Questions of Travel (24 page)
EVERY DAY, THE NEW,
the unexpected, the arbitrary arrived in Laura’s in-box, in her in-tray, in person. Accustomed to working alone and without interruption, she was ill prepared for office life. It was like being dropped into a country where she didn’t understand the language: the disorientation, the constant switching of focus, the way the trivial and the momentous presented on the same plane. Cubism must have looked like this in 1911, thought Laura, a lunacy that admitted no hierarchy of interpretation, no fixed point from which meaning might flow.
A typical day began with an email from Gina Piggott. Gina ran Ramsay’s London branch and liked to copy her messages to the head of Publishing. The latest listed thirty-one errors in the new guide to Brittany.
This kind of carelessness is so damaging to our credibility.
The mistakes, typical of first editions, didn’t amount to much. But Gina wanted editorial on the European guides transferred to London. London office space like London labor like London on-costs like London everything was pricier than in Sydney. Gina knew all this. Everyone did. But Ramsay U.K. was solely a marketing office, and editorial was the core of publishing. Gina longed to speak of
my editorial team
and she had the mulishness of the successful empire-builder. It was apparent to Laura that Gina would prevail—the rest of them would simply get tired of arguing with her.
In Sydney, Gina Piggott’s staff were known as
the little victims.
Her emails, always aggrieved or accusatory, arrived overnight. They were never a good way to start the day.
An email flagged with an urgent red ! proclaimed that someone in Sales couldn’t find his coffee mug.
An email requested a meeting about freelance editorial rates.
On the other end of Laura’s phone, Jenny Williams I, who ran Production, said, “Got a moment?”
In her office, Jenny silently held up an advance copy of a guidebook. Silently, she turned it around so that Laura could read the spine:
Swizerland.
Ramsay printed offshore, usually in Singapore or Hong Kong; it was cheaper than printing locally, and more efficient for shipping books to warehouses around the world. Recently, however, Jenny had been using a firm in Indonesia, where printing was cheaper still.
“The usual illiterate in Design. And no one at the plant who reads English,” said Jenny. “Twenty thousand copies,” she said.
There was a meeting to discuss proposed changes to map keys. It was confined to commissioning editors and senior cartographers. But a memo from Paul Hinkel, suggesting an alternative set of symbols for hotels, restaurants and places of interest, was circulated. It was well written, closely argued. People were impressed.
Afterwards, Laura saw Paul in discussion with his line manager, arms folded across his chest. As she passed, his eyes ran over but didn’t acknowledge her: she might have been a blank space on a map. His small, red mouth went on pulsing—Laura could see why he would appeal to a certain kind of woman. He looked capable and generic, like a man in a training video demonstrating CPR.
An email requested a meeting about price points.
An email reminded that the brief for the
Ireland
update was due the next day.
A letter offered the exclusive opportunity to publish the writer’s tales about his travels around Europe in a campervan.
Family and friends have found my stories hilarious!
In the kitchen, Laura stood chatting with Helmut Becker from Design. “I am an artist,” declared Helmut as Laura’s herbal teabag brewed. “Art is elusive. It is inspiration. They cannot just say, do this, Helmut, do that, we need six covers,
schnell, schnell,
like bastard Nazis in a movie. There is a creative ambience—you know? When things are flowing, I could start work at dawn, I could stay at my desk all night,” announced Helmut magnificently. He had never been seen in the office after half-past six or before ten. Laura liked him a lot.
An email from Rights proposed a seminar on intellectual property law.
An email from Nadine Flanagan, the webmaster, requested copy for an e-feature on Russian churches.
An email from Sari Gardiner, one of the researchers on the
Greek Islands
update, complained that her deadline wasn’t realistic. It was Sari’s first assignment. She had yet to realize that guidebook deadlines were never realistic. Information dated quicker than it could be gathered—that was the built-in use-by date that made publishers of guidebooks rich. How it went with new researchers was already sadly plain to Laura. They clamored to be hired, brimful of energy and enthusiasm, thinking
Free travel! Cool!
