Involuntary Bliss Read online

  Our friends are like us in some ways, but they are also different. We are drawn to them because of their similarities, but we delight in their differences most of all. It is their essential strangeness to us that makes us never tire of their company. As we come to know these people, who are our closest friends, he said, we layer our shared experiences upon on our fundamental differences. We retain a great interest in our differences, even as our kinship bonds us together. The fact that we are so different and yet can respond with equal enthusiasm to the same experience seems miraculous, this miracle being the basis of enduring friendship. For instance, the reverence he and Warren shared for the Peruvian novella and its confounding notion of involuntary bliss. The Peruvian novella is not an easy text. Nevertheless, both he and Warren derived such intellectual and emotional sustenance from its pages. This fascinated him, that he as a poet, and Warren as a composer, could both think so highly of the Peruvian novella, could be equally disturbed and perplexed and moved by what went on between its covers. Even after Warren’s accident he was still bound to him by their shared enthusiasm for the text. There was a purity in this bond, he said, a sanctity, even if the text that bound them was perverse. Our closest friends are those whom we admire. The friends we admire reflect our best qualities back to us, or those qualities to which we aspire. There had been much he’d admired about Warren, most of all his warmth and spontaneity, his creativity and irreverence. As his friend, he had basked in Warren’s warmth, which was luminous and radiant. He had seen others drawn to it, the young and the old, the hearty and the infirm. He’d once seen Warren comfort an epileptic infant, he said, until he brought her seizures to a halt. As his friend, said James, he’d had many occasions on which to witness Warren’s spontaneity, which was explosive, reckless, irrepressible. He’d once seen Warren wear a pair of denim trousers as a shirt, he said, a sight that he’d been humbled to behold. So too had he delighted in the boundlessness of Warren’s creativity, the greatest testament to which was the enduring quality of Warren’s musical compositions, which he would perform upon his mandola.

  Finally, he had revered Warren’s irreverence, said James, which he understood to be a kind of holiness. The holiness of Warren’s irreverence is the holiness of an infant who passes gas in a temple, not from any digestive affliction, but because that infant delights in defying God. The holiness of Warren’s irreverence is the holiness of a mongrel that urinates on the leg of a public official, not because the mongrel is incontinent, but because it sees the leg for what it is and wishes to lay claim to it. Some may see these examples as indecorous, said James, these spiritual and civic desecrations. But the mongrel, with the limitations of its canine intellect, is incapable of understanding them as such, the flatulent infant incapable of articulating a more eloquent utterance. Still did he side with the insolent dog; still did he side with the flatulent child. Though Warren had barely begun his twenty-second year at the time of his accident, his convictions had already been fully formed, these convictions being firmly rooted in his sense of compassion, his love of spontaneous expression, his abhorrence of tyranny in all its forms, and his commitment to the Cyclopean as the most viable antidote to the troubles of our times.

  How were these convictions to have manifest themselves had Warren lived? asked James. In good acts, to be sure. In song, for Warren was a composer, in dramatization, for Warren was dramatic, in love, for Warren was passionate. These manifestations were to have unfolded over the course of decades. They were to have been unsettling in their honesty, terrible in their boldness, exquisite in their sincerity. They were to have assumed forms of which only Warren could conceive; they were to have touched many people. From now on until the moment of their death, said James, when those who knew and loved Warren encounter a startling moment of beauty, a sublime instance of ugliness, they would think to themselves, “Warren would have delighted in this,” and they will despair that Warren is not there to share in that moment with them.

