This World

Chapter Five.

Preparation

Sure death outside, for them. But not for me. And I had the strongest reason of all to risk it, a reason they could no longer understand except abstractly, intellectually. None of them had a ceaseless longing gnawing at them, for the simple reason that anyone they’d left behind was long dead, or much aged. Their very longevity separated them from the rest of the world, even more effectively than the surrounding mountains. I didn’t want to be separated that way from Marianne. It wasn’t heroism that made me determined to return: Death or capture seemed easier than living on without her.

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Chapter Four.

Realities

“It’s me, all right. The name Bryant that he says is my right name ain’t the right one, but if you knew where to look, you’d find the old news stories about me quick enough. Not that it matters: The statutes of limitations don’t run any 30 years, and anyway it wouldn’t be so easy, extraditing me out of here.”

“But except for the names, the rest of the story is true?”

“Oh, more or less. Like Huck Finn says, he stretched it here and there, but mostly he told the truth.”

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Chapter Three.

Introductions

I had a long winter and spring ahead of me before I could try to get over the mountains to India, and the monastery was not so large a place to roam. I soon used up its spaces.

I’d get up in the morning—after sleeping as late as possible and then lying in bed staring up and out at the blue‑black sky beyond my window—and wander down to the kitchen to fix myself some tea. (In those early days I sorely missed my coffee.) Then I’d make my way down to Mr. Barnard’s greenhouse, or his workshop, or I’d pace one of the little patios that open off the main buildings. Sooner or later Mr. Barnard and I would come together and we’d have a lunch, usually some thick slices of bread and butter, or perhaps a few pieces of fruit. And while we ate, and later while we sat in the library rooms or went outside for a smoke, he and I would talk.

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Chapter Two.

The Monastery

Late the following morning, Mr. Barnard found me lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, wondering how long the trek back would take. Provided the place wasn’t an elaborate Chinese trap, I figured I’d stumbled into probably the only place in Tibet that would help me get back over the border into India or Pakistan. I figured they’d give me provisions, and maybe even a guide. Working our way by night, moving with someone who knew the terrain, I figured five nights, maybe. I couldn’t get over the good luck that had brought me safely here. Assuming that the place was what it seemed.

And suddenly there was Mr. Barnard at the door. “Well,” he said, beaming benevolently down at me like a Buddha with a mustache, “when I looked in on you a while back, you looked like you were working hard on catching up on your sleep. How are you feeling now?”

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My first novel Messenger won an award, and is still my baby, but it is long out of print. I have the remaining copies, which I sell when someone wants one, but I have no objection to giving it away for free in digital form. For the next fourteen Fridays, I propose to print one chapter here. It’s a slow way to read a book, but its free.

Continue reading Messenger on Fridays

I just read a short story of Doris Lessing’s called “The Reason For It.”

In this terrible year 2016, the story has such resonance for me. If I had tears, this would bring them.

Find it. Draw your own analogies.

Do anything long enough, consistently enough, and it adds up. On Sept. 6, 1966, I bought a blank book (as they were called) and made my first journal entry.

Fifty years and 102 journal books later, the collection looks like this.

Any way you measure it, that’s a lot of water under the bridge.