Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (50 page)

Why, you say it’s good, it’s God manifesting, it’s love appearing—only in
reverse.

And then?

You look
through
the negative … until you see the positive.

Try it sometime—as a morning exercise. Preferably after standing on your head
for five minutes. If it doesn’t work, get down on your knees and pray.

It
will
work, it’s got to work!

That’s where you’re wrong
. If you think it’s got to, it won’t.

But it must, eventually. Otherwise you’ll scratch yourself to death.

What is it my friend Alan Watts says? “When it is clear beyond all doubt that
the itch cannot be scratched, it stops itching by itself.”

On the way home I stopped at the edge of the clearing, where the huge
abandoned horse trough stood, to see if the pots and pans were in order. Tomorrow, the weather
permitting, little Val would fix me another make-believe breakfast. And I would probably give
her a few make-believe suggestions for improving the bacon and eggs, or the oatmeal, or
whatever she might decide to serve me.

Make believe
…. Make believe you’re happy. Make believe you’re free.
Make believe you’re God. Make believe it’s all Mind.

I thought of Moricand. “I’ll get down on my knees and pray, if that’s what she
wants.” How idiotic! He might equally well have said: “I’ll dance, I’ll sing, I’ll whistle,
I’ll stand on my head … if that’s what she wants.”
She
wants. As if she wanted
anything but his welfare.

I got to thinking of the Zen masters, one old dog in particular. The one who
said, “It’s your mind that’s troubling you, is it? Well then, bring it out, put it down here,
let’s have a look at it!” Or words to that effect.

I wondered how long the poor devil would continue scratching himself if every
time he dug his nails into his flesh one of those gay old dogs would appear out of the ether
and give him thirty-nine blows with a stout cudgel.

And yet you know that when you get home she’ll be facing you and
you’ll lose your temper!

Scratch that!

She need only say: “I thought you were in your studio working.”

And you’ll say: “Must I work all the time? Can’t I take a walk once in a
while?”

And like that, the fur will fly, and you won’t be able to see
through the negative…. You’ll see red, then black, then green, then purple.

Such a beautiful day! Did
you
make it? Did
she
make it?

Fuck who made it! Let’s go down and see what she wants to fight about. God
made it, that’s who.

So I go down, bristling like a porcupine.

Fortunately, Jean Wharton’s there. Moricand’s already been to see her. And
she’s given her consent.

How different the atmosphere is when Jean’s around! As if the sun were pouring
through all the windows with intensified light and warmth and love. At once I feel normal.
Like my real self. One couldn’t possibly bicker and wrangle with a person like Jean Wharton.
At least, I couldn’t. I take a look at my wife. Does she look any different? To be honest, she
does. For one thing, there’s no fight in her now. She too looks normal. Like any other human
being, I’d say.

I won’t go so far as to say that I can see God in her. No.

Anyway, there’s a lull.

“So you’re going to take him on?” I say.

“Yes,” says Jean, “he seems to be desperately in earnest. Of course, it won’t
be easy.”

I was going to say, “What language will you talk?” but the question answered
itself. God’s language, of course!

With anyone else it was bound to work. With Moricand…?

God can talk to a stone wall and make it respond. But the human mind can be
thicker, harder to penetrate, than even a wall of steel. What is it the Hindus say? “If God
wished to hide, He would choose man to hide in.”

That evening, as I was going up the garden steps to have a last look around, I
met Jean sailing through the gate. She had a lantern in one hand and what seemed like a book
in the other. She seemed to be floating through the air. Her feet were on the ground all
right, but her body had no weight. She looked more beautiful, more radiant, than I had ever
seen her before. Truly an emissary
of light and love, of peace and
serenity. In the few years since I first met her, at the Big Sur Post Office, she had gone
through a definite transformation. Whatever she believed in, whatever it was that she was
practicing, it had altered her physically as well as mentally and spiritually. Had I been
Moricand, at that moment, I would have been made whole instantly.

