A Meeting by the River

by Christopher Isherwood

  As I trotted across the compound, it occurred to me that the call might well be from Rafferty, and I was glad I had such a long way to trot, because it gave me time to collect myself and get over my petty feeling of annoyance at being disturbed, probably to be asked some more idiotic questions, such as how do I feel about beef-eating or do I think we should revive suttee. By the time I reached the Lodge I’d firmly reminded myself that Rafferty and his questions are part of the Divine play of Maya, and was prepared to treat them accordingly.

  The Lodge as usual was crowded. Several youths were around the phone, taking it in turns to gossip and joke with the operator. They stepped back to make way for me, but not far, and they stood watching me, talking and laughing amongst themselves. I had to stick a finger in one ear and squash the other against the receiver, so I could hear.

  The call wasn’t from Rafferty, that much I found out at once. The local operator told me it was from overseas, and to hold on. It must be Mother, I said to myself, and my heart sank. There was a delay while several operators with varied national accents kept coming in and being cut off. Then I heard ‘Los Angeles’, and I realized that of course it was Patrick they wanted, not me. I don’t know why on earth I hadn’t suspected this before. I tried to start explaining, but now an American male voice interrupted, telling all the operators to get the hell off the line. It was obvious he was very drunk. He was rather faint and incoherent at first, then suddenly he seemed to burst through, as if he had broken some sonic barrier, he nearly cracked my eardrum, Patrick, oh my God, Patrick, Patrick! So I said, this isn’t Patrick, hang on, I’ll get him for you. But he didn’t understand me. Oh God, Patrick, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t bear it any longer, I had to hear your voice, you aren’t angry with me are you darling, I love you, I love you! He sounded as if he was sobbing. I yelled, loud enough to be heard around the world (so loud that I actually silenced the background chatter in the Lodge for a moment), this isn’t Patrick, I’ll get Patrick for you, wait, don’t go away, wait, do you hear me, wait! Luckily at this point the American operator cut in, so I was able to explain to her that she had got through to the right name but the wrong brother, and she was to make her party stay on the line because there was going to be a few minutes’ delay.

  I ran all the way to the guest-house, and found Patrick and Swami V. and several of the others just about to start supper. In fact I had to wait while they intoned the Om Brahmarpanam. When I told Patrick he was wanted on the phone, Swami V. asked, out of consideration for him, if they couldn’t leave a message. So then I had to explain that the call was important, it was from overseas—I didn’t say where, meaning to be tactful. But Patrick, worried no doubt that this might be some kind of bad news about the family, asked if it was Penelope or Mother. No, I told him, it isn’t from England. Where’s it from then, he asked. I told him, Los Angeles. He looked startled, but only for an instant. Then he said casually, oh yes of course, it must be something about our film, and he excused himself to the swamis and we went out of the room together.

  As soon as we were outside, Patrick asked me, it was from the film people, wasn’t it? No, I said. He turned and stared at me, How do you know it wasn’t he asked. Because I talked to him whoever it was, I said, and I think you’d better hurry, he seems pretty upset. Then I saw Patrick was really worried. He didn’t ask me any more; he started to run. We ran together down the lane, but when we got to the gate we found it was locked! They must have locked it while I was in the guest-house. This was just about the time they’re supposed to, but I hadn’t thought of that, anyhow they almost never do it punctually. I knew one or other of the swamis would have a key to the gate with him, and the cook has one, in case of emergencies. I was going to tell Patrick this and then run back to the guest-house for it. But without the slightest hesitation, before I could say anything, he scrambled up the wall. At the top he paused for a moment and looked down at me and grinned. (I remember thinking that that grin was of the very essence of Patrick—although he was obviously disturbed about this mysterious phone call, he could forget it entirely to enjoy the fun and triumph of having climbed the wall!) Then he turned and jumped down on the other side.