A few days into a gruesome schedule of fact-gathering, it began to dawn on them that this was nothing like a gap year. And that
interacting with other cultures,
always cited in their letters of application as motivating their desire to write guidebooks, would be confined to wheedling information from expatriates and bureaucrats, who lied reflexively—the first group to aggrandize their experience, the second to cover their tracks.
An email from HR outlined changes to Ramsay’s corporate membership deal at the local gym.
An email requested a meeting about blurbs.
Laura had lunch with Robyn Orr at their usual Korean restaurant. Over a soundscape of Carla Bruni, Robyn said, “So I’m in Cliff’s office, running through this deal I’ve negotiated with the airport bookshops, and suddenly he goes, ‘What do you make of this?’ It’s this letter—
typed,
can you believe it, pages and pages—from this guy in India who used to distribute us. London’s dropped him and he’s writing to complain, saying he was the first to distribute us in India, he’s served us faithfully since like the Dark Ages, yadda yadda. So I remind Cliff that this guy was always months late paying us, Gina was totally pissed off about it at our last conference. I mean, we all know what Gina’s like, but this guy’s the limit, I’d’ve dropped him too, in her place. Anyway, after a bit Cliff goes, ‘We could choose to be kind.’ And then he just vagues out, clicks his pen, you know the way he does when he’s miles away?”
Laura looked sympathetic. But Cliff Ferrier’s Hawaiian shirts and Mambo Ts, so unsuited to a CEO, had already recommended him to her.
On the other hand, she was not Robyn: twenty-eight, narrow rectangular glasses with red frames, going places.
A tiny woman bore down on them with a large dish of kimchi pancakes.
“Those sixties guys!” said Robyn Orr.
A voice message from her dentist’s receptionist reminded Laura that she had an appointment the next day.
Twenty-three emails replying to the email about gym membership had been copied to her.
An email from Clive Mason, a long-standing Ramsay researcher, complained that the money he’d been offered to update the
Vienna
guide wasn’t realistic. He provided a detailed breakdown of costs, exchange rates and so on. The new researchers complained about time, the veterans about money. It had been explained to Laura that after five years a researcher either went feral and disappeared in a series of savage and minatory emails, or became an old hand. Old hands combined the unshakeable certainty that they were being ripped off by Ramsay with a pathological inability to contemplate alternative employment.
An email from reception announced a garage sale the following Saturday.
An email requested a meeting about performance reviews.
Laura endured her weekly meeting with Quentin Husker, the head of Publishing. Quentin’s soul was corporate. But his flesh was weak. It had succumbed to chicken parmigiana in the pub at lunchtime. Now it wished to succumb to Jenny Williams II, the publishing assistant, in her flat in Darlinghurst. She had already briefed him by email, and the rendezvous was scheduled for the end of the working day.
Laura finished running through her titles. She had confessed that one of them was over budget and two others were running late. The silence went on, for Quentin was still admiring Jenny, in her boots and nipple ring, illuminated by black candles. A tomato fleck lingered on his shirt, which he always wore open at the neck to signify openness. Arabella, his sister, had once been married to Alan Ramsay. In office lore, the wedding coincided with the hiring of Quentin, the birth of the Ramsay heir with his first promotion, the divorce with his second. At the pub on a Friday evening, deep into sauvignon blanc and the train-wreck of another week, Jenny Williams I liked to return to the topic. “I swear to God Arabella had it written into the settlement.
Facework every two years and Quentin stays.
”
At last Laura ventured to ask for guidance, speaking of deadlines and escalating costs. Recalled from his erotic duties, “Your call,” said Quentin. The management handbooks that guided him all advised delegation. And cunning. “To be honest, I’m not feeling the best.”
Laura offered an ambiguous noise.
“Yeah, thanks.” Quentin glanced ostentatiously at his watch. It was not quite three. “You’re right, I might just have to call it a day. We have so much to learn from the wisdom of our bodies.” His eyes, a damp brown, were guileless and alarming.
