Russell Hoban - Come Dance With Me

Before I left St Eustace I looked in on Abraham Selby. I have never forgotten Professor Ernst’s words about the doctor-patient relationship (I notice that I don’t say patient-doctor. There are traditional orders of words: men and women; Adam and Eve; steak and kidney; plus and minus; willy-nilly. Nobody says nillywilly.) I have never been a verticalist. Abraham Selby, although horizontal in his bed, was in himself as vertical as I was. Perhaps even a little more so sometimes.

On this morning there he was with his lachrymose leg propped up as always and his copy of The Times in hand. ‘Sometimes there’s good news when you least expect it,’ he said.

‘So tell me,’ I said.

‘Have a look.’ He folded the paper as necessary and passed it to me. I’d been too busy booking my flight to read my copy at home. There was a one-column item with a colour photograph of an upside-down bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup sporting a right-side-up label. SAUCE FLIPS TO GO WITH THE FLOW was the headline.

[Heinz] has spent millions of pounds and three years on research to come up with an upside-down bottle with a cap and valve in its bottom. It is a solution that customers hit upon years ago — seven out of ten say they balance their sauce bottles on their tops.

‘How’s that grab you?’ said Selby.

‘It’s definitely good news,’ I said.

‘Things go on the same year after year,’ said Selby, ‘then all at once they get turned around. Pay attention,’ he said to his leg. To me he said, ‘Think about it.’

I did.

27 January 2003. Rudy’s house was in Hamakua Poko, on high ground overlooking a gulch. It was surrounded by trees except on the side that looked towards the sea. I was expecting something recognisably Hawaiian but this was a very modern structure with solar panels on the roof, a lot of glass and a cantilevered deck. ‘Built it myself,’ said Rudy. ‘Koa wood. This wood has Hawaiian soul, it’s the mother and father wood. They used to make sailing canoes from it. I stand on that deck and look out to sea where it’s full of sport-fishermen and yachts now and I see the ghosts of those canoes with the crab-claw sails. Out they go over the horizon into never-never. All gone with the mana that was in them. You don’t have to say anything.’

‘Never-never,’ said Django. He liked the sound of it.

Rudy named the trees for me but only a few of the names stuck in my memory: banana, mango, breadfruit, macadamia nut and tamarind. There were flowers everywhere, some of them plumeria, like the leis we’d been given. There was a tree that stood apart from the others; there were beautiful purple blossoms on it. I admit that I cry easily and I don’t always know why.

‘Why are you crying?’ said Rudy.

‘No reason,’ I said. ‘It’s just the purple. What is this tree?’

‘Jacaranda. It’s Esperanzas tree.’

‘Who’s Esperanza?’

‘Our daughter. She’s buried here.’

‘How old was she?’

‘She was stillborn.’

‘What’s stillborn?’ said Django.

‘Born dead,’ said Rudy.

Django didn’t say anything for a few moments, then, ‘Did God look away?’

Oh dear, I thought. I’d been hoping he’d inherit my atheism.

‘Yes,’ said Rudy. ‘He looked away.’

‘Why?’ said Django.

‘Because He’s crazy,’ said Rudy.

Again there was a little quiet space. Then Django said, ‘But He made the world.’

‘That proves it,’ said Rudy. He took us to the greenhouse which was close by, set among trees. It was big and professional-looking.

‘Did you build this too?’ said Django.

‘Yes. Keiko designed it and I built it.’ He opened the door and we walked into a whole bright world of flowers and their fragrances. Keiko had been working, and she took off her gloves as she came to meet us. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt but when she smiled it was like a silk fan opening with a Japanese court lady from another century painted on it. She picked up two leis with yellow flowers and hung them round our necks. ‘Aloha,’ she said, and did the honi greeting with Django and me. ‘These are your second greeting on your first visit. These kuala-mani plumeria are saying that you are twice welcome in our house.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘This is for you.’ I gave her a pair of very delicate enamelled violet-flower earrings from the thirties with a matching necklace. She put them on straightaway and I’d made the right choice.

‘I’ve never had violets before,’ she said, and kissed me.

‘This is for you,’ said Django to Rudy, and gave him one of the more complex Swiss army knives.

‘Mahalo’ said Rudy to Django. ‘I keep this with me always and think of you.’

‘Plumeria,’ said Django as he looked down at his lei.

‘There are twenty-five different kinds of plumeria,’ said Keiko. It’s the most popular flower for leis. We don’t grow them in here but they’re all over the place outside. And as you see, we have a few other things as well. This rose here is lokelani, it’s the official flower of this island. In other places it’s called a damask rose.’ It was a juicy-looking rose with a lovely pink colour and a smell that made you feel like waltzing. ‘Yes,’ said Keiko when she saw my feet moving, ‘it dances.’ She showed us orchids, heliconia, hibiscus, jasmines, gardenias and many more with names I don’t remember. I’m good with songs but not with trees and flowers.

Rudy had been busy in the kitchen while we were doing the greenhouse tour. We’d be having lunch in the large room with sliding glass doors that opened on to the deck. It was a bright room and it was made brighter by the flowers in it. The doors were open and a pleasant breeze stirred them and their fragrances. When Django saw the table he said to Rudy, ‘You made this too.’

‘Right,’ said Rudi. Although the table was flat it tapered to a point at both ends and the benches on either side were attached to it like outriggers on a canoe.

‘Koa?’ said Django.

‘What else?’ said Rudy.

In a corner of the room stood a screen, the kind you see women changing behind in films. All three panels were completely covered with pressed flowers under clear plastic. They were like beautiful ghosts caught in mid-flight; their ghost-colours are with me still, flower-thoughts and flower-memories. I recognised plumeria, jacaranda, hibiscus, lokelani and one or two more but when I asked Keiko for the names of the others she shook her head. ‘Don’t think names,’ she said, ‘just think flowers.’ I was going to ask if I could take a picture of the screen but then I decided not to. At home I have stacks of photographs of things I wanted to remember but when I try to recall those scenes and people what my mind gives me are the photos. Now, with no photo and no list of names I see that screen with its ghosts and I hear Django saying to Keiko, ‘What’s behind it?’

‘Ancestors,’ she said, and folded back a panel to show him the little shrine with its framed photographs of people with serious faces.

‘Dead?’ said Django.

‘Yes.’

He put his hands together and bowed as he’d seen it done in films and Keiko closed the screen and kissed him.

While Rudy was charcoal-grilling some of the thirty-five-pound fish he’d caught early that morning (ono was its name) we had sashimi with two kinds of dip, breadfruit chips and breadfruit fritters, and Steinlager beer. For Django there was fresh limeade and lemonade. Rudy seasoned the fish with black pepper, garlic butter and fresh-squeezed lime and it made me feel that everything I’d eaten before today hadn’t been real food. Django liked it too.