  As for me, I’d already followed him, instinctively almost, just as Little Brother used to follow Big Brother in the days of our childhood. In fact, I was on top of the wall before he’d even had time to recover his balance from his jump to the ground. But then I realized that he naturally wouldn’t want me there while he was telephoning. So I stayed perched up on the wall, feeling a bit silly. Patrick ran off towards the Lodge without looking back. After a moment I jumped down on the outside of the wall and walked back to the guest-house to get a key, so that Patrick would find the gate open for him on his return.

  It was only then, actually, that I remembered my resolve not to see Patrick again until after sannyas. I decided to make myself scarce as soon as I’d brought the key back. I knew that this was what I ought to do and I really meant to do it—although of course I was horribly curious about Patrick’s drunken caller.

  However, when I got to the guest-house, Swami A. took the matter out of my hands by saying that he wanted to talk to me. But first he and Swami V. insisted on my eating a few spoonfuls of rice and dal, joking about my great austerities and how thin I looked. I felt the love in their jokes very strongly, more than I ever have before.

  And then Patrick returned. I could see that he was upset, although he tried to hide it. Also, rather to my surprise, he seemed genuinely glad to find me still there—I’d expected that he might feel embarrassed, knowing what I knew about the call. He sat down to have his supper, making an obvious effort to appear at ease. Then Swami A. asked me to come outside with him on to the porch. As we went out, Patrick said to me, can I see you later? That really put me on the spot, because I could only have got out of it by telling him some direct lie about my duties, right in the presence of the swamis. So I had to say yes. When Swami A. and I were outside, he gave me some additional instructions and explanations about the shraddha ceremony. Meanwhile, Patrick finished eating. He came out of the house with the other swamis and we all walked along the lane to the gate, where we said goodnight to them.

  When they’d gone Patrick said, I feel like walking around for a bit, is that all right with you? So we went into the grounds and down to the river-bank and began walking back and forth along it, between the bathing-ghat and the Monastery wall. Although it was still relatively early, there was no one about. It always seems a little strange to me, on the rare occasions when it happens, to be absolutely alone with another person, in this overcrowded country. It was a dark night, heavy and cloudy and warm. You could faintly smell charcoal smoke drifting up the river from the city; I rather like the smell when it isn’t too strong. The water was just dimly visible, with half a dozen weak yellow lights dotted over it, on boats.

  For quite a long while we walked in silence. Then Patrick said, in an unnaturally solemn tone of voice, Oliver, I’m going to forget that you’re my brother, I want to talk to you like people do to a priest. (Although Patrick’s tone was utterly unconvincing and obviously part of an act, I have to admit that this was a psychologically clever opening. With his unerring instinct for flattery, he was turning me into a swami already and himself into my first disciple!) And then he even added to the flattery by saying with a chuckle, not that I’d be caught dead telling a priest what I’m going to tell you! I had to laugh too, partly at Patrick and partly at myself, for letting him seduce me into joining him in this absurd playacting.

  I don’t know how much he said to you on that phone, Patrick said, or how much you’ve guessed, but that makes no difference, because I realize now I’ve got to tell you the whole thing, anyway.

  When he said that, I felt a sudden misgiving. In spite of my curiosity I had an inkling I might be sorry later that I’d heard what I was about to hear. Are you sure you want to tell me this, I asked him, I mean is it really necessary? But Patrick said, I’ve never been surer of a
nything, I need to know that you know this about me. So then I couldn’t make any further objection. Patrick asked me not to say anything until he’d finished, and I promised I wouldn’t.

  Then he launched into an immensely long account of how he’d met this young American named Tom in Los Angeles and how they’d started having a love-affair with each other. I say it was immensely long because I kept becoming aware again and again that he was spinning it out far more than was necessary. I don’t mean that I was bored for one moment, I was fascinated, almost painfully so. Patrick described every single meeting between them—beginning with some bar into which Patrick had ventured because he guessed what kind of place it was and couldn’t resist, although he was afraid. It was there that he first saw Tom and talked to him. After that they used to meet either at Tom’s flat or at out-of-the-way restaurants, because Patrick didn’t dare bring Tom to his own hotel and was constantly anxious lest they should run into one or other of his business friends—Tom, I gathered, was apt to behave in a compromising manner, when they were together in public.

