Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  They bowed to Ommony, murmuring “Pranam,” and he blessed them perfunctorily. It was more important at the moment to examine the room carefully than to make friends with outcaste actors, who pretend to themselves that they despise a Brahmin, but actually fear one like the devil if he takes, and keeps, the upper hand.

  The room was about thirty-five feet broad by ninety feet long, extremely high and beamed and cross-beamed with adze-trimmed timbers as heavy as the deck-beams of a sailing ship. There was a faint suggestion of a smell of grain and gunny-bags. Along one end, to the right of the door, was a platform, not more than four feet high nor eight feet deep, with a door in the wall at the end of it farthest from the courtyard; on the platform was a clean Tibetan prayer mat.

  The walls were bare, of stone reinforced by heavy timbers, and the only furniture or ornaments consisted of heavy brass chandeliers suspended on brass chains from the ceiling and brass sconces fastened to the timbers of the walls. The place was fairly clean, except for wasp’s nests and grease on the floor and walls where the illuminating medium had dripped. There were no prayer-wheels, images of gods, or anything to suggest a religious atmosphere, which nevertheless prevailed, perhaps because of the austerity.

  Ommony decided to try the platform; as a Bhat-Brahmin he had perfect authority for being impudent, and as a man of ordinary good sense he was justified in taking Dawa Tsering with him, to keep that individual out of mischief; so he beckoned to the dog and Dawa Tsering, climbed to the platform by means of some pegs stuck there for the purpose, and checked an exclamation of surprise. The trunk full of clothes that he had ordered from Benjamin stood unopened in the far dark corner of the platform, where almost no light penetrated. It was strapped, locked, sealed with a leaden disk, and the key hung down from the handle.

  He determined then and there to waste no further effort on conjecture. The Lama knew who he was. Benjamin was the informer. Probably on one of the occasions when Benjamin went shuffling along the passage by the staircase in front of his store he had sent a message to the Lama. Luck must favor him now or not, as the Powers who measure out the luck should see fit. He sat down cross-legged in deep shadow on top of the trunk, which creaked under his weight, signed to Dawa Tsering to be seated upon the floor, watched Diana curl herself in patient boredom in the shadow beside him, leaned into the corner, listened to the chattering of the actors and to Maitraya’s pompous scolding, and presently fell asleep. Not having slept at all the previous night, he judged it was ridiculous to stay awake and worry. Opportunity is meant for wise men’s seizing.

  CHAPTER XIII. San-Fun-Ho

  Lords of evolving night and day!

  Ye spirits of the spaceless dreams!

  O Souls of the reflected hills

  Embosomed in pellucid streams!

  Magicians of the morning haze

  Who weave anew the virgin veil

  That dews the blush of waking days

  With innocence! Ye Rishis*, hail!

  I charge that whosoe’er may view

  This talisman, shall greet the dawn

  Degreed, arrayed and ranked anew

  As he may wish to have been born!

  Prevail desire! A day and night

  Prevail ambition! Till they see

  They cannot set the world aright

  By being what they crave to be!

  Be time and space, and all save Karma stilled!

  Grant that each secret wish may be fulfilled!

  — The Magic Incantation of San-Fun-Ho

  HOW LONG Ommony slept he did not know, but probably for at least an hour. At first his doze was broken by the sound of the actors’ voices, but after a while they may have slept too for lack of better entertainment; the buzz of conversation ceased and he was left to the pursuit of unquiet dreams, in which the Lama plotted and disputed with Vasantasena for possession of Samding in a place in which there was a fountain brim-full of golden mohurs.

  He awoke quietly after a while, that being habit, and noticed that Diana’s tail was thumping a friendly salute on the platform floor. The next thing he saw was the Lama sitting motionless on the prayer mat, with Samding as usual beside him. Below them, on the floor of the room, stood Maitraya looking upward. The gabble of angry argument that he caught between sleeping and waking made no clear impression on his brain. The first words he heard distinctly were the Lama’s, speaking Urdu:

  “My son, you are convinced of a delusion. That is not good. You believe you are answerable for results, whereas you are not even connected with the cause. You have but to obey. It is I who am burdened with the tribulation of deciding how this matter shall be managed, since I conceived it. From you there is required good will and whatever talent you possess for your profession.”