  When someone dies, said James, we ask ourselves, what would he have wanted? We ask this question to justify the resumption of routine as life goes on in the wake of loss, to justify our renewed happiness when the period of mourning passes, for the departed loved us dearly and would not have wished prolonged grief upon us. What would Warren have wanted? He surely would not have wanted death so soon. When someone dies a noble death, we honour her with noble deeds. We give money to charitable foundations in her name. When someone dies a natural death, we commemorate his life. We install a park bench facing a scenic vista. When a young man dies an accidental death, a death without meaning, said James, what way is there to honour him? Only with further tragedy. Accident is the mother of tragedy; absurdity its depraved midwife. Crawl back into the womb! But no, it is too late, he said. Tragedy has reared its head and its lungs have tasted air. There is no going back, said James. The progress of tragedy is infinite. Insatiable is its appetite; intractable is its will. I am anguished, said James, and the object of my anguish is Warren’s death. I do not wish my anguish to abate. I am angry, said James. My anger has no object, for Warren’s death was accidental. I do not wish my anger to abate. Warren is dead, said James, and a great measure of hope has died with him, a great number of infants will go uncomforted, a great number of songs will forever go unsung.

  He thus concluded his unsolicited remarks at the funeral, said James, and resumed his seat among Warren’s family and closest friends. There were no further speakers, and the service concluded shortly thereafter. James stayed behind and watched the others as they left the room. Some wore expressions of disgust, others looks of sadness, wiping their eyes with their sleeves and leaning on companions for support, while still others appeared bewildered. None remained unmoved. The case of Warren’s mandola had been open, whereas Warren’s casket had been closed. Someone had buffed the instrument to a shine, he noticed, and replaced its well-worn strings. Never had he seen the instrument in such a pristine state while Warren was alive, he said, and never since. What a surprise to see that the mandola had survived, unlike its owner, he’d thought. Was Warren’s beard still fulsome, making him look like a lion? he wondered. If his casket had been opened, would the undertaker have left it untrimmed, or would it have been tamed? He’d never seen Warren without his beard, he said, and could not imagine how he might appear. He remained alone in the funeral parlour long after all of the other guests had left. He’d felt the undertaker’s eye upon him and wondered for how long he’d be watched. How constant would the undertaker’s vigil be? Surely not more constant than his own. He’d planned to seize Warren’s mandola as soon as the undertaker turned his back, which was precisely what he did. He might have asked his family for it, he’d thought, but he knew it would sound that much sweeter for having been purloined.

  The eulogy had spent something within him, said James, so that he’d felt he had nothing more to say. He was resigned to abandoning his studies, having been unable to finish his paper on the Peruvian novella. What better time, he said, to go on the silent retreat. His grief was such that he did not wish to speak to anyone, and so the structure of the retreat appealed to him in a way it had not when he’d first learned of it from Warren several months before. One was not allowed to speak during the retreat, this being one of the stringent conditions, he said. Neither could one make eye contact, or write or gesture or communicate in any form. He’d take his meals on a small ledge, facing a whitewashed wall. Only two meals a day were provided, he said, and for dinner they had tea with fruit. At first he’d been quite hungry, but after a few days of meditating he’d found that breakfast and lunch and tea with fruit for dinner was perfectly sufficient. After all, it was a meditation retreat, and all he’d been doing was meditating. There’d been a strict prohibition on exercising or vigorous movement of any kind, said James. One was free to walk slowly at particular intervals, on a particular predetermined wooded path, and one was free to meditate the rest of the time. The meditation began at four in the morning, when
they were woken by the sound of a gong. They would meditate for two hours before breakfast. He’d shared a room with one other meditator, each of them sleeping in his own narrow cot. Another condition was a prohibition on sexual activity of any kind. One was not permitted to touch another person if it could be helped, nor was one permitted to touch oneself in a sexual manner. Even before and after the ten days of intensive meditation had begun and ended, hugging and handshaking were frowned upon. The rooms were small, consisting only of two bunks, and also very quiet, because of the prohibition on speaking or on stimulation of any kind. Each roommate knew the conditions and each knew the other also knew them. One could hear every action one’s roommate performed. In accordance with the conditions, not once during the ten days did he masturbate, nor, to the best of his knowledge, did his roommate. Of course he’d thought about it, for though ten days is not very long, it is also an eternity. Not speaking had been relatively easy, even for him, while the prohibition on sexual activity had proven more challenging, and he’d managed to adhere to it only because of the presence of his roommate.

