Travelers (10 page)

Everything that he had been disappointed in on those previous occasions he now found in Asha. Of course he was also thrilled by the luxurious surroundings in which their relationship unfolded—how different from those slum tenements in which the prostitutes lived!—but more than that, much much more, was Asha herself. It was true, she was not young, indeed she was old, her body was soft and sagging but, as he pressed himself against it and inhaled the odor of her flesh (pampered for a lifetime with oils and French perfumes), a rich new world opened to his mind as well as to his senses. His love for her was also his love for her past and everything she had been and done in it. There were her rich and famous friends; there were her lovers. There was her husband, who had treated her so cruelly and yet whom she had loved so gloriously. He had been a spendthrift and perhaps in many ways a worthless fellow but he had been a poet. All these years after his death, Asha was still suffused by the poetry he had taught her and she often quoted Urdu couplets to Gopi that ravished his soul away. Poetry for him, as for her, was a reflection of—a straining after—all that was finest and best in human life and as she spoke these verses—“O nightingale, forgive me your death, it was my tears that drowned you”—their feelings rose to a pitch.

Lee

Margaret has heard of a new swami. He's supposed to be wonderful. He speaks English and lives in Benares. She wants me to go with her. I might.

Today the mission had its expulsion order from the government of India. It wasn't quite unexpected but all the same it was sad. After all these years here Miss Charlotte will have to leave. She didn't say much—in fact, she didn't really say anything—but was busy all day as usual. In the evening Raymond came. I had asked him to come and meet Miss Charlotte and I'm glad I did, it was certainly a success. I can see now that Raymond has lived mostly with middle-aged ladies and probably he misses their company here, for he was so pleased with Miss Charlotte. She asked him all those questions she's always asking Margaret and me, only he was much better at answering them. It turned out his mother has the same literary tastes as Miss Charlotte—terribly fond of George Eliot and Hardy—though his aunt (the one who died and left him a legacy) had more of a preference for the Brontës and the metaphysical poets. He said they often read to each other at home, he and his mother and his aunt when she was still with them; and Miss Charlotte said that they had had readings at home too when she was a girl, she remembered them so well, they had read all of Dickens and Thackeray and other classics. She thought nothing helped a child form good literary tastes so much as such readings aloud in the family circle, and Raymond agreed. They agreed about everything. They really took to each other.

All the same, I could see he was quite pleased when she went to bed and he was left alone with me. I knew he wanted to ask me something and also that he didn't know how to start. He went on talking to me about things that didn't matter a damn to him (or to me), just so as to keep polite conversation going and not make it look as if there was anything he wanted except only the pleasure of my company. So at last I interrupted him to say I knew where Gopi was. To which he said, “Oh, yes,” and his voice shook only the tiniest bit and he seemed about to continue his boring conversation. But I cut him short again and told him about Gopi and Asha. I felt someone had to do this, though I wish it didn't have to be me. He is very pale anyway
but now his face was quite chalky. He quickly lowered his eyes with the ginger lashes, I suppose so that I wouldn't be able to see the expression in them. But he still went on trying to make indifferent conversation.

I said, “Raymond, you don't have to be so
controlled,
not all the time.”

He said, “Then what do you expect me to do?”—quite dry and sharp.

Suddenly I began telling him about the new guru Margaret has heard about. I said she and I were thinking of going there. He pretended to be interested in what I was saying, though when I was finished there was a pause and I could see he was thinking of something quite different. I said, “Why don't you come too?”

“And do what?”

I said, “Raymond, please don't pretend to be more stupid than you are.”

Perhaps I sounded a bit hurt—anyway he made an effort to concentrate more of his attention on me. He said, quite gently and patiently, that he was sorry but surely I knew that he didn't care for these things. It might be that he was wrong, he said, but he simply wasn't interested. I said it
was
wrong—what was the use of coming to India if all you did here was to be a tourist? Tourists don't live, I told him, they only look—and looking is nothing, it doesn't change you, it doesn't help you really and truly find yourself. He pretended to be listening but he wasn't at all, I could see that very well. His thoughts were quite different and how they made him suffer. That made me mad—that he should suffer like that and be so entangled in these feelings and making no effort to free himself. And I decided there and then that
yes,
I would go with Margaret. I was fed up with everything here, with all these small things that engulfed people. I didn't want anything like that to happen to me.

