A Meeting by the River

by Christopher Isherwood

  Tommy, I know there is going to be a future for us together, there has got to be, but I don’t want to think about it too much, yet. This job for you in our film could be the first step—I really do think that’s going to work out—and no doubt it will lead on to the next step, in one way or another. We must just play everything by ear, as it comes. The really decisive question is, do we deserve each other? If we do, we shall get each other for keeps. That’s my firm belief—I can’t explain it or justify it, but there it is! Well, it goes without saying that you deserve me, if you want me, because there’s no one you don’t deserve. You deserve the best, and what the best is, from your point of view, only you can say! Do I deserve you? I would never dare to claim that. But if you say I do, then I’ll be the last to contradict you!

  I long to see those photographs we took of ourselves with the automatic shutter-release, that morning in the patio when the sun was so hot—you remember, the ones your friend promised to develop. Be sure to let me know how they turned out. Better not send them to Singapore, though, you never know if some officious secretary might not open the envelope! And be a little careful what you write, won’t you, for the same reason? Tom, I don’t want you to misunderstand this, for heaven’s sake, don’t think I’m being overcautious and old-maidish. I know how you hate any sort of pretence and concealment, and I admire you for that. But we must never forget, when we go against the majority, that we’re forced to be like guerrillas, our chief weapon is cunning. We can’t ever attack openly. That’s just exactly what the enemy wants us to do, so he can destroy us. If we’re bold and rash, we’re simply putting a weapon into his hands. Defiance is a luxury we can’t afford.

  Of course I honour people who deliberately invite martyrdom and provoke test-cases so that some injustice can be brought out into the open, to make the public begin to ask itself: Is this fair? But a martyr must be prepared to sacrifice the immediate future altogether, and I’m afraid I’m not prepared to do that, because it might mean losing you. I only hope you feel the same way? If you do, then I’m sure when you think this over you’ll agree that I’m right, we have to be cunning. There’s nothing dishonourable in that, it can even be a lot of fun. We’ll play a game against them, Tom, and we’ll outfox them and laugh at them while we’re doing it. Do you know, I have a feeling that playing this game is going to be what binds us together more than anything else? It’ll be you and me against the world! And although we’re its enemies, we’ll make this idiot of a world accept us and admire us, perhaps reward us, even—that’ll be our triumph and private joke!

  Oh, Tommy, I feel so much better, suddenly! Writing all this seems to have brought you nearer to me. Now I know I shall be able to sleep—and I’m going to dream about you till morning.

  Goodnight,

  Patrick

  Dearest Mother,

  although I’ve only been here five days, I’m already getting quite habituated. I can almost go so far as to say that I feel at home—as much at home as someone like me could ever be in a Hindu monastery, or indeed a monastery of any kind!

  In my last letter I think I mentioned the still-lingering influence, here, of the British Raj? You feel its ghost rather wistfully haunting the present, powerless now to exert any direct authority and regarding the scene with the reproachful air of an unwanted adviser. The architecture of the older buildings is full of funny charming evocations of Victorian England. For instance, there’s a gateway which leads into the grounds of the Monastery, it’s just down the lane from our guest-house. Now the moment I set eyes on this gateway I felt a sort of confused recognition, and after looking it over carefully a couple of times I suddenly realized what it reminded me of—one of the back gates of our college at Cambridge, over which I sometimes had to climb when I returned from trips to London, after hours! This gateway was probably built about the same time and you can detect, beneath the veneer of Indian gods and goddesses, a substructure of good homely nineteenth-century Gothic. What a pity the process wasn’t reversed—Cambridge would have been greatly embellished by a few Hindu domes!

  At certain hours, the Monastery grounds are open to the public and are treated as a kind of park. This surprised me rather, at first. Of course, some of the people who come there certainly do go into the Temple to worship, but the great majority of them seem just to wander about and sit on the grass under the trees. The grounds are inhabited by numerous white cows. Yesterday I saw one of them approach a group of visitors and get shooed away quite rudely. I haven’t been able to discover exactly how sacred cows are, nowadays, and I hesitate to ask Olly, lest this should be a delicate subject!

  Beside the main gate there’s a small house called the Lodge, which is another Victorian structure in oriental disguise, a kind of cousin to the Gatekeeper’s Lodge on a country estate in England. The Lodge seems to be always crowded, even when the grounds are officially closed. Olly tells me that families wait there when they’ve come to see a relative who’s a monk. Also, mail is delivered there—and frequently lost, I should think. And it contains the only telephone in the entire Monastery! The telephone is in the front room, that’s to say in the most public part of the building, and you can hear someone shouting into it whenever you walk by outside. No doubt one has to shout, because of the noise made by all the people who sit chattering around you!

  Everything is delightfully picturesque and all the more so because of certain incongruities. For instance, outside the main gate they sell what look at first like those fat kewpie dolls people buy on piers to decorate the mantelpiece of some villa in Greater London. But, when you examine these more closely, you find they’re figures of godlets or holy men! There are also framed photographs which a newcomer from our debased culture would naturally expect to be of American movie stars—only, here, they’re of Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore!

