Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

‘OK,’ he says to the computer, ‘let’s do it. Going for Page One.’ Fujitsu/Siemens has heard this before but it puts up a blank page for Max as if it takes him seriously. Max has been giving this some thought and already he’s got a name for his protagonist: Morris Levy. ‘We’ll call him Moe,’ he says. MOE LEVY’S BURDEN will be the first chapter if Max gets lucky. Having typed that heading he sighs and sits back, hoping that nothing bad is looking over his shoulder. He’s in his normal working panic. This is still 1997 and there’s nothing threatening him except the blank page. He’s afraid of what might appear on it as he types.

He gets Moe out of bed and out of the house. So far, so good. Moe’s going to meet his friend Fergal Hagerty for lunch at II Fornello, so he takes the District Line to Earls Court, then changes to the Piccadilly for Russell Square. Coming out of the tube station Moe makes his way past the newsagent and the luggage stall. His head feels strange and for a moment the world stops being there. Then it comes back with a little jolt and he’s aware of a terrible stench. It’s like the smell of a backed-up toilet in an empty house with broken windows. Out of the corner of his eye Moe sees something following him. Is it a dog? A cat? It’s a little man, black as ebony, long body, very short arms and legs, large head, big ugly baby-face. He’s inching along on his belly and writhing like a dog that’s been run over. Moe looks around. Lots of foot traffic but nobody is stepping on the dwarf. Nobody is taking any notice at all. The smell is almost making Moe throw up but he wants to do the decent thing. He says to the dwarf, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Closer,’ says the dwarf. His voice is like dead leaves skittering on the floor of that empty house with the backed-up toilet.

‘Not sure this is a good idea,’ says Moe’s mind.

Moe comes closer. Like a jumping spider the dwarf springs off the pavement and there he is in Moe’s arms. ‘Hold me,’ he says, sobbing a little. This is a very heavy dwarf and Moe tries to put him down but his arms and hands have lost the ability to let go.

‘Shit,’ says Max, as he reads what he’s typed. ‘Where’s this coming from?’ He remembers thinking about using Apasmara Purusha but what he’s written is a little too real, like something that’s already happened. Or is going to.

On the Fujitsu/Siemens screen the cursor is beating like a heart at the place where the next line should start. Nothing happens. Behind the cursor Moe gets tired of waiting in the dark. ‘What now?’ he says to Max. ‘I’m standing here holding this heavy stinking dwarf and I’m waiting for my next thing to do.’

‘You’re stuck there,’ says Max. ‘All of a sudden your memory is gone. Apasmara made you forget everything.’

‘Why?’

‘He was sent to do that.’

‘Who sent him?’

‘A woman you can’t remember. She sent Apasmara to take away all memory of her.’

‘Why? What would make her do that?’

‘What you did.’

‘What did I do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What came before what I did?’

‘You loved each other.’

‘OK, we loved each other. What then?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Think! Explore your material. What did I do?’

‘I’m telling you, I don’t know.’

‘That’s great. You’ve got me holding this lousy dwarf and you don’t know why and you don’t know what’s coming next.’

‘Moe, I’m sorry to leave you holding the dwarf, I really am.’

‘You could delete that part and back up to where we were before he jumped into my arms. Come on, you can at least do that much for me.’

‘I’m sorry, Moe, that might stop the next thing from coming to me and I daren’t risk it. Besides, Apasmara’s not real, he’s only a hallucination. The weight and the smell are all in your mind.’

‘Wonderful. Thanks a lot. I’ll see you around.’

Max quits the word processor programme and goes back to the Winslow Homer painting that is his screen wallpaper. But instead of that boat in the Gulf Stream he sees Noah’s Ark stranded on the mountains of Ararat. The raven flies out, loops the loop once and The Gulf Stream returns. ‘Sorry,’ says Max’s mind.

‘No problem,’ says Max.

March 1997. Lula Mae with no clothes on is a feast for the eye and two or three other senses. Max is grazing quietly on her when she says, ‘Max?’

‘What, Lula Mae?’

‘How come you’re here with me?’

‘What a question!’

‘I don’t want the obvious answer — most men like a bit of strange and most men who see me want to have me. I’m looking for the you/me specifics that resulted in our sleeping together for what is now the fifth time. Don’t you wonder where it’s coming from and where it’s going?’

‘When I’m with you I’m not thinking of that,’ says Max.

‘What about when you’re not with me?’

‘Then I try not to think of it.’

‘Say more.’

‘Much of the time I don’t understand what I do. And all of the time I don’t understand my life. Do you understand yours?’

‘Until now I don’t think I’ve tried to. What about you and Lola?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Are you in love with her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is she in love with you?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘You’re not sure?’

‘She’s very careful with words.’

‘But you’ve slept with her, yes?’

‘I feel disloyal, talking about her like this.’

‘That’s a hot one: you don’t feel disloyal shagging me but you don’t like to talk about her while you’re in my bed.’

‘Life is full of anomalies, Lula Mae.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘OK, I’ve slept with her.’

At this point Max’s mind is unable to refrain from a little cluck of disapproval.

‘What?’ says Max.

‘You know very well what,’ says his mind. ‘Shtupping Lula Mae is already an intrusion into Lola’s privacy but this kind of talk makes it worse.’

‘Lola’s privacy!’

‘That’s right. Your nakedness and your lovemaking are private to Lola. Now you’ve exposed Lola’s nakedness to Lula Mae.’ Another little cluck.

‘I’m not a good man,’ says Max.

‘Could do better,’ says his mind.

‘Hello?’ says Lula Mae. ‘Are you there?’

‘More or less,’ says Max.

‘If you and Lola are in love,’ says Lula Mae, ‘why did you look me up in Holborn?’

‘You told me where you worked and then you gave me your going-away view. I’d have had to be dead not to respond.’

‘OK, that was one time. What about since then? What are you looking for with me?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I’m just greedy. What about you? Your attractions aren’t just physical, you could pretty well have any man you fancied. Why are you spending time with me?’

‘When it started I was a little bit trying to make up for all the girls you couldn’t get in high school. Your face is full of never-had-enough and I was touched by it.’

‘And the greatest of these is charity,’ says Max. ‘You’re a real Christian, Lula Mae.’

‘In my way. But now it’s become something else.’

‘What?’

‘I haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s got me taking a long hard look at myself.’

‘And what are you seeing?’

‘A woman who’s been walking through a maze where all the pathways bring you out again and you never reach the centre.’

‘What’s at the centre?’

‘Maybe I’ll never know. In the meantime …’ She rolls over on to Max and he stops asking questions.