The latest draft of the revised Ramsay style manual (one hundred and eighty-three pages) waited on Laura’s desk. Her comments were required by the end of the week.
A second email from reception apologized:
Duh!! I meant to flag my garage sale email as Spam! Sorry!!!
There was a meeting to discuss font sizes. Dropping down a point would make it possible to include more information without affecting the length of a book, and therefore its portability and price. Against these advantages, there was the matter of legibility. Someone under thirty looked at the sample page and asked incredulously, “Is it really too small to read?” Laura stared at the blurry print.
A Post-it stuck to her screen reminded her that she owed petty cash $9.15.
A letter from a woman in Aberdeen threatened legal action because her B&B was described in the
Scotland
guide as “pleasingly ramshackle.”
Laura studied the first of three costings on which she had to sign off by the end of the day.
Occupational Health & Safety emailed about a fire drill.
Eleven emails, all copied to Laura, went on arguing the new gym-membership deal back and forth.
An email came in from Alan Ramsay, founder and sole director of Ramsay Publishing, to his staff worldwide. More than twelve months had passed since Alan had handed over the day-to-day running of the business to Cliff Ferrier, his former general manager. Now, as Alan wandered the globe with his new young wife, a Croatian underwear model, noblesse obliged him to gladden tinier lives. Their brains dulled by conditioned air, their eyes reddened by screens, his employees would learn that the skiing at Aspen had exceeded all expectations or that the truffle restaurant in Haute Provence totally deserved its third Michelin star.
Hi all, We’re in Milan and Qantas has managed to lose our luggage again. Jelena had to go shopping all yesterday and was so exhausted, we had to cancel our private viewing of
The Last Supper
. But New York was great. Bill Clinton is terrifically friendly. He sat next to Jelena and—
But Laura had deleted the message.
PRIYA HAD POSTED HIM
a photo of her daughter, quite unconsciously selecting an image that displayed her plump, pretty arms to greater advantage than the baby. Now she was pregnant again. Whenever Ravi checked his email in an Internet cafe, there would be a message from Priya. Her emails rambled at length, full of carelessly spelled complaints and news about friends Ravi barely knew. So many people had left that Priya had correspondents across the globe. A girl she had gone to school with lived in Perth, her husband’s niece was studying in Canberra, Carmel’s cousin had been in Sydney for years. Priya provided addresses; Ravi should visit these people, she urged.
Varunika, too, was emailing him. Not regularly, like Priya, but surprising him from time to time. She had been home on a visit but was back in Tanzania. Her first email was only a subject line—
Thought you might like these
—with two photos of their mother attached. When there was a message from her, Ravi’s thoughts would drift to it all day, although Varunika’s emails were brief and usually unremarkable. But once:
I’m filled with hope in this place,
she wrote.
Nimal, too, kept in touch. He no longer worked for RealLanka; the company had folded. Hugely successful at first, it had fallen to a creeping malaise. Clients began to complain that the experiences for which they had paid handsomely and in hard currency lacked authenticity. Those who chose to stay with urban families were affronted when their hosts addressed them in English or invited them to watch reruns of American soaps. A Norwegian wrote that the household into which he had been thrust was
grossly materialistic.
He had been assured that these people were Buddhists, yet five curries had waited on the table, including beef. A New Zealander demanded a refund: her hosts’ eleven-year-old daughter had confided that when she grew up, she wanted to be just like Britney Spears.
RealLanka broadened its strategy. It billeted its clients with villagers who spoke nothing but a pure and incomprehensible vernacular. Tourists labored in paddy fields, ate malodorous rice and fiery sambols with their fingers, slept on beaten earth in mud huts where mosquitoes sang. In towns, they were received by slum dwellers, queued to squat in communal and stinking lavatories, went down with dengue fever. An Italian ethnographer was so enamored of these trials that she returned with a group of graduate students. One sliced his foot open on a rusty blade, contracted septicemia, died. Seizing the day, RealLanka organized a traditional funeral ceremony to which tickets were sold at U.S. $30 a head.
