Seeing that ghastly room made me really understand for the first time just what poor desperate heroic crazy Olly has been putting himself through. Now I know how awful it must have been for him to come out to this country and find himself in this place, all on his own, without even his Swami to show him the ropes and give him moral support. Imagine the hideous moment when he realized how he’d got himself trapped!
What made him do it? Was it for the thrill of making a complete break? Was it a sense of duty to the Order? Was it loyalty to his Swami’s dying wishes? No, Penny, let’s be frank, we know our Olly better than that. What forced him to come out here was his pride. He had burned his bridges! Where else in the world could he go? To go back to the Red Cross or the Quakers, or anyone else connected with his old life, would have been a retreat, and can you see Olly retreating? He wouldn’t dare! He’d kill himself first. There’s never any way possible for him but forward. In one of his letters he actually alludes to this crisis, in his own inimitable style—says that he went through ‘a few doubts and deliberations’ about what he should do next, after the Swami had died. A few doubts, mind you! Olly is probably our greatest living master of understatement. It would be funny, if it weren’t so horribly sad. He must have gone quite literally through tortures.
Oh, Penny—why couldn’t he have come to us, before he made this disastrous decision, and frankly talked the whole thing over? Was it our fault that he couldn’t? It must have been, to some extent. We ought to have insisted on seeing him, even though he seemed to be avoiding us. I ought to have gone over to Munich and looked him up, even if it had made him furious with me. If we could have once hammered it into his obstinate head that we loved him and really cared what he did with his life, perhaps this would never have happened.
And now here he is, deliberately preparing himself to take this final step, and here am I standing by, watching him. I suppose it’s rather like being with someone who’s sentenced to death, with only one week more before his execution. Yes, I know that sounds melodramatic! It does express what half of me feels, but only half. Half of me is desperately concerned about Olly, the other half is hypnotized, as it were, and almost acquiescent—that’s the peculiar hypnotic power of this place and its way of life, or rather anti-life. All values are turned upside down, here, and inside out, and it’s done with such a matter-of-course air that, sooner or later, one would probably begin accepting them—this monstrously unnatural spectacle of a young Englishman being turned into a Hindu swami would seem perfectly natural and reasonable then! Luckily for me, I’m not staying long enough for the hypnotism to do any permanent damage!
Still, I do have the uncanniest feeling that this situation is drifting out of my hands, that I’m not quite in control of my own actions, even. I feel that the half of me which is concerned about Olly is going to do something, intervene in some way, and very soon. Meanwhile the other half of me watches, and is merely curious to see what’ll happen!
Don’t be alarmed, darling, I’m not developing schizophrenia! I’m sure I’m reacting to this topsy-turvy environment as any normal outsider would. If you were here, you’d understand.
Perhaps it’s a tragedy that you’re not here. Perhaps you could really do something to help poor Olly. But let’s not dwell on perhapses!
My dearest love to you all, as always,
Paddy
I almost forgot—I’ve been on a reckless buying spree in Calcutta. Saris! Not the kind of thing you see in the shops. I got shown these privately, through a business contact. They’re stunningly beautiful, quite worthy of an ancient maharaja’s court—at least, I think so. Hope you’ll agree with me! I don’t know in what form you and the Two Ds will wear them, but rely as always on your creative genius. Be sure to let me know when they arrive, they’re already on their way to you, air freight. Also the things from Tokyo and Hong Kong—but that’s not nearly so important.
Am I being unjust to Patrick? That’s what I must keep asking myself. Am I even completely wrong about him?
But what do I mean when I say ‘wrong’? My attitude towards him is so hopelessly subjective that it’s absurd to talk about myself as though I were an impartial observer who could ever be ‘wrong’ or ‘right’. For me, the alternatives aren’t to understand him or misunderstand him, but to love him or hate him.
