Russell Hoban: Her Name Was Lola

‘Hi,’ says Max. ‘Whose recording of L’Orfeo am I hearing?’

‘John Eliot Gardiner, conducting the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists, His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts,’ says Lola. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’ll have it,’ says Max. He already owns that recording but he follows Lola to the shelf where Monteverdi lives. She hands him the Archiv boxed set of two CDs.

‘I have a thing for sagbutts and cornetts,’ she says.

‘Me too,’ says Max. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lola.’ (When Max doesn’t sing the Barry Manilow song he scores a couple of points.) ‘I love Monteverdi,’ she says. ‘He breaks your heart in a very unsentimental way.’

‘I have a lot of time for Monteverdi,’ says Max. He hasn’t listened to Monteverdi for about a year and a half. He’s in the shop now because he wants a new copy of L’Orfeo for the novel he’s trying to start. It’s a superstition thing.

‘He’s not too realistic, if you know what I mean,’ says Lola. ‘He’s like Giotto or …’

‘Lorenzetti?’ says Max.

‘When’s Lorenzetti?’

‘Fourteenth century,’ says Max. ‘He did some allegorical frescoes in a palazzo in Siena. Very formal, somewhat stilted but in a lively way. Real but not too real.’

‘That’s it,’ says Lola. Now she’s really seeing Max with those blue eyes. He’s nothing special to look at but he knows what she means when she talks about not too realistic. ‘Have you got L’incoronazione di Poppea ?’ Max loves the way the title rolls off her tongue.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s quite an old recording, the one with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Concentus Musicus Wien. I bought it after a Glyndebourne production at Sadler’s Wells. I wanted to hear Ottavia sing “ A Dio, Roma ” again.’

‘You won’t believe this,’ says Lola. ‘I have the same recording and I bought it after going to that same production. Maybe we were there on the same night.’ Does she know that she’s lighting Max’s touchpaper?

Whoosh! High in the sky goes Rocket Max. Showers of stars explode over the Coliseum, it’s like a movie. The stick falls back to earth in St Martin’s Lane. ‘This is it,’ he says to his mind. ‘This is the real thing. This is my destiny woman.’ All through the shop heads turn. ‘Did I say that out loud?’ he says.

‘Audibly,’ says Lola. Blushing.

‘What do I do now?’ says Max.

‘Pay for the recording,’ she says. Safely behind the counter she takes Max’s American Express card. Seeing his name she says, ‘Are you the Max Lesser who wrote Any That You Can Not Put Downe ?’

‘That’s me,’ says Max. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve read it?’

‘It kept me up half the night,’ says Lola. ‘I love spooky stories.’ She bags the Monteverdi, smiles, says, ‘See you,’ turns to the next in the queue, says, ‘Yes, please?’

‘Love!’ says Max to his mind as they go out into the cold again. ‘I kept her up half the night and she said “love”.’

‘Spooky stories,’ says his mind.

‘Love,’ says Max. ‘She said she’d see me.’ He picks up the fallen rocket stick, hugs it to his bosom.

That was December 1996. This is November 2001. Grace and Max sit on the floor for a long time without a word. Finally Grace says, ‘I hope that put something into you, because it sure as hell took something out of me.’

‘How could I have forgotten Lola?’ says Max.

‘Evidently that’s the kind of thing Apasmara does,’ says Grace.

‘And then, out of nowhere, her face,’ says Max. ‘I’m trying to get my head around what happened.’

‘First we saw the form of Apasmara,’ says Grace. ‘Then we saw the emptiness of him.’

‘And then we saw Lola because she’s the one who filled up his emptiness and sent him on to me,’ says Max. ‘From where? Where is she? I haven’t been able to locate her for the last four years.’

‘I can’t help you with where she is,’ says Grace.

‘And why would she send a dwarf demon to make me forget her? Why now ?’

‘Can you reach the vodka?’ says Grace.

On his hands and knees Max fetches both bottles. ‘Here’s looking at you,’ he says as they kill the first bottle. ‘You done good, Grace, and me a stranger.’

‘We’re all strangers,’ says Grace through a cloud of Golden Virginia smoke, ‘and you don’t know what anyone is to you until they’re gone. She was very beautiful.’

‘She was a lot more than that,’ says Max. ‘She still is.’

With a half-shake of her head Grace makes a sympathetic sound, ‘Tsst.’

Max looks at his watch. ‘Jesus,’ he says, ‘it’s twenty past three. I think it was only about half-past nine when I got here.’

‘Form and emptiness take a while,’ says Grace.

‘I wonder if I’ll sleep tonight,’ says Max. ‘There’s no telling when Apasmara’s going to turn up again, and this time he’ll be madder than hell. But I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

‘You’d better sleep here,’ says Grace, ‘Apasmara won’t bother you while you’re with me.’

‘Thanks, I could crash right here on the floor.’

‘You’ll feel better waking up in a bed,’ says Grace, and leads the way to the bedroom. There’s a big bed but that’s all there is to sleep on.

‘You want us to sleep together?’ says Max.

‘Just sleep,’ says Grace. ‘Just to make it through the night.’

‘Do you have bad nights?’ says Max.

‘I have all kinds of things,’ says Grace. She goes into the bathroom, comes out in a long T-shirt with an I Ching hexagram on it.

‘Which one is that?’ says Max.

‘Difficulty at the Beginning.’

‘What about the middle?’

‘I haven’t got that far yet.’ She slides into bed.

Max goes to the bathroom, pees, washes his face, rinses his mouth. He comes back to the bedroom, undresses down to his underwear, hangs his clothes over a chair, and slides in beside Grace but not too close.

Grace is lying on her side with her back to him. He lies down facing the same way. She moves closer until her back is against his front and she takes his arm and brings it over her waist. ‘I’m not making a pass,’ she says. ‘It’s a comfort thing.’

‘I know how it is,’ says Max. He feels her ribs through the T-shirt as she snuggles against him and sighs like a sleepy child. ‘Good night, Grace.’

‘Night, Max.’

‘So frail,’ says Max’s mind, ‘but Apasmara’s afraid of her.’

‘She knows form and she knows emptiness,’ says Max.

‘Maybe you can learn that.’

‘I’m not sure it’s something you can learn,’ says Max.

He hears birds singing. Maybe he’s already asleep and dreaming. In the dream he’s with Lola in Dorset four years ago. It’s the afternoon of 21 March and they’re on Maiden Castle with a picnic hamper and three bottles of champagne that she’s brought. The day is bright and sunny but on the cool side and there’s a fresh breeze blowing on top of the ancient hill fort. ‘Absent friends,’ says Lola as she pours a little Cristal on the ground. She takes the ribbon from her hair, ties it to a long stem of grass where it flutters like a tiny banner. ‘They’re all around us,’ she says.

‘All around us,’ says Max. He notices Noah’s Ark stranded on the hill fort not far from where he and Lola are sitting. A window near the roof opens and a raven flies out, loops the loop and is gone as Max wakes up and forgets the dream. Grace is warm against him, snoring gently. Birds are singing in Berwick Street, it’s light outside.

Grace opens her eyes. ‘I had a really good night,’ she says. ‘Thank you, Max.’