Jeff in Venice, death in Varanasi

by Home

  I felt something touch my leg and glanced into the water, fearing it was something horrible, a form of sewage, but it was just a sodden coracle with a few dead flowers in the bottom. The water may not have been clean, but it didn't look or feel dirty. I could hear voices, the voices of the people behind and beside me. The risen sun was in my face. After standing in the river for a while, I walked back to the steps and dried in the sun. I had not got any water on my face, not even a drop. I put my T-shirt and shorts back on. They felt warm and clean and it was nice to have sandals on my feet again too. I was not sure whether I'd had a wash or was now in need of one, but I was sure that the Indians regarded me differently, that I had made a significant move towards becoming one of them. As for my fellow-tourists, they probably thought I was showing off, reckless, stupid, but that, I realized now, was a form of fear and envy. When they saw me, they saw a rebuke to their own timidity.

  My cough had not got better, but I had grown so used to it that I scarcely gave it a thought. Coughing was just a form of breathing, a slightly noisier function of being alive. I had got into the habit of crapping, liquidly, after every meal. My asshole felt red as a monkey's. Living mainly on bananas again, I lost weight. Thought bore a curious resemblance to a headache. It was impossible to say whether these were the varied symptoms of a single sickness or a coalition of individual illnesses that had formed an alliance to do me harm. Either way, my whole system was under siege – from within. As happens, I adapted to these new conditions, got used to them. At first, I'd kept wishing I was better. Then, after a while, my notion of what feeling better felt like grew a little hazy. I forgot there was even this state called wellness. Feeling well was indistinguishable from feeling unwell. If I felt only slightly ill, then I felt perfectly well.

  It grew hotter by the day. I may have said this already, but it kept getting hotter. The heat meant that every kind of bug and germ was well placed and perfectly adapted to thrive and multiply. On top of everything else, sun- or heat-stroke seemed a distinct possibility. To combat the heat, I bought adhoti. At first I wore it only in my room, practising how to tuck it into itself so that my thighs were left bare. Then, on one occasion, I actually sat on the roof terrace wearing it, relieved that no one else came up. When they did – a French couple who had only checked in that morning – I was surprised that I felt comfortable, at ease. I said,‘Bonjour,’ and gave them a smile, one of those slow, semi-guru smiles that people who had been here a while felt entitled to bestow on new arrivals. They remained on the terrace only a few minutes, just long enough to show that they weren't embarrassed by this skinny holy man, and then went back to their room and had audible sex. I even heard her saying,‘Je viens.’

  ‘Stick it in and waggle it about,’ I thought to myself. And then, because thinking this phrase was so enjoyable, I said it aloud several times: ‘Stick it in and waggle it about!’ If I'd known how to translate it, I would have said it in French.

  A few days later I ventured out on to the ghats, wearing just thedhoti. As a teenager I had been so ashamed of my skinny legs that I played squash in jeans; now, skinnier than ever, I walked out in this bit of cloth, as skinny as Gandhi. My legs were perfectly white above the knees and deeply tanned below them. I look completely ridiculous, I thought to myself, but no more ridiculous than some of the other people around. What was the point in feeling absurd in a town where you could lug your testicles around in a wheelbarrow? There was no such thing as being ridiculous in Varanasi. The very idea was ridiculous. I was much further gone than any of the backpackers. They had dreadlocks and wore turbans made of sarongs, but no one looked as ridiculous as me. I didn't avoid their eyes, I met their eyes. The owner of one of these pairs of eyes, Micky, whom I'd spoken with a few times at the Lotus Lounge, was so obviously torn between his desire to ask what was going on and his fear of giving offence that, to put him out of his misery, I said, ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘This,’ I said, raising my arms, doing a slight twirl, as if showing off a new outfit from Topshop.

  ‘Looks good,’ he said. ‘But what does it, like, signify?’

  ‘You've heard ofsadhus , right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, this is my version of it. A sadd-o,’ I said, beaming as I made this feeble little joke. I walked on. I concentrated on rearranging the resting expression of my face. Habitually glum-looking, I kept smiling, hoping that my face would come to reside in this more upbeat style.

  Looking like this – like a freak, frankly – served another useful purpose in that, while I attracted stares, I was pestered less frequently by hawkers and hustlers. I certainly didn't look like I was in the market for buying anything. At Harishchandra ghat a tourist with a German-sounding accent asked if he could take my picture. I said yes, certainly, and stood beaming by the yellow and black lifeguard's tower that was not a lifeguard's tower. We spoke afterwards. He wanted to know my story. I said I didn't have a story and he asked where I was from.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I said.

  ‘Switzerland,’ he said.

  ‘Switzerland?’ I said. ‘Then you must know my friend Isobel.’

  He shook his head, no.

  ‘Man, I'd like to have got my spoon into that chick's pudding,’ I said. ‘Stuck it in and waggled it about! Anyway, Switzerland. Neutral Switzerland. I once stood in front of the fountain at Geneva. I had my picture taken there, smiling with friends, the fountain behind us. An establishing shot. I was a Champion. You see?’

