Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

‘Explore your material,’ comes the answer.

‘I always do,’ says Max. ‘You know that.’

‘So keep doing it,’ says his mind. ‘You always say that if you knew how the story was going to come out you wouldn’t bother writing it.’

‘Give me a break,’ says Max. ‘This is a whole new ball game and I need time to think about it. Moe has made me so ashamed of myself. Lola is so much more than I realised. She keeps expanding like a flower unfolding. She fills my whole being with what she was to me, all that I never knew until now.’

‘Ever heard the expression, “A day late and a dollar short?”’

‘Yes,’ says Max.

‘There you have it,’ says Max’s mind.

July 1997. Max dreams that he’s in a big store. Much bigger than Harrods. Very bright. Full of all kinds of things but it isn’t clear what they are. He seems to have bought something but his hands are empty. A pretty young woman in a black dress is facing him. ‘Thank you for helping me choose,’ says Max.

‘My pleasure,’ says the woman. They’re looking into each other’s eyes so Max kisses her. Tiny kiss, closed mouth. She smiles broadly, almost sings ‘La la la.’ ‘If I can help you with anything else, please let me know,’ she says as Max wakes up.

He looks at his hands. ‘What did I buy?’ he says.

July 1997. ‘On March twenty-first Lola said she was pregnant,’ says Max. ‘She’d probably been a couple of weeks late with her period before she found out. Say she was due the first week in March, then she’d have been ovulating around the middle of February. That’s when our child was conceived.’

‘Right,’ says his mind. ‘And this is the middle of July so she’s five months gone.’

‘If she didn’t lose the baby when we crashed,’ says Max.

‘I don’t think she lost it,’ says his mind.

‘Why not?’ says Max.

‘It’s in the nature of things that you should have two children that you’ll probably never see.’

‘That’s hard.’

‘That’s your life. Get used to it.’

That night Max dreams the Ark drifting through rain and storm and dark of night. The sky clears and it’s the dawn of a new day. Here’s the Ark stranded on the mountains of Ararat. Here’s the rainbow sign of the covenant. The little door up near the peak of the Ark’s roof opens and Max sees a face. The face of a child, a boy. The boy’s face comes closer, closer. His eyes grow bigger, bigger. ‘Noah?’ says Max.

‘Daddy?’ says the Noah child.

July 1997. Max turns on Fujitsu/Siemens, says, ‘Take me to Moe Levy’s place.’ Fujitsu/Siemens shrugs, hums a little, and sets him down in a desolation where the policemen walk in fours when they (rarely) go there. Sodden mattresses, rusty bedsprings, and broken prams litter the concrete yard. The lift doesn’t work, which is just as well since it seems to be used as a toilet. Max walks slowly up five flights, pausing to rest from time to time. A long balcony overlooks the yard and he goes from door to door (all of them covered with graffiti) until he finds one with the name Levy under the bell. He rings but the bell doesn’t work. He knocks but there’s no answer. He knocks again and keeps it up until he hears footsteps. ‘Whaddaya want?’ says a voice. Male? Female? Max is unsure.

‘I want to talk to Moe,’ he says.

‘Not here,’ says the voice. The footsteps recede.

‘Where is he then?’ says Max.

No answer.

‘When’s he coming back?’ says Max.

No answer.

‘I don’t understand it,’ says Max to himself. ‘What’s he doing in a dump like this?’

No answer.

November 1997. Max has not attempted any communication with Moe Levy since July. He wishes he’d never gone to that dreadful council flat, he’ll certainly never go there again. He doesn’t feel too comfortable with Fujitsu/Siemens any more. He doesn’t check his e-mail or turn on the modem. Once in a while he scribbles something in longhand and he keeps a clipboard handy with yellow sheets of A4 but the top page says nothing except:

3 BOTTLES OF RED CRISPS, OLIVES

There is a poem by Walter de la Mare, ‘Goodnight’. It begins:

Look thy last on all things lovely every hour

This line has got into Max’s head as:

Look thy last on Lola lovely every hour

It’s in his brain like one of those pop tunes that won’t go away and Max is sick and tired of it.

Lula Mae is also in his thoughts. He’s had short notes from her in her rounded and loopy handwriting. No Everest Technology printouts, the notes call up Lula Mae’s roundnesses, the generosity with which she gave herself. Photos of her, full-length frontal and profile. The pregnancy’s been coming along nicely, no problems. She’s had ultrasounds but she’s asked not to be told the baby’s sex. ‘I know it’s going to be a boy,’ she says, ‘and I don’t want to hear it from anyone else. Victor feels comfortable inside me and I love him dearly. He’s got a kick like a mule. I’ve been reading Edward Lear to him, I want to start him off right. I’m staying with my parents for the time being and I’m still with Everest. I’ll take my maternity leave when I’m closer to my time. They have a good medical plan so Victor and I will have the best of care. Thanks for the check. Give my regards to Clowed. Love XXX, Lula Mae.’

Max imagines Victor reclining comfortably in Lula Mae’s womb, listening to her pleasant voice with his feet up, shaking his head thoughtfully from time to time as he takes in the tragicomic histories of the Yonghy-Bonghy Bo, the Jumblies, and the Dong with a luminous Nose. ‘Lucky kid,’ he says. He wipes his eyes and blows his nose.

‘He’d be luckier with two parents,’ says his mind.

‘Lula Mae could have stayed here,’ says Max. ‘But Austin is her homeplace and that’s where she wants to be. And London has become my homeplace. So there we are with an ocean between us.’

‘Is there something in you that doesn’t want life to be simple?’ says his mind.

‘I’d like it to be simple,’ says Max. ‘I just don’t know how to manage it.’

28 November 1997. ‘Shalom,’ says Lord Bessington as the nurse shows him his grandchild, born at 03:15 this morning.

‘Really,’ says his wife, ‘he doesn’t look all that Jewish.’

‘That’s only because he’s not circumcised,’ says the Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. ‘When he’s decently covered there’ll be no mistaking that the stork who dropped him off was wearing a yarmulka.’

The new boy, who is large (nine pounds, two ounces), well made, and with an abundance of black hair, squints at Lord Bessington, screws up his face, and lets out a yell.

‘You know you love him,’ says Lady Bessington. ‘He’s beautiful. Look at the intelligence in his eyes.’

‘I don’t doubt that he’s clever,’ says Lord Bessington. ‘He’s already demonstrated a talent for self-advancement.’

‘Come on,’ says Lady Bessington. ‘His father is a well-established writer. His Charlotte Prickles books are classics. I’m sure his genes are nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘In my experience,’ says Lord Bessington, ‘writers can be relied on for just the sort of moral unreliability demonstrated by this chap’s father. Our grandchild was born at quarter past three in the morning, so he’s already keeping late hours.’

‘For better or worse, the father’s name on the birth certificate is Max Lesser,’ says Lady Bessington. ‘But don’t forget that our Lola’s his mum. We’ve got to be genetically open-minded. I have to say I’m optimistic.’