Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

Lola takes the baby for a feed. He applies himself to her breast like a connoisseur. A hungry one. Lola’s looking wonderful. She had an easy birth (natural) and she’s enjoying her son’s pleasure.

‘What are you going to call him?’ says Lady Bessington.

‘Noah,’ says Lola. ‘Noah Bessington.’

‘May he see rainbows,’ says her father before he can stop himself.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell Max?’ says Lady Bessington.

‘I begrudge Max Lesser even the memory of what we had,’ says Lola. ‘I’d like him to forget he ever knew me.’

‘His name is on the birth certificate because I play by the rules,’ says Lord Bessington. ‘So he does have certain legal rights if he chooses to claim them.’

‘I’ll deal with that when the time comes,’ says Lola. ‘But for the present he’s not to be told anything at all.’

‘Tsuck, tsuck,’ says little Noah. He knows a rainbow when he tastes one.

December 1997. WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN. Synchronicity! Nobody owns the passing moment. It isn’t exclusively yours or anyone else’s. This very moment (already past) as you read these words is shared by every creature living and dead, by every stone and leaf and door, by the trackless seas, the deeps of space, and whatever vast and trunkless legs of stone may be standing out in the desert.

The naked baby in the photograph, though quite new, is well developed and beautifully finished in every detail. Genetically a good job. Blue eyes and blond hair. ‘My son,’ says Max. ‘My son the gentile.’ He wipes his eyes, blows his nose.

‘Victor Maxim Flowers was born at 03:15 on November 28th,’ says Lula Mae’s letter, ‘William Blake’s birthday (I looked up the date in the almanac). He weighed nine pounds, two ounces. We did natural childbirth all the way and he came out like a real pro, looking good. I had an easy time, as I’d expected, and you and I, Max dear, have a beautiful son. A Sagittarius. May his arrows always hit their mark.’ More eye-wiping, nose-blowing. ‘Your name is on the birth certificate and Victor will always know who his daddy is. All babies start out with blue eyes so we don’t know yet what color his will be. As you can see, he’s built like a fullback, and his grandad, who was one himself, has already given him a small Texas Longhorn T-shirt to grow into. If I can get him away from my mother now and then I’ll make sure that his Maxness is encouraged and given room to grow. I have known one or two fullbacks in my time (not counting Daddy), and although Vic seems to have my looks I hope he has your brains. Kind of. Now that he’s outside me I can see him when I read to him and that makes it more interesting. Today when we did the “Yonghy-BonghyBo” he said, “Ah!” sympathetically when we got to the turtle ride with its “sad primeval motion/ Towards the sunset Isles of Boshen”. Maybe it was gas but nobody can tell me he hasn’t absorbed the mood of that poem from all those prenatal readings. I’m breastfeeding, and from the way he takes to it I may not wean him (or myself) for quite a long time. Maybe Everest will let me work from home so I can fit my client visits into my own schedule. I hope you’re closer to Page One. Our next reading here will be Charlotte Prickles, Lollipop Lady. Love XXX, Lula Mae.’

Max looks at the photograph again and feels himself moved back in time to see, through the eyes of his father, himself as a naked baby. Max was named after Maxim Gorky. Max’s father, Alexander, had seen Gorky’s play, The Lower Depths , and had read it many times. ‘To write like this,’ he said, ‘is to see the whole world in what you look at.’ Alexander Lesser was a homeopath. Max was born at the Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia, which was named after the founder of homeopathy. His father sat his patients at an optical device on which they propped their chins while he examined their irises and explained why their circulation was bad or their bones ached. He took Max to the pharmacy where his prescriptions were filled. It was cool and dark. It smelled like midnight gardens, dusty caravans, secret caves. There were tall cabinets of many drawers with white china knobs. From the blue lettering on the white porcelain label plates Max copied some of the names: valerian; veronica; calendula; melissa; belladonna atropa; primula. They were like the names of beautiful women, he liked the feel of them in his mouth. These magical ingredients were dispensed in little bottles with complex instructions. Alexander Lesser had loyal patients who claimed to be helped by the medicines and came back again and again. Max too, when feeling not quite right, propped his chin on the iridology device and was given little bottles and instructions.

‘Think of it,’ his father used to say — ‘in a thousandfold dilution, the memory of a single drop of medicine persists and works its cure. Only the memory! In a single cell of a human being is the memory of the whole design. In each of us is the memory, however inaccessible, of the beginning of the universe. We are the memory of the dust of stars.’ He would press his forehead against Max’s. ‘In you,’ he said, ‘there must be memories inherited from me. I know I have these from my father — black trees, the smell of snow, the sound of cossacks. Ravens.’

Remembering his words, Max sees again Noah’s Ark stranded on the mountains of Ararat behind the boiler. He sees the raven loop the loop and fly away and wonders if Victor will remember it. ‘A single drop,’ says Max. He recalls that when he had chicken pox and measles his mother called Dr Farber, a regular GP.

December 1997. ‘Diamond Heart,’ says the brochure, ‘is not a retreat. It is a centre of dynamic calm in which mind and spirit gather energy for the next forward move.’ On offer are yoga, tai chi, feng shui, and Zen disciplines including meditation, gardening, flower arrangement, archery, snooker, and poker. Vegetarian, kosher, and halal cuisine. Acupuncture, reflexology, aromatherapy, and homeopathic medicine. Tuition in classical Indian music with Hariprasad and Indira Ghosh. The photograph shows Mr Ghosh sitting crosslegged with a sitar. He’s wearing a proper sitar-playing outfit just like Ravi Shankar. He looks like someone you could trust.

Diamond Heart, established two years ago, has given a new lease of life to the defunct herring port of Port Malkie on the Firth of Moray. The harbour is almost empty, stretching out its arms to the past. The tide comes in, goes out around coastal features known locally as Kirsty’s Knowe, Teeny Titties, and Deil’s Hurdies. The wind sighs in the grasses. The pebbles rattle in the tidewash, the sea-shapen rocks abide. There are plenty of gulls, shags, and cormorants but no herring. Port Malkie, however, now buzzes with new businesses supplying goods and services to Diamond Heart.

Diamond Heart is not cheap. The one thing its varied clientele have in common is that they can all afford it. There are ageing hippies, youthful rebels, stressed-out executives, ex-husbands and ex-wives, broken-down pop stars, actors in the throes of expanding consciousness, and everything between. Cannabis is not compulsory. The Diamond Heart complex has many large and small dome-shaped buildings (called tholoi in the brochure) overlooking the sea. Lola and little Noah occupy a medium-sized tholos which is designated as a family unit. It has a small but adequate galley and is equipped with a washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher. The town is geared up to deliver everything necessary to the residents of Diamond Heart twenty-four hours a day. Although only recently arrived, Lola settles in quickly and is already known among the other residents as the E-type from Belgravia.