  He nodded, but it was obvious that he did not see. He saw me standing before him, but he could not see. The notion ofdarshan meant nothing to him.

  ‘My story is your story,’ I said. ‘If you were from Swindon, then that is where I am from. It doesn't matter. There is nothing to choose between Swindon and Geneva. To me, they might just as well be Bourton on the Water. Have you been there?’

  ‘To Bourton on Water? I don't think so.’

  ‘If you had, you would know. A charming Cotswold village. I went there with my parents when I was a boy. There was a Tea Shoppe where we had teacakes. I remember my father's chin, how it was shiny with butter. The Tea Shoppe is now probably a cappuccino bar. In essentials, it is exactly the same as Geneva.’

  The Swiss nodded.

  ‘Another time we went to Longleat, to see the lions of Longleat. A very hot day and, contrary to the instructions on the many signs, we unwound the windows of our car slightly, a sky-blue Vauxhall Victor. No more than a couple of inches, but I began to cry because I was frightened of the lions.

  ‘Have you heard of Mike Summerbee, the footballer? He played for Manchester City and went to the same primary school as me. Even back then, my father said that footballers earned too much money. More than anything, my father hated spending money, so holidays were a kind of torture for him and he preferred to stay home and concrete our drive or something like that. When we did go on holiday, we went to Weston-super-Mare or Bournemouth, but when we got there it was always the monsoon and so we would have to go to the cinema. The only time we went to the cinema was when we were on holiday and it rained. It always rained and we always saw the film versions of our favourite television shows:Steptoe and Son , Morecambe and Wise inThat Riviera Touch. We never went to see the great works of the medium: Antonioni, Satyajit Ray, Godard. We didn't even seeThunderball , but to be fair I did seeWhere Eagles Dare andThe Italian Job , films that had a profound effect on my then-young mind. I don't want you to get the wrong impression. I know this seems hard to believe as you look at me now but, in my time, I was somewhat of a lady's man. Stick. Waggle. Speaking of stream of consciousness, have you seenIn the White City by your fellow-countryman, Alain Tanner? It's one of the first films to use Super-8 footage, to exploit the curious way Super-8 seems saturated by memory itself. It stars Bruno Ganz. At the simplest level, he plays a sailor on leave in Lisbon, who jumps ship and just stays there, wandering around, but for me it is an allegory of the attractions of Bour
ton on the Water, the eternal village, in the holy Cotswolds. There is a bridge there, a crossing place, atirtha. It is said that if you cross this bridge, you will come to an auspicious ice cream van – Mr Whippee – selling choc-ices and raspberry Mivvis. Let be be finale of seem.’

  The Swiss, understandably, was showing signs of wanting to move on.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I have a question, a question about your other countryman, Roger Federer. A great tennis player. A god, in his way. But why did he persist in wearing that absurd cream-coloured blazer at Wimbledon? Do not wear a cream-coloured blazer with shorts or adhoti. It is one of the most elementary rules of clothing. So, why did he do it? Answer me that. It is the question that will answer all other questions.’

  The Swiss said he did not know. I was not surprised. It defied understanding. That is why it was the question that would answer all other questions.

  Thereafter I always went out walking in mydhoti. My white thighs soon became as brown as my calves. I stopped being conscious that I was dressed like this. It felt good, it felt natural, and I felt as cool as it was possible to feel in an environment in which it was only possible to feel hot. Passing a couple ofbhang-addled hippies, I heard one say, ‘Christ, it's Shuman the Human!’ A little further along I saw my friend, the friend whose eyes I had looked into. I waved to him, but he didn't seem to recognize me, possibly because I had changed beyond all recognition even though, to my mind, I was still recognizably myself. More plausibly, he didn't remember anything, didn't even have a memory. Even to have memories was a form of attachment and a form of desire. Personally, I had no need of them.

  Speaking of memories, I have forgotten to mention that Laline and Darrell left Varanasi. They went to Rajasthan, to Jaipur and Jaisalmer, a city in the desert. They were flying, flying or taking a train, to Jaipur or Jodhpur. Laline asked if I wanted to go with them, but I had no desire to leave Varanasi.

  ‘To be in Varanasi is to be everywhere,’ I said. ‘The city is cosmogram and mandala. When all is said and done, it is probably the least boring place on earth. And, most importantly, the pancakes at the Lotus Lounge show no signs of deterioration.’

  ‘We're worried about you,’ Laline said.

  ‘About me? How sweet, but I can't think why. I'm just beginning to find my feet here.’

  ‘It's just. You seem … ’

  ‘What? You're not going to accuse me of living like a monkey again, are you? Those days are gone, I promise. I'm even thinking of learning Sanskrit. You wouldn't catch a monkey doing that now, would you?’

  ‘You've still got your sense of humour,’ she said.

  ‘Actually, I'm the one who should be worried about you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Darrell.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He's with the CIA.’

  ‘The CIA?’

  ‘I suspected it from the moment I saw him. Now I'm sure.’

  ‘Well, he's a terrific advert for it,’ she said, apparently unperturbed.

  ‘I know. I'm tempted to join myself.’

  ‘They wouldn't have you. You're a security risk.’

