On an unlucky day she happened to meet a wildly romantic Albanian brigand more than sixty years old, and after a protracted interlude with him, which rocked Athenian society, broke loose and scuttled off to Damascus, where she underwent an instantaneous conversion to desert life, which she found congenial. Although now in her forties, she struck up a liaison with a young sheik to whom she made the extraordinary proposal that he divorce his wife, give up his harem of a dozen beauties, and rely upon her to replace both. Understandably he refused, so at forty-seven she launched into a vigorous affair with an older sheik and crossed the desert with him as a member of his caravan.
Her free spirit had so captivated the younger sheik that in her absence he did divorce his Muslim wife and he did get rid of his harem. Under those circumstances Jane married him and they lived happily ever after. In her late sixties she was riding by his side in tribal warfare, and at seventy-two she was coursing in camel caravans over the desert, avowing that her sexual appetites were as vital as ever and her attractiveness to men undiminished. At seventy-four, however, she began to slow down somewhat and complained that she could spend no more than a morning in the saddle. At the end of the year, having successfully avoided the plague of cholera that was sweeping Syria, she was struck down by the humiliating disease of dysentery and died of it.
Her devoted husband, whom the niggardly press of Victorian England called ‘a dirty little black Bedouin shaykh,’ followed her casket to the grave, riding her favorite black mare.
If ever I was tempted to be harsh in my judgment of Monica, I was restrained by the thought of Jane Digby, granddaughter of an earl, Lady Ellenborough, Baroness Venningen, Countess Theotokoy, mistress of two kings—father and son—inspiration of Balzac, companion to an Albanian brigand, and beloved wife of Sheik Abdul Medjudel of Damascus.
I returned Monica to the group and as usual no one questioned where she had been.
‘I think you ought to get out of here right away,’ I said. ‘The German might come back.’
‘I don’t want to see him again,’ Yigal said.
‘Where can we go?’ Britta asked.
‘Somewhere over there,’ Joe said, pushing his hands toward the west.
‘I know!’ Gretchen said. ‘We’ll go back toward Silves. I’ve been wanting to see the castle again.’
So it was agreed that they would set out at once for Silves, and after that, to whatever areas came to mind, but Gretchen interposed a caveat. ‘I will not leave without saying goodbye to the people at Alte.’
‘That’s where the German will head if he doubles back.’
‘I don’t care. Those people did so much for us. To leave in silence would be criminal.’
So we drove back to Alte, and I think all of us were apprehensive lest we confront the ominous gray Mercedes, but it did not appear. The young people said their farewells, some tearful, to the mountain people, and Gretchen entrusted one woman with ten American dollars for Maria Concepcião when she next came to the dance.
They then accompanied me to my car as I headed back to Faro. ‘If we don’t see you again,’ Joe said, ‘you’re one hell of a man with a club.’
‘Where will you be going?’ Britta asked.
‘I must get back to Geneva. Because the first two weeks in July, I always go to Pamplona.’
Gretchen snapped her fingers. ‘Isn’t that where Hemingway went? The Sun Also Rises?’ When I nodded, she said excitedly, ‘Did you say July?’
‘Seven days from now.’
‘My God! We could go over to Silves tonight … then up to Lisboa … then …’
Britta asked, ‘Where will you be in Pamplona?’
‘Bar Vasca,’ I said, and as I drove down the hill I could see them in my rear-view mirror, unfolding maps.
IX
THE TECH REP
I do not love war, but I love the courage
with which the average man faces up to war.
The world is but a place of shadows. The guest pauses for but a few nights and departs confused, never knowing for sure where he has been. Beyond the horizon he feels certain he will find a better city, a fairer prospect, a more sonorous group of singing companions. But when his camels are tethered he will find himself engaged with still yet another set of shadows.
Our country is wherever we are well off.—Cicero
This is the door where you get books about America when you want to go to college, and this is the window where you throw the bomb when we have the next demonstration.
Jungle, desert, tundra, icecap, the long wastes of the sea … these are the mansions of the lonely spirit.
In ancient Baghdad there was a wise man who had read Somerset Maugham, and when he saw death stalking the marketplace he said, ‘I’m not so stupid as to try hiding out in Samarra. I’m going to lay low in a little village on the other end of the Bridge of San Luis Rey.’
The President is going on a twelve-day tour to visit some friendly nations. What will he do the other eleven days?
Never was a patriot yet, but was a fool.—Dryden
Lasca used to ride
On a mouse-gray mustang close to my side,
With a blue serape and bright-belled spur;
I laughed with joy as I looked at her!
Little she knew of books or creeds;
An Ave Maria sufficed her needs;
Little she cared, save to be at my side,
To ride with me, and ever to ride …
—Frank Desprez
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.—Stevenson
A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every nation but his own.
—Canning
Last time I saw Harry, I think he was on the sauce. It was in a Jersey City diner and he insisted upon paying his compliments to the chef for some extra fine waffles.
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound
So all the cracks had gathered for the fray.
—Banjo Patterson
Go on smoking. Who needs two lungs?
