Travelers

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  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 developme
nt 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.

  They were a mixed lot of Westerners and Indians, but he encouraged them to think of themselves as one family and quite often they managed to do so. It was easiest when they were all grouped around Swamiji and he was giving them one of his beautiful discourses or leading them in singing devotional songs. One of the hutments had been fitted up as a communal prayer hall and here they gathered morning and evening for their devotions. Although this hutment was as utilitarian and cheaply furnished as all the others, it had been decorated by loving hands and a beautiful atmosphere prevailed. The room was dominated by a large, colored picture of Swamiji’s own guru, a very holy man who wore no clothes and sat on a deer skin. Underneath this there was a big velvet armchair with an antimacassar embroidered by one of the disciples and here Swamiji sat with two devotees waving a peacock fan over him. They all faced the picture of the holy guru and Swamiji sitting beneath it, and then how they sang! With what inspiration! Of course it was he who inspired them to call after him—“Rama!” he sang, “Gopala! Hari! Krishna!” in his melodious, smiling voice, and then who could resist following him and also calling out those sweet names and being filled with the savor of them. But however loudly, however devotedly they sang, it was never enough for Swamiji—always he begged for more, always he led them higher and higher, to sing out louder and louder—“Rama! Gopala! Hari! Krishna!”—he incited them to break out again and again in those names, to fetch them forth out of hearts that must be coaxed to overflow with the love of them. Then the human voice alone was no longer enough, there must be cymbals too and conch shells to proclaim that joy: but still above all that holy din and all those voices rose his voice, forever ahead of them, almost mocking them to come up there with him, to soar as high as he did. And they tried and tried, they tried their very best, and he led them on to such a pitch of excitement and frenzy that it became almost unbearable for them, the joy of it exhausted them, and who knows what would have happened every morning and evening if he hadn’t known the exact point at which to stop them? Then they all fell silent and smiled and felt happy and light as if simultaneously they had been relieved of and had achieved something.

  When Lee and Margaret first came to the ashram, they did not find it easy to sing with the same abandon as the others. They were stiff and shy, locked up within themselves. But slowly, as the days passed, cunningly, he enticed them out of themselves. To each of them it appeared and became clear beyond doubt with each successive meeting that he was concentrating only on her. At first Lee thought she must be imagining it—after all, there were all these others, all intent only on him and drawing their inspiration only from him—what was so special about her that he should single her out from among them? To cure herself of her misapprehension, she would lower her eyes away from him but she could never do so for long because he seemed to be drawing her back, beckoning to her, telling her come, look up, look at me. And when she did, sure enough, there he was smiling at her—yes! at her alone!—so that she had to smile back and sing the way he wanted her to and cry out “Rama! Gopala! Hari! Krishna!” with as much abandon as she could manage. And afterward, when he distributed the bits of rock sugar that served as holy offering, then too at her turn, as he put it into her mouth, there was this special message for her, this speaking without words that went right through her and reached, it seemed to her, into regions which no one had hitherto penetrated. So was it any wonder that, whenever she left his presence, she felt dazed and wanted to go away by herself and not speak to anyone? And she began to notice that Margaret behaved in the same way—she too would be quite silent and sunk in her own thoughts and for hours together they would lie like that side by side on their string cots in the hutment they shared. And when they did speak, it was in a gentle distant way as if their thoughts were distant, and each imperceptibly smiled to herself at something beautiful within.

  An Old English Lady

  The first person Raymond looked up on his return was Miss Charlotte. She was very pleased to see him back again and eager to hear all about his trip. She was, however, on the point of going out to pay a visit and she invited Raymond to accompany her. They took a short cut through the old British cemetery. It was quite shady here with many old trees growing over the old granite graves. Miss Charlotte allowed Raymond to relieve her of the large and heavy gunny-cloth bag she was carrying. From time to time she pointed out some interesting grave to him. Although most of these dated from the nineteenth century, there were a few more recent ones, and indeed some belonged to people whom Miss Charlotte had known when she first came. She showed him the resting place of the Reverend Mellow, who had been in charge of the mission at that time and had died of cholera contracted during an epidemic. He had been in India for twenty years and had been so attached to his work here that he had never once bothered to go on home leave. How sad he would be today, Miss Charlotte said, if he knew that his dearly beloved mission was to be closed down.

  “You haven’t managed to get an extension?” Raymond asked.

  “I’m afraid not.” She got down to pluck a few weeds from Reverend Mellow’s grave. The stone was plain and inexpensive and rather a contrast to the much grander and older graves surrounding it.

  They reached their destination, which was a modest brick structure adjoining the church. Miss Charlotte explained that it was a home kept up by the church for English people in India who had nowhere else to go and no money to live on. “They’re all very old people now,” she said. Certainly, the first person they went to see was a very old lady indeed. Raymond had never seen anyone with skin so shriveled, discolored, and hanging in rags from the bones. But she still thought it worthwhile to dress correctly in shoes and a brown polka-dot frock, and what was left of her hair was kept tidily under a net. When they went in, she shouted, “Who is it! What do you want?” but was reassured at once when Miss Charlotte identified herself.

  “And I’ve brought a nice young man to see you,” said Miss Charlotte.

  The old eyes searched in Raymond’s direction. They were a strange, rinsed blue and seemed to look from a long way away; one of them was blotted by a cataract. But she did not bother about Raymond for long; just now the gunny bag seemed to be of more interest to her, and to relieve her anxiety Miss Charlotte began to unpack it at once: “Your ketchup—and this is something new—sandwich spread—I thought you’d like to try it for your tea.”

  She placed her purchases on a little cane table, which was one of the few pieces of furniture in the room. Everything was very clean—spotless—though somewhat bleak. The walls were plainly whitewashed, and the cement floor scrubbed to the bone.

  “Bless you, my dear,” said the old lady when all these goodies had been unpacked. Now truly she could give her attention to Raymond, and again the old eyes searched in his direction; he guessed that she was unable to make him out in detail but was only attempting to delineate him in space.

  “English?” she asked.

  “Yes,
indeed,” said Miss Charlotte. “He’s only here on a visit.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you,” said the old lady. “Very pleased indeed. It’s a pity I can’t get up to greet you but it’s on account of my legs, you see.” They were indeed badly swollen and so were other parts of her. “When you get to my age, you have to expect these things. I’m eighty-six, you know.” She waited as if expecting some comment on this fact. Raymond said, “Incredible,” which appeared to satisfy. “Yes, eighty-six on the twenty-first of April. That’s my birthday, the twenty-first of April, the same day as the Queen, so it’s easy to remember. I’m so sorry, my dear, I can’t offer you a cup of tea but you see what it’s like here. Hardly the place to receive guests, I’m afraid. It would have been different in my own home.”

  “This is your own home,” said Miss Charlotte brightly, but for this the old eyes floated in her direction with a scornful look before floating back again to Raymond.

  “Can you smell it?” she asked him.

  He hesitated to answer—the room had a smell of carbolic soap emanating from the washed floor and one of old age emanating from her; but it seemed she meant the smell of cooking that came seeping in from outside.