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Addis Ababa/Barcelona
It's a cliché that Africa can get into
your blood after you have lived there
for some time, and as in the case of
most clichés there is some truth to
this. In Africa the deeper
realities of life become much
clearer. You may feel your
creatureness there, that you are one of
the infinite living things on the
planet. You find that ancient ways
of living still prevail in a setting
largely devoid of the accoutrements of
modern civilization, and this
"primitivism" along with the raw natural
grandeur of the place makes Africa
seductive to some outsiders, repellant
to others. For those like
myself who are seduced, departing the
continent, perhaps never to return,
produces a certain wistfulness, as if
you were leaving a place that had only
begun to reveal its many secrets, a
place where understanding might be found
if you could only stay and look long
enough.
I
had lived in Africa for two years,
teaching English at a provincial school
in the Middle Kingdom of Ethiopia, in
the highlands just above the Great Rift
Valley, and now I was
leaving. Recently I had been
fantasizing a little about the charms of
Europe, and in July of 1964 it seemed
that these daydreams were about to come
true. I had booked passage on a
freighter I was to board at
Djibouti. The ship would
stop at Suez and Port Said, then
Barcelona for a day before going on to
Marseilles, its destination, where I had
made plans to meet friends.
My idea was to take the train from Addis
Ababa to Dire Dawa, then go up to Harar
on a bus and spend a few days walking
the streets in the footsteps of Rimbaud,
who had lived his last years
there. All went according to
plan, and I did stay in Harar for a
while, looking at the city and soaking
up the lingering spirit of the poet,
marveling at the strangeness of the
place, which had once been the fourth
holiest city of Islam.
Having caught something of the presence
of Rimbaud, I decided to prolong the
sensation by following his final path
from Harar to Djibouti. It
had been necessary to carry him on a
litter most of the way, some of it
through the Danakil Desert, hottest
place on Earth. Aided by a
Frenchman, I had befriended in Harar I
managed to join a camel caravan for the
first part of the trip.
During my time in East Africa I had
occasionally wondered what it would be
like to ride a camel, and now I found
out. Eventually you get used to
the rhythm of the camels'
walk. It was the heat and
time considerations that forced me to
abandon the adventure. I
picked up a bus, and then, for the
second time, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti
train.
The
day after arriving in Djibouti I found
out that the Ferdinand de Lesseps was a
week behind schedule. So I would
have to stay in Djibouti for eight
days. There was no
air-conditioning anywhere, only some
slow moving ceiling fans. I
might as well have stayed with the camel
caravan. There was another
problem. I was low on money
and needed to cash a U.S. Treasury
check, which I didn't think would
present much difficulty. However,
when I went to the U.S. Consulate the
man told me they could not cash it, and
he didn't know if the bank there would
cash it or not, banking practices being
somewhat erratic in French
Somalia. This fellow had a
table fan, the only one I had seen,
going full blast on top of his desk, and
just for a moment I envied him a
little. That afternoon I
found out that the Banque de Djibouti
would not honor the check.
Counting up what I had I figured it was
just enough to stay at the Hotel Europa
for ten days if I were careful about
food and drink. On my third
day in this oven at the bottom of the
Red Sea the electricity went out, which
meant that all the overhead fans stopped
turning, all the ice melted, and cold
drinks of any kind were no longer
available. This continued
for four days during which time I could
do little other than lie in bed in my
darkened hotel room, sweating and
continuously drinking tepid water, just
to keep from dehydrating, dozing now and
then on sheets completely saturated with
sweat. There were no
thermometers anywhere, so I didn't know
exactly how hot it was. The
citizens of Djibouti probably didn't
want to know at what temperature they
were being slowly roasted.
The American at the consulate had told
me it was not very unusual for the
temperature to rise to 130
degrees. When the
electricity finally came back on I spent
a couple of evenings nursing a cold
drink in one of the bars that had a
decent ceiling fan. A few
times I wandered around the marketplace,
admiring the colors and patterns of the
Somali garb. In the bright
sunlight, if there are enough people in
close proximity, the effect is
kaleidoscopic.
