My Nine Lives (26 page)

Although all this was fascinating to Priya, what fascinated her most was his ideas. C.'s ideas: unlike myself, Priya understood
completely what they were about—or rather, as she put it, what C. himself was all about. She knew, she felt it in her guts (she had these expressions) that C. was the real thing; whereas Shivaji was (again her expression) all bunk. Not the type to repress anything, she never disguised her feelings about Shivaji; but he was just as nice with her as he was with the rest of us. He had very gentle—one could almost say “gentlemanly”—manners, a sort of physical and moral delicacy typical of high-class Hindus. When Renuka took him to England—and this was one of the many things Priya held against him—he liked to outfit himself in Savile Row suits and in shoes that had to be handmade because of his slender brahmin feet. In India he wore only Indian clothes, of the most exquisite muslin with Lucknow embroidery at the shoulders and sleeves. And whereas in Europe he enjoyed lamb and wine, in India he was a pure vegetarian, eating out of silver bowls on a silver tray which Renuka herself carried in to him.

Usually he ate alone, but once a week we had what he called a feast, with all of us gathered around him. Nothing serious was ever said at these feasts; he made them playful occasions for everyone to enjoy, with laughter and teasing. He loved to tease and he didn't spare C. Shivaji himself always ate with his fingers, very skillfully and without spilling a drop; but when C. tried it, he got into a terrible mess, as Shivaji pointed out for everyone's amusement. C. also had difficulty sitting crosslegged on the floor—he was too large, his legs were like pillars, impossible to tuck under him, and about this too Shivaji teased him and made everyone laugh, C. the loudest. Only Priya scowled and said she saw no particular virtue in squatting on the floor, and though she spoke quite rudely, Shivaji made out that it was all in the same spirit of friendly fun.

For Priya, Shivaji was already “past it,” as she put it: his ideas were too naive, too simplistic to appeal to the educated of her own generation. But her mother was Shivaji's ardent devotee, and also in complete charge of his practical and financial arrangements. She had given herself and her whole life over to him. She hardly spent any time in Bombay with her husband—“Of course Daddy is glad to be rid of her,” Priya assured us. Later, when she got to know us better—when she got to know us very well—she also shared her grudge against her father with us and told us of his scandalous affair with a Bombay film actress who made as free with his money for her young lovers as Renuka did for Shivaji.

Priya didn't suggest that her mother and Shivaji were lovers. The word “suggest” is not right in regard to Priya, whose language was always direct, not to say blunt. I had never known anyone so uninhibited. At first this was strange to me, a contrast to the traditional modesty of the sari she so elegantly draped around herself, or the grace of her Indian gestures enhanced by the soft clinking of the gold bangles and ankle-chain she wore. But then, within this feminine exterior, she had a sharp, emancipated mind. She was voluble on every subject, including sex. She spoke frankly about her mother and Shivaji, explaining that yes of course
she
would have liked to have sex with him but he wouldn't, or maybe couldn't. Priya speculated about his sexual potency or orientation or both with such freedom that it was as if she intended to violate the purity under his spotless white muslin.

She was equally frank about her feelings for C. Of course he was at that time young, whereas Shivaji may even have been old. It was difficult to tell with him: sometimes his fine pale ivory skin seemed smooth and young, but sometimes it looked as if it had been stretched over his facial bones like parchment that was about to split. Also, whereas Shivaji sat
enveloped in a hush of reverence within his palatial mansion, C. moved about the city, robustly enjoying everything around him. All our time in Delhi we lived in the same tiny rectangular room, with big patches of damp seeping through the walls on which many bugs had been squashed. The rooms in the hotel were always full, probably because they were so cheap. It was noisy with a whole lot of men in one room, drinking, laughing, and fighting. On hot nights they sat out in the street, in front of the hotel, where C. often joined them. I watched them from our window above and I could see what a good time they were all having together. Although he didn't as yet speak much of any local language—he learned a little more every day, he was a true polyglot—he managed to communicate with everyone, largely through humor and back-slapping. They were all large men, as large as he was, and with the same rough quality. He told me that most of them were Afghans, here on business—the business was clandestine, probably in opium, always a flourishing trade on this route. Some also had connections with the brothels located in the network of alleys around the hotel and were responsible for supplying them with new girls. Theirs were dangerous and highly competitive occupations, so it was no wonder that there were frequent fights, both in the hotel and in the street, including some stabbing incidents, for everyone carried a knife or dagger hidden under their long loose shirts.

