Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

‘In Grapes of Wrath a young woman suckles an old man,’ says Poncho. ‘It’s a beautiful scene.’

‘There’s a good suckling scene in Les Valseuses,’ says a sturdy young woman in a T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt says NE WAY IS OK. ‘It’s with a young man who can’t get it up temporarily because he’s been shot in the crotch. He’s hoping it’ll turn him on but it doesn’t.’

‘You have a kind T-shirt,’ says Poncho. ‘Let me know if you start lactating.’

‘You could have a long wait,’ says the sturdy young woman (her name is Morwen), ‘but I’ll bottle-feed you if you like.’

‘Your tholos or mine?’ says Poncho as they leave the library.

There’s still a reader left at one of the tables. This is an OK-looking young man in jeans and a wordless T-shirt. He shakes his head and says to Lola, ‘There’s a lot of emptiness around here but I haven’t found the form yet.’

‘Maybe emptiness is the form,’ says Lola.

‘You sound very advanced,’ says the young man. ‘Have you been here before?’

‘No,’ says Lola, ‘but I’m a quick study.’

‘You’re reading this for the first time then?’ he shows her his book which is Buddhist Wisdom Books; The Diamond Sutra; The Heart Sutra.

‘Not reading it at all. I came here to borrow a copy.’

‘I’ll show you where they live. I’m Mick.’ He offers his hand.

‘Lola,’ says Lola. Handshake, dryer than the last one. Mick guides her to an empty space in the shelves. ‘Emptiness,’ he says. ‘They’re all out. Take this one — I can do without the book — I need time to think about what I’ve read so far.’

‘Thanks, I can probably buy a copy at the shop,’ says Lola. Mick puts on his jacket. ‘Mind if I walk with you?’ he says.

‘Not at all.’ The short December day has become twilight. The lamps on the pathways are pinky-orange globes set close to the ground so that the sky begins at shoulder height. Shadows drift past them. No one is singing. Cecil Court and St Martin’s Lane will be bustling with Christmas shoppers now, the Coliseum Shop will be full. Lola imagines Haydn on the speakers, The Creation perhaps. ‘Destiny woman,’ murmurs Lola.

‘What?’ says Mick.

‘Nothing. I murmur to myself a lot.’

The shop, although not Christmassy, is doing a brisk business in books, prints, posters, postcards, playing cards, CDs, videotapes, T-shirts, sweatshirts, baseball caps (all with the Diamond Heart logo), trainers, sandals, judo, karate, and tai chi outfits, jock straps, sports bras, first-aid kits, sports bags, snooker cues, baseballs, baseball bats and gloves, softballs, saris, kimonos, fans, fishing rods, cameras, binoculars, sunglasses, wooden flutes, various drums, candles, incense, hookahs, hand-carved Krishnas, Ganeshas, Shaktis, brass Shiva Natarajas in three sizes, model tholoi, Diamond Heart snowstorms, organic treacle brittle, Diamond Heart rock, and so on.

Lola is told that Buddhist Wisdom Books is out of print so she borrows the library copy that Mick offers. She buys The Raga Guide (which includes four CDs), and a boxed set of five All India Radio Archival Release CDs of the late Ustad Allauddin Khan Sahib on the sarod.

‘That’s a lot of sarod,’ says Mick.

‘I need a lot,’ says Lola. She says good-night to Mick, wheels Noah home, changes him, orders in blinis from Diamond Heart Kosher Takeaway, and hooks herself up to her personal CD player and Disc One of The Raga Guide. Abhogi is the first raga, suitable for early night (21:00 to 00:00).

December 1997. Lola dreams that she’s standing on the Embankment, looking up at the Albert Bridge. She takes aim with the sarod and begins to shoot out the lights.

‘You’re making it dark,’ says a man’s voice behind her.

‘They can always get more,’ says Lola.

December 1997. At 02:00 Noah’s lusty demand for room service wakes Lola and she gives him the breast. As always she smiles in pleased astonishment at this complete small person who has come out of her. Feeding him is her delight. His satisfaction makes her proud. Still wakeful when he’s replete, she makes herself a cup of rosehip tea and picks up Buddhist Wisdom Books. The much-used copy falls open at The Heart Sutra , page 81. Drawn to the lines in bold type, she reads:

Here, O Sariputra. Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Lola feels that she has been entered by these words that she cannot take in. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘maybe understanding is non-understanding and the very non-understanding is understanding, right?’ She feels the unknown meaning of the words opening in her like a lotus blossom. She’s never seen a lotus blossom but her mind gives her a convincing image.

The unknown meaning feels pretty good but Lola would actually like to know it if possible so she makes an effort. Noah is beautifully formed. Is that emptiness? ‘Do me a favour!’ she says. Max’s love for her had form that turned out to be empty. The emptiness had the form of an affair with Lula Mae who was very well formed. The girl from Texas might have been empty to begin with but Max put a bun in her oven and her form got bulgy. Lola’s form also got bulgy from Max’s emptiness. At this point Lola finds her eyes closing but she flips the pages back towards the beginning where her eye lights on a single line of bold type:

Mindfully fixing his attention in front of him.

She likes the sound of that. Conze’s explanation follows in ordinary type, beginning with:

Preparatory to entering into a trance, the Buddha fixes his attention on the breath which is in front of him.

‘Interesting!’ says Lola. ‘Of course that’s nothing for non-Buddhas to try at home.’ Nevertheless, she mindfully fixes her attention on the breath in front of her and breathes it in. Now the scene before her eyes, the interior of her dome, begins to curl at the edges. Like a photograph held over a flame. What’s happening?

This: a dwarf black as ebony with a long body, very short arms and legs, large head, big ugly baby-face. Looks like something that goes on all fours. Apasmara Purusha, demon of Forgetfulness. Lola gasps, slaps herself in the face. Apasmara’s gone. Did she imagine him? Or did she only imagine that she imagined him? She puts on her headphones and listens to the raga Adana , depicted in a ragamala from Mewar (Plate 1 in The Raga Guide) as an ascetic seated on a tiger skin, sometimes identified as Kama, the god of love. Appropriate for late night (00:00 to 03:00).

January 1998. Christmas and New Year have come and gone without Lola’s participation in any festivities outside her dome. People were singing and snogging and throwing up all around Diamond Heart but she confined herself to a private two-person celebration in which she drank a couple of glasses of champagne by way of bringing in the New Year with Noah. ‘Rainbows!’ was her toast. He smiled, possibly anticipating some jollification in his milk.

In the fortnight since her first lesson Lola has been thinking constantly of the sarod. That fretless fingerboard is always in her mind. Every night, before or after other dreams, she sees in dreams her hands on the instrument, hears music she cannot remember. Now she sits crosslegged in the studio holding the sarod and facing Indira.