We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger.
—La Rochefoucauld
Girl Scouts wear green berets.
Show me a man who keeps his two feet on the ground and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants off.
A good man must have trained the army for seven years before it is fit to go to war. To lead an untrained multitude into battle is equivalent to throwing it away.—Confucius.
Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.—Barrie
They sleep perpetually on small islands that we may sleep peacefully at home.
It was now the first of July, so naturally my thoughts turned to Afghanistan, and as I closed my desk in Geneva, I could visualize the great plateau with camel caravans drifting down from the Russian border, the crowded bazaars, vines laden with the best melons in the world, dirty tearooms where men on their haunches endeavored to make one cup last for three hours while discussing those inconsequential things which had preoccupied nomads for the last five thousand years.
It was a land of men, undisciplined men cast in an ancient mold, and no matter where I happened to be working, if someone uttered the word Afghanistan, I wanted immediately to set forth. I wanted to see Kabul again, and the soaring Hindu Kush, and the caravans coming home at night through the city gates of Herat or Mazar-i-Sharif. I had worked in Afghanistan on three different occasions, trying to put together investment opportunities for World Mutual, but had accomplished nothing, primarily because the Russians invariably offered a better deal. Of all the countries of the world in which I have worked, Afghanistan is the one I would always want to go back to.
But when I thought of Afghanistan on that first of July, it was for none of these reasons.
I saw not mountains and caravans, but a man, a ruggedly built man, forty-five years old, black hair, quiet gray eyes, five feet ten, with a slight cleft to his chin and a somber, determined manner. I saw him not on the desert, where he had spent much of his time these past two years, but in a rented house in Kabul near the slap-dash airport. The house was unforgettable in that every item within it was in place. In the bathroom, for example, the two toothbrushes—green for morning, red for night-time—hung precisely by the mirrored cabinet, inside of which stood a row of bottles, each in its designated position: one for aftershave lotion, one for mouthwash, one for dysentery pills, et cetera. His bathrobe hung from a special hook, his towels were piled neatly in three sizes, his Sears, Roebuck scales stood in polished chrome by the door, his backscratcher by the tub.
It was the same throughout the rest of the house. His dressing room contained neat piles of handkerchiefs, white shirts, jockey shorts; his closet displayed rows of suits and tan shoes. It was by no means the house of a fastidious or effeminate man; it was the house of a meticulous one, who wanted things just so, with a minimum of confusion. His rack of guns, well used, was conspicuous in the hallway, and spread on the floor of his study lay an enormous tiger skin, the head snarling with immense white teeth.
This was the home of Harvey Holt, legal citizen of Wyoming, divorced, graduate of the Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College, and field expert on radar, on loan to the government of Afghanistan from the Union Communications Company of New York. More briefly, Harvey Holt was a tech rep.
Whatever financial good luck I’ve had in my later years has sprung primarily from the fact that I’ve worked with tech reps, those tough, difficult men who serve at the frontiers of modern industry. If I were required to operate in a dangerous terrain, I would rather have as my companion a good tech rep than any other type of man. I could depend on him.
What is a tech rep? Look at it this way. Pan American Airways has a handful of outmoded propeller planes it can no longer use on long hauls in competition with jets. So it unloads them cheap to some small country which is just beginning its own airline and needs short-haul planes … say, Burma. To sweeten the deal, Pan American arranges with Lockheed, who made the prop plane, to send along a team of six technical representatives to explain to the Burmese how to operate the old planes.
This team works in Burma for seven months, penetrating to every airfield at which the planes land. When necessary, the men live in grass huts, ford rivers, fight off jungle animals, raise hell in Rangoon when they are lucky enough to be stationed at the capital, and very shortly know more about Burma than the experts, for there is no part of the Burma experience in which they do not involve themselves. Usually they even learn to speak a rough Burmese. But their principal job remains the same: ‘Keep those planes flying!’ If they have to make a needed spare part in a local machine shop, they make it. And at the same time they are teaching the Burmese to take over.
At the end of the seven months, five of the tech reps return to the United States for their next assignment. The sixth man stays on in Burma, caring for all the Lockheeds in the country. Alone, he settles into a strange and sometimes wonderful life, with an apartment in Rangoon, a hangout in Mandalay, a bar in Myitkyina where he leaves a change of clothing, and a hut up in the mountains at the far end of the line. He often takes a Burmese mistress, or two or three at different airfields, and after he’s been in Rangoon for any length of time he is apt to argue bitterly against our State Department men, or the Foreign Office types from London, for he has become Burmese and defends their interests. He is much more sympathetic to their problems than to those of his own country.
The years pass, and he remains in Burma, servicing Lockheeds. He can handle not only the flying problems which develop, but also the maintenance, the servicing of brakes, the overhaul of radios and the replacement of the hydraulic system. His technical knowledge is formidable. At times he keeps the whole Burmese fleet of aircraft operable; without him the planes could not fly. And he functions in any weather, at any altitude, in any emergency. If one word were used to describe him, it would have to be ‘competent.’ He can do things. He can keep aircraft flying, and if a pilot were to conk out, he could fly the plane himself.