To cater to the taste of these Afghan traders, several eating stalls had sprung up with open fire pits in which highly seasoned chickens and lumps of meat were roasted on spits. C. loved this food, and when I saw him surrounded by his new friends, all of them tearing their food with their hands—so different from Shivaji's refined table manners—it was impossible not to remember his stories of hunting and being hunted across forests and mountains. And although he was
blond and they dark, dark-bearded, they were somehow of the same type: hunters, predators. They also introduced him to another of their great pleasures: Bombay films, for which we would queue up to get into the cheap seats. It was an experience to be down there in the stalls with our new friends, who knew and sang along with all the lyrics and cheered the hero and booed the villain and expired in ecstasy over the huge-bosomed heroine or with pity over her sufferings that made tears roll down her cheeks, plump as plums.

Priya deplored C.'s taste for these films, which she characterized as vulgar and childish. He went on enjoying them; he had even begun to learn the lyrics and to sing them with his friends. Although she so despised the films and their audience, Priya always came with us, for by this time she came with us everywhere. She sat around in our room for hours, though it was such a different atmosphere from anything she was used to. She never seemed to notice or to care about that. It didn't bother her even when a fight broke out in one of the rooms, or there was screeching and cursing on the stairs every time a hotel guest was evicted. She made no secret of the fact that she had attached herself to C. and wanted to be where he was. It was very unusual for a girl like her to be seen in these bazaar streets, but she walked in them as proudly as she did everywhere, just lifting the edge of her sari a little to prevent it from trailing in anything trodden into the ground. There was something so royal about her confidence that no one dared to call after or molest her in any way. I myself had had more trouble when I first came here—the only women seen in these streets were poor shabby housewives or prostitutes dressed to kill—but by now I was generally accepted as C.'s companion. In any case, I had nothing very remarkable about me to invite sexual interest. That may have been why my presence never inhibited Priya
or affected her interest in C. If he was out when she came to the hotel, she simply stayed to wait for him. I sat on the floor while she lay on the bed; no other furniture was provided except for an earthenware jar to store drinking water. When Priya ran out of conversation with me, she picked up one of C.'s books and was soon immersed in reading it.

Although Priya's interest in C. was personal—and how could it not be?—that was only part of his appeal to her. Like everyone else, she felt the force of a great future in him, but in her case this went beyond a vague response to his personality. His ideas were in process of unfolding; and I think what interested her most was that they were so different from anything that Shivaji taught. As far as I understood this difference—and that was not very far—both wanted people to be more knowledgeable about themselves; but whereas Shivaji's self-knowledge was aimed at transcending this world, C.'s was aimed toward a better adjustment in it. If Priya were to read this last sentence—but she won't, she has long since moved away, physically and intellectually—she would be very impatient with me for my crude interpretation. For it was she who had tried to explain C.'s ideas to me in a way that he himself never did. He never spoke to me about these things; his relationship with me was on another level of his existence—one that was completely and utterly satisfying to me and, I like to think, in some way for him too. For me, there has never been anything like the sweetness of our sessions under the tree; and perhaps some small drop of it has also lingered with him, through all his subsequent career and his professional and personal relationships with many, many others.