  Taking refuge in my role of father-confessor, I tried to listen as objectively as I could to what he was telling me, reminding myself sternly that this was just another sample of Maya, just one of the many forms of our bondage to illusion, etc., etc. But I couldn’t succeed in being objective for more than a few seconds at a time.

  It wasn’t that I was shocked, at least not for the conventional reasons. It wasn’t even that I was much surprised. I suppose I’ve always known and accepted this about Patrick—and what do I mean by ‘this’, anyway? I sound just like a Christian, filing him under B for bisexuality (with a cross-reference to A for adultery) in the sin-catalogue. No, what I mean is that I’ve always known Patrick wouldn’t respect the accepted ground-rules. You can’t possibly tell someone like him that he mustn’t do that and he may do this but only subject to the following restrictions and exceptions—that’s not his nature.

  If I was shocked, it wasn’t by Patrick’s story, but by the way he told it. When he started off, his language was very restrained, in fact it was sometimes almost comically formal. He used expressions like, ‘I told Tom that my attraction to him wasn’t Platonic’ and ‘that was the night we actually became intimate.’ But soon his tone changed and he began talking very frankly and using four-letter words with a sort of aggressive relish. For instance, he told me how Tom and he had driven to some deserted cove up the coast to the north for a weekend, and how they’d been on a rock right above the sea and Tom had grabbed hold of him and they had torn off each other’s clothes. I suppose it was really a relatively ordinary scene of lust, but Patrick made it sound strangely horrible, uncanny and bestial, like two animals devouring each other alive. He described exactly what they did to each other, and I noticed once again how fetishistic the words can be that we use for sexual acts. It was as if the mere uttering of them was nearly as exciting to Patrick as the act itself.

  At least, that was what I thought at first—that he was getting a personal thrill, a sexual kick, out of talking like this. But then I got the suspicion, and it grew into a certainty, that he was trying to excite me, not himself! When I realized this, it seemed terribly silly of him and at the same time somehow sinister—and I was shocked, though less shocked than puzzled. Why was he doing it? Out of sheer mischief? Was it the same as when he paraded naked in front of me, that first morning? No, this was different and, as I say, sinister, because after all this is a serious relationship he has got himself into. Whatever kind of a person this boy Tom may be, it’s obvious that he really does care about Patrick a great deal and his feelings aren’t something to be sneered or laughed at. I didn’t like the way Patrick talked about what had just happened—poor Tom working himself up into such a misery of loneliness that he’d sat up drinking all night and made this desperate hysterical phone call. (Patrick calculated that it must have been after five o’clock in the morning in Los Angeles when Tom finally got put through to us here.) Patrick affected to find the whole thing rather amusing, but I’m sure that was a cover-up. I’m sure that Tom’s call has angered and upset Patrick far more than he’ll admit. I could tell this all the more easily because I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. I had to concentrate entirely on his voice, and it gave him away.

  When he had finished at last there was a very long pause. As a matter of fact I had made up my mind not to speak first, because I wanted to force Patrick out into the open, as it were. I could almost feel him willing me to speak and then becoming irritated because I maintained my silence.

  So at length he asked, quite irritably, well, aren’t you going to say anything? What do you expect me to say, I said. And I honestly meant that, I wondered just what he did expect. I see, said Patrick sarcastically, a spokesman for the Celestial Embassy declines absolutely to comment on the situation. There didn’t seem to be an answer to this, so I kept quiet. Or are you too shocked to speak, Patrick asked. Of course not, I said, but I’ve told you once already, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Really, Oliver, said Patrick, one doesn’t envy your unfortunate disciples when they start coming to you for guidance. It’ll be a case of the hungry sheep look up and are not fed. In the first place, I told him, becoming a swami doesn’t necessarily mean that you ever have any disciples. Accepting disciples is regarded as a very serious responsibility. Only a few of the senior monks of our Order have them. And in the second place, I don’t know why you’re talking about guidance. You’re surely not asking me for that, are you, or even ordinary advice?

