It is true: Thay can look almost supernatural at times to very provincial people. Also, he did go around talking in a slightly eerie way about anything from astrology to Grammatology, whether they understood all that much English or not. Rumors ran around that he was the head of a new sect or a secret religion: other tongues clacked that he was an agent. “An agent for what?” I once had the occasion to storm at one fellow Finn, who was just flustered enough to blurt back: “International, I suppose.” I had to laugh back into that Finn’s face for not having the courage to say what he really thought: “Interplanetary! of course.” That is the only possible word for Thay Himmer. Ingating saw right away how interplanetary Mr. Himmer was, so, when I told her I was his Little White Reindeer, she just sighed and replied: “Yes, Olav, I know. If there’s something afoot, you must put your foot in it and you’re always pawing away at the clouds.” Ingating is twenty-two months older than I am and very wise for her age.
When Thay’s cable came, Ingating agreed at once that I should leave for Cape Noon as soon as we found out where it was on my map of Africa, published by Kummerly & Frey; scale: 1/12,000,000, printed in Berne. But, at the clinic this morning, Doktor Aalto drew me aside: “Do I understand you correctly, Olav? Are you really so brave and so brash as to be dashing off to some place in the Sahara which is calling itself, brazenly: ‘Malamut’? You know what it means, of course: Hassan-i-Sabbah, the Grand Assassin and Old Man of the Mountain, called his castle: ‘Alamut’! Is this something worse? Malamut means: The Bad Way, the Way of no Return. Are you ready to risk that, Olav? Are you properly prepared? I hope you have your return fare, Olav. We shall all miss you here at Sleep & Dreams. By the way, I thought your friend Thay, Bishop Himmer, came from the Pacific, the Farout Islands. You met him in the Sahara, I believe: can’t he go home? What is he doing in still another part of the desert? Is this place ‘Malamut’ what he calls his home?”
“I understand it’s a castle built by his wife.”
“His wife, Olav? In the picture we have of him in our dream files, built up out of your dreams, Olav, there is no trace of a wife!”
“Here’s a picture I cut out of a magazine; taken at Orly airport, right after their marriage. It says here she was previously married to the richest boy in the world. She looks bigger than Thay but maybe she was standing on a step.”
“I knew there must be someone behind him; a woman, of course. Olav, I warn you: ‘Malamut’ is a challenge. By giving this name to their house, the Himmers unfurl a banner by far more cynical than any pirate’s Skull and Crossbones. I am utterly taken aback by such audacity. They flaunt an attachment to old heresies kept alive in dark corners of the world, hidden out of the way of modern communication systems so successfully that they might well one day prove to be the springs of human nature if they were revived in a modern form by utterly unscrupulous people. Is that what your friends are up to, Olav?” Professor Aalto sounded me, his glasses glittering: “Keep in touch.” And I will call him, too, every night. We have our dream-code. Dear old Dr. Aalto, he’s such a well-known anti-feminist alarmist, but I guess I had better watch my step.
Helsinki, Nov. 3
The banks were open today but no money came through for me. Why does one always have to wait for money? Ingating is more nervous than I am but she will calm down.
Helsinki, Nov. 4
Still no money but I did find out about airlines and visas. No one here ever heard of Cape Noon, let alone how to get down there but, when I show them where it is on the big bump of Africa, they suggest flying to Casablanca or Dakar. All Thay’s cable says is: JOIN US IN MALAMUT ON CAPE NOON IMMEDIATELY MONEY FORTHCOMING LOVE THAY but it is dated Tanja so I’ll think I’ll fly there. No luggage: this is the way I came and this is the way I shall return. Life is too soft in Finland, I can’t wait to get back to the desert. Ingating understands.
Tanja, Nov. 6
No one here in Tanja has ever even heard of the Himmers. I have tried everywhere: consulates, banks, hotels and I’ve even asked some of the more reputable-looking guides. Tanja must be a very spiritual city because it simply swarms with guides but not all of us are ready for them. I feel safer inside the Café de Paris, where I am writing this, than I would on the terrace with all this money in my pocket. Money makes me nervous, anyway. I hate not to have money and yet I never know what to do with it when traveling. Americans abroad, I’ve noticed, always touch the talisman of AMERICAN EXPRESS once a day, at least, but I am going where travelers’ checks don’t travel. My spirit is already far away ahead of my body; already down in the desert, but Tanja persists in taking me still for a tourist. When I stride around Tanja with my eyes up to the lovely tumbling skies, beyond which I know rises the winter dome over the desert, swarms of shoeshine boys cluster around my feet, tripping me up: “Soo-sine? Soo-sine, buddy?” When I say: “No, go away, not today,” they answer: “Fuck-you, Jack! Fuck off!” I have been playing Pied Piper to all the guides, too, who sidle up according to hierarchy; each offering his wares until the right one finally gets through to me. “Englishman, wanna get fucked?” When I ask any one of the guides if they have ever heard of the Himmers, they all answer at once: “Sure, Johnny!” and lead me into yet another Arab bazaar.
Tanja, Nov. 7
Terrible hangover, today. I was still sitting in that Café de Paris at seven o’clock last night when a middle-aged American woman with big yellow teeth and stringy gray hair pulled back into an untidy but girlish psyche-knot at the back of her head, leaned over from the next table, gave me a rather revolting yellow smile, and she said: “Having the all-too-typical Tanja troubles?” It was a good enough gambit I guess. I ended up by paying for her coffee as well as my own and, then, she led me off to an American bar called the Exit, where everyone seemed to know her only too well. The very tall barman with a mustache and a pompadour leaned over her at her in an almost threatening way as he asked her:
“Well, what’ll it be tonight, Mag?”
She went all kittenish, rubbing herself up against me, gurgling: “I want you to meet everybody’s favorite barman, Billy Beachnut. Whad’ja say your name was, Mac?”