And of course I love him—I mean, I’m capable of it. Part of me probably loves him all the time. All of me certainly does, sometimes. When I was going through my Freudian phase, I used to wonder if I wasn’t actually in love with him, romantically and even physically. I’m quite sure now that that’s not true, at least not any longer. It isn’t nearly as simple as that—considering what I’ve been through lately, I almost wish it were. Now and then I suspect that Patrick thinks it is—when he sort of flirts with me. But I’m afraid the truth is less interesting. Patrick’s flirting is just a nervous habit he’s got into, he tries it on all ages and both sexes. It doesn’t mean anything and I suppose it’s usually harmless, except that it has probably fooled a few people and made them unhappy later.
What I do love about Patrick, and always have, is his joy, his boldness in demanding enjoyment for himself and the get-away-with-murder impudence with which he accepts the best as his absolute right. A gloomy old guilt-ridden puritan like me is naturally attracted to a Patrick, however much he may resist the attraction, and in our case, being brothers, we’re that much more closely involved. Heredity has made us part of a single circuit, our wires are all connected. At moments I can actually feel and think like him, and that scares me, of course. I get afraid that I’ll start behaving like him and lose my own identity altogether—which is pretty funny when you think that my whole life in this Monastery is aimed toward mortifying the sense of ego! To escape behaving like Patrick, I tell myself that his behaviour is evil, and I withdraw hastily into the gloomy self-righteous part of myself, which has nothing in common with him, it’s all mine, and I freeze up the connections between us with hate.
Patrick can disturb me so terribly because he can make me question the way I live my life. I’m fairly sure he doesn’t do this consciously—he doesn’t have to know what he’s doing, because he does it by just being himself. And I’m quite sure I could never make him question the way he lives his! What I must keep reminding myself is that it’s I who give him this power. His power over me is nothing but my own doubt and weakness. If I really believe in what I say I believe in, then a million Patricks won’t be able to shake me. I won’t feel threatened by him, and so I won’t have to cut myself off from him and hate him.
When I write this down, it looks so simple. And in fact on the rare occasions (this is one of them) when I can think about Patrick sanely, I do see how absurd it is to let him upset me. Of all the people on earth, isn’t he actually the one who’s least equipped to judge me? Our likeness and our unlikeness both make it impossible for him to understand what my life is really about. And yet I invite his judgement!
I realize now that I as good as asked him to come here. If I hadn’t subconsciously wanted him to come, I would never have written him the kind of letter I did. I phrased it in a way that was absolutely guaranteed to excite his curiosity—curt, mysterious, with ‘keep out’ signs all over it. Whenever Patrick sees that sign, he does his level best to nose his way in.
And why didn’t I wait to write until after I’d taken sannyas? That would have been the natural thing to do, having waited so long already. No, I wanted him here before sannyas, because I longed for him to reassure me that Swami’s teaching is true, and that this Monastery is a good place, and that it’s all right for me to become a monk! That sounds fantastic, but it’s the truth—at least partly.
And that’s what makes me hostile and evasive so often, when Patrick cross-questions me. I’m afraid of giving him unconvincing answers! He notices this, of course, and it only provokes him to tease me with more questions. All these references he makes to my ‘duties’—I’m sure he must guess what the situation is. Th
at used to be one of my biggest problems when I first arrived here. I expected to be set tasks and given a daily work schedule, like the other brahmacharis. I can understand now why Mahanta Maharaj treated me differently—duties were the very last thing I needed. Swami must have written him a lot about me, and no doubt even before we met he had a pretty clear picture of my eager-beaver mentality, that desperate conscience-stricken urge to keep busy. I used to grumble to myself that Maharaj had given me nothing to do. Then slowly I realized that he’d given me everything to do—the obligation to pray and tell your beads and remember God is always there. It can’t ever be finished, like scrubbing a floor. Well, I came gradually to accept this other way of life and be deeply contented in it—until now Patrick appears and by his mere presence makes me feel guilty all over again, like a hypocrite who’s hanging around and wasting time!
At the moment, I can see how uproariously funny this is. But how shall I feel when next I’m with him? One thing is becoming clear—in order to think about Patrick sanely, I must concentrate on his funny side!