When the Ferdinand de Lesseps finally
arrived and began taking on passengers,
I settled my bill with the Hotel Europa,
thinking I had just enough to pay
it. The bill was more than I
had counted on, and after some dispute I
gave the manager everything I had and
explained that I could give him no more
until I had cashed my check, which I
could not do in Djibouti.
The amount I owed was not great, and
eventually I persuaded the man, in my
very awkward French, that when I got to
Barcelona I would send him an
international money order for what I
owed. We both knew there
were several bogus items on the bill,
and the solution I offered seemed good
enough to save face, so it was agreed
upon.
When I boarded the freighter I was
directed to a bunk in third
class. The other bunks in my
vicinity were occupied by five French
Foreign Legionnaires from Madagascar on
the way to rejoin their company in
Morocco. There was a bar on
the ship, but neither the Legionnaires
nor I had any money to spend, the purser
having politely refused to cash my
check, so we all stayed below decks
a lot, teaching eachother English and
French, and reading. I did,
however, spend some time on deck,
looking at the little islands in the Red
Sea, some of which were sprinkled with
ancient Roman ruins. On my
third trip to the dining room I
discovered that a friend of mine, an
Indian teacher from my school, was also
on the Ferdinand de Lesseps, in steerage
like myself only in a different part of
the ship. When the captain
announced that we would be stopping at
Suez for a day and a half, and we could
disembark if we wished, I asked Mukergee
if I could borrow bus fare to Cairo and
Giza and pay him back when we got to
Barcelona. He agreed it
would be a shame to miss such an
opportunity for lack of a few
dollars. So when we arrived
in Suez the two of us went off to see
the sights. It was a piece
of luck for me that Mukergee had
happened to be on board.
Otherwise, close as they were, I would
not have been able to visit the
pyramids. My last view of
Africa was the minaretted skyline of
Cairo, an image that makes an indelible
stamp on the memory. After
two or three days sailing on the
Mediterranean we reached Barcelona one
morning about 8 am. The
captain announced that we could
disembark but we had to be back on board
by 8 P.M., as the ship was sailing for
Marseilles at nine.
I
had fallen for Africa, in my way, but
now that I was in a beautiful European
city on a fine summer day an immense
wave of relief swept over me, as I
realized that I was now truly out of the
embrace of that exotic and sometimes
dangerous lover. Suddenly I
felt like a European who has returned
after a long journey to faraway
places. As I began walking
the streets of Barcelona a feeling came
over me such as I had never had
before. It was love of some
sort, having to do with an all-embracing
happiness. Is there any
doubt that happiness is a spiritual
condition? This kind of
happiness precludes the usual human
weaknesses, greed, ambition, prejudice,
malice, pride, fear, competitiveness,
all the things that lead us inevitably
to war. Vanquished by love
and happiness, all these faults
disappear. They may be
lurking somewhere, asleep and hidden,
but so long as this state of grace
exists they are of no
account. I felt like a
butterfly that has just emerged from its
cocoon to discover not only light but
that it can fly in this light, absorbing
all the glories around
it. Just to be walking the
streets of Barcelona was so
exhilarating, so exalting, that nothing
else mattered. I felt I was in
paradise, that I had, like the dervish,
forgotten myself and become the
universe. Then I saw my
first example of Gaudi's architecture,
and my ecstasy doubled. And
as I walked I encountered more of the
products of Gaudi's genius.
No artist has left a greater imprint on
a city than Antoni Gaudi. As
I walked it occurred to me that it might
be nice to sit down at a sidewalk cafe,
bask in the ambience, and write a poem
about what was happening. I
had spent the few dollars Mukergee had
lent me for the trip to the pyramids, so
I began asking directions to the
American Express, and when I found
someone who knew where it was I set my
winged feet in that
direction. I walked for
miles, it seemed. No
problem. I was in good shape
for walking, having trekked around
Africa for two years. Then I
came upon the Sagrada Familia and
a delirium of joy possessed me. I
stood and stared at it for a long time
in a rapture of
wonderment. My thought was
that as soon as I had cashed my check I
would return here and sit in one of the
cafes facing the cathedral.
