lotus land 3

        Hank's business in Vancouver was to hire someone to look after Bernice. In fact, he felt uneasy with leaving her alone for this trip.


        Since her homecoming Bernice had transformed into some kind of female pagan version of the blackrobed Jesuit. A mystic and scholar, erudite and esoteric. She had plans of setting up a tutoral service. Hank was delighted. One morning he strode out upon the dewy lawn. She was so absorbed with her writing that she never heard him. He stood apart from her. In stark silhouette against the gray sky, she reminded him of that rare quality found in early Ingmar Bergman films. His favorite was "Through A Glass Darkly."
        "I think it would be wonderful," he said eventually. "If you could teach again."
        "Well, I did hold court at Mac's catered affairs."
        "The select few."
        "Yes. The select few."
        "I bet your favorite subjects were Camus, Lao Tzu, Existentialism and Magical Thinking."
        "We laughed at the incongruencies."


        The clerk at the employment agency was a cherubfaced Asian woman. She wore her hair as a social statement. Certainly not as a political statement. She was far too young for that. But then, he could be mistaken. Her nape and temples were buzzcut. Her spiked thatch was dyed magenta. A dainty ring gleamed in her left nostril. Today's counterculture, he thought. Maybe I should hire this kid. Bern would consider her quite a dish.
        "What you want, sir, is an au pair. Eh."
        His bushy red eyebrows arched dramatically, and he launched into his best "rube from the sticks," with a dash of Sean Connery.
        "A WHAT?"
        "Au pair."
        "Sounds suspiciously FRENCH, doesn't it?"
        "It IS French."
        "Well, I dunno. This aint Quebec."
        Magenta sat back with a robust laugh. "Yure a game ol' coot, aintcha?"


                                                                                   *


        Hank went out of his way to stop at a popular skidrow greasyspoon, the Only Cafe.
        Its street sign was a neon seahorse.
        He sat between two suits at the counter. They nodded and smiled recognition and greetings.
        A boisterous voice: "Hey, Greendozer! Saved any trees lately?"
        Hank saluted a burly guy in a white apron who was busily panfrying fish so fresh you would think thay had swam up the street and leaped into the canola oil.
        "Trees? You betcha."
        The Only Cafe was famous for fish, oysters, clams, homemade bread, and no place to pee.
        "What's that on your head?"
        "It's called a Tilley Hat."
        "Ya look like one of those Sierra Club swells out for a stroll in the woods. Like Hansel and Gretel."
        Instead of flipping the bird, Hank flashed the peace sign.


                                                                                      *


        The peace sign was a holdover from the days when he hung out, loafing at the venerable Naam Restaurant with his Haight-Ashbury antiwar expatriot hippie friends from the States. Golden days. Sitting on the open-air patio, truly al fresco, with the Grateful Dead wending from the sonic system. Sampling spicy vegetarian meals and exotic teas. Chatting with and observing a variety of beautiful young people. Chapeaux ranging from tam to beret.
         The Naam.
         Where he met this buxom California woman in a lavender halter-top. She caught him ogling her bouncy breasts. Unabashed, she shook her magnificent head of auburn curls and flashed him the peace sign. Her smile captured his heart.
        In time, quite some time, she would give him his daughter. Bernice.