‘Don’t think of that,’ Max had said, feeling his compassion so piercingly that he’d almost wished he could be more detached from Rick, with a firmer – but not a colder – heart. ‘Think of our love instead,’ he’d added, knowing he must be strong if he were to do any good, nursing him as his condition relentlessly got worse.
He now forced his concentration back to the photos of the tsunami victims: shrouded corpses on a communal pyre, the flames leaping up and the smoke billowing, the faces of grieving women, a howling father, an old man praying before a muddied shrine. But then Max turned to some photos he’d taken to provide some notes of hope: a woman dug out alive from a pile of debris, a child born amid the devastation, medical supplies dropped by helicopter, a stone pillar bearing the eroded image of Shiva the Preserver that had revealed by the tsunami.
Some archaeologists had come to investigate, having been excited by claims that a temple had been glimpsed when the water had retreated before the tsunami struck. There was an old Tamil legend of a city lost beneath the sea, a city so beautiful that the gods had sent a flood to cover it and hide it from view. And now, with strange irony, this ferocious buckling of the tectonic plates beneath the ocean had brought this temple briefly into view again.
Despairing of ever hearing from Max, Narayan decided to drive out to see him. Max was surprised but not unwelcoming. At first they spoke of the possible discoveries, a subject behind which they could hide their initial shyness with each other. They went to talk to the archaeologists, who told them about underwater photographs that showed a ghostly structure covered in barnacles and algae, the remains of the unknown temple now submerged once again. Max and Narayan walked across the sand, which was covered in strange whirling traces and piles of tumbled seaweed.
‘I’m desperately sorry about Rick,’ Narayan said. ‘It’s good that you’ve come out here, though. It really is. All this work will help you to forget.’
‘I don’t want to forget him,’ said Max. ‘I never could.’
‘You forgot me, didn’t you?’ Narayan blurted out but then paused for a moment, thinking he was being self-centred. He continued, though, his voice quieter. ‘Well, I deserved it. I behaved very badly towards you. I didn’t behave too well with Mohini either.’
‘Neither of us behaved that well,’ admitted Max. ‘So what did you do to her that was so terrible?’
‘I resented her parents’ endless subtle criticisms. Mohini accused me of being touchy, and I’m afraid I lost my temper. A bit later, I told her how I loved you once. I…’ Narayan paused, obviously finding the telling difficult. ‘I thought her more broad-minded than she turned out to be. All her bright, progressive talk had given me the wrong impression. She was really upset when I told her we’d been lovers.’
‘Did she never realise?’ Max asked. ‘Before, I mean?’
‘It never entered her mind. She described you as so masculine and tough! She had the usual stereotypical preconceptions, basically. I told her that what I loved about you was your masculine exterior and the feminine sensitivity within. It wasn’t marvellously tactful of me, but you know I’ve never been too good on tact.’
‘But weren’t you stereotyping people too?’ Max couldn’t help chiding him. ‘Why must masculinity be seen as tough and femininity as sensitive?’
‘You have a point there,’ Narayan conceded.
Max spoke frankly of Rick’s suffering
‘He had these bad dreams. I slept beside him so I could hold him in my arms when he awoke.’
‘That’s really sad... but I’m worried you’re still so troubled by it.’
To divert Max, he went on to tell him about Vijaya
‘I’ve been to stay with her,’ Narayan said. ‘She’s over Tammy, quite amazingly. She’s even formed a mild attachment to one of her co-workers. He’s short, bald and spectacularly fat. Hardly a reed shaken by the wind, as Vijaya puts it. She treats him with a jokey condescension, which he rather seems to like. He’s a widower of a certain age. She tells him she’s glad he’s not exactly in the bloom of youth. In fact, she treats him like a piece from her collection: the more antique, the better.’
‘How is she getting on at the orphanage for abandoned little girls?’ Max asked.
‘She loves it. She also works on a helpline for distressed women. She’s befriended a woman who’s had female twins. When a scan revealed she was carrying them, her husband and his relatives demanded she illicitly abort them.’
