Brahma
03-31-2011, 10:22 PM
Bon Voyage!
I FIRST met Jim and Gracie Hamilton at a funeral.
I’d noticed a woman, petite, late-middle-aged, sad-faced, staring at me across the church aisle a couple of times during the service, and then again afterwards as we handful of strangers huddled around the grave site, and had wondered briefly who she and the man with her might be.
It was a bitterly cold mid-February morning, with ice on the ground and a chill breeze coming in from the north, and I’d have preferred to be just about anywhere than where I was. Somewhere warm. Somewhere, too, away from that solemn voice intoning about the corruptibility of human flesh and the afterlife.
But I’d always thought of Bob Campbell as a friend – not close, but a long-standing friend nevertheless - and I’d have stayed to the end of the service regardless. In any case, I’d felt my presence to be a consolatory comment on a life that had started out with so much promise, and had ended up a road accident statistic.
The minister had finished intoning, and I started to leave.
“You’re Michael, aren’t you?” a soft voice said at my shoulder.
“What …?” I turned to face the woman who’d been staring at me.
“I’m Bob’s aunt Grace,” she said. “Bob’s father was my brother.”
“Oh … right,” I said, and shook her extended hand. “Bob told me in one of his letters that he was living with you.”
“Call me Gracie,” she said. “Everybody does.”
She gestured toward the man I’d seen with her, and who now came up to us.
“And this is my husband, Jim,” she said affectionately, introducing him.
Jim Hamilton had the face of a man who had spent much of his life at odds with the world. A big man: tall, with the slope-shouldered physique of a weightlifter inside his overcoat, and a directness in his manner that might have been confronting in different circumstances.
“Hello,’ I said, and extended my hand.
“You Michael … Bob’s friend?” Jim Hamilton asked.
“Yes,” I said, and felt a momentary anxiety for the welfare of my fingers in his grasp.
“Look, Michael,” Gracie Hamilton said, “could you spare us an hour or so? I’d love a chat.” She gestured vaguely. “You could follow us.”
“Well … okay,” I said. “Yes, sure.”
A moment or so later I was pulling my rented Ford out behind a black Mercedes. A moment after that, I was struggling to keep pace with the powerful car, which Jim Hamilton was driving with abandon.
We were soon on the outskirts of suburbia; then, as the few remaining houses were replaced by open fields, we turned from the road onto a gravel track. And there, suddenly, emerging from behind a screen of trees, was their house: a granite creation straight out of a Bronte novel.
•••
“Bob admired you,” said Gracie Hamilton. “Often mentioned you.” She paused, as though remembering. “Sad, isn’t it, that we all never met.”
We were ensconced in the Hamiltons’ lounge, a mellow, autumn-toned, book-lined room with a fire burning. I had expressed my admiration for the house, and had been shown over several of the ground floor rooms. Jim Hamilton had excused himself, and was followed by the crunch of tyres on gravel as the Mercedes departed.
Now I was enjoying my second cup of excellent coffee.
“Well, I’ve moved around a lot, these last few years,” I said.
“Yes. Bob showed us some of your postcards …” Gracie Hamilton paused and looked at me enquiringly. “Morocco … Algeria … Tunisia. What were you doing in North Africa?”
“It’s no secret,” I said, smiling. “I was studying Islamic culture.”
“Oh …” There was the merest trace of censure, or at least of disapproval, in her voice.
“I was also teaching English,” I said. “That paid for my upkeep and Arabic lessons.”
“You speak Arabic?”
“Not fluently. It’s a difficult language for a Westerner to speak, harder still to write.”
“Jim hates Islam.” Gracie Hamilton moved uncomfortably in her armchair.
“Oh, there’s a lot of negative propaganda about,” I said.
“He’s not well.”
“I’m sorry … ?” I said uncertainly. “What … ?”
“Jim. He’s dying, and I think he knows he is. But he won’t admit it, and he’s angry with … oh, with everything.”
Her eyes were moist, and I felt a sudden urge to get up and step across and comfort her. But natural reticence prevailed.
“We’ve been married for thirty-two years,” Gracie Hamilton said. “We couldn’t have children … my fault … and Jim’s been my life.” Her tears were visible now. “I can’t bear it. I just can’t …”
“Are you sure?” I said helplessly. “He looks so fit … so … healthy.”
“It’s something awful,” Gracie Hamilton insisted. “Something … diabolical.”
She cried out then - a rasping, wailing sound wrenched from deep inside her; the sound of an animal in pain. Simultaneously she seemed to collapse in her armchair, to shrink in size.
I was out of my chair and bending over her, arms outstretched to support her, when the crunch of tyres on gravel heralded Jim Hamilton’s return. For a moment Gracie Hamilton stared up at me, open-mouthed, wild-eyed. Then she shivered violently, brushed my arms aside, and struggled her body into an upright position in her armchair.