Raymond Writes to His Mother

“. . .
I
meet Miss Charlotte quite often now and like her very much. So would you. She would fit in very well at Hazelhurst, and I can quite clearly see her and you going for long walks together—she
strides
in the same way you do—and having animated discussions on life and literature, both of you shrieking in high, girlish voices. I can't get over the way she's so
English,
considering the years she's been out here and the sort of work she's been doing. Of course I'm very sorry about the extradition orders and am in fact trying to help her get them revoked (
not
hopeful), but in a way I rather like the idea of her being back in England. You know, the gardens here are full of English flowers like larkspur and phlox and pansies and sweet peas. Whenever I see them, I get a strange feeling and wonder what are they doing here, how did they grow, and how are they managing to survive. I get the same feeling with Miss Charlotte. “I'm off tomorrow at 4
A.M.
(grisly hour). My itinerary is as follows: Jaipur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and then on my way back I'll just stop by at Agra for another look at the Taj Mahal and of course the great and glorious Fatehpur Sikri. Shyam is still hankering to come with me but I'm afraid I'm not quite grand enough to be able to travel around with my own personal body-servant. Besides, those air fares are rather prohibitive. Everyone is telling me all I'm missing by not going by car or train, and I dare say I am, but I want to be a tourist—I
am
a tourist—and get quickly from one place to another without having to take in great drafts of India on the way. Now, darling, please make a careful note of these addresses to which you must write and don't get them mixed up because you know how disappointed and anxious I'll be if I don't find your letters waiting for me. . . .”

Lee Writes to Asha

“. . . I think of you quite often and then I think you would be happy here too. I know it. Sometimes when you speak to me about those things you're always speaking about I feel that really that's not what you want at all, really it's something else you're looking for and this something else is the same I'm looking for and Margaret and so many others and perhaps even everyone in the world if they only knew it. Margaret keeps saying that her eyes have been opened and that's true but only if you remember that this means the
inner
eyes and those of course are not only vision but all other faculties as well, including the very highest faculties we have. If only we wake up to the fact that we
do
have them—or are woken up to that fact, because most of us are too corrupted to find them for ourselves. Swamiji has asked me to tell him about all the people I know. It's important for me to do this, to reveal everything to him so that I can become the new person he wants to make me and I want so much to be. When I told him about you he was very interested and he agreed that you too are a person looking for the right way. And he wants to help you and I want it too that you should come to him. If only I could give you some idea of him but that's not possible, I don't have the words. There are all sorts of people here and they all have different problems but now every one of us is learning to see how trivial these things which we thought important really are. So far our group is still quite small but more and more people will come to him not only from here but from all over the world and he is in fact planning to make it a world movement and will be leaving for a foreign tour as soon as it can be arranged. I'm sending you some literature—Swamiji says you should see this—I'm afraid it's locally printed so not very good but it will give you some idea. Swamiji would like you to show it to Rao Sahib too and other political people and if you want more to distribute please write and we will send . . .”

Asha Feels Old

Gopi threw his brand-new silk robe round himself and tied the belt with an easy, practiced movement. Asha watched and admired him. She sighed and said, “He loves you so much.”

“Who?”

“Raymond.”

Gopi was used to Asha's disconnected thoughts. He said, “I'm also very fond of him.”

At that she burst out laughing. She looked into his face and stroked his cheeks, laughing at him.

“We're great friends,” Gopi urged, puzzled by her laughter.

“Oh, you're so sweet, and how I love you, how I love you!”