‘Should you be telling people about this? Isn’t it confidential?
‘The woman actively wants it known. They virtually imprisoned her at home and were very hostile. Her husband actually threw her down the stairs to bring on a miscarriage. That didn’t work, thank God, and now she’s taking him to court. There are special women’s courts now, so there is some progress. Vijaya’s helping her to publicise the case. I’m glad Vijaya’s happily fulfilled, but I miss her very much.’
Narayan and Max met twice again. Although their old familiarity was returning, it lacked the excessive attraction that had once so excited Max. He told Narayan about his plans to travel.
‘I’ve proposed to my publishers that I put together a short book on the tsunami. It will include photos of the coasts that have been severely damaged. So I’m making a journey of some weeks.
‘Where to?’
‘Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand initially, then possibly the Maldives and the Andaman Islands. I hope the suffering I’ll doubtless witness will put my memories of Rick’s suffering at the end into some sort of perspective. I want to recall the figure Rick cut in his days of strength and confidence and fun.’
He felt sure he couldn’t avoid thinking of Narayan, but he hoped he wouldn’t think of him too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Max’s first flight was to Sri Lanka, where thousands of mango and banana plantations, and almost seventy per cent of the fishing fleet, had been destroyed. He imagined the tsunami approaching the coast at five hundred miles an hour, swelling and moving silently along. It rose only three feet above the surface here because of the great depth of the Indian Ocean. It was only as it neared the continental shelf that the wave had reared up to its fatal thirty feet. It made him think of the AIDS virus travelling stealthily through countries and continents, its symptoms equally unnoticeable at first. While working as a paramedic, he met a Buddhist monk who’d officiated at communal cremations of both Buddhist and Hindu victims. This elderly Sinhalese with a shaven head just happened to be a published poet in English, and spoke with soft eloquence and equanimity.
‘Buddhists or Hindus, Sinhalese or Tamil, death makes no distinctions. For all of us, life is fleeting. The Diamond Sutra says that life is like a flash of lightning… a guttering lamp… a phantom or a dream.’
‘Do you think life is that brief and meaningless?’ Max asked.
‘No,’ the monk replied, earnestly shaking his head. ‘All things in life are but the seeds of sorrow, but there is hidden meaning in our sorrows. They give us compassion for all living beings, but we mustn’t cling to them. We should be free of all attachments, all passions and possessions.’
‘Can’t we take detachment a bit too far?’
‘Detachment is very difficult,’ the monk acknowledged. ‘I hate to see all these dead and dying people, the mothers weeping, the babies and children crushed or drowned. At first, I wept as well, but the words of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon came to help me: our minds are burning, not just with the quick flames of greed and anger but with the slow fires of despair and grief. If we don’t cling to the world, the darkness of our lives is vanished, and death itself is gently burnt away.’
Narayan phoned Max on his mobile that evening. It surprised Max that he should do so soon after their parting; he hadn’t thought he was that keen to keep in touch. Max told him what the poet monk had said.
‘You’re not intending to become a Buddhist as well as a Hindu now, are you?’ Narayan gently teased. ‘Wouldn’t that be rather ove
rdoing things?’
‘Well, the two religions have much in common,’ answered Max, wanting to stay serious. ‘They both teach detachment from strong feelings and the world.’
‘I don’t want to be too detached from my feelings, Max. The world’s a horrifying place at times all right, but there are bits of it I like being attached to.’ Narayan paused. ‘I’d quite like to hold onto my feelings for you, for instance.’
‘That so?’ Max asked after a thoughtful pause.
‘Yes. I wish I could come with you to these disaster areas. I feel so useless. I’d like to help. I suppose it’s all very harrowing?’
‘It’s just about endurable,’ Max told him, ‘as long as I don’t stop to think too much and stay very active.’ He paused briefly. ‘Frankly, I’d rather do this on my own.’