But it didn’t work out that way. It didn’t work at all, as a matter of fact. A
fiasco from start to finish.

It was the next morning that I got a full report from Moricand. He was not
only incensed, he was outraged. “Such nonsense!” he cried. “Am I a child, a fool, an idiot,
that I should be treated thus?”

I let him rave. After he had calmed down I got the details, at least the
important one to his way of thinking. The fly in the ointment, what was it but
Science and
Health!
He had done his best, he said, to follow Jean Wharton’s talk—apparently he had
understood almost nothing. The talk was difficult enough to swallow but then, in taking leave,
she had thrust this Mary Baker Eddy book under his nose, urging him to read a few passages and
dwell on them. She had indicated the passages she thought best to concentrate on. To Moricand,
of course, the
Key to the Scriptures
had about as much value as a child’s primer.
Less, indeed. He had spent his whole life denying, ridiculing, suppressing this kind of
“nonsense.” What he had expected of Jean Wharton was a laying on of hands, a magical rapport
which would aid him in exorcising the demon that made him scratch night and day. The last
thing on earth he wanted was a spiritual interpretation of the art of healing. Or shall I say
what is nearer the truth—that he did not want to be told he could heal himself, that indeed he
must
heal himself!

When I met Jean, a little later, and related what he had told me, she
explained that she had left the book with him, not with any intention of converting him to
Christian Science, but simply to make him forget himself for a while. She had understood him,
his French, clearly enough and she had been prepared to wrestle with
him anew the next night and for as many nights as might be necessary. She confessed that
perhaps it had been a mistake to give him Mary Baker Eddy to read. However, as she well said,
had he been sincere, had he been willing to surrender just the least bit, he would not have
been so outraged by the book. A man who is desperate can find comfort in anything, sometimes
even in that which goes against the grain.

The discussion about the book incited me to have a look at it myself. I had
read quite a little about Mary Baker Eddy but I had never, strangely enough, gone to the book
itself. I discovered immediately that I was in for a pleasant surprise. Mary Baker Eddy became
very real to me. My critical opinion of her fell away. I saw her as the great soul she was,
human, yes, human to the core, but filled with a great light, transformed by a revelation such
as might occur to any of us were we big enough and open enough to receive it.

As for Moricand, it was as if we had removed the last stepping stone from
under his feet. He was depressed as never before. Absolutely despondent, wretched, miserable.
Every night he wailed like a banshee. Instead of an
apéritif
before dinner he would
treat us to an exhibition of his sores. “It’s inhuman,” he would say. “You’ve got to
do
something!” Then, with a sigh, “If only I could take a warm bath!”

We had no bath tub. We had no miracle drugs. We had nothing but words, empty
words. At any rate, by now he was just a flaming wretch who had delivered himself to the mercy
of the Devil.

Only one evening before the final breakdown stands out clearly. I remember it
well because earlier that evening, while we were still eating, he had expressed his irritation
with Val, who was sitting beside him, in a way I can never forget. Bored with the
conversation, she had begun to play with the knives and forks, rattle the dishes, anything to
gain attention. Suddenly, in a playful way, she
had snatched the piece of
bread lying beside him. Furious, he snatched it from her fist and placed it on the other side
of his plate. It was not the gesture of annoyance so much as the look in his eyes which
startled me. It was a look full of hatred, the look of a man so beside himself that he might
even commit murder. I never forgot it and I never forgave it.

It was a hour or two later, after the child had been put to bed, that he
launched into a lengthy tale which I shall recapitulate briefly. What provoked it I no longer
remember. But it was about a child, a girl of eight or nine. The telling of it seemed to take
up the entire evening.

As often happened, when beginning a yarn, he shrouded the opening in
irrelevant wrappings. It was not until (following him down the
grands boulevards)
he
made mention of the Passage Jouffroy that I was aware that he was spinning a tale. The Passage
Jouffroy happens to be one of those arcades which are freighted with souvenirs for me. Many
thing had happened to me, in years gone by, while strolling through that well-known landmark.
I mean inner happenings, events one never thinks to write about because too fleeting, too
impalpable, too close to the source.