Yet discontent continued to fester. There were the usual complaints about smoking—but that was a trifle. The ease and rapidity of electronic communication ensured that the suspicion of fraudulence couldn’t be contained. However vigilantly RealLanka eradicated all taint of pamper from its programs, the rumor gained strength. Emails circulated. It was inconceivable that people really lived in such conditions, all the time, 24/7. It was all spectacle and show. The student’s death was a gimmick, the funeral rigged, with actors hired to impersonate monks. There was an experience beyond RealLanka’s offerings, something neither cosseted nor exposed, something exotic yet persuasive, for which its clients yearned. Vaguely defined, it was keenly missed. There was wild interactive chat about malpractice. Bookings fell away.
Nimal wrote that he no longer cared for a career in IT. As for picking up his abandoned thesis, he couldn’t imagine returning to academic life. Fortunately, he had come into a small inheritance. He returned to the south, where he had been raised, and went into partnership with his brother. They set up an Internet cafe near a beach where tourism flourished. Now Nimal asked for nothing more than to smoke ganja and marry a foreigner who would take him abroad. The Russians were pitiless but Germans abounded. Even their elderly were technologically proficient. He had nurtured great hopes of a retired principal from Bonn. But she got an email telling her that her cat had disappeared, and Nimal’s campaign was cut short.
Every week, without fail, Ravi received an aerogram from his mother. The thin blue sheet was covered with anxiety and advice. But once Carmel had momentous news: Freda had visited her. Freda had worn a denim skirt and was accompanied by her fiancé,
a very nice fair boy.
They were touring the island for the last time because Freda was going back to England. The fair boy ate two wafer biscuits, but Freda left her tea untouched. There had been no ginger beer in the house, and this failure of hospitality haunted Carmel; also, she had come to the door in slippers. Her visitors brought flowers, velvety white orchids from a shop. The fair boy admired a photo of Priya’s baby. Freda said that she hoped Ravi was well and to please give him her love. Carmel’s disapproval showed in the detail of the tea not drunk, as well as this:
They’re planning to marry in a registry office.
Ravi responded, as he did to all his mother’s letters, with informative evasions.
I am well. It is cool but sunny. There is no news about my application. My room is very comfortable. Yesterday I visited the harbor.
He had perfected the style on school compositions: My Holidays, My Family. A teacher learned much and nothing that mattered. When his father died, Ravi had written:
My Christmas was quiet because my cousins didn’t come from Galle. I had two pieces of chicken and they will keep my box of hankies for another occasion.
Scrolling down through an email one day, he found a second message from Priya. It was more or less identical to the one above but included the information that the baby’s nose was flattish—Priya pinched up the bridge every day. She must have decided that babies were a tactless subject, and copied her email in order to censor it. But then she had forgotten to delete the original. It brought her sharply into focus, the care with which she typically blundered.
Varunika wrote:
Do you remember when you fell from the mango tree and broke your wrist? It was just after Priya cut her chin open when she fell off someone’s bike. I was so frightened, thinking it was my turn next and wondering what was going to happen. All these years I’ve had this idea, at the back of my mind, that a horrible accident was waiting for me. Last week, a dentist replaced that tooth I chipped when I fell down those steps at school. I looked in his mirror and realized I’ve been expecting a disaster that happened when I was nine.
Night after night, Hiran cried, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Rain was pounding the sleep-out roof when Ravi woke from the latest dream. The thought of what was under the bed grew unbearable. He pulled it out, put it into a plastic bag and wrapped the package in newspaper. It was only a short dash to the shed and worth the soaking.
Rain obliged Fair Play to suspend her midnight sorties in favor of Ravi’s pillow. Reared on raw drumsticks, apples and grass, she gave off a reek as strong as freshly turned earth and as sweet. Her eyes were open as Ravi settled in beside her, but she didn’t stir. Humans were a noisy species, given to the production of clamor—like Sit! like No! like this keening—none of it any concern of hers.