  Patrick didn’t answer this directly. Do you think I’m awfully wicked, Olly? Do you think I’m damned? I know you don’t believe in damnation in the same sense the Christians do. But there must be somewhere one can get oneself sent to—Hell-with-a-time-limit, what? I laughed out loud. No, seriously, said Patrick, I’m not trying to be funny. Suppose you were a doctor and I had cancer, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? I might or I might not, I said. Anyhow it’s a completely false analogy. What do I know about damnation?

  You know damn well what you think. (How characteristic of Patrick that was, that little play on the word! And his manner, half aggressively challenging, half making fun of itself. Yes, he was serious in his own particular way, and yet at the same time he wasn’t.) Very well, Oliver, if you refuse to tell me what you think, I’ll do it for you—you think I’m unfit to go on living with Penny and our children.

  Patrick, I said, if that’s a specimen of how you think I think, it means you must regard me as a hopeless puritanical ass. Well, perhaps I am one. But, if I am, why ask for my opinion? You know your own problems from the inside. What can a puritan tell you about them? Puritans can’t possibly understand things like this.

  Sorry (I could tell from Patrick’s tone that he was grinning) no offence intended. I’d certainly never dream of calling you a puritan, if that means someone who’s frigid and can’t understand emotion. And don’t you underestimate yourself, Olly—you’re capable of generating more emotion than all the rest of us put together, as you must know even better than I do. Or do you dislike admitting that, nowadays?

  I was stung, of course, but I didn’t retort—so Patrick continued with his prodding. Granted that you aren’t shocked and aren’t a puritan, he said, you still must have some sort of reaction to what I’ve told you, surely? I mean to say, here’s a problem or a dilemma or a plain old bloody mess, whatever you want to call it—here are three human beings involved and you know two of them exceedingly well—all right, let’s not put it that I’m asking for your advice, let’s say I’m asking out of sheer curiosity—if you were in my shoes, what would you do? Or is being in my shoes too utterly unthinkable?

  It’s perfectly thinkable, I said, we’re very much alike in some ways. My dear Olly, said Patrick, you don’t know how delighted I am to hear you say that! Why are you delighted? I asked. Because, said Patrick, it must mean that there’s some hope for me, in the long run. No, tell me, Olly, in all seriousness and curiosity, what w
ould you do?

  How can I tell you, I said, when I don’t know Tom at all? Never mind about Tom, said Patrick, let Tom equal X—or, if it makes this easier for you to understand, let Tom equal the sweetest, most attractive girl you care to imagine—the principle’s the same.

  In other words, I said, Tom himself isn’t important? I never suggested that for a moment. (Patrick pretended to be quite indignant.) Of course I fully realize that he isn’t important to you, he couldn’t be, and besides you’re very naturally prejudiced in the other direction. But I love Tom. You’ll just have to take that on trust, incredible as it may seem to you. And I love Penny and Daphne and Deirdre with all my heart. You believe that, don’t you?

  The way Patrick seemed to be putting Tom on the same level as Penelope, that really jarred on me. I suppose he meant it to. It was probably from this point on that my tone started to get nasty. Does Penelope know about Tom, I asked him.

  No, he said.

  Are you planning to tell her? I asked.

  When the right moment comes. But one never has to spell things out to Penny. If you try to, you always find that she’s far ahead of you—she’s so marvellously understanding. There’s this thing between us—a kind of telepathy almost—the only danger is, one’s apt to start taking it for granted and assume that other people have it too. I have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am. (Patrick made this all the more nauseating by saying it rather sacredly, as though it was something into which outsiders mustn’t pry.)

  Is Tom understanding about Penelope, I asked, or haven’t you told him you’re married?

  Of course I’ve told him, said Patrick, giggling slightly. What do you take me for, some sneaking little bigamist with a double life?

  Well, if both of them are so understanding, I said, I suppose it’ll work out somehow.