Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

‘It’s for me to thank you,’ says Max. A brief hug, then they get dressed and Grace shows Max where things are in the kitchen.

‘You make the coffee,’ says Grace. ‘I’ll get us some bagels.’

‘Let me go for the bagels,’ says Max.

‘No,’ says Grace. ‘I like going out and knowing that I’m not coming back to an empty flat.’

Max has the coffee ready when she returns and they have a quiet breakfast. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I can’t hide out here indefinitely. It’s time for me to go out into the world again. I owe you, Grace.’

‘Any time. Don’t be a stranger.’

They part with a big hug and a small kiss and Max is on his own again.

November 2001. Max is afraid that Apasmara will destroy him. And of course it’s Max’s fear that gives Apasmara that power. What did Max do that made Apasmara come to him with Lola’s music? Before we get into that we need to know something about where Max is coming from.

Now in 2001 Max is forty-four. So when he met Lola he was thirty-nine. Unmarried. What, had he never up till then found the right woman? Who can say what makes a woman the right one? Who can say what makes a person move forward or step back?

People are composed of memories, losses, longings and regrets. Max’s father, now dead, lost a favourite toy as a child: a Noah’s Ark. ‘Noah and Mrs Noah and all the animals were printed on glossy paper that was glued to their plywood shapes,’ he told Max. ‘The Ark itself was yellow with a red roof. Did I play with it down in the cellar? I’m not sure. In the winter it was always warm and cosy there from the coal furnace. I liked the smell of it. There was a big black boiler by the opposite wall, it was a lying-down thing with big rivets. I used to think the Noah’s Ark had fallen behind it somehow — there was just enough space between it and the wall. There were cables and pipes and cobwebs and I could never make anything out with a flashlight or find it with a stick. I didn’t like to reach in with my hand because I was pretty sure there were spiders. By now the glossy paper would be all black with mildew but even now, in this house, I still want to look behind the boiler now and then.’ Max remembers how his father sounded when he told that story.

Max has been in love many times with women who loved him back but he always fell out of love after a while. Constancy has not been his strong suit. In all fairness he ought to have been wearing a sign that said, IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO when he appeared in the Coliseum Shop in 1996 and said that Lola was his destiny woman. None the less he was being perfectly honest: he believed it was necessarily so. He had truly fallen in love (in his way) and when he presented himself as an idea whose time had come, he was doing it in good faith.

Lola was too sensible to take Max’s outburst any more seriously than the sort of shout she might hear when passing a building site. But at the same time something in her responded to his craziness. Mummy and Daddy and Basil were boringly sane while this man definitely had a screw loose which was not without its appeal. And his non-crazy remarks about Monteverdi and Lorenzetti showed him to have the kind of mind she was very comfortable with. For the rest of that evening she found herself replaying his declaration in her head. She was certain he’d show up again and she wondered what she’d do. She tried to imagine presenting Max to her parents. Lesser was almost certainly a Jewish name, and although one or two of Daddy’s Jewish colleagues had dined at the house, there were none that he played golf with. Her mother had sometimes entertained Jewish singers and musicians but that was nothing that created problems. As Max was an artist, it wouldn’t be like bringing a pawnbroker home but questions would be asked, with amiable interest, about Max’s origins and education. At that point in her imaginings Lola gave herself a mental shake and resolved not to think too much about Max. She did, however, look for him in Who’s Who . He wasn’t there.

December 1996. Three days after his first appearance at the Coliseum Shop Max turns up again. This time he doesn’t embarrass Lola and his visit is very brief. There’ll be a performance of a new arrangement of Die Winterreise at Queen Elizabeth Hall in January. Would she like to go with him? She would. While pretending to help him look for a recording she gives him her last name and they exchange phone numbers. His mind spins like a prayer wheel, saying ‘Lola Bessington’ all the way home.

Over Christmas and New Year Max drinks more than his usual quota. He watches war films on TV in which the Germans speak heavily accented English and the Allied soldiers speak German like natives while infiltrating the enemy. He also draws heavily on the resources of Blockbuster. He works every day, trying for a new story in his children’s series about a hedgehog called Charlotte Prickles.

January 1997. On the appointed evening Max meets Lola at the shop at half-past six and they walk to the Embankment and over the Hungerford Bridge to the South Bank. On the bridge they both give money to the homeless and feel guilty because they feel so good. Halfway across, Lola turns to look up at Ursa Major low in the sky over Charing Cross Station. She knows the names of the seven stars of that constellation but on the first date she’s not ready to say them for Max who is also looking up. To him Ursa Major is the Big Dipper and the dipper is upright. ‘Nothing has spilt out yet,’ he says.

Lola smiles and says nothing. She feels good about Max. She likes being with him, and his choice of Die Winterreise was a good one. Comfortably sheltered in Belgravia and cherished by Daddy, Mummy, and Basil, she feels herself to be all alone, a solitary wayfarer on a journey to nowhere, past barking dogs and windows warm in the cold night.

‘What made you decide on Schubert for tonight?’ she asks Max.

‘The man in Die Winterreise says that he came as a stranger and he goes as a stranger,’ says Max. ‘That’s how I’ve always felt.’

‘Me too,’ says Lola. ‘Do you know anything about this performance?’

‘It’s the first time in London and it’s billed as some kind of synthesis with orchestra and tenor. The composer is Hans Zender, the tenor is Christoph Pregardien, and the orchestra is the Klangforum Wien under Sylvain Gambreling. I haven’t heard of any of them before.’

They give money again at the South Bank end of the bridge and have time for coffee in the Queen Elizabeth Hall cafeteria. Max and Lola both look around at the other people, smug in the knowledge that they’re on the inside of something that everybody else is on the outside of. The other coffee-drinkers look as if they mostly read the Guardian and the Independent and quite a few of them seem to know each other.

Once inside, Max and Lola settle comfortably into their seats and wait for the Schubert to happen. Accustomed to this song cycle performed by two men and one piano, both of them are slightly startled by the sight of instrumentalists. ‘It’ll be Die Winterreise , but not as we know it,’ says Max.

‘I tend to be a traditionalist,’ says Lola, ‘but I’m always interested in new approaches.’

Sylvain Gambreling appears, waves his musicians to their feet. He and they bow together and are applauded. Christoph Pregardien takes the stage, bows, is applauded, the orchestra tunes up, and they’re off. Some of the musicians are active with their instruments but whatever they’re doing is almost inaudible. Pregardien isn’t opening his mouth. Very, very gradually one hears something like the beating of a heart coming closer, closer. Is that the melody of the first song, ‘ Gute Nacht ,’ sneaking in behind that heartbeat, like the voice of the singer trying to find him?