The door opened and it was Asha calling for Bulbul. Instinctively Bulbul clapped her hand over Raymond’s mouth. “Yes, sweetheart, I’m here,” she answered in her sweetest voice. Asha peered into the shadows where Bulbul crouched with Raymond. “Is there someone with you?” Asha asked. Bulbul cackled loudly. “What are you saying, darling, an old woman like me!”
“There is someone,” Asha said.
Raymond beat Bulbul’s hand away from his mouth and struggled to stand up.
“Who is it!” Asha cried.
He identified himself. Bulbul was clutching and tugging at him to pull him down again and he struggled to get away from her and reach the door. But just as he got there, Asha shut it. Now they were all three of them trapped inside.
“Why are you here?” she asked. She fumbled along the wall for the light and found the switch; but there was no bulb. Bulbul lit a candle that stood in a niche with her images and Asha snatched it from her and held it up close to Raymond. “What are you doing here?”
“You’ll burn me with that if you’re not careful.”
“Why have you come?”
“Ask her.” He pointed at Bulbul.
Asha’s hand trembled. Raymond cautiously took the candle from her and replaced it in the niche. All Bulbul’s little clay gods sprang into view, painted and smiling; she had also propped up an oleograph of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, mounted on his rat.
“She told Gopi you wanted to see him.” He looked toward Bulbul still crouching in a corner and with her sari pulled right over her head as if she were pretending not to be there. “She told him all sorts of things. She frightened him no end. . . . I say! What are you doing!” he exclaimed.
Asha had pounced on Bulbul. She dragged her out of the corner. Bulbul was crying out in fear; she put up her arms to protect herself while Asha, flailing her fists, struck her again and again. While she was beating Bulbul, Asha also fired questions at her which Bulbul tried desperately to answer but always her answers were drowned in new questions accompanied by threats, curses, and blows. Raymond was shouting at Asha to restrain her, and then he tried to drag her away, but she was moving so fast and was so strong that it was impossible for him. He clasped his arms around her waist to try to pull her off. He felt her body pulsating with strength and fury; it was like clasping a demon. She dragged him here and there with her as she went on beating Bulbul, but he hung on fiercely. Their voices—Asha’s in fury, Bulbul in fear and pain, his own in protest—did not quite drown the prayers rising from the river nor Banubai and her group singing their evening hymns.
At last he felt Asha’s tensed-up body slackening and, using all his strength, he managed to drag her away from Bulbul. He got the door open and forced her outside, leaving Bulbul lying face downward on the floor inside. She whimpered and heaved—quite energetically, which was a relief to Raymond: at least she wasn’t dead. He shut the door on her and turned to Asha, who stood against the wall, panting and flushed and with her black eyes glittering.
At that moment Banubai’s little group of hymn singers came out of her room. They were mostly elderly people. Their faces smiled and shone. As they passed Asha, they greeted her with a serene affection which enfolded not only her but the whole world and every human being struggling in it. One woman, in an excess of love, put out her hand to grasp Asha’s—but drew it back immediately and with a cry. “How hot you are! Are you in fever?” She made to touch her again but Asha broke away from her and pushed through the devotees as if they were a flock of sheep.
Raymond followed Asha into Banubai’s room. Banubai was displeased at seeing him and even asked, “Why does he come here?” But Raymond ignored this; he was intent on Asha.
“Are you all right now?” he asked her. “What about poor Bulbul? You’re not going to—again? Are you? Are you, Asha?”
Asha shrugged indifferently. “She’s had her beating.”
“You nearly killed her!”
“Ha! You think it’s so easy to kill Bulbul?”
“Why doesn’t he go?” Banubai asked crossly. “Why don’t you go?” she asked Raymond. “You don’t want to be here. You don’t like us.”
Now he was forced to attend to her. She was looking at him with a glance that went right through him. There was nothing he could hide from her. Swamiji was the only other person who could look through him in such a way; but whereas with Swamiji Raymond felt that his thoughts met with tolerance, forgiveness, even amusement, it was not so with Banubai.