Afterwards Max wondered why he’d snubbed Narayan so perfunctorily; perhaps he felt Narayan was pushing him too fast. He was quite glad their relationship was opening up again, yet he still felt a piercing grief for Rick and wished to experience it alone. He’d been surprised by his lack of desire for other men when Rick had become critically ill, especially his lack of desire for Narayan, which had once been so consuming and resistless. On reflection, he was touched by Narayan’s offer to help him. The idea of resuming their love affair did occur to him yet it appeared so unlikely. He still felt mostly deeply for Rick; by contrast, others seemed remote and inaccessible. But he felt slightly remorseful over what he’d said and vowed to ring Narayan when he flew on to Thailand. He spoke of some elephants that had seemed to anticipate the wave.
‘They stamped the ground and waved their heads before lumbering up into the hills.’
‘How could they have known it was coming?’ Narayan asked.
‘Their feet can sense the seismic vibrations. It’s strange how so few wild animals were caught by the wave, while man, with all his high-tech instrumentation, had no idea what was coming.’
‘They’ve dug up another granite elephant at Sandeha,’ Narayan told him. ‘It’s wonderful to think of this lost Tamil city being uncovered. It’s believed to have been a great port under the Pallava kings, used for trading in silks and spices throughout East Asia.’
‘I’d like to see that when I get back,’ Max said, ‘but I’ve a lot more travelling to do before then.’
The following day, Max flew on to Phuket, on the coast of Thailand. This area had been badly ravaged by the tsunami, and the medical authorities welcomed Max’s skills as a paramedic to help the survivors. The day he started work he met a Thai aid worker, a lecturer in English from a university in Bangkok. She spoke of the proximity of extreme wealth and extreme poverty in Thailand.
‘Skyscrapers and hovels, luxury resorts and run-down shantytowns, billionaires and beggars. And yet this country is supposed to be a Buddhist one. Remember that Buddha was a prince who renounced his worldly riches.’
‘Like Saint Francis,’ said Max. ‘He left his wealthy father’s house, casting off his clothes.’
‘And taking up the begging bowl,’ she said, nodding in agreement. ‘Yes, I know… following Christ’s example. Well, Saint Francis may have believed in my Lady Poverty; for us weaker spirits, though, there’s surely nothing wrong with a moderate number of possessions. Don’t we all want to make poverty history now, even though it seems a bit unrealistic at present?’
Max rang Narayan, feeling a need for his supportive humour in the midst of the destitution. He was starting to realise that he missed his lively presence more than he’d foreseen. He had some difficulty reaching him, and this frustrated him. When he eventually heard his voice it was with distinct relief. He told him what the Thai woman had said.
‘You surely don’t expect me to take up the begging bowl?’ Narayan replied. ‘Or sail out of my father’s house, clad only in my birthday suit?’
‘Not really,’ said Max. ‘As much as I admire your birthday suit, that is!’ he adding wryly. ‘But no, I wish to see my Lady Poverty put into voluntary retirement.’
‘Is there any hope she’s willing to retire?’
‘There’d be more hope if we had more redistribution between nations. I studied King Lear at college, and I was struck by what Shakespeare had him say about the poor: so distribution may undo excess and each country have enough.’
‘Who’ll judge what is excessive and who’ll say what is enough?’ Narayan asked. ‘Still, let’s hope we may one day live to see it.’
Max flew on to the Andaman Islands, which in British times had housed a penal colony where some political dissidents agitating for independence had be incarcerated. Max was told that numerous snakes and crocodiles had rushed inland in an effort escape the tsunami, terrifying the already-frightened people. Max met an old, retired teacher who’d lost his entire family. In a cruel twist, his granddaughter had died from a snakebite after the wave had struck.
‘What have we done?’ he asked, the tears trickling down his withered cheeks. ‘First this horrible wave, and then the snakes and crocodiles. Why does God want us punished twice?’
‘Don’t think you’re being punished,’ Max told him. ‘It was just a terrible accident of nature.’
‘I’ve always tried to be a good Hindu. I’ve followed my dharma, my duty, without thought of a reward. God is all-powerful, all-knowing. I’ve called on the Lord Krishna and made him offerings. I’ve given him devotion from the depths of my old heart, so why does God let nature be this cruel?’ The man gestured hopelessly at the ocean. ‘Why didn’t the sea take me as well?’