  The voice was kind, but it did not allay Maitraya’s wrath. He scolded back.

  “I am famous! I am known wherever we will go. Men will mock me! Am I to be a common mountebank? Vishnu! Vishnu! Why engage me, if you won’t listen when I tell you the proper way to do a thing, and what the public will accept and what it will not accept?”

  The Lama listened patiently, not changing his expression, which was bland and gently whimsical.

  “All ways are proper in their proper place. Men will usually take what they receive for nothing,” he answered after a pause. “As for your dissatisfaction, you may go, my son. You may go to Benjamin, and he shall pay you one week’s money.”

  “I have a contract!” Maitraya retorted, posturing like Ajax defying lightning.

  “That is true,” said the Lama gently. “There would be merit in observing the terms of it.”

  Maitraya smote his breast, disheveled his turban desperately and turned to throw an appealing gesture to the troupe. But they were a hungry-looking lot, more interested in being fed and paid than in Maitraya’s artistic anxieties. The Lama looked kind and spoke gently. In silence, with eye-movements, they took the Lama’s side of the dispute.

  “Prostitutes!” exclaimed Maitraya in a frenzy. “You will make apes of yourselves for the sake of two months’ wage! Oh, very well. I will out-ape you! I will be a worse ape than the one who ate the fruit out of the Buddha’s begging bowl! Behold me — Maitraya, the prostitute! I will be infamous, to fill your miserable bellies!” Then, facing the Lama again with a gesture of heartbroken anguish: “But this that you ask is impossible! It is not done — never! My genius might overcome a difficulty, but how can these fools do what they have never learned?”

  “How does the wolf-cub know where to look for milk?” the Lama answered, and all laughed, except Maitraya, who tried to rearrange his turban. A woman finished the business for him, grinning in his face as boldly as if there were the slats of a zenana* window in between.

  “Do you observe that woman?” Dawa Tsering whispered to Ommony. “Now if she were in Spiti there would be knife-work within the day. She lacks awareness of what might be!”

  Aware that he, too, lacked that most desirable of assets at the moment, Ommony frowned for silence. There was just a chance that he might pick up a clue to a part of the mystery if he should attract no attention to himself. Maitraya — supposing he knew anything — was in a frame of mind to explode a secret at any moment. He was blowing up again.

  “Krishna! By the many eyes of Krishna, I swear to you that some of them cannot read!” he shouted, strutting to and fro and pausing to throw both arms upward in a gesture of despair.

  “Krishna is a comprehensive Power to swear by,” said the Lama mildly. “How many cannot read?”

  Two women confessed to disability; the third boasted her attainment proudly.

  “Not so insuperable!” said the Lama. “That one woman shall read for the three. Thus the two will learn. Give their parts to them. They have almost nothing to say in the first act.”

  Samding picked up a dozen wooden cylinders with paper scrolls wrapped around them and bundled the lot into Maitraya’s hands.

  “We must cast them,” said Maitraya. “The cast is all-important.
Who shall play which part? It is essential to decide that to begin with.”

  “No,” said the Lama, “the essential thing is that every one shall understand the play. Give the women’s parts to that woman. Distribute the others at random.”

  Maitraya, with a shrug, chose the biggest scroll for himself and distributed the others. Samding beckoned to Dawa Tsering, who got up leisurely as if in doubt whether obedience was not infra dig, now that he had changed masters. Samding gave him a scroll, which he carried to Ommony, but neither Samding nor the Lama gave a glance in Ommony’s direction.

  The scroll was written in Urdu in a fine and beautifully even hand, heavily corrected here and there by someone who had used a quill pen. It looked as if Samding might have written and the Lama, perhaps, revised. There was no title at the head, but the part was marked “The Saddhu,”* and the cues were carefully included. To get light enough to read by Ommony sat at the edge of the platform with his face toward the Lama, and presently began to chuckle. There were lines he liked, loaded with irony.