He is a terriffic hit with Swami V. and Swami K., and in fact with all the swamis who have meals with him at the guest-house. From their point of view he must be the ideal type of outsider, he knows exactly how to carry on the light table-conversation they enjoy and expect from the non-religious. Oh yes, he charms them right out of the trees—so amusing, so well-informed, so British in the nicest way—and always with that respectfully hinted undertone: Of course you understand, Reverend Sirs, that I talk like this because I would never dare presume to speak of anything serious to you.
The first time I ate with them all together, Patrick told them in his most artless style about this film of his and how he’s going on to Singapore to make arrangements for it. And then, with an air of shy confession, he let out that he’d hesitated for a long time before signing the film contract—some mystic instinct warned him to wait, perhaps it was a mistake. ‘But when I got your cable,’ said Patrick, turning to me, ‘I suddenly knew! I said to myself, if I go first to the Monastery and see Oliver, then everything I do after that will have a blessing on it—so I signed, that same day!’ Then Patrick looked round the table, smiling coyly at them all, and he said, ‘I’m terribly superstitious, I’m afraid.’
This seemed to me utterly outrageous—I was so ashamed for Patrick that I actually blushed, I didn’t know where to look. This time, I thought, he really has gone too far! But not a bit of it—the others all found his story delightful. Swami V. chuckled hugely and said, ‘Your motion picture will undoubtedly have a phenomenal success, for you are now under the special protection of Mother Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune!’ Actually, I strongly suspect that Patrick was lying; he just invented this stuff to entertain them. Most probably he’d made up his mind to sign that contract even before he got my first letter.
Being with them at meals embarrasses me unspeakably, I can’t help it, and I keep making excuses to stay away. That’s bad. These are lies, even when they’re only implied—there’s no such thing as a white lie, anyway. I must have a genuine reason for not eating at the guest-house. I’ve just decided what I’ll do—I’ll start a partial fast from now until sannyas, just take a little rice and some vegetables once a day. Mahanta Maharaj is always so anxious about my health, but I’m sure he’ll give me his permission now, so near the time.
I’ve been working hard to learn those long Sanskrit mantras which we must all be able to repeat when we take part in the ritual. Swami A. has been teaching them to us, and several of my brother brahmacharis have been helping me rehearse them. They are so sweetly gentle and patient with my slowness. Today our gerua robes were brought to us, folded ready for the great moment when we shall put them on, after stripping off our old clothing in the Temple and prostrating naked before Mahanta Maharaj, to be accepted by him as our new selves, on the night of sannyas. The very youthful-looking brahmachari from Bombay happened to be beside me when our robes were brought. He looked at them in delight and wonder, and then he turned to me with such a brilliant smile of joy and hugged me and said, ‘We—together!’ I hugged him too, of course, but it was with a tiny conscious effort, and even as I was doing it I felt sadly alien. How can I, with my wretched raw-skinned self-consciousness, ever really be one with these people and the utter simplicity of their feelings? I can’t. Becoming a swami will make no difference. I shall never quite belong to them. I’d better accept that fact now and for the future.
Anyway, this isn’t nearly as tragic as I’ve made it sound. What separates me from them isn’t important, not ultimately. What unites us is the one and only thing that really matters.
5
My darling Penny,
I gravely fear that this time I have really and truly put my foot in it with Oliver!
I told you in my last letter about this journalist here, Rafferty, who wanted to interview Olly as the British Buddha or what have you. I did attempt to talk him out of it, though I suppose not very energetically—after all, the prospect of those two confronting each other was a bit intriguing! Anyhow, my efforts obviously weren’t sufficient, because two days ago I met Rafferty on the Monastery grounds. He was perfectly within his rights, of course, the grounds are public during most of the daytime and even an occasional Western tourist sometimes finds his way out here, complete with camera. So there he was, lurking around in the evident hope of catching Olly, which he hadn’t managed to do, so far.
