Dead Straight Meanders

On the first official day of his tenure Bryan woke before the communal alarm. The dewy valley looked resplendent under the first rays of the morning sun. Birds trilled, roosters crowed. Oats and honey were served in the dining room to all staff and volunteers, before everybody broke in unison to begin the day’s activities. Having stipulated to Phillip on arrival that he would prefer manual work, Bryan was given a pickaxe. Its handle was encrusted with dry red mud. “Turn over the soil everywhere you see these,” said Phillip, holding a wooden stake painted yellow at the tip. “They indicate the plots emptied by the last harvest; the sooner we prepare them again, the sooner we can start growing.”
Bryan was a way down the first path when he heard another instruction:
“watch out for snakes!” He turned and gave Phillip a thumbs-up.

Finding the closest stake to the main building, Bryan got to work. He figured he would begin at the top and work his way down towards the ravine. The soil gave way like warm butter. Pulse quickening, beads of sweat beginning to fall from his brow, Bryan suddenly felt hyperaware of how far from home he was. How the blissful exhaustion of labour, performed by the body at the behest of knowledge, not just about gardening but about those convictions overarching it all, could make one forget one’s problems. Gruelling periods of study had had a similar effect on him once, but now that effect seemed partial, monistic, concerned only with the mind while the heart and lungs went unnourished. Plotinus’ famous desire to be a mind with no body was nothing but ignorance. Never had he experienced such total catharsis.

At midday a ploughman’s lunch of fresh bread, cheese and salad was eaten outside. After his second helping Bryan fell upon a wonderful truth: his appetite was back, as if an inner voice was telling him he’d done the right thing by coming. For the rest of the afternoon he toiled in a state of near-elation. Dinner consisted of a potato curry, hummus, and stewed pear crumble for dessert. By starlight, sharing a joint with the others as Phillip sang songs and played the guitar, Bryan’s thoughts turned to Wendy, his girls. He felt no anxiety. His body was too tired and sore for anxiety. All that his fatigue admitted was a fond, loving nostalgia.

A week passed in much the same vein, a week of unbelievable soreness and giddy joy. Bryan was still barely halfway to the ravine. On Sunday morning he made a cardboard cutout of a raincloud, painted it and attached it to the end of a stake he had taken out of a finished area. He spent the day at the solar fountain, where groups of children, whose parents were perusing the market stalls or drinking Masala Chai, watched on in amazement as the stream of water stopped, started, stopped again. He thought of it later as a teaching role equal to any of his lecturing appointments at university. In an entire week Bryan’s only negative experience was also one of the most benign. Ingrid, the cook, a beautiful Austrian woman of perhaps sixty years old with thick grey hair worn to her hips and an azure Indian sari, would bring him lemon and aloe juice at regular intervals as he worked. Each time, she cheerily recalled the exploits of a different Australian who had come to La Solitaria Caseta Verda. Though he could understand her reasons for doing so – and they were only too innocent – Bryan would have preferred to downplay his ties to that country, or any country at all. He found his positive reactions to Ingrid’s stories false and jarring. It was sad that even in a place where harmony prevailed, there were still situations where it was incumbent upon him to be, in a manner of speaking, dishonest.