  There followed a long silence while Maitraya glanced over his own fat part and consulted stage directions in the margin; it was he who first broke silence:

  “O ye critical and all-observing gods!” he exclaimed. “This is modernism, is it! Who will listen to a play that only has one king in it, and no queen, and no courtiers — but a shoe-maker, and a goat-herd, and a seller of sweetmeats, and three low-caste-women with water-jars, and only one soldier — he not a general but a sepoy, if you please! — and a wandering saddhu, and no vizier to support the king, but a tax-gatherer and a camel- driver, and a village headman, and two farmers — and for heroine — what kind of a heroine is this? A Chinese woman! And what a name! San-fun-ho! Bah! Who will listen to the end of such a play?”

  “I will be the first to listen,” said the Lama dryly. “Let us begin reading.”

  “And not even a marriage at the end!” Maitraya growled disgustedly. “None marries the king — not even the Chinese woman and her pigtail! No gods — one goddess! Not even a Brahmin! How do you like that, Gupta Rao? Not as much as one Brahmin to give the play dignity! What part have you? The saddhu’s?Let us hope it is a better part than mine. Listen to this: I am a king. I enter right, one sepoy following. (O Vishnu! Thy sharp beams burn! A king, and one sepoy for escort!) The sweetmeat seller enters left. Back of the stage the Chinese woman is beside a well under a pipul-tree, talking with three women who carry water-jars — and may the gods explain how a Chinese woman comes to be there! I address the sweetmeat seller. Listen:

  “‘Thou, who sellest evanescent joy — and possibly enduring bellyache — to little ones, what hast thou to offer to me, who am in need of many things?’ — What do you think of that for a speech for a king to make his entry with?”

  “To which, what says the sweetmeat seller?” asked the Lama. “Who has the sweetmeat seller’s part? Read on.”

  They sat down in a semicircle on the floor, Maitraya standing in the midst of them, and one of the men read matter-of-factly:

  “‘Mightiest of kings, thy servant is a poor man, needing money to pay the municipal tax. May all the gods instruct me how to answer! Who am I that I should offer anything to the owner of all these leagues of forest and flowing stream and royal cities? An alms, O image of the sun?’”

  “If he were a real king, and this a real play,” Maitraya exclaimed, consulting the directions, “he would order that sweetmeat seller into jail for impudence! But what does he do? He looks sad, gives the fellow an alms, and turns to face the women at the well. How can he do that? I tell you, he must face the audience. Are they interested in his back? And this is what he says:

  “‘Bearers of refreshment! Ye who walk so straight beneath the water-jars! Ye who laugh and tell a city’s gossip! Ye who bring new men into the world! What have ye to offer me, whose heart is heavy? Lo, I bring forth sorrow amid many midwives. Wherewith shall I suckle it?’ — It is just at this point that the audience begins to walk out!” said Maitraya.

  “A woman speaks. What says the woman?” boomed the Lama; and the woman who could read held her scroll to the light, speaking sidewise, jerking her head at the Lama, as if he were the king.

  “‘O Maharajah, thy servants are but women, who must toil the day long; and the water-jars are heavy! If we bring no man into the world, we are unfortunate; but if we do, we must suckle him, and cook, and keep a house clean, and go to the well thrice daily notwithstanding. Lo, the young one robs us of our strength and increases our labor. We are women. Who are we to offer comfort to a king?’”

  “Enter the saddhu,” read Maitraya. “He leans on a staff and salutes the king with quiet dignity—”

  “The saddhu shall have a dog with him,” the Lama interrupted. “Samding,” (he glanced sidewise at the chela) “there is merit in the dog. Consider well what part the dog may play.”

  The chela nodded. He and the Lama seemed to take it quite for granted that the dog and her master were obedient members of the troupe.

  “Whoever heard of a dog in a play?” Maitraya grumbled. “Krishna! But the very gods will laugh at us! Read, Gupta Rao. What says the saddhu?”

  “‘O King, thou art truly to be pitied more than all of these. Mine — the path I take — is the only way from misery to happiness. Alone of all these, I can give advice. Forswear the pomp and glory of a kingdom—’”

  “Pomp — and one sepoy!” Maitraya exploded.