Jim Hamilton stood in the open doorway regarding us, blank-faced and silent. I wondered in that moment just how much he’d seen, and whether he’d ever witnessed a similar scene before.
“I’d better go,” I said lamely, and made to leave the room.
Jim Hamilton stepped aside to allow me pass, and I let myself out.
•••
I learnt of the deaths of Jim and Gracie Hamilton, apparently by joint suicide, as I was preparing to set out for Afghanistan – on a possibly foolhardy excursion to view the minaret of Djam before it was toppled by old age or destroyed by human belligerence.
I do not profess a formal religious faith, nor am I spiritually inclined. If I had to admit to a particular view of my place in the scheme of things I would probably opt for that of Zen Buddhism. And yet I have always sensed that there is something impenetrably mysterious about death – a sense of mystery and uncertainty which is heightened for me when death is self-inflicted.
Is the voluntary termination of one’s life simply and only a means of escape from unbearable adversity? Is there hope, or expectancy, on the part of the suicide of something better beyond the grave?
Dostoevsky once wrote that, “We are all divorced from life … Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard labour, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books.”
Who was the proponent or executor of the event I was now contemplating, I wondered – Jim or Gracie Hamilton? Had it been a joint, willingly co-operative undertaking? Was Jim Hamilton really as unwell as his wife had suggested? Or was it, rather, she who had been unwell, to the point of emotional disintegration and a determination to end their lives?
I would never know; but I hoped that whatever lay in store for them afforded some consolation for the apparent unsatisfactoriness of their earthly sojourn.
And then, on impulse, I went to my sideboard and poured a generous measure of scotch. I raised my glass.
“To Jim and Gracie Hamilton,” I said. “Bon voyage!”
Postscript …
This piece had an unlikely genesis.
I was reading a book about the assimilation of Buddhism by the West, when I came (in the book’s Epilogue) across a reference to the death of Petra Kelly, the environmentalist and German Green politician. She was ‘put to death’ by her partner, who then took his own life. A substantive reason for what took place seems never to have been determined.
Reading of these events caused me to recollect the joint suicides of Arthur Koestler and his wife. He was suffering from both Parkinson’s Disease and leukaemia, but she seems to have been in relatively good health. The most likely cause of her participation in the event may have been the closeness of her relationship with her husband. The event prompted criticism (some of it extremely acrimonious) from a variety of sources.
I FIRST met Jim and Gracie Hamilton at a funeral.
I’d noticed a woman, petite, late-middle-aged, sad-faced, staring at me across the church aisle a couple of times during the service, and then again afterwards as we handful of strangers huddled around the grave site, and had wondered briefly who she and the man with her might be.
It was a bitterly cold mid-February morning, with ice on the ground and a chill breeze coming in from the north, and I’d have preferred to be just about anywhere than where I was. Somewhere warm. Somewhere, too, away from that solemn voice intoning about the corruptibility of human flesh and the afterlife.
But I’d always thought of Bob Campbell as a friend – not close, but a long-standing friend nevertheless - and I’d have stayed to the end of the service regardless. In any case, I’d felt my presence to be a consolatory comment on a life that had started out with so much promise, and had ended up a road accident statistic.
The minister had finished intoning, and I started to leave.
“You’re Michael, aren’t you?” a soft voice said at my shoulder.
“What …?” I turned to face the woman who’d been staring at me.
“I’m Bob’s aunt Grace,” she said. “Bob’s father was my brother.”
“Oh … right,” I said, and shook her extended hand. “Bob told me in one of his letters that he was living with you.”
“Call me Gracie,” she said. “Everybody does.”
She gestured toward the man I’d seen with her, and who now came up to us.
“And this is my husband, Jim,” she said affectionately, introducing him.
Jim Hamilton had the face of a man who had spent much of his life at odds with the world. A big man: tall, with the slope-shouldered physique of a weightlifter inside his overcoat, and a directness in his manner that might have been confronting in different circumstances.
“Hello,’ I said, and extended my hand.
“You Michael … Bob’s friend?” Jim Hamilton asked.
“Yes,” I said, and felt a momentary anxiety for the welfare of my fingers in his grasp.
“Look, Michael,” Gracie Hamilton said, “could you spare us an hour or so? I’d love a chat.” She gestured vaguely. “You could follow us.”
“Well … okay,” I said. “Yes, sure.”
A moment or so later I was pulling my rented Ford out behind a black Mercedes. A moment after that, I was struggling to keep pace with the powerful car, which Jim Hamilton was driving with abandon.
We were soon on the outskirts of suburbia; then, as the few remaining houses were replaced by open fields, we turned from the road onto a gravel track. And there, suddenly, emerging from behind a screen of trees, was their house: a granite creation straight out of a Bronte novel.