  ‘What if Darrell put in a good word for me?’

  Lal smiled, ran her hand through my hair. ‘Your hair is growing out. It's all fluffy. Like a gosling.’ I thought that was a lovely thing to say.

  ‘Fluffy as a gosling and sleek as an otter,’ I said. ‘That will be my motto from now on.’ We moved to hug goodbye.

  ‘Ouch!’ I had trodden on her sandaled foot.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ I said. ‘I'm so clumsy.’

  ‘That's alright.’

  Darrell and I hugged too. I did not tread on his foot and he did not stroke my hair or say it was fluffy as a gosling's. But I did say to him that, now that they were an item, Laline should start wearing the veal. Because they were leaving, I took a picture of them both, on the terrace of the Ganges View. They took off their sunglasses and stood with their arms around each other, smiling. Birds skittered by. It was a good picture and a quite ordinary one. In the background the great river flowed, unmoving, vast. They were my friends, I was sad to see them go, but I was indifferent too. Like everyone else, they were just passing through, just guests. The same was true of me. Even though I was still here, had no plans to go anywhere, I was a guest, just passing through, fluffy as a gosling, sleek as an otter.

  I bathed every morning in the Ganges, which kept passing through and staying, passing through and staying put. Some days I even swam in it, not far, just a few strokes. I took care not to swallow any river-water but, inevitably, a few drips splashed into my mouth. One morning I saw the dolphins that were rumoured to live in the river. Two of them, black and sleek in their wet suits, surfacing and diving and with long smiles. It seemed hard to believe that they really existed, but the fact that they did tells you something, about dolphins and the Ganges and existence generally. It tells you that there are dolphins in the Ganges, and if there are dolphins here then there can be other creatures too, otters, for example, and not just here, but in other rivers also, and not just in rivers either.

  ‘Passing through, staying put,’ I chanted to myself. ‘Passing put, staying through.’

  On the occasion of my first dip, I had stepped gingerly into the water; these days I dived in from the ghats. Diving makes it sound far more spectacular than it really was. It was more like just leaning forward, leaning on nothing and letting go, otherwise known as a belly-flop. The sun was so powerful that I was dry within moments of clambering out of the water. After that I went and had my lemon and sugar pancake at the Lotus Lounge or went back to the hotel and generally went about my lack of business. I may have walked slowly, but I took everything in my stride. Anything seemed possible. It would not have surprised me to learn that I had left Varanasi and was now a war criminal living in Buenos Aires in the 1950s. If it had turned out that I was at home on my sofa, watching a documentary about Varanasi or playing a video game calledVaranasi Death Trip , that would not have altered my assessment of the situation because my situation would not have changed significantly. When someone said that I had been at Charterhouse with them, in the 1970s, I did not bat an eyelid even though the only thing I knew about Charterhouse was that it was a school and that Pete Hammill or Peter Gabriel had been a pupil there. If someone had come up and said they had no idea who I was or what I was talking about, I would have agreed and said, ‘Me neither.’ Actually, one day that did happen, someone really said that – or something along those lines – but the person who said it was Ashwin. Back from Hampi, dumped by Isobel presumably, and, although it had taken far longer than expected, finally having the nervous breakdown for which all that overbrimming of love had predisposed him, poor kid. All I could do was give him my blessing and a few rupees.

  Time passed, or maybe it didn't. All of time is here, in Varanasi, so maybe time cannot pass. People come and go, but time stays. Time is not a guest. The days, though, they passed, and eventually the day came, the day of days, the most auspicious of days. At Kedar ghat a kangaroo came boinging along. It caused quite a stir, as you can imagine, but, in the hospitable Hindu way, it was immediately welcomed and absorbed into the pantheon of interesting events. Rather than astonishment, the attitude was more like, ‘Well, whynot a kangaroo?’ People threw bright flowers as a greeting, touched its big feet, draped a marigold garland round its drooping Victorian shoulders. A sandal-pastetilak was applied to its forehead. The kangaroo held its paws together and bowed slightly in an approximation of theanjali greeting. It was a nice quiet kangaroo, everyone said, glad of the attention and company. Not at all aggressive, not like the one that had attacked Darrell in his dream. I say ‘everyone said’ because I could not see it. I was in its pouch, you see, peeking out, fluffy as a gosling, sleek as an otter, passing through and staying put. I saw what it saw, not what the people looking at it saw. What I saw was the people seeing it. When the kangaroo came to the river's edge, I saw the heavy water of Ganga brooding slowly by. Peop
le thought the kangaroo might jump into the Ganges, but it seemed reluctant to do so. Probably it had read in theRough Guide about how dirty the water was. It just stood there, right at the edge of the water, using its tail for balance. The name ‘Ganoona’ was being chanted. The many names of Ganoona were being intoned, but there was only one name and that name was Ganoona. I could hear it all around, coming from the people and coming from the river and coming from me. There was no difference between hearing the name Ganoona and saying the name Ganoona. To hear the name was to say the name and to say the name was to answer to the name and that name was Ganoona. Ganoona may have looked like a kangaroo, but at some level Ganoona was more otter than kangaroo.