With this in mind, and still floating
like a butterfly, I went on to the
American Express where I was informed
that they could not cash a U.S. Treasury
check. I asked if there were
any banks nearby that might be able
to. They suggested a bank
twelve blocks away. I walked
hurriedly to this bank, only to be
turned down again. I tried
another bank. No
luck. I was beginning to
think a U.S. Treasury check was worth
about as much as a rubber
nickel. Under other
circumstances these rejections would
have had the effect of making me
frustrated, despondent, and perhaps
angry. But today was not a
normal day. Each of my
setbacks only served to reinforce my
happiness. When the bank
officials turned me down I would smile,
a genuine smile, as if to say
"Aha! So much the better!"
They must have thought I was not all
there.
It
was getting to be time when the banks
closed, and not only was I still broke,
I was by now a long way from the
Ferdinand de Lesseps. So I began
heading back toward the harbor.
How strange, I began to think as I
walked, that on this happiest of days I
should be alone and penniless in a
foreign city. Perhaps that was why
I felt I had come to know the city
itself and something of its soul, which
of course had to do with
Gaudi. Would it have made me
happier if I had been able to cash the
check? I did not see how my
mood could have been
improved. Still the question
nagged at me a little. How would I
repay Mukergee? Then,
rounding a corner, I came upon a small
bank where a man was holding the door
open for a woman who was
leaving. I rushed up to the
man and asked if it was too late to make
a transaction. He seemed
amused by my Spanish, and maybe by my
exuberance. He asked what
kind of transaction, and when I
answered, without really meaning to I
began telling my story. He
invited me to come into the bank, and
after he had looked at the check and my
passport asked me how I would like the
money. I could hardly
believe my ears. Was it
possible? I asked for
pesetas, francs, and dollars, and after
he had given me the money I told him how
grateful I was, and would he allow me to
buy him a drink
somewhere? Felipe, as I
learned was his name, expressed an
interest in my travels and said he knew
a "perfect" sidewalk café.
And when we arrived I could
see that indeed it was a perfect
sidewalk café.
There were trees, beautiful women, who
all seemed to be smiling at me, music,
laughter, wonderful aromas.
We ordered a pitcher of sangria and I
told Felipe, as best I could, the
history of my journey. He
was quite fascinated, and eventually
asked if I would like to have dinner
with him and his wife and teenage son
and daughter. He was certain
they would like to hear the
story. His son was
especially interested in
Africa. Regrettably, I told him, I
had to be back on the ship by 8 o'clock,
but I said, I had fallen in love at
first sight with Barcelona and intended
to return soon to live for as long as I
could. I asked Felipe about
the city, about Gaudi and Picasso and
Miro and Dali, all of whom had lived in
Catalonia. He spoke very
warmly of Gaudi, and when he told me
that Gaudi, who could have had a life of
luxury had chosen to live like a monk
because he believed in poverty and that
a simple creative life was the path to
happiness, I laughed out
loud. Felipe looked at me
quizzically, upon which I explained that
I was laughing in agreement with Gaudi,
that because of the circumstances of the
day he could not have given me any more
welcome information. When
Felipe had to leave I promised to call
him when I got back and we would have
that dinner.
There were still a couple of hours
before I had to be back at the harbor,
so I thought that since I had had money
now I could take a taxi to the Sagrada
Familia and fulfill the promise I had
made to myself. I found a
taxi and soon I was back at the
cathedral sitting in the sidewalk café
I had eyed before. As I
gazed at Gaudi's masterpiece my
meditations on him and my day in
Barcelona together made quite a mix,
full of tidbits and
rarities. Only years later
did I begin to understand what it had
meant to me as an
artist. Discovering Gaudi's
creations on the same day that
conditions had conspired to produce in
me a kind of ecstasy complete with
revelations had taken hold forever in my
blood and bone. It was the
first step, and a giant one, in my
evolution as a painter of
joyfulness. Perhaps in some way I
have always been trying to
recapture that glorious day in
Barcelona, the first day of a new
life. If I have enough lives
maybe one day I will be able to paint
the indescribable sensations of those
twelve hours.
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