“We don’t want people like you here,” she said. “Only those who truly appreciate our culture are welcome.”
Raymond wanted to defend himself. But he was not sure that he was entitled to do so; certainly, there was much, much he had truly appreciated, but he had to admit that there were other things he was not capable of appreciating at all. It was these evidently that Banubai was referring to.
“For two hundred years you tried to make us believe that you are superior persons. But now the tables are turned. Now that your culture is bankrupt and your lives have become empty and meaningless, you are beginning to learn where truth has been hidden and stored away throughout the centuries. Even your scientists have learned this lesson.”
Unable to find an adequate reply, Raymond said, “I’ve enjoyed my stay here very much.” He added courteously, “I’ve learned a lot too.”
“You’re not capable of learning. To learn from us you have to be—wide open! And full of humility. There was a German gentleman who came to me. A very cultured person, he had studied in all branches of science and philosophy and had many German degrees. But after all his years of research and learning, in the end he learned only one thing: that he knew nothing. He came to me with these words: ‘I know nothing.’ When he said this, he folded his hands to me and touched my feet. I loved him for this attitude. I was very gentle and kind to him. I laid my hand on his head which he had shaved to be like a good Hindu. I said, ‘We will do our best with you.’”
Bulbul came in. She crept in cautiously, as if she were afraid of being noticed. Asha was sitting on the floor and Bulbul also lowered herself to the floor and somehow managed to get lower than Asha and to crouch at her feet. Asha allowed her to stay there.
“You’re not here to learn,” Banubai told Raymond. “I don’t know why you are here. Can you tell me? Please tell me.”
Raymond thought seriously and honestly. But he could not find a satisfactory answer. He watched Bulbul touch Asha’s feet; when Asha did not pull them away, she became bolder and began slowly, tenderly to press them. Why was he here? Raymond thought. He didn’t know and, moreover, it seemed to him that Banubai was right and that really he didn’t want to be.
“Someone with your materialistic outlook has nothing to take from us. I ask you in all humility, please go home. You have already done us enough harm.” Raymond, taking her to be referring to British imperialism generally rather than to him personally, felt no need to defend himself. But she went on to say, “Look what you did to that boy—what’s his name—”
“Who?” Asha cried at that.
“That boy who used to come here.”
Asha stared at her incredulously. “You mean Gopi?”
“So many people come, I can’t remember everyone’s name.”
She lay down on her bed and turned her face to the wall. They could hear her prayer beads begin to click. Raymond felt Asha looking at him with eyes that were deep and brooding. She made him uneasy; he asked her, “What does she mean?”
Asha continued to look at him in the same way. “Perhaps what she says is true.”
“What, what is true?”
“Perhaps it is you who have taken Gopi away from us.”
Raymond almost lost his temper. He said, “Don’t be so damn silly.”
“Banubai sees further than others.”
Raymond felt as if he were locked up in a room with three mad crones. There seemed no sensible reason why he should be there. It was then that he decided not to wa
it for Gopi’s wedding but to leave as soon as he could.
A Boat Ride
For Gopi it was not so much Raymond deciding as life sweeping them apart. Of course it was sad—what could be sadder than the parting of friends?—but it was inevitable and so had to be submitted to. There was even some charm in thus submitting and suffering. Gopi sang a beautiful lyric to Raymond which went as follows:
You have gone away
And although the moon is still silver, the rose blooms, and the song of the koel is sweet
There is neither moon nor rose nor song in my heart.