  The great charm of the Monastery grounds is that they lie along the edge of the Ganges. The monks in their yellow robes and the women in bright saris make marvellously vivid spots of colour, against the moving background of water. The river at this point is wide and shallow and the tide seems very strong, also there is usually quite a strong breeze. There is an astounding variety of boats. Small steamers with thunderous hooters (one of these wakes me every morning, unless I’ve already been woken by some tropical bird with an equally powerful whistle!), high-prowed barges which remind you of gondolas, boats with huge square sails like Chinese junks, boats rowed by standing oarsmen which might be galleys straight out of Cleopatra’s Egypt. This afternoon I saw two immense haystacks come drifting quickly by in mid-stream, apparently afloat. It was only while they were actually passing that you could see they were on rafts.

  Across on the opposite shore there are pink and yellow houses like gaily painted toys, standing among palm trees. Even the occasional factory chimneys aren’t offensive, they are so absurdly out of place that they seem merely quaint. And, oh, Mother, you should see that incredible light during the few minutes of tropical evening, just as the sun is going down! It shines through the thin mist that rises off the surface of the river and everything turns golden, a rich old eighteenth-century greenish-gold, exactly like a Guardi.

  It’s then that you hear the music of the evening service coming from the Temple—very loud, it must be audible all over the neighbourhood—a sort of up-and-down wailing, accompanied by drums and cymbals and stringed instruments, plangent and disturbing, but impressive, certainly. I longed to go into the Temple itself to listen, but Olly didn’t suggest it, so I didn’t venture to. However, now one of the swamis says he’ll take me. He himself admires Bach and he assures me he will quickly convert me to Hindu music!

  Three or four of the senior swamis now join me regularly for lunch and supper at the guest-house. Sometimes Oliver comes too, sometimes he doesn’t, but I’m certain this doesn’t mean he is missing meals and neglecting his health, he obviously has duties which force him to eat earlier or later—into these, of course, I don’t pry. The swamis are a very jolly lot,
and needless to say I’m able to regard them from a viewpoint greatly different from Oliver’s. Oliver very properly approaches them with deep reverence. I’m not expected to and don’t, and this makes our relations considerably easier—in fact I might almost claim that I feel I already know them in certain respects better than Olly does! They are very intelligent and very human, and, while they are not in the least hypocritical, they’re well able to enjoy the humourous aspect of the solemn role their position in the Order demands that they play.

  I told you in my last letter that Olly was going to introduce me to the Mahanta, the head of this Monastery. It was a memorable experience. The Mahanta lives in a little separate house on the river-embankment, built probably by Europeans, for it has a very French-looking fountain in the middle of its garden. The fountain is supported by three stone swans and by two cupids. The swans are all right from a Hindu point of view, because they stand for spiritual discrimination between the Real and the Unreal, but the cupids do seem a bit carnal for these monastic surroundings—however, one of them has lost his head, so is perhaps rendered hors de combat! Unfortunately, the fountain has been allowed to fall into disrepair, it doesn’t work and its bowl is full of green scum, and the garden is carelessly looked after, if at all. There are rose-bushes, and I suddenly pictured you so clearly, in your shawl and gardening gloves, snipping and pruning! You could restore and transform the whole place within a few months, and, even in its present run-down state, I know how it would appeal to you. You’d love to sit on the stone water-stairs—at the bottom of which discarded leaf-plates and broken earthenware cups are joggled up and down by the river-waves. And of course you would sketch the passing boats.

  Which reminds me, near this fountain among the rose-bushes there’s a marble seat with scrolled ends, the sort of prop one associates with the less inspired productions of Shakespeare plays—only here in this setting it seems pleasingly unusual. When I remarked on it to Oliver, he told me that it used to be the favourite seat of his particular swami, the one who was his teacher in Munich and then died. I thought it was really touching that Oliver should have taken the trouble to find out a little detail of this kind, especially one that relates to the Swami’s early life in this Monastery, many years before Oliver met him. It proves that our Olly is capable of indulging in sentiment, after all. We used to think of him as the least sentimental of creatures, didn’t we? With deep feelings and strong loyalties, yes, but determined not to show them at any price. I was the one who always wore my heart on my sleeve!

  But to get back to our visit to the Mahanta. His room opens directly on to a verandah which runs right around the house. There were at least a dozen youths and men standing at the doorway, all of them monks. Of course, this living in public is characteristically Asian, and I suppose you get used to it very quickly. When we entered the room itself, there were more monks. They formed a group around an old-fashioned brass bedstead on which the Mahanta was sitting. He is a massive old man, really very big, not particularly fat. His skin is silver-grey in colour and mottled with liver-spots, I don’t think he is well at all. He wore a blanket over his shoulders, covering the gerua robe. His feet and crossed legs were partly visible, clothed in long underwear and brown silk socks. I found the underwear somehow disconcerting, yet I hardly know why. Is it that monks are still to us what Victorian ladies used to be—are their undergarments ‘unmentionables’ which mustn’t even be thought about?!