And now here is Moricand suddenly shocking me into awareness of the fact that
he is following on the heels of a woman and her daughter. They have just turned into the
Passage Jouffroy, window shopping, seemingly.
When
he began following them,
why,
how long
, has lost importance. It’s the sudden inner excitement which his looks and
gestures betray that takes hold of me, rivets my attention.

I thought at first it was the mother he was interested in. He had described
her swiftly, deftly, much as a painter would. Described her as only Moricand could describe a
woman of that type. In a few words he had stripped her of her nondescript garb, her
pseudo-maternal air, her pretense of strolling the boulevards with her innocent little lamb.
He had recognized her for what she was the moment she had turned into the Passage Jouffroy,
that moment
when she had hesitated just the fraction of a second, as if
she were about to look back, but didn’t. He knew then that
she
knew he was
following.

It was almost painful to hear him rhapsodize about the little girl. What was
it about her that so excited him?
The look of the perverted angel!

His words were so graphic, so diabolically searching, that despite myself, I
was ready to believe that the child was steeped in vice.
Or else so innocent
that
….

The thought of what was passing through his mind made me shudder.

What followed was mere routine.
He
took a stand before a window
display of manikins dressed in latest sports models while a few feet away the woman and child
dallied to gaze upon a virginal figure garbed in a beautiful Communion dress. Observing that
the child was rapt in wonder, he threw the woman a quick glance and nodded meaningfully toward
her charge. The woman responded with the barest perceptible sway of her head, lowered her eyes
a moment, then, looking straight at him, through him, grasped the child’s hand and led her
away. He permitted them to get a respectable distance ahead, then followed in their wake. Near
the exit the woman stopped a moment to buy some sweets. She made no further sign, except to
turn her bowed head in the direction of his feet; she then resumed what was to all appearances
an innocent promenade. Once or twice the little girl made as if to turn around, as would any
child whose attention had been caught by the flutter of pigeon wings or the gleam of glass
beads.

There was no increase in their pace. The mother and daughter sauntered along
as if taking the air, enjoying the sights. Leisurely they turned down one street and up
another. Gradually they approached the neighborhood of the Folies-Bergère. Finally they came
to a hotel, a hotel with a rather flamboyant name. (I mention it because I recognized the
name; I had spent a week in this hotel once, in bed most of the time. During that week, flat
on my back, I had read Céline’s
Voyage au bout de la nuit.)

Even as they entered the woman made no visible effort to
see if he were following. She had no need to look: it had all been worked out telepathically
in the Passage Jouffroy.

He waited outside a few moments to collect himself, then, though his guts were
still quivering, he walked calmly up to the desk and booked a room. As he filled out the
fiche
the woman laid her key down a moment to stuff something in her purse. He
didn’t even have to turn his head to catch the number. He gave the
garçon
a liberal
tip and, since he had no bags, told him it was unnecessary to show him the way. By the time he
reached the top of the first flight of stairs his heart was in his mouth. He bounded up the
next flight, turned quickly down the passage towards the room he was looking for, and came
face to face with the woman. Though there was not a soul about, neither paused an instant.
They brushed by each other like two strangers, she as if going to the lavatory, he as if to
his room. Only the look in her eyes, the drooping, sidewise glance, conveyed the message he
knew was forthcoming:
“Elle est là!”
He walked swiftly to the door, removed the key
which had been left outside, and pushed his way in.

Here he paused in his narration. His eyes were positively dancing. I knew he
was waiting for me to say “Then what?” I struggled with myself not to reveal my true feelings.
The words he was waiting for got stuck in my throat. All I could think of was the little girl
sitting on the edge of the bed, half-undressed probably, and nibbling at a piece of pastry.
“Reste-là, p’tite, je reviens toute de suite,”
the woman had probably said as she
closed the door behind her.