"A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies"

まだ若かった頃。30代前半だった頃。まだ国連で仕事を始めたばかりの頃、そしてストレートにむかついていた頃。二度とこんなところで働くものかと思っていた頃。つまり、自分にはまだ無限の将来が無数の選択肢があると思っていた頃。

そんな頃に出会った友人の一人とたまにメールのやりとりがある。たまというのは1年に一回とか2年に一回とかそんなものかもしれない。彼女と仕事についてよく話した。国連はこれじゃあどうにもならない、というのはみんな話の出発点だ。でも、さて、それでどうするかとなると、個人でいろんな選択肢が出てくる。システム内に残って改善に励むというのも一つの道だろう、飛び出してえらくなって上から舞い降りてきて改善するという手もあるだろう。まったく別の道を究めて、同じ目的をもっと効果的に達成するという道もあるだろう。どれがベストなのかは、その当時誰にも分からなかった。しかし、友人たちはいろんなルートに別れていった。

僕はそれから組織を8回変わった。彼女はPh.Dを取るためにアメリカに行った。そして、Ph.D をとって今は同じ業界に戻って世界中をビジネスクラスやファーストクラスで飛び回っている。

そして、彼女は今何を思っているだろうか。僕と彼女は今、極めて同質の疑問に揺れ動いている。ものすごく簡単に言うと、われわれはいったい何をやってるのだろうか？という古典的な疑問だ。これは僕と彼女の人生の中心部を突き抜けて不動のまま残っているのだ。

とすると、一回しかない人生。考え直すことができるなら今が最後かもしれない。それが正気というものだろうと思う。できることなら、正気で死んで行きたい。

彼女が紹介してくれた本を買い物リストに追加した。"A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies", John Murray.　同じような思いをして、結局、この業界から出て行った人らしい。（太字にしたところは僕の仕業です）。

(Reviewed by Poornima Apte APR 20 2003)
John Murray is a physician turned writer; his debut short story collection treads the line between the precise realms of science and the more abstract realities of everyday living. Murray skillfully etches his stories with strong characters, good imagery, and vivid storytelling. One begins to suspect here that science, which most of the stories are laced with, in one way or the other can be quite the art form.

Many of Murray's characters are in the process of coping with some personal loss. In "The Carpenter who looked Like a Boxer," a single father tries hard to cope with his wife's desertion. Danny Dalton must attend to his kids and his work while coming to terms with his new life under the intense gaze of his neighbors. Dalton hears "burrowing" noises at night probably indicative of inner restlessness.

Often, in Murray's stories, new paths are charted after seemingly chance encounters with near strangers. The meticulous and sensible Dr. Elizabeth Dinakar in "Hill Station" decides to leave her orderly life behind after she meets a man on a bus ride in India who earnestly outlines all his "assets" for her on a sheet of paper. In "All the Rivers in the World," Vitek suffers from deep fear of the sea having seen his two brothers die while doing their duties as fishermen on the ocean. Vitek's father, himself a fisherman, cannot take the guilt and many years later, abandons his wife and only remaining son to move to Florida. It is here that Vitek catches up with his father who now has a young girl friend, Chika Portini. The strong dynamics between father and son would have been more than enough for this story; an added dimension is Chika's past. It turns out that she is a doctor who has attended to refugees in war-stricken countries. She is herself fleeing from decisions made in her past. She tells Vitek, "Nothing really matters, nothing at all, except what you do in those few moments when you have to put yourself on the line for others, to overcome your own fear. It is all right to fail. It is more important to try, to do your best. This is all that makes failure acceptable." Vitek is transformed by this revelation and comes to term with his own fears.

Murray, who has served as a doctor in the third world, has set many of his stories in the developing world. His imagery of the cholera-ridden slums of Bombay or of war-torn Africa, are painfully accurate. The stories' characters are often immigrants (many are Indian Americans) learning to see both the "old country" and the new adopted one in fresh ways. In "White Flour," an American physician adopts India as his home while his Indian American wife would never return to India: "Pride was why she could never go back to India, admit that she had failed and was no longer living a privileged life."

Most striking in Murray's stories is the utter helplessness felt by people of science -- people we would normally assume have the power to make the world a better place for all of us. "Nothing we can do makes a difference," says a doctor trying to help refugees in a war, "it's like holding back a deluge of rain with a scrap of paper." A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies is populated with characters who are trying their hardest to learn from past mistakes and make the best out of their lives. They do so with controlled grace and charm. John Murray's debut collection is as beautiful as the ephemeral butterflies that flit through its pages.