When Narayan rang again, Max could barely hear him at first, and he desperately wanted to hear him. Eventually the line cleared and Max told him what the old man had said.
‘Yes, but perhaps he asks too much of both God and nature,’ Narayan replied. ‘Nature is pitiless and life ruthlessly unfair, but if God had made them perfect, what kind of moral challenge would he be setting for us? What spiritual progress could we make?’
‘Is life all about moral challenge and spiritual progress?’ Max asked. ‘What that old man most wanted from it was happiness. Just to be happy. Like most of us, I think.’
Max was pleased by Narayan’s persistence in keeping in contact. He felt lonely without him and had come to rely on these phone calls.
‘Next week I’m flying on to the town of Banda Aceh in Indonesia,’ he said. ‘That’s where the tsunami did its worst, I gather, being so close to the epicentre of the shock.’
When he arrived at Banda Aceh he learnt that the wave here had been eighty feet high and had swept a mile inland. Tens of thousands of people had died; freighters had capsized and boats had been smashed and tossed into the trees. Half-a-million people had been made homeless, and there were fears of outbreaks of typhoid, dysentery and hepatitis. Max took some photos but spent most of his time inoculating people against infection in the medical tents that had been pitched among the ruins. He’d just finished a fourteen-hour stint and was sweaty and exhausted when Narayan rang.
‘Is it as bad there as you’d been told?’
‘Worse, I think. There are some cases of cholera, and that’s such a horrible disease. We’re trying to control the water supply. I’ve inoculated about a hundred people already.’
‘I really admire you for what you’re doing.’
‘Please don’t admire me. I’ve got feet of clay, as you once said to me about yourself. Do you remember?’
‘I’ve still got mine. If anything, they’re worse. Max, I can’t stop thinking of you. Be honest with me: is that rather pointless?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think I’ve fallen in love with you again. Does that embarrass you?’
Max looked around and wondered if it was wrong to feel joy in the middle of such misery. An excavator was clawing its way through the chaos of ruined houses, while sniffer dogs searched for the bodies crushed under the rubble. Four-fifths of the dead were women and children. Less able to escape the wave, their bodies were found buried in the mud, in
piteous jumbles of limbs and torsos.
Max found an unexpected gladness in what Narayan had said, even in these appalling circumstances. His openness had that old familiar appeal: it showed extraordinary trust. He exposed himself so unguardedly, not knowing whether Max would return his feelings.
‘I used to be so conditioned and conventional,’ Narayan went on. ‘I was always worrying what other people thought. I know myself much better now and feel freed by that.’ He seemed to screw up his courage before continuing. ‘Max, I want to live with you. You wanted to live with me, once. Is it too late for that now?’
Max was relieved he could still feel exultant. An almost shocking surge of hope invaded him, almost against his will. As he took in his surroundings, he wondered if the people here could ever hope again, if happiness could revisit their ruined lives.
‘If your aunts and uncles objected to Mohini, how will they react to me?’ Max asked.
‘I’m not that feeble now. I can stand up to them, pathetic as their prejudices are.’
‘And what about the part of you that’s so very hetero?’
‘I love you as a person, not a body. How often in life does anyone really fall in love?’
Max found it ironic that Narayan was taking the initiative. Last time it was Max who had started the affair and loved the more; now the situation was astoundingly reversed. If it had to be unequal, was it better to be more the lover or the loved?
‘Very seldom,’ Max answered him. ‘I’ve fallen in love only three times in my life. Sometimes I wonder if I ever will again.’
He thought he’d once felt too much in Narayan’s power, and he’d occasionally resented it. But now it was he who had the power and he knew he must not abuse this dubious advantage. He was touched by Narayan’s feeling, of course. However, recalling his previous changes of emotional direction, he didn’t now entirely trust it.
‘I hope I’m one of the three,’ Narayan answered. ‘And I hope that in time you will fall in love again.’
The Assassins Page 23