When our money ran out—and I never figured how he had made it last so long—Priya became our patroness. She had a large allowance from her father and could always ask him
for more, so it was not difficult for her to supply our needs. Nor was it difficult for us to accept. By this time I had adopted C.'s attitude toward money, and anyway it was fun to go shopping with Priya for new clothes, which we badly needed since ours were falling to pieces. She dressed us up in Indian outfits—the choice was hers, she knew best of course and was bossy by nature. C. now wore the same kind of loose shirt and baggy pajama trousers as his Afghan friends, so that he took on even more of their warrior appearance. Priya was also ready to move us out of our hotel room—she had already chosen a rooftop flat for us in a much better part of the city—but C. wanted to stay where we had made friends and become used to the streets and stalls that supplied us with cooked food in little earthenware pots covered with leaves. The only inconvenience was that we had only one small room with a single bed in it, and while this had been fine for only C. and me, it was no longer so when Priya began to spend most of her time with us. She often found it difficult to leave because of the discussion of ideas she was having with C. Here I might mention that it was no part of his method to confine himself to abstract discussion. Far from holding aloof, he threw himself in, made himself—his expression—part of the equation. And with Priya, as probably with his later students, this took a physical turn: and since it was part of their work together, there was no embarrassment for anyone except me, who left them alone at such times though they always said it was all right for me to stay.

In this time I got to know the city of Delhi well, wandering around on my own in its streets and parks and tombs and temples and mosques. But as the season advanced and the heat became intense, I drifted more and more to the other house, where Shivaji was. Here it was cool and tranquil, and I was given almond sherbet to drink out of a silver vessel. I
sat with Renuka, Priya's mother, on a brocade sofa while she spoke to me of her difficulties. Chief of these was her daughter Priya—she knew that daughters often rebelled against their mothers, but she could not understand why Priya's hostility extended to Shivaji, who was such a great and realized soul. How was it that instead Priya should attach herself to someone like C.—and here she had the same sort of questions as my mother Edith used to ask me: who is he, where does he come from? “And why is she with him so much?” Renuka also asked me. This question I could answer more easily: “They're discussing his ideas. Priya's the only person really able to understand them.” Priya's mother said nothing, but bit her lips like one who could say a lot if she wanted to.

While Renuka kept her opinions to herself, Priya couldn't pronounce hers loud enough. “It's really quite sordid,” she said of her mother and Shivaji. “It's all about money. She's afraid that if she doesn't come up with it, he'll just drop her and take up with someone else. He would too; he's the greediest person alive.”

I didn't believe her. Along with his other visitors, I spent a lot of time in his presence, and I always tried to be there when he was singing. He had a light, melodious voice, and although I couldn't understand the words, I realized that they expressed feelings of love and devotion. Listening to him, all of us sat very still with only an occasional deep sigh of contentment. The one who sighed deepest was Renuka, and I think she would have liked to do more—to cry out maybe, to dance, to roll on the ground—but Shivaji was opposed to any form of ostentatious behavior. She was an imposing, regal woman, with an imperious manner, but I noticed that, when she approached him, this manner changed entirely: she became like a humble handmaiden whose one desire was to serve
him. But I also saw that this deference was extremely irritating to him—he would frown and be curt with her and send her briskly about her business (which of course was his, she had no other thought or occupation). Then she would come out of his room with tears in her eyes, and complain to me afterwards about how difficult it was to serve a saint. However, whenever he had been impatient with her, he made up for it later by singling her out for praise before everyone for her selfless work, so that she glowed with pride and was able to preen herself a little.

Priya conceived the idea that C. too had to be set up, like Shivaji, as a leader with a following of his own. He could not be wasted just on me and on herself in a broken-down bazaar hotel. She wanted to take him away—not just out of the hotel or the city of Delhi but right out into a bigger world. Shivaji already had a following in Europe, but for C. Priya wanted a new world,
the
New World, America itself. The first step was to get him there: to make his travel arrangements and set him up on a suitable scale. Of course everything had to be first-class, as it was with Shivaji. Money had never presented a problem for Priya, any more than it had for C: in his case, because he had never had any, in hers because she had always had enough. But now her father said he couldn't support two world movements, his daughter's and his wife's. He was perfectly willing to part with a certain fixed sum, the way another husband and father might have allotted pin money; and if Priya's scheme was to be financed, then she and her mother would have to share the available amount between them. Busy with his own affairs, he left them to fight the matter out between themselves.