Raymond liked it very much. What he liked best, however, was not the lyric itself but the expression in Gopi’s eyes and the smile that lingered on his lips as he sang. The setting was also very beautiful. They were being rowed in a boat on the river. This had become Raymond’s favorite diversion in the holy city. As soon as he was out on the water, he felt as if all the squalor of the city—the stale puddles, the rotting vegetables, the people waiting to die on the sidewalks—was all suddenly purified and washed away. Yet how could that be? How could that water purify anything? Crowds of people, many of them diseased, were constantly dipping into it—and not only living people but even the remnants of dead bodies which (on account of poverty and the high cost of wood) had not been burned up completely. But Raymond, especially with Gopi sitting opposite him singing his lyric, found it easy to ignore these facts. It was a clear day, cooled and washed after a shower. The steps leading down to the river were almost empty at this time of day (the crowds would come later), and there were hardly any other boats about. Gopi sang, they glided, Raymond gave himself over to enjoyment. He would have been happy to go on like that for many hours, or till Gopi got bored. He hardly dared move for fear of breaking the mood and was so absorbed in his contentment that he failed to notice where the boat—drowsily rowed by an old man chewing opium—was taking them.
The steps leading down to the river from Banubai’s house were also empty at this time of day; even the widows were sleeping somewhere curled up in some hospitable corner where they were in no one’s way. Asha sat alone on the steps and looked out over the river. She was in a classic pose of sad reflection with her elbow propped on her knee and her chin on her hand. Probably she saw Raymond and Gopi before they saw her, but she may have at first taken them for a vision or a dream drifting across the empty space between sky and water on which her gaze was fixed. Next moment, however, she had jumped up and was waving and shouting.
Reluctantly their boat was made to row toward her. Before they got too near, Raymond threatened Gopi. “I’m not going in. I’m not going near that Banubai again.” But it appeared that Asha had no intention of asking them in. Instead she jumped into their boat, landing with a thud on her feet and swaying dangerously so that they had to steady her.
Raymond held her left arm, Gopi her right. Her left side remained normal—but the right! Her sensation transmitted itself to Gopi, who dropped her arm and refused to meet her eyes that turned toward him loaded with meaning and message. But he too was shaken. He sat down on the seat again, leaving Asha to Raymond. Raymond helped her to sit down. He was solicitous, but he was aware of what was going on and was affected by it. He stole a look at Gopi. Then, to help everybody, he began to make conversation that was of no interest to anyone. He pointed out the balcony of the Man Mandir Ghat and said what a pity it was that the building had been restored with inferior brick and plaster. When no one else said anything and the difficult atmosphere persisted, he went on to speak of the observatory and to compare it with the other four observatories (at Delhi, Jaipur, Mathura, and Ujjain), all of which he had seen. He was prepared to go into further detail, but Asha said, “Why are you talking so much?”
“Oh, all right,” Raymond acquiesced good-naturedly. Then he said, “Perhaps you would let me off here.”
“Why should you go?” Gopi said. “It’s our boat, yours and mine. We took it.”
“Why did you stay away from me when I called you?” Asha asked.
Gopi’s eyes went blank. There was no sound in their boat except for the oars creaking and striking the water and their boatman breathing rather painfully. Raymond said he thought they ought to land now, the old man was getting too tired.
“I was waiting for you,” Asha said. “And Banubai too.”
Gopi stirred uneasily. “How is she?”
“Of course she is sad that you haven’t come. . . .” She trailed off. She thought of Banubai, serene as always, undisturbed. Banubai had even forgotten, or pretended to have forgotten, Gopi’s name! “It’s easy for Banubai,” she said. “She is a saint. But I—”
“He really is tired,” Raymond said.
“He’s getting paid,” Asha said. “I’ve been here so long now, I’ve done everything—meditation, prayer—and you see how I look, look at me, and I sleep on the floor and no meat, no drinks, nothing nothing. . . . But I don’t mind! It was easy, not difficult at all. I like it. What is there to give up? It’s all nonsense. I don’t want it or need anything—except one thing only. Not what you think! Even that, though it’s the hardest of all. But I keep thinking of you. I try and meditate and I see your face and I remember so much—”
Here Gopi interrupted her. He had been shrinking into himself, pushing his arms between his knees and glowering at the bottom of the boat. He didn’t speak now but, by as discreet a sign as possible, indicated Raymond’s presence to her. Asha was not put out. She said, “He feels the same way.”
