have time.’

Alternately on starboard and port tacks we beat our way to Angel Island. I mentally rehearsed various conversational gambits, rejected them all, and sat there like a sixteen-year-old on her first date, watching Jim’s easy handling of the tiller and the mainsheet. His hands were large and strong but they did everything gently. The sunlight on the water was dazzling; I saw Jim through veils of brightness, and I had lapsed into a reverie when he startled me out of it.