Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey by John Masters Page A
Authors: John Masters
Tags: Literary, General, Asia, History, Literary Criticism, War & Military, American, Biography, Autobiography, India
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limited I made a point of occasionally downing a beer at an hour when the pubs in England would have been shut, to confirm to myself the reality of this particular freedom. I also felt easier in my mind, as I watched the work done in bars and cafeterias, for I saw that with a little practice I could undertake any of it. It would hardly be the attainment of our life-object for me to become a quick-lunch artist, but the idea put a kind of backstop behind my fears. We would not starve.
I began to hear the rhythm of the city. With each day's passing hours New York's life-flow shifted from some arteries to others. As Fifth Avenue congealed, Sixth and Second throbbed; 57th Street dozed and 14th Street awoke. All day steam hissed mysteriously and menacingly out of manholes in the streets, melting the snow around them, and at night the racing taxis hit the manhole covers with a double cl-clunk which, with the police sirens, was the music of the lonely hours. There were amazing neon-lit palaces where the packaged, cooked food was stacked in holes in the wall and you had to get it out yourself and take it on a tray to a sharp-eyed lady in a high chair. A dozen radio stations kept on the air twenty-four hours a day. The subways were ancient and filthy, and the streets full of blowing paper and junk of all kinds, but there were no girls offering sleazy delights from the doorways round Times Square, or anywhere else.
The pace of New York was measured and dignified, and considerably slower than London's. The people on Madison Avenue and in Herald Square moved less hurriedly than the people in Regent Street. For every man I saw running to catch a bus or subway I would have seen twenty in London. I never saw a New York girl running at all; in 87
London the pretty typists ran and scurried out of Victoria or Waterloo as frantically as the clerks. The elevators moved very fast once one had got into them; but that was not the New Yorker hurrying, that was a machine hurrying for him. The few escalators were narrow and old-fashioned, and seemed to be regarded as dangerous innovations. They moved so cautiously that in London everyone would have been running up or down them (in London one person in five on the escalators is always running, even at their fast speeds). So I went about my business, never stopping, at the even pace of the great city.
Carrying the Himalayan Holidays file I began to visit travel agents. I walked over 100 blocks every day, and usually saw ten or twelve agents. They were amazingly good in giving me their time, for me to explain what I was about; but they were not encouraging. I quickly found that a chief obstacle was a well-concealed distrust of my abilities and honesty. This brought home to me, for the first time, how truly I had cut my moorings in leaving England. The social structure of England was such that with my accent and my army rank my honesty would be taken for granted until I did something to cause people to doubt it. In England I was never asked to produce references, give my address on a cheque, or make a deposit on a purchase. In New York my hairy tweed suit and my accent, though both genuine, seemed to arouse the opposite feeling in those with whom I was trying to do business. I moved in a strong aura of slightly mystified distrust. I could almost hear the men muttering to themselves, Well, this guy's a phony if ever I saw one, but he's picked a strange racket; he isn't going to make much money out of it whatever he does, so what's the deal? Beyond doubting my honesty they also clearly mistrusted my competence, for to them service in a regular army — any regular army — was automatically a mark of business ineptitude.
To heighten these obstacles there was the unfortunate fact, now learned by me for the first time, that a well-known lady had taken a party of Americans to India not long before, and left them stranded in Bombay, while she came back with the money. Some of the agents I talked to had been
I began to hear the rhythm of the city. With each day's passing hours New York's life-flow shifted from some arteries to others. As Fifth Avenue congealed, Sixth and Second throbbed; 57th Street dozed and 14th Street awoke. All day steam hissed mysteriously and menacingly out of manholes in the streets, melting the snow around them, and at night the racing taxis hit the manhole covers with a double cl-clunk which, with the police sirens, was the music of the lonely hours. There were amazing neon-lit palaces where the packaged, cooked food was stacked in holes in the wall and you had to get it out yourself and take it on a tray to a sharp-eyed lady in a high chair. A dozen radio stations kept on the air twenty-four hours a day. The subways were ancient and filthy, and the streets full of blowing paper and junk of all kinds, but there were no girls offering sleazy delights from the doorways round Times Square, or anywhere else.
The pace of New York was measured and dignified, and considerably slower than London's. The people on Madison Avenue and in Herald Square moved less hurriedly than the people in Regent Street. For every man I saw running to catch a bus or subway I would have seen twenty in London. I never saw a New York girl running at all; in 87
London the pretty typists ran and scurried out of Victoria or Waterloo as frantically as the clerks. The elevators moved very fast once one had got into them; but that was not the New Yorker hurrying, that was a machine hurrying for him. The few escalators were narrow and old-fashioned, and seemed to be regarded as dangerous innovations. They moved so cautiously that in London everyone would have been running up or down them (in London one person in five on the escalators is always running, even at their fast speeds). So I went about my business, never stopping, at the even pace of the great city.
Carrying the Himalayan Holidays file I began to visit travel agents. I walked over 100 blocks every day, and usually saw ten or twelve agents. They were amazingly good in giving me their time, for me to explain what I was about; but they were not encouraging. I quickly found that a chief obstacle was a well-concealed distrust of my abilities and honesty. This brought home to me, for the first time, how truly I had cut my moorings in leaving England. The social structure of England was such that with my accent and my army rank my honesty would be taken for granted until I did something to cause people to doubt it. In England I was never asked to produce references, give my address on a cheque, or make a deposit on a purchase. In New York my hairy tweed suit and my accent, though both genuine, seemed to arouse the opposite feeling in those with whom I was trying to do business. I moved in a strong aura of slightly mystified distrust. I could almost hear the men muttering to themselves, Well, this guy's a phony if ever I saw one, but he's picked a strange racket; he isn't going to make much money out of it whatever he does, so what's the deal? Beyond doubting my honesty they also clearly mistrusted my competence, for to them service in a regular army — any regular army — was automatically a mark of business ineptitude.
To heighten these obstacles there was the unfortunate fact, now learned by me for the first time, that a well-known lady had taken a party of Americans to India not long before, and left them stranded in Bombay, while she came back with the money. Some of the agents I talked to had been
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