“How long did it take you?” Mother said to me.
“All day,” I said.
“Aye, captain,” Alex said. “Aw, it’s pretty rough out there, what with the wind and the rising sea.”
“What will you write about?” my father asked.
“He’ll write about ocean’s roar and how he just went around the Horn. You’re looking at Francis Chichester! The foam beating against the wheelhouse, the mainsheet screaming, the wind and the rising waves. Hark! Thunder and lightning over The Gypsy Moth!”
Declaiming made Alex imaginative, and stirred his memory. He had an actor’s gift for sudden shouts and whispers and for giving himself wholly to the speech. It was as if he was on an instant touched with lucid insanity, the exalted chaos of creation. He was triumphant.
“But look at him now—Peter Freuchen of the seven seas, the old tar in his clinker-built boat. He’s home asking his mother to pass the spaghetti! ‘Thanks, Mom, I’d love another helping, Mom.’ After a day in the deep sea, he’s with his mother and father, reaching for the meatballs!”
Joseph was laughing hard, his whole body swelling as he tried to suppress it.
“He’s not going to write about that. No, nothing about the spaghetti. It’ll just be Captain Bligh, all alone, bending at his oars, and picking oakum through the long tumultuous nights at sea. And the wind and the murderous waves …”
“Dry up,” Father said, still eating.
Then they all turned their big sympathetic faces at me across the cluttered dining table. Alex looked slightly sheepish, and the others apprehensive, fearing that I might be offended, that Alex had gone too far.
“What will you write about?” Mother asked.
I shook my head and tried not to smile—because I was thinking: That.
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Introduction
Map
1 - The Great Railway Bazaar
The Mysterious Mister Duffill
Looking out the Window at Yugoslavia
Dusk in Central Turkey
Sadik
Peshawar
The Village in the Railway Station
Mr. Bhardwaj on the Railcar to Simla
In Jaipur with Mr. Gopal
The Grand Trunk Express to the Real India
“I Find You English Girl”—Madras
Mr. Wong the Tooth Mechanic
Mr. Chatterjee’s Calcutta
The Hopping Man
Memories of the Raj—Mr. Bernard in Burma
Gokteik Viaduct
The Hué—Danang Passenger Train, Vietnam 1973
The Trans-Siberian Express
2 - The Old Patagonian Express
Travel Is a Vanishing Act
On the Frontier
Lost Lover in Veracruz
Magic Names
Earthquakes in Guatemala
The Pretty Town of Santa Ana
Soccer in San Salvador
Holy Mass in San Vicente
To Limón with Mr. Thornberry
In the Zone
Shadowing an Indian
High Plains Drifter
Buenos Aires
Borges
In Patagonia
3 - The Kingdom by the Sea
English Traits
Rambler
Falklands News
John Bratby
Shallys
Bognor
(1) B & B: Victory Guest House
(2) B & B: The Puttocks
(3) B & B: The Bull
(4) B & B: Allerford
Holiday Camp
Happy Little Llanelli
Tenby
Naked Lady
Jan Morris
Railway Buff
Llandudno
Looking Seaward
Insulted England
Mrs. Wheeney, Landlady
Belfast
Giant’s Causeway
The Future in Enniskillen
Mooney’s Hotel
Cape Wrath
Royal Visit
Trippers
Typical
4 - Riding the Iron Rooster
Belles du Jour
Mongols
Chinese Inventions
Public Bathhouse
Shanghai
The Red Guards and the Violinist
Performing Animals
The Edge of the World
Lost Cities
Fear of Flying
Handmade Landscape
The Terra-cotta Warriors
Endangered Species Banquet
Shaoshan: “Where the Sun Rises”
The Great Wall
Mr. Tian
Cherry Blossom
Driving to Tibet
Lhasa
5 - Down the Yangtze
Trackers
The Yangtze Gorges
6 - Sunrise with Seamonsters
The Edge of the Great Rift
Curfew
Rats in Rangoon
Writing in the Tropics
Natives and Expatriates
His Highness
The Hotel in No-Man’s-Land
The Pathan Camp
Dingle
Nudists in Corsica
New York Subway
Rowing Around the Cape