The Baggage of Worst Scenarios

I have a letter from Ray Bradbury, the novelist, poet and futurist, describing an idyllic summer he is spending in Paris with his wife, Maggie.

“Mag and I are here for nine weeks,” he says. “We decided to make it a real summer. Our reasoning? That even if we came down with summer colds or Trotsky’s Dilemma (no restrooms in sight!) the fact of our being here for such a good long visit would sustain our joy, no matter what. It has proven correct.

“We do one large event a day, have a quiet dinner, sometimes with friends, and bed down with half-a-dozen newspapers, some in French for Mag, and have found a new tourist serenity.”

Bradbury encloses a clipping from one of those newspapers, the Sunday Telegraph, that evidently prompted him to write. It is a column by Oliver Pritchett, and it reflects graphically my anxieties about travel, of which Bradbury is well aware.

Pritchett obviously, like me, prefers to stay at home, and he imagines consulting Erehwon Tours, “a non-travel agency that does extremely good business helping people who do not want to go away on holiday.”

He writes: “Penelope, the brisk and chic assistant, put aside her embroidery and turned her full attention to my problem. ‘I need to take some details,’ she said. ‘Is there anywhere in particular that you do not want to go?’ I explained that basically I had an open mind.”

Pritchett might have been reading my mind when he wrote: “ ‘So it would be a case (Penelope continues) where a partner wishes to go on holiday while you yourself are unwilling,’ she said delicately. ‘And I take it that procrastination is no longer a viable option.’

“Quite so.”

Penelope mentions numerous services, such as providing brochures with unpleasant pictures of resorts and complicated price lists; spreading rumors of a crime in the neighborhood of one’s house so that one hesitates to leave it untended; false reports of oil slicks, seagoing mutinies and overbooked flights; and emergency phone calls summoning one home.

I don’t mean to suggest that I have dragged my heels on every trip my wife and I have taken abroad. Actually, I have suggested and booked most of them, because I like to please her; she is always delighted to go anywhere. Her joy in travel, however, may be spoiled by my grumbling. I foresee disaster in every situation. She accuses me of traveling with a bag full of “worst scenarios.”

Our recent week in Aspen was her idea. Because of the altitude, I went along with some anxiety. But she had won a week’s free rent in a condominium, and was not to be denied it by the mere possibility of my untimely expiration.

Unfortunately, on our last day in Aspen we ran into Marlene Billington, who arranges tours for Music Center friends and supporters. We had dinner with Marlene and her husband, Brian, and she was euphoric about her upcoming adventures: in late December she’ll shepherd a flight to Bangkok to celebrate New Year’s, and then cruise to Singapore on the Sea Goddess, all very first class. In April, she will lead a tour of Cairo and the pyramids, a flight to Aswan, and a cruise up the Nile to Luxor, with camel rides and visits to several temples and palaces.

My wife caught fire. Naturally she wanted to go. But I put my foot down. Bangkok-Singapore is out. I don’t know about Cairo. Though I dread the idea (all those insects), I have always wanted to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. I know they won’t look any different than they do in the movies and pictures I’ve seen, but if I actually see them I’ll know that they really exist. It will be another verification that all the history I’ve read is true.

I have seen the Tower of London, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum and the Parthenon, which somehow have escaped the scourge of two world wars. Once I have seen the pyramids I will feel complete. Please don’t mention the Taj Mahal.

So I’ll hold out until procrastination is no longer a viable option, then I’ll probably cave in. But there’s one thing I won’t do. I won’t ride a camel. Not for all the tea in China.

Speaking of China, I am not going to China.