  He’d known the conditions before he arrived at the centre, which was situated on the site of an old boy scout camp. He knew that he would not be allowed to speak and also that he would not be able to read or write. Nevertheless, he’d brought along his notebook and his copy of the Peruvian novella. It was simply instinct, when going on a trip, to bring a notebook along with something to read. To leave for a trip without bringing along a notebook and something to read is like leaving for a trip without one’s toothbrush and change of underwear, he said. He would have brought along Warren’s mandola as well had it not been so difficult to disguise. The fact that the entire purpose of the meditation retreat did not escape him, even as he packed his notebook and his copy of the Peruvian novella to bring with him so he’d have something to read and something in which to write his thoughts about what he’d read, should these urges re-emerge. As he packed, the thought had occurred to him that if he was going on a retreat, he must have been retreating from something. What was it, he’d wondered, that he was retreating from. It was his grief at Warren’s passing, he’d thought. It was the modern world, he’d thought at first, with its myriad distractions. It was the troubles of our times. But no, he’d decided. The silent retreat was not a time machine that would allow him to travel to a pre-modern era or to a time when Warren was alive. Such were the notions of an unthinking person, which he decidedly was not. So obvious was the answer to this question of what he was retreating from that, when it finally came to him, he could not fathom how he’d not thought of it before. When he told me the answer, I too would see how obvious it was. What he’d been retreating from, said James, were his very thoughts themselves.