  Before our visit, Oliver had very considerately briefed me on the protocol. He told me that I should address the Mahanta as ‘Maharaj’, which means approximately ‘Master’ and is a conventional title of respect used in speaking to religious dignitaries in this country. He explained that he himself would have to prostrate before the Mahanta—it’s called making a pranam, or taking the dust of a person’s feet. (This consists of bowing down and touching the feet of your superior, one after the other, and then touching your own forehead, and it signifies asking for his blessing as well as making a salutation of extreme reverence. Of course, the dust is usually only symbolic dust, since the feet presumably are clean!) I should not be expected to do this, not being a devotee. In fact my attempting to do it—as I easily might have if I hadn’t been warned, because in a situation like this you’re apt to copy any action, however bizarre, taking it for granted as part of the drill—would have been instantly checked by the Mahanta himself and perhaps even regarded as an offensive bit of crudity. I asked Oliver if I should shake hands with the Mahanta, and he said that that would be perfectly all right, but that it would be even better if I made him a namaskar, a bow with the palms of the hands pressed together as if in prayer. So, having gone through a hasty rehearsal beforehand, that was what I did, and I sensed immediately—I’m usually able to judge such things—that it made a really good impression. Which was good for me and good for Oliver too. He didn’t have to feel apologetic for his unbeliever-brother!

  Then the Mahanta said to me, ‘So you have made this arduous and lengthy journey solely in order to visit your brother? This is indeed a most touching proof of fraternal affection!’ That’s the way he talks, and it seems perfectly natural, coming from him, because he pronounces his words beautifully and precisely and with genuine relish, as though the entire English language were a classic text from which he loves to quote. The swamis who have meals with me all talk English fluently and more or less like this, but the Mahanta has more style than any of them.

  Meanwhile, one of the younger monks stepped forward, took one of the Mahanta’s hands in his, and began to massage it. The Mahanta allowed this to happen without the least suggestion of personal involvement, he didn’t even glance at the boy, much less express his thanks. In England, this kind of behaviour might have seemed cold and arrogant, here it didn’t, because the boy didn’t seem involved either. He didn’t appear to be doing this for the Mahanta, there was no gleam of devotion in his eyes, in fact he seemed unaware that he was handling part of a living organism! Meanwhile, a massive Hindu silence fell upon us all. That too I had been warned about by Oliver, so I prepared myself to sit it out. It’s actually very nice and restful to be able to drop all efforts at making conversation and not feel that anybody is being offended.

  A few minutes later, some very slight noise made me turn round. Then for the first time I saw what was apparently a whole family, half a dozen adults and as many children of various ages, lined up with their backs to the wall behind me, squatting on the floor. I had missed noticing them as we came into the room, because my eyes had been fixed on the Mahanta. Now I felt embarrassed, because Oliver and I were blocking their view of him. They were evidently there for what’s called darshan (again I must ask for your admiration of the way I’m picking up these technical terms!), it means exposing yourself to the spiritual radiations of a holy man, rather like taking a bath under a sun-lamp.

  What Oliver had neglected to prepare me for—and he really can’t be expected to allow for every emergency—was that he, after he had made his prostration, would normally have sat down cross-legged on the floor as this family was doing. But, before he could do this, a commotion was caused on my behalf, two monks sprang forward simultaneously with chairs for me. As an alien guest I suppose I had to sit high, but I couldn’t help feeling that the honour was ambiguous, it might also mean that I was unworthy of the floor! Anyhow, the Mahanta, who is obviously a master of tact as well as spiritual wisdom, promptly motioned to Oliver to take the other chair—thus treating him as my brother rather than as one of his monks. Oliver submitted to this classification with a good grace, though perhaps not with entire satisfaction.… I find these nuances of monastic etiquette absolutely fascinating!

  Having turned round, I tried to indicate to the family by my expression that I was sorry I was sitting in their light. They didn’t react. Probably they hadn’t a ghost of a notion what I meant. As for Oliver, he showed no sign of concern. However, the Mahanta did seem to understand, because he caught the attention of one of the senior membe
rs of the family and gave him a slight nod, as much as to say, ‘That’s enough, you’re cooked right through,’ at which the whole family rose and prostrated before him, one after the other, before leaving the room.

  I was watching the Mahanta’s face closely as they did this, and I witnessed something very odd, almost uncanny. As each member of the family prostrated, the Mahanta’s personality quite visibly switched itself off—that’s to say, his face became masklike and his eyes blank, he suddenly wasn’t there!

  And then a memory came to me—it seemed absurdly irrelevant at first—from my time in the Army, an old sergeant patiently arguing with a prim anarchistically-minded young recruit who didn’t see why one man should be made to kowtow to another, as he put it, and the sergeant told him. ‘Don’t be so daft, lad, it’s not the man you’re saluting, it’s the uniform.’ And then I saw, in a flash, that perhaps the same principle was in operation here—perhaps the Mahanta was simply refusing to take these salutations personally and standing aside, as it were, while they were offered to what he represented.