Blanton Payne knew that he was having trouble remembering things. At first,
misplaced keys and glasses were a nuisance, but after too many wrong turns in
his familiar neighborhood, he realized that he was losing grip on what is or
what should be.
His hold on the past was still good, his memories still clear and sharp. He
never transposed Usha for Berthe nor confused their flats in Copenhagen
and Dhaka. The taste of Baltic herring and aquavit was as sharp as that of
barra kabob and fried dal.
As long as he had his distant memories, he could dispense with the rest.
Eventually, despite wrong turns everywhere, he eventually found the bathroom,
Alton Place, and the Giant. His close-in memory synapses were misfiring, that
was all, and if he was patient, his brain waves would find a way around any bad
circuitry and guide him in the right direction.
Nabokov was right, he thought, when he said that the past was the only bit of
time which meant anything. The present was a brief illusion, and the future
only a possibility; but the past – and in his case over 75 years of it – was
more real than any doubtful, fictitious present or improbable future.
Payne often wondered what had become of Usha. Married certainly, twice even,
divorced not widowed when he met her in Rishikesh, and still not separated after
five years of their intermittent relationship conditioned by World Bank missions
and her duties at the family’s properties in Nainital and Rishikesh. They had
never intended anything more than a casual relationship, but despite their intermittent visits and resolve to limit emotional exposure, they
became more than lovers. In fact, after five years they admitted that they had
become a couple although they both were married and had no intention of changing
lanes.
Like most men, he tried to find her even after decades of separation.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter were no help; and besides, there were apparently
more Usha Parekhs than even the Internet could sift, sort, and offer. He would
give anything, he thought, to see her again – well, not exactly, of course – but
in her mind’s eye age could not have changed her that much. Her
features were too fine, her hair too full, her body too lithe for any serious
decline; and if he were ever to discover her, he would never hide from what she
had become so confident was he of her permanence.
The same was true of Berthe, although there were almost as many Jensens in
Copenhagen as there were Parekhs in Ahmedabad, and he only made a desultory
search every ten years or so. Besides, she, like him, had been a United Nations
Group expert, and the last he had heard she had moved with her husband to
Eritrea.
The point is that Blanton Payne, despite his increasingly sketchy short-term
memory and as long as it didn’t become totally disorienting, was not unhappy.
He was resigned to a life without good times, and he considered himself lucky to
remember the ones he had had.
Only once in his later years did the two – the old good times and surprising
new ones – coincide.
He met Laura Rhodes on a consulting assignment when he was still in his
sixties – in the bar at the Mille Collines in Kigali to be exact. How could he
forget the view over the city from the hilltop hotel to the Bujumbura Mountains
and Lake Tanganyika beyond?
The transient expatriate life is unique, for although no one is looking for
company, the credibility of a common profession encourages conversation,
eliminates risk, and defers responsibility. It is easy to meet people.
Matty was only 32 and Blanton 65 when they first met. She was old enough to
have had enough disappointments in her love life to open her door more widely
than she might have done years earlier. He had all but given up hope of any new
sexual adventures; but the classic combination of attractive maturity and
youthful sensuousness was again irresistible.
Like that with Usha, their relationship was intermittent and equally
conditioned by business trips, stopovers, and correspondance. For
Blanton, it was an early Christmas present – unexpected, delightful, unmerited,
but wonderful. He couldn’t believe his luck. Matty thought – although Blanton
had never deceived her about his intentions – that they might have some kind of
a life together, but he aged more than either of them ever thought in a short
few years, and they agreed to part.
Blanton’s relationship with Matty was no different than those with Usha and
Berthe, for those women were 32 when they first met; and all three were sexually
eager, physically confident, and emotional. When Blanton looked at Matty, he
saw them; and the temporal synapses in his brain crackled and popped,
and created a crazy here-now, there-now, sexual double helix.
Now what? he asked himself . What will I do when the September-May affairs
are over and when, despite good tensile strength, cell walls go flaccid
and distant memories begin to wobble?
This was the crisis of old age. Not only do vitality, energy, and
physical ability decline to near zero, but the memories of a vigorous, vital,
and energetic past do to. One is left with nothing.
Many people, faced with this dilemma and its ironic, but common twist of
fate, turn to religion.
This both indemnifies the failing individual against
hopelessness, and animates and validates the future like never before.
Nabokov said that the future is only possibility, and therefore not worth our
mind; but a devout Christian dismisses this cynicism. If one believes in the
divinity of the risen Christ and his promise of salvation and eternal life, then
the future is not something possible or hoped for, but a state of being more
real than any which has preceded it.
Blanton Payne was not a believer, and while he never discounted the
possibility of a religious epiphany, he doubted very much that the rest of his
life would be so interrupted. No, he would have to deal with past, present, and
future in his own way, far from nimble to be sure, but able.
The good times can roll for a long, long time. First on Bourbon Street, then
in vivid memories of Bourbon Street, then in fill-in, supposed memories of New
Orleans, the Mississippi, beignets, and coffee which may or may not reflect the
real thing; but as time goes on such accuracy matters less and less.
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Baby, Let The Good Times Roll–While You Can Still Enjoy Them And Before You Forget What They Are
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