  Why does one go on the retreat? he asked. Because one has been bested. Because the prospect of victory is so remote and the prospect of annihilation so imminent. This is why the general gives the order on the battlefield in spite of his initial intention to conquer his adversary, or at the least to stand his ground. His own thoughts had bested him, leaving him no recourse but to go on the retreat or else face annihilation. This answer had pleased him when he’d arrived at it, setting his thoughts at ease. It was precisely because he was a thinking person that he’d thought it was a good idea to go on the retreat. An unthinking person would never have thought to go on the retreat, having no thoughts from which to run. What had surprised him during the retreat was precisely how much thinking he’d done, said James. He’d never done so much thinking as he’d done during those ten days. It was as if his thoughts had been anticipating the retreat and had taken measures so that they might overwhelm him nevertheless, vanquishing him in spite of his efforts to escape. The purpose of the silent retreat was to focus one’s attention on one’s breathing, and then on the sensations in various parts of one’s body, to not dwell on one’s thoughts themselves, but let them fall away. This tactic did not work, he said, but allowed him to be routed by his thoughts, which were closely allied with his feelings, the most formidable adversaries of all. When his thoughts detected him sitting in the meditation hall without any form of stimulation, they came to him in tumultuous waves, accompanied by unrelenting gusts of emotion. He was pummelled and cast about and drenched and scoured by waves and gusts, waves and gusts, waves and gusts of thought and feeling, thought and feeling, the two of them working in tandem to overwhelm him. All of these originated in his mind and his memory, which he’d inevitably brought with him on the retreat, along with his notebook and novella. Though he could not escape the waves and gusts, he said, he’d managed to keep the novella and notebook at bay for almost the entire retreat. Shortly after he’d arrived, an announcement had been made that invited anyone who had brought contraband items with them to surrender them for safekeeping for the duration of the retreat. It was as if they had X-ray vision, said James, and had detected his notebook and novella stashed at the bottom of his pack, or else as if they’d read his mind. He’d considered turning them in, but decided against it, finding himself unwilling to demonstrate to the staff of the retreat that he was incapable of following the retreat’s conditions before it had even begun. He would leave them stowed in the bottom of his suitcase for the retreat’s duration, he’d decided, and he’d almost succeeded in doing so, much to his surprise. He’d been tempted, of course, to read his novella and write in his notebook but had managed not to give in because of the presence of his roommate and his roommate’s intimate knowledge of every action he performed. How effective was this method of control, he thought, at governing his actions—this skinny, silent, shaved-headed roommate, over which he in turn was exerting control by being this stranger’s roommate. He’d wished to invite the silent stranger into his mind, to witness his private thoughts so that they might be governed as effectively as his external actions, for though he acted in accordance with the dictates of the retreat, his private thoughts and feelings would not relent in their assault. Retreat was futile, he said. He’d backed himself into a corner, so that he was forced to submit entirely to the mercy of his thoughts and feelings. He was theirs to do with as they pleased, he said. They’d had their way with him over and over and over again, dominating him entirely until he ached with sorrow and begged for their reprieve. He would sit in the meditation hall, and tears would well in his eyes. He would walk the wooded trail and be overcome with rage, his thoughts and feelings persisting on that trail as they did at all other times. He thought of Warren, said James, of the short time he’d known him, and of the bond that had formed between them in that time. He thought of the content of his unsolicited eulogy and how it had not done Warren justice. His thoughts of Warren were associated with feelings of sadness and isolation, these feelings compounded by the experiences of happiness and friendship that had come before them, he said. He thought of the infants in the nursery of the Children’s Hospital and of the nurses who tended to them. He thought of the time he’d spent in the infants’ presence, of how they’d responded to his voice, his face, his touch. His thoughts of the infants were accompanied by the sound of their cries, which would echo with increasing volume in his inner ear. These aural traces were associated with feelings of sadness, for he knew that some would not survive, a knowledge that inspired shame for having left the nursery in the way he had. He thought of the missionaries, of how their presence on his doorstep suffused him with contradictory feelings he could not express nor fully comprehend. He thought of their concern for him, of how misguided it had been. Had they knocked on Warren’s door, he thought, his accident might have been averted, for Warren would have picked up the gauntlet they threw down, he thought, with their gospel of eternal love. Then he thought about the Peruvian novella and its confounding notion of involuntary bliss, which was unlike anything he’d read before. He thought about how someone, a person, could write something with such power. Thoughts of the Peruvian novella were disturbing because of the images its words created in the reader’s mind, because of the events it described
. These thoughts were associated with feelings of astonishment, of revulsion, but also of exhilaration, which he could feel throughout his entire body. The reading of the novella was not just an intellectual exercise but a force that was manifest in his organs and his bones, his muscles and capillaries, on his membranes and his skin. Even as he described it, he could feel its presence welling up within him, goose pimples forming on his flesh. The experience of reading it had transformed his understanding of what it was possible to imagine, he said. Thoughts of the novella and its notion of involuntary bliss gave coherence to all his other thoughts and feelings, as gradually they assumed the form of images and words. He’d started writing in the dark after his roommate would fall asleep. He’d listen for the sound of his roommate’s snore, which camouflaged the sound of his pen upon the page. Writing was the same as waving the white flag, capitulating to his thoughts and feelings. The act of writing was all the more satisfying for being forbidden, he said, and the writing brought him joy. In exchange for his surrender, his thoughts and feelings granted him the inception of “The Maundering Harlequins.” So too from the retreat arose his conviction that it was necessary for him to go to Peru alone. He’d wished that I might go with him in Warren’s stead, though of course he knew that I could not. He did not fault me for my unwavering commitment to my studies, he said, and I recalled the letter I’d received on a gloomy April afternoon after I’d neither seen nor heard from James since he’d so abruptly dropped out five months before. One side of the pages had X’s marked across them, indicating that he did not intend them for me to read. Many of the typewritten lines on this side of the paper were edited by hand in an indecipherable scrawl. The handwriting on the other side of the paper, though not neat, was quite legible. I thus discovered James had two forms of handwriting: one in which he wrote for himself and one he intended for others. I assumed that his more formal cursive style was simply born out of the necessity of producing legible correspondence, but I could not help but wonder if the dual nature of his handwriting indicated something more, perhaps betraying that the persona he presented to the world was at a greater remove from his inner life than he would have others believe.