Open City by Teju Cole

2011 Random House

Recently, I attempted to play tennis with Mississippi. It didn’t go so well. The last time I hit tennis balls was sometime around 2013 with Pan Przemek, my tennis coach in Warsaw. Back then, my tennis life felt robust and full of promise.

For a while when I lived in Poland, I would get regular lessons from Pan Przemek, who then appeared to be close to 80 years old, an age that might send many people to the easy chair, but not Pan Przemek. I admired his drive, his engagement, and his energy.

Pan Przemek spoke a little English, and I spoke a little Polish. Together, we spoke tennis. I loved my lessons on those red clay courts in Skaryszewski Park. I dreamed of a future where I lived in Coastal Maine and played a lot of tennis, but I also felt connected to the 1970s when many a suburban New Jersey girl sought to emulate Chris Evert and Billy Jean King.

Forty years post Billy Jean, across the ocean, deep in Central Europe, my knees started to object to playing tennis, so I went to a doctor who told me both joints were bone on bone. Suddenly, tennis didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore, so I said goodbye to Pan Przemek and the sport.

Tennis racket retired, I still continued to read books. If I couldn’t run around the court hitting baseline shots, I could still plunge into the world of books. My knees did not complain.

This summer, albeit in fits and starts, I’ve been reading Open City by the Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole. In the beginning of the novel, which reads like an essay to me, the protagonist, a psychiatrist finishing up his training, ruminates as he meanders throughout Manhattan.

His wanderings brought me back to my own massive walks in that city.

Urban trekking is a practice that a certain city dwellers develop. One summer, it was 1983, I think, I walked nearly eight miles a day, commuting roundtrip from my studio apartment on West 55th Street to my job at Manhattan School of Music, at 122nd Street. Most of my journey was spent on Broadway, a central, north/south artery with an endlessly interesting parade of people and shops in that part of town.

Writing about urban wanderings is a literary tradition of sorts. The Odd Woman and the City, Vivian Gornick’s 2015 memoir of her walks in New York, comes to mind.

Long city jaunts are one thing I miss about New York City. While my walks during my six years in Virginia have not been urban, they have occasionally taken me in interesting directions. For example, walking is how I stumbled upon my pickleball people.

Nearly a decade after Pan Przemek and tennis in Poland, like a lot of people during quarantine, I took to the sidewalks and wooded paths near where I lived. My pandemic walks often took me past a set of four tennis courts near the condo I rented in Northern Virginia. I had noticed people playing pickleball for some time, but I didn’t give them a second thought until one day I decided to stop by.

“Is this a club?” I asked.

A woman came up to me and asked if I wanted to try playing. I looked down at my purple imitation Crocs and consider how bad an idea that might be. I had no paddle. (Don’t call it a racket. People will correct you.) Carolyn told me that there was a spare paddle, and a couple of people showed me how to hit the ball and when to come back.

From that September day in 2020, I played as much pickleball as I could. Crazy enough, the sport became somewhat life-changing. It met many needs: to be outside, to meet new people, and to get my heart rate up. There were additional perks, too. Suddenly, the demographic of my predominantly female world became more balanced. In Burke, lots of men played pickleball. They were all married, of course, but still, it was a welcome change from the largely female field of elementary school teaching.

The pickleball court is smaller than its counterpart in tennis. In pickleball, we play doubles, so there is less territory to cover and more help in doing so. I was feeling optimistic about the sport and even went to a doctor about my knees.

“You’re not bone on bone,” he reported.

Those first nine months of playing pickleball took place before my big move closer to D.C. The courts back in Burke were steps away from where I lived. When I moved to my new place last month, I knew I had to meet new pickleball people, and I did. It was an instant community, my 7:30 a.m. daily game.

Pickleball has become an organizing principle in my new life.

Who knows: Pickleball might lead me back to tennis; although when I tried tennis the other day, the court seemed the size of Texas, the racket, unlike the featherweight of a pickleball paddle, felt as heavy as a metal baseball bat. The tennis racket was not only heavy, it seemed to extend nearly as long as a lacrosse stick. The balls bounced higher and took longer to arrive. I swung at and missed many.

For now, the jury is out on tennis. What I do I know is: I need to be outside, moving, teaming up with other players, and trying not to curse when somewhen lobs a shot over my head and it lands just inside the baseline. My colorful language offends some people. Meanwhile, I miss my Burke players: Mike, who calls me Sheriff on account of my hat; Laura who always says Good try and gets every shot I miss.

I’ve found it almost impossible to settle down with a book this summer, but I resolve to continue with Open City, if only because sometimes, especially during periods of uncertainty and transition, it feels important to finish what has been started.

Literary praise for Open City abounds, comparing it to Austerlitz, another literary gem that failed to find traction with this reader. One of my quarrels with Open City is that the protagonist has only fleeting relationships with others, with the exception of a Moroccan internet cafe worker in Brussels and a dying college professor on Central Park South. Otherwise, the main characters in the novel are places, including New York and Brussels, where he takes a dreary month long winter vacation.

Open City is an intellectual’s novel. Cole is without a doubt a highly educated author who can explore erudite literary, historical, and philosophical topics in depth. A biographical jacket note lists “historian of early Netherlandish art” among his credentials.

Currently on page 204, I resolve to make it through the final fifty pages. Who knows what’s in store?