Raymond looked away. His lips quite disappeared, he set them so tight.
“When you love someone,” Asha said, “only this beloved being fills your soul. You can struggle and turn whichever way you want, it’s all useless. Why don’t you help me?” she appealed to Raymond. “Explain to him. He is young and unfeeling, he doesn’t know a thing.”
Raymond said firmly, “I think our boatman is getting very tired.” He made gestures to the man to take them to the landing stage. Gopi confirmed these with a few brisk words of command in Hindi. Asha said they were both very cruel. She spoke in despair.
“Asha, he’s getting married,” Raymond said.
“And I? What do you want me to do? Should I lie down and die? Oh, I wish I could. If only I could.”
Suddenly she struggled to her feet and made to throw herself over the side of the boat. The water at this spot near the steps was quite shallow, but nevertheless Gopi cried out and hung on to her to save her. They struggled together, she cried, “No, let me go. I want to go.” He wouldn’t and at last managed to dissuade her. Both sat trembling side by side.
Their boat bumped onto the steps and the boatman jumped out to secure it. Raymond got out too and paid him. He waited for the other two, who still sat there together.
Lee
Sometimes the ashram seems quite spooky. It’s so much in the middle of nowhere. All around there is nothing but miles and miles and miles of flat land and flat sky the same color as the land. No trees or anything green, just a few scrubs withering away in all that dusty expanse. Quite often there are dust storms and great columns of dust rise up and sweep across the countryside and sometimes you feel when they have settled down again that the ashram will have disappeared, leaving no trace. And at night, when everyone’s asleep, it’s spooky inside the ashram too. You think of all those people sleeping and you know that though they’re lying quiet on their beds they’re having fantastic dreams. They can’t not have them because all day their efforts are concentrated on meditation and getting in touch and all sorts of spirits are being called up, even some evil ones that have to be exorcised by means of the good ones. And you can’t just lay all that energy to rest, it goes on even when you’re sleeping and it’s hovering over all those beds and over the whole ashram so that you can almost see it in the shape of some very fantastic pictures. And there’s also what’s going on inside my own hutment, where I’m shut in with Evie and Margaret, both of them sleeping and both—I can’t help feeling sometimes—so
strange, so strange. I mean, Evie lying there like nothing, not even breathing, and Margaret on the other hand breathing very loudly and in an unhealthy way so that I think not only of the dreams she’s having but also of what’s going on inside her body. I keep remembering what Miss Charlotte said about diseases that rot you away from within, and it seems to me that that’s what’s going on inside the hutment, inside Margaret.
But all the same I’m not really basically frightened, not deep inside me, just sort of superficially. Because in the middle of all that spookiness there is something good and radiant that scatters it like a light scatters shadows. And I think of it literally like a light: it really seems to me there is something like a column of light over the hutment where he is. And all I have to do is to concentrate on that and then I feel everything is all right—no, not all right but marvelous, marvelous! As long as he is there, I don’t have a thing to worry about.
Still, I do worry and that’s why I’m so often awake at night. I know it’s egotistical of me to worry this way and that I have no right to. What does it matter whether he takes any notice of me, whether he looks at me or talks to me or whether he completely ignores me as he’s been doing—what difference does it make, since the only important thing is that he is there. He exists, and shouldn’t that be enough and more than enough and an abundance for me? The fact that it isn’t goes to show what a low stage of development I’m at. All the same, it does seem to me that sometimes he takes pity on me. Not in the day but at night when I’m lying awake on account of him. Suddenly when it gets very bad, it seems to me that he is in fact thinking of me the way I am of him. Then I feel—oh, quite all right, and I don’t want anything more, no further sign from him. I don’t get one either and next day it’s like it’s been all the other days so that I begin to doubt again and think that what I felt in the night was only my imagination.
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