description didn’t suggest a man who’s ever been computer savvy.” She looked somewhat puzzled. “He wasn’t at all surprised by Julian’s death. That he killed himself. René likes to use English phrases. He said Julian was ‘a burned-out case.’”
Suddenly, I felt somewhat like one myself, a man who’d lost his wife to disease and his friend to suicide, both irreplaceable, a childless man whose father would soon be passing, a man with a small apartment who practiced a dying profession.
I tried to shrug off the darkness that settled over me with these thoughts. “So, what else did René say?”
“He wanted to know what he should do with Julian’s stuff,” Loretta answered. “Whatever he had in his apartment.”
The thought of René rifling through Julian’s possessions struck me as profoundly wrong. Should it not be someone else, someone close to Julian, who did this? These were the personal possessions of a very private person, after all, a man I’d loved and whose work I’d admired and with whom I’d traveled some small portion of the world.
“Would you mind if I did it?” I asked Loretta.
She leaned back slightly. “You mean go to Paris?”
I nodded. “René will just throw everything into the garbage,” I said. “And somehow that just doesn’t seem the right end for Julian’s things.”
Loretta smiled softly. “You truly loved him, didn’t you?” she asked.
A fierce emotion stirred in me.
“I did, yes,” I said. “And more than anything, Loretta, I wish I could have been with him in that little boat.”
“I’m going to Paris,” I told my father the next day.
The two of us were sitting at the small breakfast table over morning coffee.
“I need to go through Julian’s things,” I added.
It surprised me that in response to this, my father abruptly sank directly back to his own past.
“I never got to travel much in my job,” he said quietly, then drew in a long breath and released it slowly, “but I did find myself at the Nile Hotel once. In Kambala. Idi Amin was still in power in those days.”
Something in his recollection of that time clearly pained him, but he faced it bravely and went on.
“Everybody knew that Amin had several suites in the hotel,” he said. “Some were for his whores. Others were torture chambers.”
It was the latter rooms he appeared to visualize now, and I found myself seeing them, too: walls splattered with dried blood, a straight-back chair, a naked lightbulb hanging from a black cord, a metal table fitted with drains. Hell is not other people, I thought, in opposition to Sartre’s famous line; it is what we do to other people.
“I was at the hotel when he put Archbishop Luwum on trial there,” my father continued. “I tried to get my superiors to intervene, but they said it was none of our affair, and besides, dreadful as Amin was, he was no different from others. ‘The Africans don’t have presidents,’ one of them told me. ‘They have chiefs.’ Mobutu said that, too, by the way, as justification for his own slaughters.” He shrugged. “Well, Amin charged Luwum with smuggling guns, if you can believe that, and tried him out in the open, African-style, in the courtyard of the hotel. He’d filled the place with his rabble of soldiers. They were drinking whiskey and chewing khat, and they kept screaming, ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ Luwum just stood there, not saying a word, just staring that fat, whoremongering Kakwa thug right in the eye.” His gaze intensified and bore into me. “That’s what Julian should have looked for and written about, Philip,” he said. “Men like Luwum. Men who were doing some good in the world.”He shrugged. “Julian’s tragedy is that he only looked at the dark side, and it weakened him and made him sick.”
My father had never indicated such qualms about Julian’s work, so it had never occurred to me that he thought it so misdirected.
“In my opinion, it’s the good people who
Suddenly, I felt somewhat like one myself, a man who’d lost his wife to disease and his friend to suicide, both irreplaceable, a childless man whose father would soon be passing, a man with a small apartment who practiced a dying profession.
I tried to shrug off the darkness that settled over me with these thoughts. “So, what else did René say?”
“He wanted to know what he should do with Julian’s stuff,” Loretta answered. “Whatever he had in his apartment.”
The thought of René rifling through Julian’s possessions struck me as profoundly wrong. Should it not be someone else, someone close to Julian, who did this? These were the personal possessions of a very private person, after all, a man I’d loved and whose work I’d admired and with whom I’d traveled some small portion of the world.
“Would you mind if I did it?” I asked Loretta.
She leaned back slightly. “You mean go to Paris?”
I nodded. “René will just throw everything into the garbage,” I said. “And somehow that just doesn’t seem the right end for Julian’s things.”
Loretta smiled softly. “You truly loved him, didn’t you?” she asked.
A fierce emotion stirred in me.
“I did, yes,” I said. “And more than anything, Loretta, I wish I could have been with him in that little boat.”
“I’m going to Paris,” I told my father the next day.
The two of us were sitting at the small breakfast table over morning coffee.
“I need to go through Julian’s things,” I added.
It surprised me that in response to this, my father abruptly sank directly back to his own past.
“I never got to travel much in my job,” he said quietly, then drew in a long breath and released it slowly, “but I did find myself at the Nile Hotel once. In Kambala. Idi Amin was still in power in those days.”
Something in his recollection of that time clearly pained him, but he faced it bravely and went on.
“Everybody knew that Amin had several suites in the hotel,” he said. “Some were for his whores. Others were torture chambers.”
It was the latter rooms he appeared to visualize now, and I found myself seeing them, too: walls splattered with dried blood, a straight-back chair, a naked lightbulb hanging from a black cord, a metal table fitted with drains. Hell is not other people, I thought, in opposition to Sartre’s famous line; it is what we do to other people.
“I was at the hotel when he put Archbishop Luwum on trial there,” my father continued. “I tried to get my superiors to intervene, but they said it was none of our affair, and besides, dreadful as Amin was, he was no different from others. ‘The Africans don’t have presidents,’ one of them told me. ‘They have chiefs.’ Mobutu said that, too, by the way, as justification for his own slaughters.” He shrugged. “Well, Amin charged Luwum with smuggling guns, if you can believe that, and tried him out in the open, African-style, in the courtyard of the hotel. He’d filled the place with his rabble of soldiers. They were drinking whiskey and chewing khat, and they kept screaming, ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ Luwum just stood there, not saying a word, just staring that fat, whoremongering Kakwa thug right in the eye.” His gaze intensified and bore into me. “That’s what Julian should have looked for and written about, Philip,” he said. “Men like Luwum. Men who were doing some good in the world.”He shrugged. “Julian’s tragedy is that he only looked at the dark side, and it weakened him and made him sick.”
My father had never indicated such qualms about Julian’s work, so it had never occurred to me that he thought it so misdirected.
“In my opinion, it’s the good people who
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