A WINDOW ON AMERICA
Hugh Thomas discovers that he can see much of the United States from his balcony Boston FROM the generously proportioned French window onto a balcony of the piso which the university has provided me, I see the whole of American life. First, in the distance, through the trees and across the river, there are a few isolated turrets of a large Gothic palace which forms part of one of the greatest of United States insti- tutions, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Somewhere there among the towers in, no doubt, some comfortable office protected by the hospitable laws of immortal tenure which apply in this part of the world, there is sitting one of my most bitter enemies, a certain Robert R., who, I believe, for nearly 40 years has pursued his quarrel with me over my apparently intol- erant attitude to the anarchist movement in the Spanish civil war. God rest his soul! But, at the moment, I cannot even specu- late where exactly he may be resting his laptop computer, full of venom against Juan Negrin and Santiago Carrillo as well as against me, for the leaves on the trees are much too thick.
Soon these leaves will turn yellow, turn red perhaps and then wither, while inspir- ing the most patriotic emotions among all who observe them — except for me who, on the occasions when I have been here before in the autumn, have courted unpop- ularity by saying that I prefer the softer, muted, melancholy shades which English trees turn.
Next and nearer me there is the river itself. I can see much more of it than I can of the MIT, and on occasions such as today the Charles is of a dazzling blue, reflecting a cloudless, immaculate sky. People talk of the weather here much more than they do in England, for the changes of climate are more sudden, more violent and more con- siderable. Still, whether the river is blue or muddy, at this time of the year there is much river life. None of it admittedly has any commercial value, it is all 'exercise', but all the same it is often beautiful, whether we are thinking of single sculls or eights, from Harvard or from Boston, from MIT indeed or from one or other of the many universities in this region, or whether it is only a matter of the white sailing boats with sails of every size and ambition which seem to flow so elegantly with the river in the later afternoons I come next to the trees. These are most- ly maples — though there are some limes and ashes — and are planted in a long pub- lic path all along the south side of the river. This belt of nature is known as 'the esplanade'. Along a narrow paved path in the centre of the glade there passes an astonishing number of Ameri- cans, runners, joggers, skateboarders, old- fashioned roller-skaters, bicyclists and walkers, of whom the last are mostly fast and formal exercise-seekers, not amblers nor people who have to get from one end of the place to the other for some profes- sional reason. There are walkers with dogs, bicyclists with dogs or walkers who are walking to campaign, in a way which escapes me, against breast cancer. Every- one seems pretty serious, dedicated to the serious business of not enjoying them- selves. There are few lonely, poetic souls, reflecting on the beauty of the scene or the swift passage of time. Rousseau used to explain that he did most of his serious thought walking round the little island in Geneva in the early evenings. Here he would not have a chance. Many of the walkers here have earphones on which they listen, I assume, to Bach, to prevent any idle thoughts coming to the surface in their well-organised minds.
This zone is dangerous. The bicyclists ride demonically. The roller-bladers are worse. I can well understand how it was that a much respected United States ambassador to Spain of the 1960s, Angie Biddle Duke, was killed two years ago in Central Park when roller-blading at the age of 79. Whether exercise is dangerous to the health is a matter at last on the agenda of several great Boston medical schools. The 'Duke factor' will not be overlooked.
A little higher up, an imperious notice declares that no alcohol is to be drunk in this glade. Fortunately, though, I know a house with a window onto the place where an extraordinary martini can still be found. Bottoms up.
But no American scene is complete with- out a superhighway, and Sturrow Drive, between my window and the esplanade, is just the same as many others. It is a big road which runs all the way along the south side of the river and enables swift passage from Harvard to Boston and then on to the airport. Sturrow himself, a philanthropist of the 1930s, would be distressed to know that his name now signifies a big road, for he left to the city the esplanade, through which the drive was cut. I am not so hard on the drive as many, for I see it as the route of escape to the airport, to Europe, to London, to Barcelona.
The traffic here is continuous from five in the morning till after midnight. Some- times, on Sunday mornings, there is noth- ing to be seen or heard, but usually the activity is intense. Sometimes, at, say, six on a Friday evening, a baseball match occurs in the vicinity and so there is a traf- fic jam on the drive below my balcony, and I watch its writhing, its angers, its frustra- tions, its little demential. I see the faces of the motorists freezing into late-20th-centu- ry fury, but they never look away from the road, so they cannot see me cheering. Once there was an 'incident' in which two cars hit each other and their owners pulled into a lay-by just within my sight to argue think you should go home, lock the door behind you, and never come out again.' among themselves about who was respon- sible. They exchanged their addresses for all the world as if they were expecting to become friends for life. It was after all a human moment. Sometimes too there are police cars which alight terrifyingly on their prey as if they were wasps on the jam.
Finally, there is between me and Stur- row Drive a little alley known as Back Road. It is a minor street lined with park- ing places in what once no doubt were gar- dens going down towards the river. All the walls here have been scrawled over in huge letters with instructions or merely declara- tions, whose vigour and unquestionability reflect so much of American life: `Reserved', 'Parking only for Red and Green stickers' and, of course, 'Tres- passers will be towed away at their own expense'. Once, when I was haphazardly sharpening my pencil on the balcony, allowing the chips to fall lightly below, a red-faced septuagenarian leapt intemper- ately out of his Cherokee van and explod- ed that someone was in his 'slot'. He shook his fist as if he were an actor in an old film, and then assured me that it was not me whom he was accusing.
I must not forget the last element in my all-embracing vision of America. Near the reserve car-park below me there is a large, blue rubbish skip. Here, all the local resi- dents daily pile well-tied black plastic bags, the work often being immaculately carried out by well-dressed gentlemen just before they slide into their sleek cars on their way to their offices. Then, after a while, at una hora prudente (as Spaniards speak of 10 o'clock), a new cast of characters appears: the scavengers, usually black but not always, usually in striped woollen shirts, wearing that curious uniform of baseball caps back to front, who look through the contents of the plastic bags with expert eyes. They are persistent and eternally optimistic. Usually they find something, if only an empty bottle. Sometimes they are able to find a slice or two of pre-cut bread which Americans have for so long been persuaded to buy that they have forgotten what bread can be. Every day too a large, ugly and dirty bus comes to pick up the remainder of the waste. 'Proud to keep America clean' is their incongruous slogan.
Often I see near the rubbish skip a melancholy, but good-tempered Por- tuguese street-cleaner from the Azores. In the summer, he sweeps away the dirt, in the autumn the leaves, in the winter the snow. I often talk to him. Once he said to me, sadly, 'It's a long way, the Azores.' `No,' I said, 'it's Boston which is the long way.' Belmonte, the great bullfighter of the Thirties, who first made this remark in relation to Lugo as compared to Seville, would, I think, have been pleased.
Lord Thomas is professor of Spanish culture at Boston University. His most recent books are The Conquest of Mexico (1993) and The Slave Trade (1997).
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