In the remote areas of the world, I have known hundreds of tech reps—aviation, heavy tractors, communications, x-ray technicians, Coca-Cola bottlers, General Motors maintenance—and they always have four characteristics.
First, they are intelligent. Most of them quit education before acquiring their college degrees, but they know much more than the average college graduate. And they continue their education throughout their lives. If Lockheed discovers a better way to do something, the tech rep in Burma will study the report in his jungle hut until he knows every nuance of the innovation, knows it perhaps better than the man who dreamed it up. Or if Lockheed overlooks something it should have been attending to, some tech rep in Burma or Pakistan will invent a device that will do the trick. Their knowledge is pragmatic, but profound.
Second, they are difficult to manage. Left alone in the Burmese jungle, they operate beautifully. Bring them back to California, where they have to attend parties given by the head of engineering, and they fall apart. In civilization they tend to be drunks, lechers, malcontents and irresponsibles. On the frontier they are powerfully organized. Putting it another way, they are the darlings of the technical staff, the despair of the personnel men. Within two weeks of bringing a tech rep back to headquarters, the man in charge of the home office can be depended upon to shout, ‘Get that miserable son-of-a-bitch out of here.’ But if you send a man to Burma who is not psychologically suited to be a tech rep, even worse trouble develops, and the same boss, reading the reports from the Burmese government, will growl, ‘Get that poor jerk out of there and send them a real man.’ So the difficult, untamed, competent tech rep is flown out on the next plane, and there is no more trouble in Burma. Thus the tech rep is a continuation of a fundamental strain in American life. He is the lineal descendant of the gifted wagon maker who could not get along in the settled civilization of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but who was invaluable on the frontier at Santa Fe.
Third, practically every tech rep I have known has had trouble with women. He loves them … invariably he loves them in a tough, manly sort of way. But he cannot live with them. They baffle him, confuse him, tear him to shreds with their feminine inconsistencies. If you summoned one hundred tech reps to a convention in Bombay, you would find that at least eighty of them were divorced some more than once. But in the bars, when the convention meetings were over, you would not find them complaining about their former wives. They would speak most often from deep confusion: ‘I don’t know what happened. She couldn’t stand life away from home, I guess.’ You would hear no recriminations: ‘After all, I was scheduled to be in Formosa for seventeen months. There was no place for her, so I left her in Amarillo and never saw her again.’ But you would also hear some hilarious stories: ‘I met this cute chick in Kowloon and set her up with a millinery shop in Hong Kong. A business partnership. I put twelve thousand dollars into the deal, and I had been in Hokkaido for exactly two months, when she sold the place and ran off with the twelve thousand … and a newspaperman from the Chicago Tribune.’
But no amount of disillusion or ill treatment is sufficient to turn a tech rep away from women. I have never known a misogynist among them. They bounce from one disaster to the next with a kind of animal joy, and the man whose former Chinese mistress runs off with twelve thousand dollars one day, is lending his new Japanese mistress fourteen thousand the next. The scars of love these men bear are not all psychological; many have been cut with knives or broken bottles. Two that I knew had been shot at by their unstable wives. One had been fed ever-increasing doses of poison until he protested, ‘This oatmeal is either sour or poisoned, and I bought the goddamned stuff yesterday.’ But at the trial he refused to testify against his wife. When it developed that three of her earlier husbands
had died mysteriously—all having been partial to oatmeal—he said simply, ‘Sometimes a guy gets out just in time.’ He told me this in a hut in northern Thailand, where his Siamese mistress had learned how to make oatmeal from boxes of the cereal he scrounged from the United States army base outside Bangkok.
Fourth, every tech rep I have ever known was a nut about high-fidelity music systems and spent much money on equipment. No matter where they pitched their tents, no matter how far into the jungle or how remote from the capital city of the nation they served, the tech reps insisted upon having good sound, and to get it, they went to extraordinary lengths. Because the supply of electricity varied so much from country to country, any tech rep who had to depend upon the local system had to provide his own voltage regulators, transformers, capacitors and safety switches. To bring a fluctuating 220 Burmese volts down to the smooth 110 which American equipment required, the tech rep would often need half a Jeep-load of gear, and this he would gladly lug from one base to the next, content to spend time and money on the project just so long as the end result was sound of high quality. In his assembling of units he was most catholic, for he used Leak speakers from England, Tandberg recorders from Sweden, Sony amplifiers from Japan, Dual turntables from Germany, and McIntosh preamplifiers from the United States. To collect this complicated gear from so many different sources required an ingenuity of its own, and one of the first things a tech rep did on reporting to a new country was to ascertain how he could promote the various components he needed. Pilots from Scandinavian Airlines System could be relied upon to bring the Tandbergs, German technicians working in the country usually could get hold of the fine turntables produced in the Ruhr, and sooner or later each tech rep established relations with someone in the United States embassy who would import McIntosh or Fisher gear. It was not unusual for older tech reps to spend two or three thousand dollars for an assembly.