Well, I flatter myself that I behaved with considerable presence of mind. I put it to Rafferty that this Monastery is a highly disciplined organization with very strict rules (which was certainly stretching the truth to its limits!) and that he couldn’t possibly swoop down on Olly without first getting permission from Olly’s superiors. Otherwise, I warned, he might find himself in exceedingly hot water—the Order is large and widely respected and has a lot of influential friends, and the Indian Government takes the dimmest view of foreigners who offend Hindu religious sensibilities, etc. etc. At the same time, I offered to act as Rafferty’s intermediary and let him know the result as soon as possible. Naturally I assured him that his chances of getting permission for the interview were good, otherwise I’d have had difficulty in persuading him to leave the grounds. He’s as persistent as a terrier and utterly without shame, I suppose such creatures have to be. Anyhow, he agreed to my proposal and took himself off.
That was the point at which I should have gone straight to Oliver, I realize, and told him what had happened. Well, why didn’t I? It’s true that he’s usually pretty hard to find, and I’m embarrassed to go snooping around those awful crammed sleeping-quarters of his. Often, when I do catch sight of him in the middle distance, he’s with a group of his fellow monks and I’m afraid of barging in on something top secret. But these are just excuses! To you, in whose orisons all my sins are remembered, I can admit that I was also just vulgarly curious to see what the official reaction to the Rafferty problem would be. Can you seriously call that mischief-making?!
So I went direct to headquarters, that’s to say to the Mahanta. After all, it is up to him to decide what Olly may or may not do. Besides, I feel very much at my ease with him, the three or four times I’ve visited him he has always seemed pleased to see me. And he has another great virtue in this somewhat elusive community, he’s always to be found. I don’t believe he ever stirs forth from his room!
When I described Rafferty and his project—doing my best to make it sound ridiculous—the Mahanta started to laugh, first quietly and then quite loudly. I congratulated myself on my diplomacy. But I was horribly taken aback when he told one of his attendants to go and fetch Oliver! I felt like a criminal being brought face to face with his victim at the police station.
What made the situation extra disconcerting for me was that when Olly walked into the room I saw that he was almost entirely bald! As it so happened, he had just been to the barber to get his head shaved, this being part of the drill for the ceremony of taking sannyas. They save a small t
uft of hair on the top which is cut off, as a symbolic act of renunciation, during the ceremony itself. Actually, after the first moment, the effect wasn’t so bad, except for the contrast between Olly’s sunburned face and the rather ghastly whiteness of his bare skull—he has a very well-formed head, being shaven shows it to advantage and gives him an astonishingly youthful look.
The Mahanta, who was still shaking slightly with amusement, said to him, ‘The fame of your sanctity appears to have spread over the earth, for now one of your own countrymen, a British writer, seeks an interview with you in order that your many disciples in distant lands may read your message to them in the newspaper.’
Oliver looked at me just for a moment very quickly, and I could feel his startled suspicion. He was still puzzled, of course, as to what this was all about. The Mahanta began to explain, but he couldn’t remember Rafferty’s name and had to appeal to me, which brought me right onto the carpet as the engineer of the plot. There was nothing for me to do but repeat the whole silly story, making it as terse and impersonal as I could—I knew it was hopeless to try to placate Oliver. When I’d finished, there was a short but painful pause. Then Oliver asked, ‘Do you want me to do this, Maharaj?’ And the Mahanta beamed and chuckled, ‘But of course! Why should you not do it?’ Oliver said, ‘Very well, Maharaj, if Patrick will make the arrangements.’ He was deliberately avoiding my eyes. ‘Naturally,’ I said, ‘I’ll be glad to do that. What time would be convenient for you, Oliver?’ He still wouldn’t look at me. ‘Whenever Maharaj tells me to,’ he said. (Oh, the bitchery of this crushing monastic obedience!) Then he prostrated before the Mahanta and left the room, ignoring me completely.
A Meeting by the River Page 9