So as he was dying, thinking of these questions, Ravelstein formulated what he would say but was not able to deliver his conclusions. And one of these conclusions was that a Jew should take a deep interest in the history of the Jews-in their principles of justice, for instance. But not every problem can be solved. And what _could__ Ravelstein have done?
But anyway he wouldn't be here to do it. In that case what was the most significant suggestion he could make to friends? He began to talk about the approaching high holidays and directed me to take Rosamund to the synagogue. Herbst was certain that Ravelstein was indicating the way which was best for the Jews, who had nothing of greater value than this religious legacy.
Herbst and Ravelstein had been close as students forty years ago, and I could do worse than turn to Herbst for guidance. But if I began to ask questions, I would become involved in self-explanation and I had no stomach for this. Ravelstein was dying-he lay wrapped at full length, eyes shut. He was either asleep or thinking what had to be thought in these last days. My feeling was that he was trying to do all that could be done in these final moments-done, I mean, for the people under his care, for his pupils. Now I was too old to be a pupil, and Ravelstein didn't believe in adult education. It was far too late for me to Platonize. And what people called culture was nothing but a fancier term for their ignorance.
Ravelstein sometimes said that I was a sleepwalker by choice, but this didn't mean that I was unteachable, just that it was up to me to decide when I would be ready to make my moves.
You might tell me something of great importance, and I would understand it well enough, but refuse entirely to take it in. This was no ordinary stubbornness.
Now there are few people you can discuss such matters with. Too bad about that. Since we are so often called upon for judgments, we naturally coarsen them by constant use or abuse. Then of course you see nothing original, nothing new; you are, in the end, no longer moved by any face, or any person. Now this was where Ravelstein had come in. He turned your face again toward the original. He forced you to reopen what you had closed.
I went so far one day as to dictate some notes on this subject and my then-secretary Rosamund made an unusual personal comment. She said, "I think I understand what you are talking about." I was persuaded by and by that it was really so.
Nikki, Ravelstein's heir and his chief mourner-the rivals were numerous-occupied his flat, just around the corner. There was a grassy space between his apartment building and ours where little kids tumbled and learned to throw and catch. From my bedroom window I looked across to what had once been Ravelstein's place. You saw the lights. There were no more parties. Worse still, Rosamund rightly said, "The whole neighborhood has become a cemetery. The community of your dead. You can't even take a walk without pointing out the doors and windows of old friends and acquaintances. We can't go around the block without your remembering old pals and girlfriends. Ravelstein was a dear friend-one in a million. But he would say that you were carrying an overload of depression."
She felt that we must move away. We had the house in New Hampshire and a three-year invitation by a university in Boston to give the courses (as well as I could, alone) that Ravelstein and I had given together. Rosamund and I were offered comfortable quarters in the Back Bay area. She would manage the move, I needn't worry about that. Since the Back Bay apartment was fully furnished, we could sublet the Midwest one. It would still be possible to come back if the East didn't suit us. And we needn't dread looking across the grassy lots straight into Ravelstein's windows.
"And as a special treat…" Rosamund held up the slick colored travel literature-sunny beaches, wooded hilltops, palm trees, native fishermen. A Caribbean holiday was what she was proposing. We'd unpack in Boston and dump the cardboard boxes in which our goods were packed. Then we'd fly to Saint Martin via San Juan. There we'd float idle, dream in the warm sea, recharging our vital batteries.
"Where did you get all that glamorous travel propaganda, Rosamund? Saint Martin, eh? Isn't that where the Durkins go?"
"Never mind. They're good friends. They can see exactly what you need."
"The West Indies will strip away all those layers of stress, and suddenly I'll be restored, and well and strong enough to write the Ravelstein memoir."
"I'm not suggesting a working holiday," said Rosamund. "I sup pose you've been in the Caribbean."
"Yes."
"And you don't like it? "
"It's one huge tropical slum But I go mostly by Puerto Rico. Big gambling joints, a huge smelly lagoon, dark and muddy-un happy welfare-looking native crowds. Then the Europeans arriving in charter flights. And what they carry home with them is the feeling that the Americans have made a mess of things and that Castro deserves the support of independent intelligent Scandinavians and Dutchmen."
But in the end Rosamund had her way. I discovered, however, in the early days of our marriage that, in having her way, she put my interests ahead of her own. The Durkins recommended a small apartment on the beach. The baggage was checked through-all the summer rags, papers, swimsuits, sunscreen, sandals, bug repellents. San Juan seemed more glamorous, around the seashore at any rate. We had time to kill between flights and we killed it at the bar of the grand hotel. There we sat beside a hard-drinking American who told us that his wife had been struck down by an unidentified disease. This man said that he commuted between Dallas, where he owned a business, and the great industrial-sized San Juan hospital where she was being treated. For some weeks she had been unable to speak, perhaps to hear-who could say. She was unconscious. She wouldn't, perhaps couldn't, open her eyes. "She don't respond. I feel like a damn fool, talking at her."
When our bus was ready, we left him at the bar. He looked a lot like a red sandstone bluff with an overhang of bleached grass. Rosamund couldn't bear to abandon him, so miserable-she is like that. But he didn't answer our goodbyes.
About half an hour later, landing in Saint Martin, we passed through the immigration hangar, a vast Quonset hut of corrugated green metal-everything in the tropics seemed to me to have a pro visional character. Before an official counter under sizzling lights we lined up to pay a fee and have our passports stamped. Then we got into a cab and were driven to the French end of the island. Our landlady was short with us because we had kept her up so late. A little after we had gotten into bed a furious man arrived, kicked and punched her door, screaming that he would kill her. I said, "If the security-chain doesn't hold this may end in murder." But the cops came in a car with a flashing lamp on the roof and took him away.
"What do you think?" said Rosamund. I remember saying that this might be normal for the climate. Gorgeous but unstable.
I refused to be captivated by the place. Maybe it was old age. I used to be a cheerful traveler but now I sniff at the linen when I lie down. Here I scented the detergent powder in the sheets and pillow cases, and the septic tank beneath the bathroom.
But we woke to a clear tropical morning with lizards and roosters. On the ocean, straight in front of us the yachts towed their dinghies. Planes at the airfield took off and landed. But the beach was fine, firm, broad, with a border of trees and flowering shrubs, and there were crowds of yellow moths traveling. On the inland side of the house there was a rich tree, heavy with a crop of limes. Behind was a steep hill.