  “Silence!” commanded the Lama, in a voice that astonished everybody. His face was as mild as ever. Ommony continued:

  “‘ — Discard the scepter. Let the reins of despotism fall, and follow me. I mortify the flesh. I eat no more than keeps the body servant to the soul. No house, no revenues are mine, no other goods than this chance-given staff to lean on and a ragged robe. None robs me; I have no wealth to steal. None troubles me, for who could gain by it? I sleep under the skies, or crawl into a cave and share it with the beasts; for they and I, even as thou and I, O King, are brothers.’”

  “Now the king speaks,” said Maitraya. “Listen to this! ‘Brothers? Yes; but someone has to beat the ox. And who shall rule the kingdom, if the ass and the jackal and the pigeon and the kite are reckoned equals with the king? Answer me that, O Saddhu.’”

  “‘Rule?’” read Ommony. “‘Are the gods not equal to the task? What is this world but a passage to the next — a place wherein to let the storms of Karma pass and store up holiness? Beware, O King!’”

  “The saddhu passes on, turns and stands meditating,” Maitraya read, consulting his scroll. “A shoemaker approaches. What says the shoemaker?”

  “He salutes the king,” said the Lama, “and walks up to the soldier. Now, let the shoemaker speak.”

  A voice piped up from the floor; “‘Thou with the long sword, pay me or kill me!’”

  “He turns to the king,” the Lama interrupted, “read on.”

  “‘ — O mighty king, O heaven-born companion of the gods! This sepoy owes me for a pair of shoes. Nor will he pay. Nor have I any remedy, since all fear him and none will give evidence against him. I am poor, O prince of valor. May the gods answer if there is any justice in the world! As I am an honest laborer, there is none!’”

  “To which the king answers,” said Maitraya, “‘True. And if you were king, what would you do about it?’”

  The shoemaker: “‘Ah! If I were king!’”

  “Now,” said the Lama, “a crowd collects. They enter left and right, the tax-gatherer, the goatherd, the farmers, the camel-driver and the village headman. They all make complaints to the king.”

  “A crowd of seven people!” sneered Maitraya.

  “There are dancing women also,” said the Lama. “They are not wanted to dance until later; therefore they may take part in the crowd in various disguises. They have nothing to say. Read on.”

  Maitraya read: “‘The crowd salutes the king, and the saddhu watches scornfully; the saddhu speaks.’ Read on, Gupta Rao.”

&
nbsp; “‘So many men and women, so many fools! Waves crying to an empty boat to guide them! O ye men and women, children of delusion and blind slaves of appetite, how long will ye store up wrath against the hour of reckoning?’”

  “Now the shoemaker,” said the Lama.

  “‘Tell us how to collect our debts, thou Saddhu! Tell us how to feed our young ones! To that we will listen!’”

  “Now the tax-collector.”

  “‘Tell me how to get the tax-money from men who declare they have nothing! Tell me how to conduct a government without a revenue! Tell me what will happen if I fail, O mouther of Mantras!’”*

  “The king,” said the Lama, and Maitraya spoke with the scroll behind him, to prove how swiftly he could memorize.

  “‘Peace, all of you! Ye little know how fortunate ye are to have a king whose only will is that the realm shall ooze contenting justice. Day and night my meditation is to spread contentment through the land. Is this your gratitude?’”

  The Saddhu: “‘To whom? For what?”’ Ommony’s voice charged the line with sarcasm that made the Lama glance at him.

  “A farmer,” said Maitraya.

  “‘The locusts spread through the land, and there is no ooze of dew, nor any rain. The crops have failed; and nevertheless, the tax-gatherer! He fails not with his visits! Meditate a little on the tax-gatherer, O King.’”

  The Saddhu: “‘Aye, meditate!’”

  “A camel-driver,” said Maitraya.

  “‘O King, they wait beside the mother-camel for the unborn calf. They take from us in taxes at the frontier more than the freight is worth. We fetch and carry, but the profit of the labor goeth to the rich. Our very tents are worn until the women can no longer patch them.”

  The Saddhu: “‘Live in caves, O brother of the wind!’”

  “The shoemaker,” said Maitraya.

  “‘And the owner of goats charges twice as much as formerly for goatskins!’”

  “The goatherd.”

  “‘Maybe. But he pays me less than half of what is right for herding them!’”