•••
“Bob admired you,” said Gracie Hamilton. “Often mentioned you.” She paused, as though remembering. “Sad, isn’t it, that we all never met.”
We were ensconced in the Hamiltons’ lounge, a mellow, autumn-toned, book-lined room with a fire burning. I had expressed my admiration for the house, and had been shown over several of the ground floor rooms. Jim Hamilton had excused himself, and was followed by the crunch of tyres on gravel as the Mercedes departed.
Now I was enjoying my second cup of excellent coffee.
“Well, I’ve moved around a lot, these last few years,” I said.
“Yes. Bob showed us some of your postcards …” Gracie Hamilton paused and looked at me enquiringly. “Morocco … Algeria … Tunisia. What were you doing in North Africa?”
“It’s no secret,” I said, smiling. “I was studying Islamic culture.”
“Oh …” There was the merest trace of censure, or at least of disapproval, in her voice.
“I was also teaching English,” I said. “That paid for my upkeep and Arabic lessons.”
“You speak Arabic?”
“Not fluently. It’s a difficult language for a Westerner to speak, harder still to write.”
“Jim hates Islam.” Gracie Hamilton moved uncomfortably in her armchair.
“Oh, there’s a lot of negative propaganda about,” I said.
“He’s not well.”
“I’m sorry … ?” I said uncertainly. “What … ?”
“Jim. He’s dying, and I think he knows he is. But he won’t admit it, and he’s angry with … oh, with everything.”
Her eyes were moist, and I felt a sudden urge to get up and step across and comfort her. But natural reticence prevailed.
“We’ve been married for thirty-two years,” Gracie Hamilton said. “We couldn’t have children … my fault … and Jim’s been my life.” Her tears were visible now. “I can’t bear it. I just can’t …”
“Are you sure?” I said helplessly. “He looks so fit … so … healthy.”
“It’s something awful,” Gracie Hamilton insisted. “Something … diabolical.”
She cried out then - a rasping, wailing sound wrenched from deep inside her; the sound of an animal in pain. Simultaneously she seemed to collapse in her armchair, to shrink in size.
I was out of my chair and bending over her, arms outstretched to support her, when the crunch of tyres on gravel heralded Jim Hamilton’s return. For a moment Gracie Hamilton stared up at me, open-mouthed, wild-eyed. Then she shivered violently, brushed my arms aside, and struggled her body into an upright position in her armchair.
Jim Hamilton stood in the open doorway regarding us, blank-faced and silent. I wondered in that moment just how much he’d seen, and whether he’d ever witnessed a similar scene before.
“I’d better go,” I said lamely, and made to leave the room.
Jim Hamilton stepped aside to allow me pass, and I let myself out.
•••
I learnt of the deaths of Jim and Gracie Hamilton, apparently by joint suicide, as I was preparing to set out for Afghanistan – on a possibly foolhardy excursion to view the minaret of Djam before it was toppled by old age or destroyed by human belligerence.
I do not profess a formal religious faith, nor am I spiritually inclined. If I had to admit to a particular view of my place in the scheme of things I would probably opt for that of Zen Buddhism. And yet I have always sensed that there is something impenetrably mysterious about death – a sense of mystery and uncertainty which is heightened for me when death is self-inflicted.
Is the voluntary termination of one’s life simply and only a means of escape from unbearable adversity? Is there hope, or expectancy, on the part of the suicide of something better beyond the grave?
Dostoevsky once wrote that, “We are all divorced from life … Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard labour, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books.”
Who was the proponent or executor of the event I was now contemplating, I wondered – Jim or Gracie Hamilton? Had it been a joint, willingly co-operative undertaking? Was Jim Hamilton really as unwell as his wife had suggested? Or was it, rather, she who had been unwell, to the point of emotional disintegration and a determination to end their lives?
I would never know; but I hoped that whatever lay in store for them afforded some consolation for the apparent unsatisfactoriness of their earthly sojourn.
And then, on impulse, I went to my sideboard and poured a generous measure of scotch. I raised my glass.
“To Jim and Gracie Hamilton,” I said. “Bon voyage!”
Postscript …
This piece had an unlikely genesis.
I was reading a book about the assimilation of Buddhism by the West, when I came (in the book’s Epilogue) across a reference to the death of Petra Kelly, the environmentalist and German Green politician. She was ‘put to death’ by her partner, who then took his own life. A substantive reason for what took place seems never to have been determined.
Reading of these events caused me to recollect the joint suicides of Arthur Koestler and his wife. He was suffering from both Parkinson’s Disease and leukaemia, but she seems to have been in relatively good health. The most likely cause of her participation in the event may have been the closeness of her relationship with her husband. The event prompted criticism (some of it extremely acrimonious) from a variety of sources.