Lost Tribes

Abstract

That fall, the only flat I could afford was in southwestern London, where the heel of the city lay wedged toward Surrey and Putney and the famously pristine English gardens I never actually laid eyes on. You took the train to Tooting Bec, the last station on the line, and from there the red bus to Streatham High Road, and then you walked: down the blaring Road, past the enraged Cypriot widow's fish-and-chips shop, past the doors opening and swinging shut at the Streatham Arms at the corner of High and Lower, onto a curved block of squat brick row houses with earnest patches of lawn protected from dogs and children by waist-high iron fences. This was my daily route, from the university where I studied the principles of anthropology according to the exacting standards of British colonialism, to my two dark rooms at 28 Fernwood Avenue, bath privileges down the hall.