Ecotopia (26 page)

(June 17) When I left the hospital this morning and headed out to see Marissa at the camp, I stopped at one of those fantastic camping-supply stores they have, and bought Linda a new sleeping bag—a super down-filled job that rolls into a tiny stuff sack and will keep her snug in the coldest desert night. Choice of dark green, brown, blue, or flaming orange. I picked orange. Feeling foolish, I wrote on the card, “Stay warm. Love.” Had it delivered to the hospital so she would get it before her vacation begins.

Marissa delighted to see me. Asked wicked titillating questions about Linda’s attentions, insisted on inspecting my scar, made fun of “pretty nursie taking care of poor wounded Willie.” We laughed and horsed around gleefully—it really did feel sensational to be back with her.

Somehow, though, we got into this ferocious argument. Carried away, I mentioned my recurrent fantasy of taking her back to New York with me when my assignment here is over. She reacted instantly that it was an asinine idea, absurd: “What would I
do
there? I’d be just an appendage to you. There’s no way I could make a life for myself in that kind of society.” I felt, to my surprise, terribly hurt at this: as if our love for each other could have no impact on the real world. I raged and moaned, accused her of not caring for me, of not wanting to continue being with me. She reassured me about loving me, but would not budge on the basic question. I broke out in a cold sweat, feeling horrible. I wanted desperately to make love to her, but my sexual feelings were somehow bottled up; nothing would happen.

Eventually we took a long walk through the forest. Am beginning to understand how she feels about trees. We walked up the valley, taking it easy, then came back past the hollow tree where we had first made serious love. It was still a magical place. But this time we just sat down quietly inside the old trunk, watching the light fade into dusk, touching each other lightly. Despite the quarrel, I am happier than I have been in a long time, and dread it coming to
an end. Will put off for one more day going back to the city, and the work which will soon be over.

(June 18) Was told this morning that Vera Allwen would see me today at four, though strictly off the record and informally. Have just returned from her office, and transcribe here the essentials of what happened.

The President is a very direct person. Despite being rather small and a trifle stout, gives off a strong air of authority. Clearly well used to exercising power. But not businesslike and cool about it, like many of our politicians, who are sometimes hard to tell from businessmen—heads full of impersonal calculations that happen to be power equations instead of money ones. She is powerful
as a person,
not as a bureaucrat or the head of an institution. Difficult to express. (Have heard that some of the old-time communist leaders, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse-tung, had this quality too.) Gave me the feeling I’ve had in playing chess with people who turn out to be much better players—of being mysteriously outclassed. A truly remarkable woman. Found myself taking refuge in the feeling of being an emissary—I might not measure up to her myself, but at least I had a mission to carry out.

I presented our President’s case for normalization of relations, explaining the advantages, chiefly economic, that could ensue for Ecotopia. She is not against this—replied that Ecotopia already has a certain trade with many other countries, and in fact would welcome additional outlets for some surpluses (wine above all) and would buy a few things from us in return (though vague about what). Medium of exchange would have to be yen, but this could be concealed from our public.

Asked me why we are prepared to take risk of having Ecotopian consulates in our major cities, considering the unrest already generated by Ecotopian ideas among our youth. Not sure I handled this right—made light of danger, expressed confidence, etc. May have seemed ridiculously naive if their intelligence service is as good as I suppose. For all I know, they may be financing the secessionist movements we are beginning to notice in the Great Lakes region and the Southeast.

Main point: absolutely no hope for reunification, now or ever. Long, impassioned speech on this—that the notion shows the lack of contact with reality of our government, that on every major social index Ecotopia would lose by reunification (she ran down the list), the problem is how the United States can follow Ecotopia’s lead, not vice versa, that
all
the large countries should break up into smaller ones, that even if her government wanted reunification her people would not stand for it, and so on. A wildly nationalistic, aggressively secessionist diatribe. Then she stopped short, fixed me with powerful eyes: “You cannot be serious.”

“My government—” I began, but she interrupted: “You cannot be serious.” Silence. Long silence. She waited, sat back, still glaring at me. Uncomfortable moment—to be sure, at that point I was no longer clear what
would
really be gained from steps toward reunification. For the U.S. or anybody, including myself.

She gave me a faintly ironic smile. “You know,” she said, “I have now said everything I have to say as an official. Perhaps we could just talk as two human beings from now on?” She poured me a brandy (Ecotopian, I noticed, not French!) from a shelf next to her desk. She walked around, sat down nearer to me. “It is Friday afternoon, the end of a long week. No more business—but I would like to hear what you really think of our country, what you have seen and done. We have, naturally, been reading your reports with care. To be frank, we have been pleasantly surprised at their growing fairness, and the unusual curiosity they reflect. Perhaps you have had a better time in Ecotopia than you expected?” Her eyes crinkled in an almost conspiratorial smile. Startled, I looked back rather blankly, then managed to say, “Well, yes, in fact that’s true”

“You are not as personal in your columns as our journalists tend to be, so we have not been able to judge if you have had good experiences among us.”

“I put down my personal experiences in a diary. Many of them have been very good, but they’re not for publication. —You should understand that by
our
standards my columns have probably seemed rather too personal.”

“Yes, I know. I also know that you have been doing in Ecotopia
as the Ecotopians do, where that has been possible for you. We are grateful for the moderation you’ve expressed. But of course we want more of you still. We have more to give you, I suspect, and there are still things you haven’t grasped.” “But I have grasped correctly that I cannot give our President any real hope?”

