The Charming Quirks of Others

“Of course. I’ve been delivering his mail for years.”

Isabel looked away. She liked Willy, who was an old-fashioned postman: she had nothing to teach him about life, she thought, nor about the obligations we encounter along the way. And yet she was a philosopher, and philosophers should not feel awkward about telling people what to do.

“You could have a word with him,” she ventured. “You could say something about not being able to help but see what was written on that card. You could say that you had been losing sleep over it and could he set your mind at rest.”

Willy started to shake his head even before she had finished speaking. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, but no.”

Isabel raised an eyebrow. “It wouldn’t cost you anything.”

Willy’s head started to shake again. “Dangerous,” he said. “He would then know that I know. And what if he told Tom? Then something could happen to me.”

Isabel thought this rather fanciful. “Come on, Willy. This is Edinburgh, not …” She waved a hand in a vaguely southeasterly direction. “Not Palermo.”

“I mean it,” said Willy. “I could be in real danger.”

“Surely not. This person—the person to whom the card was delivered—surely he’s perfectly respectable …” It sounded odd. What was respectability these days? But what other expression was there? she wondered. Law- abiding? That said what she wanted to say, but somehow sounded equally old-fashioned.

Willy smiled. “He’s not, you know. He’s … he’s a criminal.”

At first, Isabel did not know what to say. But then she wondered how Willy knew. One had to have proof to make that sort of allegation, and what proof would he have? She looked at his bag. He carried secrets; he carried people’s lives about in his bag. He knew.

“See?” said Willy. “So I can’t really do anything. Not where I live.”

Isabel understood, and the thought depressed her. She had often speculated on what it must be like to live in a rotten state, where those in power and authority were corrupt and evil. Stalinist Russia must have been like that; the Third Reich; and countless lesser examples of tinpot dictatorships. How trapped one must feel; how dispirited that there was nobody to assert the good. There were courts and investigative journalists and public-spirited politicians who could be turned to, but what if one were powerless or without much of a voice? One needed grammar, and volume, to be heard. What if one lived in an area where the writ that ran in the streets was that of a local gang leader? Or where, if one incurred the disfavour of somebody powerful, a nod could arrange a nasty accident? For many people, that was a reality: the police, the state, could not give them real protection.

“We can’t put everything right,” she said. It was a shameful admission, and contrary to much of what she believed. But it was true, at least for Willy, who sighed and said yes, she was right. We could not put right even a tiny part of what was wrong.

“Compromise,” he said, making ready to leave.

Isabel watched him walk down the path. He was right about compromise; and who amongst us, she thought, did not make compromises, all the time? The answer came without prompting: Charlie. He lived in a world of absolutes, but would learn to compromise soon enough so that he could live in a world that was far, very far, from the peaceable kingdom of our aspiration, of our imagining. Nor had Charlie yet learned to lie; what he said was what he thought. And yet at some stage he would learn to lie and at that point, Isabel thought, would his moral life really begin. The struggle with lies was for many of us the first, most difficult, and most long-lasting battle of our lives. It was not surprising, perhaps, that so many people gave in at an early stage. Only Kant, with his categorical imperative, and George Washington, with his chopped-down and possibly apocryphal cherry tree, and a few others, formed the company of those who were constitutionally incapable of telling a lie. The rest of humanity was, she feared, fairly mendacious.

She imagined, for a moment, Charlie, a few years hence and able to wield an axe, even if a tiny one, cutting down her cherry tree—and there was a small cherry tree in her garden—and then saying, “Didn’t.” That’s what children said: Didn’t. They knew it was not true, and that in most cases they should have said did. But no turkey, when asked the time of year, if speech were possible for turkeys, would say Late November or December 24.

SHE STARTED TO TACKLE THE MAIL, beginning with the package from Utah. She knew who would have sent it: Mike Vause, a professor at a university there, had corresponded with her over the last few years, since she had published an article of his on the subject of mountaineering ethics. From time to time he sent her articles and books that he thought she might like, even though she had never met him. It was typical of Western generosity, she thought; that direct, helpful attitude that made her proud of her half-American ancestry. Her sainted American mother had had that quality too, she reflected; and I love her so much, although her memory is fading. Don’t leave me altogether; don’t leave me.

Isabel took the book out of the package and saw on it a picture of a high mountain ridge, with climbers strung out along it, tiny figures like ants. Tucked into the jacket flap was a note from Mike:

Isabel—I mentioned this book to you once. Now I’ve found a copy that I’d like you to have. This author really saw some of the things we talked about—it’s unbelievable. Or rather, it’s very believable. People can be pretty wicked, can’t they? Are you still disinclined to climb? One of these days I’ll come over to Scotland and show you how to climb Ben Nevis. You can do it, you know. Anybody can. And you never know: you might find that you have a good head for heights after all!Mike

She looked at the description of the book. The author had decided to climb Everest. He had looked forward to an expedition in the company of high-minded people; instead he had found a mountain riddled with all sorts of unattractive characters: thieves, charlatans, ruthless exploiters of would-be summiteers. She frowned, remembering again her conversation with Willy. He had suggested that a criminal lived a few streets away—which should be no great surprise, as criminals, large and small, had to live somewhere, and that had to be next door to somebody; but should criminals infest Everest, of all places? Everest, like any mountain, should be a place of purity, of high driven snow, of clean—if somewhat thin—air.

Isabel sat down in her chair and began to read. The rest of the mail remained ignored and unopened. An hour later, Jamie came in with a cup of coffee.

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said. Glancing at the book, he asked whether she was reviewing it.

“No.” She put the book down. “Tell me, Jamie, if you were climbing Everest …”

He laughed. “Yes. Easily imagined. So I’m climbing Everest …”

“And high up—not in the Death Zone yet, but still pretty high …”

He asked her what the Death Zone was.