Эд Макбейн - Love, Dad

To glorious heights.

They were relieved to learn that she’d rid herself of the dysentery that had assailed her and was feeling well enough to visit the memorial on the day after she’d got out of the hospital. She seemed happy enough at this point (they had only come partly through the first page of her two-page letter, standing side by side near the mailbox where it had magically appeared, Jamie holding the letter in both trembling hands, both of them reading it in the waning December light) and they were delighted to learn that she was in a part of India called Goa, which seemed to be warm and sunny now that the monsoon season had ended, the temperatures hovering in the high eighties, with lovely palm-lined rivers leading to the Arabian Sea and the magnificent beaches on its eighty-two miles of coastline. I have $10 left, and am living on a beach. It’s fairly cheap here and very warm, but I want to go to the U.S.A. very soon. Those words were the last ones at the bottom of the page. Jamie turned the letter over:

I have an idea I would like you to consider. I want you to make an investment in me so I can make some money and in the end pay you back. With $200 I can mail enough things in $10 parcels (Indian shirts, jade, ivory, beads, silk, etc.) legally and sell it in the States for much much more. Enough so that I could pay you back and have enough money for myself to pay for school, housing, etc. I think, after much contemplation on my survival, especially when we were walking in the Himalayas (20,000 feet high) and living in caves and whatnot, that this method of making some money on my own is a good one. It would enable me to start making my own money. I am capable and very willing to do this work.

I would need $450 to $500-$200 for the merchandise and the rest to get me to Brussels and from there back to New York on Icelandic. I can complete everything and be home for Christmas if you send money immediately to: Telex code, THISTLE, State Bank of India, Panjim, Goa. We must work fast if I am to be home with my family for Christmas which is something I want very much. Finished Tolkien’s trilogy, great book. Am now reading Siddhartha. The world is so exciting, really. I went to Bombay, Chundigargh, Mundi, many very primitive villages. If Telex doesn’t work, use INTERNATIONAL BANK DRAFT to STATE BANK OF INDIA, PANJIM, GOA. My address is Melissa Croft, % Poste Restante, Calangute, Goa, India. I will check at the bank and the post office around December 10 for your communication. Much love to everyone. If you don’t send money at least telegram a few of your thoughts.

Love,

The thoughts she had solicited were somewhat confused. Jamie and Connie were, first and foremost, grateful that she was alive, delighted at long last to have an address for her, a true and proper address , even if it was only a General Delivery address, a bona fide address (not to mention a Telex code) to which they could write or cable! Jesus! He could write to her again! He could actually write “Dear Lissie” and “Love, Dad.” He had an address! But there were some disturbing things in her letter that caused them to wonder, once again, what was happening to her, and whether or not they could trust her. The letter-from-camp syndrome was immediately apparent, although this time she had treated them gratuitously to each of the bowel movements caused by the dysentery infection, forsaking not even the attendant mucus and blood. Okay. At least they knew she’d been sick, and was now all right again.

But what was this about “Many, many incredible things” happening, and then no elucidation of just what those incredible things might have been? Was one of those incredible things “walking in the Himalayas (20,000 feet high) and living in caves and whatnot”? Were more of those incredible things her visits to “many very primitive” villages like Chundigargh and Mundi, if indeed those were the villages she’d had in mind when writing her letter, the syntax seemed sometimes rather odd and disjointed.

Why, for example, had she told them she needed money for an adventure into the world of commerce, something new, something they had never before heard from her either in person or in her infrequent letters, and then idly reported that she’d read Lord of the Rings and was reading Siddhartha, before continuing with the details of how they could get the money to her? Why, all of a sudden, was she so intent on paying for her own “school, housing, etc.”? And could she be trusted with “$450 to $500” ostensibly needed to purchase the merchandise and then to come home? Or would she use that money (as she had used the money she’d received for the Venice — New York ticket) for travel further into the unknown? Would her next letter come from Outer Mongolia? Siberia? The moon?

They had no way of knowing that Lissie had been stoned out of her mind on the day she wrote her letter from Calangute.

It’s like Woodstock all over again, Lissie thought. No, it’s better than Woodstock. Woodstock was vague at first, indecisive, kids not realizing there’d be no busts, sneaking their joints, cupping their hands around roaches, eyes cocked for troopers. No troopers here. Everything cool here. Even opium is legal here. It’s Woodstock in Europe, Portuguese influence, churches, Catholics, it’s Europe in Asia, Woodstock in Europe. What were their names? she wondered. The twins who took us to Elysium, Robby’s friends, the Dutch girls, come on, what were their names? Elisabeth and Ida, yes, Verschoor, yes, Robby’s friends, where was Robby now, and whatever has happened to Barbara Duggan, so long ago my goodness.

Voices drifted everywhere around her, shards of sunlight splintered on the water, naked bodies, laughter, she drifted, she splintered like sunlight, she giggled and heard her own giggle. Woodstock playing in Amsterdam. Ida said it, yes, the prettier of the two girls, Ida, but Woodstock my ass some Woodstock, what a place that was, girl sitting in her own shit, some Woodstock all right, Jesus! Never in my life poke a needle in my body, never, voices drifting someone splashing out of the water cock dangling swaying cute like a pendulum running up the beach to where the palm trees fringed Paul lying beside her. Woodstock playing in Asia, more like the tropics though, islands Mom and Dad used to take me to when I was small, silver sunshine hot summer sun whitewashed buildings, ocean sparkling hot summer sun higher than a fucking kite listen to Paul listen to the dope, she giggled.

“... split for Katmandu the minute I get the money,” always talking about what he was going to do when the bread got here, Daddy’s hard-earned loot. Daddy, you are on the wrong train, she thought, here is where you should be, Daddy, taking pictures of marvelous hippie bodies naked unashamed in the sun Portuguese Catholics frowning under parasols trouble in Paradise too much skin for the locals brown like the natives brown all over tiny tits all brown Paul’s cock brown everything brown in the sun like the good brown hash we smoke smoke smoke, she giggled again.

“... then bring the hash back over the border, shouldn’t be any trouble doing that, do you think?” talking to a boy with a heavy black beard and a minuscule cock. She checked out the cock, heard more laughter up the beach, glanced away into the splintering silvery sun, girl with melon breasts approaching, Lissie shaded her eyes, suck his sweet cock here on the beach, raise some Portuguese eyebrows, always makes me horny this fucking hash too fucking good this fucking hash makes me want to do things suck his crazy tiny cock the stranger’s black beard, “and then to Turkey for the hard shit.”