“None whatever.”

“And if our hawks prevail?”

“Your hawks were not insane enough to destroy the country in order to reunify it at Independence, so we doubt they will be now. —But that’s enough of that. I’d like to know what you have been
feeling
while you’ve been with us. You can be frank; I have not reached this position by being a gossip, and nothing will go beyond these walls. I like you—you have done brave and good work. I am interested in
everything
that has happened to you here.”

Rest of conversation uncomfortably personal, cannot record. It was almost like a psychiatric interview. Kept getting the feeling that she was somehow, without ever even hinting at it, probing my loyalties, exploring the ambiguities of my feelings. I kept quoting what I have so gingerly written in the columns—to which she would always have some oblique reply, pretty much indicating that she saw how my mind had worked. Even seemed to know about Marissa—which I suppose should be no surprise. (In a small country ordinary conversation does the work that a secret service is required for in a big one?)

The talk left me feeling exhausted, depressed, as if a huge weight has settled on top of my head. This country is really too much. Even the President wants to mess with your soul…. What I had hoped would happen in the interview did not happen. Whatever
she
was hoping for must not have happened either—got the feeling that she was disappointed, had expected more. As I left, I had the flash that she reminded me of my grandmother, whose disappointments were visited upon several generations of my family.

Went back to the Cove, where everybody was dying to know what happened. Was surly to them, came upstairs to write down these notes. It has stayed cloudy the whole day today. Dismal auguries all around.

(June 18) Visit with the President has really gotten me down. Whole trip now seems like a waste of time. This place is lost for us—no question about it! Forever. Period. The journalists at the Cove keep hounding me to tell them what was discussed. I say nothing. Since they’re not dummies, they know there may have been more than reportorial reasons for my visit out here. And they can see from my downcast state of mind that it didn’t work, whatever it was. They are sympathetic but a certain distance between us has been apparent since the interview.

Have caught some sort of flu—headache, sore throat, a little temperature. (Thermometer is marked in Centigrade, so I don’t quite know how serious, but only one notch above normal.) Couldn’t sleep at all last night. I go down for a bite now and then, but everybody is always after me. Even Bert. Had to tell him plainly to stop it.

Must try and sort the whole experience out in my head in some new way. Find that I dread the idea of Marissa coming in and seeing me in such dismal shape. The “perspective” she said she loves in me seems to have dissolved utterly. Must phone her and tell her I’m sick so she won’t come.

Was fantasizing a balance sheet headed “Ecotopia,” and down in two long columns go all the pros and cons. The list gets grotesquely long and dim and blurry, and I hear Marissa laughing. Finally I just rip it up, and my head spins, and I despair.

ECOTOPIA: CHALLENGE
OR ILLUSION?

San Francisco, June 19. Where is Ecotopia going in the future? After more than six weeks’ intensive study of the country, I find it still hazardous to guess. There is no doubt, I have been forced to conclude, that the risky social experiments undertaken here have worked on a biological level. Ecotopian air and water are everywhere crystal clear. The land is well cared for and productive. Food is plentiful, wholesome, and recognizable. All life systems
are operating on a stable-state basis, and can go on doing so indefinitely. The health and general well-being of the people are undeniable. While the extreme decentralization and emotional openness of the society seem alien to an American at first, they too have much to be said in their favor. In these respects, I believe, Ecotopia offers us a difficult challenge, and we have far to go to even approach their achievements.

On the other hand, these benefits have been bought at a heavy cost. Not only is the Ecotopian industrial capacity and standard of consumption markedly below ours, to a degree that would never be tolerated by Americans generally, but the Ecotopian political system rests on assumptions that I can only conclude are dangerous in the extreme. In my earlier columns I described the city-states that have already, in effect, themselves seceded within Ecotopia. There is talk currently of formalizing the Spanish-speaking and Japanese communities of San Francisco—the latter, of course, an economically sinister development because of the threat of Japanese capital taking over. Jewish, American Indian, and other minorities all contain militants who desire a greater autonomy for their peoples.

It is, admittedly, difficult for an American to criticize such trends when our own society, after the failure of the integrationist campaign of the sixties, has grown ever more segregated—though somewhat less unequal. However, it is still the American ideal that all men and women should obtain equal protection from the law and have equal status as citizens of one great and powerful nation. The Ecotopian principle of secession denies this hope and this faith. While seemingly idealistic, it is in fact profoundly pessimistic. And the consequences seem clear. The way propounded by Ecotopian ideologues leads away from the former greatness of America, unified in spirit “from sea to shining sea,” toward a balkanized continent—a welter of small, second-class nations, each with its own petty cultural differentiations. Instead of continuing the long march toward one world of peace and freedom, to which America has dedicated itself on the battlefields of Korea, Vietnam, and Brazil (not to mention our own Civil War), the Ecotopians propose only separatism, quietism, a reversion toward the two-bit
principalities of medieval Europe, or perhaps even the tribalism of the jungle.

Under Ecotopian ideas, the era of the great nation-states, with their promise of one ultimate world-state, would fade away. Despite our achievements of a worldwide communications network and jet travel, mankind would fly apart into small, culturally homogenous groupings. In the words of Yeats (an early 20th-century poet from Ireland—a very small and secessionist country): “The center cannot hold.”