Gopi held the hand with which she was stroking his cheek and, opening it, gently kissed the palm. Then her laughter changed to sorrow. She felt so terribly unworthy of him—of his youth and his innocence. She had discovered long ago that he had no idea of his true relationship with Raymond. He really genuinely thought they were just great friends. Asha had made no attempt to enlighten him. She felt it was right he shouldn't know about these things but should remain fresh and sprightly, a devotee only of natural love. But here her own guilt stabbed her like a dagger: she knew there was nothing natural about her own relationship with him.

She gazed into his face. Her lips trembled. “I'm so old,” she said.

He couldn't bear to hear her say that. And yet there was no getting away from the fact. He was relieved when the hotel bearer entered with the drinks that had been ordered. Gopi gave Asha hers and then leaned against the pillows by her side and sipped his. Now all bad thoughts disappeared and he was contented and satisfied again.

She told him, “I had a letter from Lee,” but in so sighing a voice that he asked, “Is she sick?”

“Oh, no. She is very, very well. Give me my purse.”

He fetched it for her and she gave him the letter to read. He frowned a bit over it in an effort to understand; he always read slowly and with his lips moving to form the words. He also looked at the pamphlets but here he was on surer ground; he didn't have to read them carefully because he knew what was written in them. His eyes passed swiftly over the blurred print and he swayed his head in unquestioning appreciation. These were holy, good, and true things.

“She wants me to come there,” Asha said.

“Yes, why not? We can both go for two–three days.”

Asha sighed again and said nothing.

“It will be quite nice,” Gopi said, getting enthusiastic. “When I was small, my mother took me sometimes to visit her guru's ashram. They have quite a jolly time there and the food is not bad. Of course it's all vegetarian but nicely cooked in ghee and there are a lot of sweets that people bring. Now what's the matter?”

“No, no, nothing,” she said with tears streaming from her eyes. She tried to wipe them away. She hated herself for disturbing him. But she could not help herself. She began to talk rather quickly, as if to explain herself and take away the puzzled expression from his face. “I know a holy person. She is called Banubai. She has a house in Benares and once I went to live there with her. Oh, she gave me such peace. If only I could have stayed with her. But when I went back to Bombay—” Those had been terrible days. She had meant to lead such a good life, of restraint and devotion, but when temptation came her way she had flung herself into it head over heels. And yet the temptations had been by no means irresistible—just the usual pleasures that she was really quite sick and tired of. She had had an affair with a film producer whom she didn't care for all that much; he had even disgusted her but she didn't have the strength to give him up and in the end it was he who had thrown her over in favor of a fat little starlet.

“We'll go,” Gopi said, trying to cheer her up. “You see what
Lee has written—where is it?—‘and I think you will be happy here too—'”

Asha snatched the letter from his hand and tore it up. “Why does she write to me like that? She's mad—a mad girl, I always knew it.”

In the Ashram

The ashram was not actually in Benares but about ten miles outside it. This was deliberate policy on Swamiji's part: he did not wish to batten on the holiness of the past but to inspire new souls with a new spirit. It was also convenient that land was going cheap in that area. It had at one time been earmarked for new industrial development but, apart from a brick kiln and a few foundations that now remained as holes in the ground where snakes lived, no development had taken place. Here Swamiji had acquired an acre of land and had put up some hutments for himself and his followers. Of course the hutments were only temporary and great schemes already existed in blueprint for the future development of the ashram.

The surrounding landscape was flat, bleak, and dusty. The hutments were strictly utilitarian, with tin roofs stuck on brick walls that heated up like ovens in the sun. Swamiji put his faith in the trees that had been planted all around, but of course it would take time for them to grow and meanwhile they were not doing too well on account of lack of water and also some blight that tended to attack vegetation in the region. There were many flies and mosquitoes, the kitchen arrangements were inadequate, and the sanitary ones primitive. But all these physical discomforts could be and were interpreted as blessings, for what surer test could there be of a disciple's sincerity than the ability to overcome discomforts? There were many who fell short and one by one they went away, and Swamiji saw them do so with a smiling, loving acquiescence. It only made him draw those that remained closer to himself.