by Talbot Mundy
“I’m tired, dear. Do you mind not arguing? Phrases don’t mean much. Feet mean understanding, if you know how to follow the line of thought; and a kiss means opening your whole soul to be comforted. Lie down, dear. He came, that is the point. He will wake us at the proper time. Sweet dreams, Annie, darling—” “Sweet dreams.”
Joe, however, dropped into a dreamless sleep, from which he awakened at long intervals to find some one tending him, only to drop off to sleep again as soon as whoever it was would let him. Now and then he heard voices — Hawkes — Bruce — Cummings — Rita — Annie Weems and others that he did not recognize. But they meant nothing, and if he heard their words, the words stirred no responding thought; he simply slept, and slept on, painless at last and untroubled.
CHAPTER XVIII. “Ram-Chittra Gunga, come at once; I need you.”
Joe was never able entirely to reconstruct in his memory the stages of recovering consciousness. Some dreams appeared more real than reality, and some reality was much more baffling than the dreams. It was not long before he realized he was in a room within the temple; on the other hand, it was a long time before he understood he had been knifed between the shoulders, and when he did understand it and tried to remember the details, he lost at once all semblance of understanding in a maze of mental pictures of the ayah’s face, and Rita’s, mixed up with the splashes of furious color.
He very soon recognized Rita, and Annie Weems, but they would not talk to him or let him talk to them. They cared for him as he never had been cared for, but they were as strict with him as if he were in training for a Simon Stylites Marathon — no speech — no movement, except when with their united strength they raised him to change the bed-linen and so on.
“If you wish to be tied,” said Annie Weems, “you may be.”
“But it will be better for you,” said Rita, “if you can control yourself by will power and lie quite still.”
There was never a moment when one or the other of them was not watching him. A tall, ascetic-looking Hindu, who appeared to be a doctor, came at intervals and examined his wound, questioning the women in a language that sounded not unlike the melody of water in a tunnel; if he gave instruction, it sounded at any rate more like the recital of a mantra. He left no medicine; for which Joe was grateful. But he did leave behind him a feeling of confidence that it would have taken death itself to shatter.
There were birds, apparently in cages somewhere out of sight, that sang delightfully; and there was a musical sound of water splashing from a fountain in a courtyard. Once, when the door opened suddenly, Joe saw the courtyard bathed in sunlight that shone on gloxinias, amid ferns, surrounding a marble pond into which the water came tumbling from a huge jar held by a carved female figure; but he had no time to photograph the figure in his mind because the sunlight dazzled him and, when the door swung shut, it was a relief to be again in semidarkness.
Better even than the music of the water and the birds was Rita’s singing. There was never any knowing when she would sing. Between songs there were intervals of sometimes half a day, but they were always worth waiting for, although she sometimes sang in languages that had no meaning, for Joe, whatever. When she sang in English they were songs he had never heard before and there was always a mystic meaning in them that seemed to act like a salve for restlessness — so that Joe wondered whether he had become childish and able to be calmed like a baby with lullabies.
But when he thought about it he knew that the songs were not lullabies. They induced no sleep but, on the contrary, awakened in him skeins and cycles of thought of a kind that was totally unfamiliar to him, and yet, in another sense seemed so familiar that he welcomed it and almost leaped with his mind to meet it when it came. Her voice suggested to him glimmerings of daylight creeping amid shadows — gentle — natural — unassuming — and yet full of the strength and splendor of evolving day. To test an absolute of which he felt vaguely aware, he tried to imagine a world without Rita in it — and the world went dark again. He wondered what had happened to him. Not to his back; he knew that now. To his consciousness, or whatever psychologists call a fellow’s inside being.
Then he thought of his mother at last; she seemed a stranger and a bit distasteful but a long way off, He remembered he used to hate her. What had happened? Why was she not here, fussing and making everybody wretched?
For a long time after that Joe wondered whether he was not dead. It might easily be. No scientist, no minister, no teacher had ever returned, so far as Joe knew, to tell what death is like. He, Rita and Annie Weems might all have died — he by a knife-wound — they from any cause whatever. There was no logical reason, that he could think of, why a man who died of a knife-wound should imagine himself healed and whole and well the moment death had seized his body. This thing, that now and then hurt so badly, might not be his earth-body. Weren’t there theories about a man having an astral body — sort of inside the other one — invisible to most folk on the earth, but much less perishable than the thing that gets eaten by worms or burned up in a furnace when we die? This thing in the bed might be his astral body.
There was nothing, as far as Joe could see, in the least illogical about the idea that a man might wake up after death and find himself being taken care of by his friends. If there was, so much the worse for logic. Trot out a logician who can prove what life is, and he would listen to the man; but all they do is argue about the perceptions of senses that perish as soon as a black-jack or a thirty-two caliber bullet makes a contact with flesh and blood.
Friends — that was a bright thought. Which are a fellow’s friends, he wondered; and what is friendship? Quid pro quo — to hell with it; he had done things for men, and for women too, and been done in the eye, done brown on both sides. He had done things for his mother; and if she was his friend he would eat —
“They’ve fed me regularly. Funny sort of food, but — probably they don’t eat food in hell or heaven. Can’t be dead then.”
But he saw through that illogic. If a man could need hospital nursing after death he could need food also — maybe temporarily. He remembered having seen in Egypt food placed in the tombs of dead kings. Might be something in it. People who could build the Pyramid, and paint imperishable symbols in three colors on a dark wall, and calculate the orbits of planets that they couldn’t see, weren’t ignorant — might know more than modern scientists about a heap o’ things, death and life included. Why not? Food in a tomb might be a symbol, just as paintings on the wall were. It might symbolize faith in Providence. Not a bad notion. Better than bla-bla marble figures or a mail-order Magdalene weeping on a slab over lines of bum poetry.
Friends — who are they? People you like, and you don’t know how they get that way, and don’t care. You like ’em and they like you. The less logical reason for it, the better you like ’em. Dogs, for instance. Why should a man like dogs? And yet the man who doesn’t like ’em isn’t fit to trust as far as you can kick him through the window. Trust him with money, perhaps, but not with your inmost thoughts or your reputation. What’s money, anyhow? A mere commodity. Symbol of liberty? Hokum. Symbol of slavery. Necessary, yes; but so are sewers. Hope this is the next world and there’s no money in it — and no trust deeds done on vellum.
But there were moments of something more like pragmatism, when he knew he was not dead, and wondered what the consequence would be of having fallen in love with Rita. For he knew he was in love with her. Emotion — unturbulent so far, because of his physical weakness — seemed to flow in him like a tide that followed her movements. It was physical, he supposed, in a sort; but not wholly physical. And it was pleasant. Was it mental? Partly; but there was something else there. Spiritual? Who knows what the word means?
What would Rita have to say about it when he told her? Maybe she knew already; women are intuitive; Rita seemed sometimes to be almost all intuition. Besides, he had undoubtedly been delirious; was it likely he had not raved about her? He had heard men raving in delirium; they almost always
blab their inmost secrets. He knew of business deals that had been balled up that way. Probably she knew more about him than he knew himself — might know that easily — he did not know much. Knew a good thing when he saw it, though. Knew he loved Rita. Damned fool, certainly, in lots of ways, but wise enough to fall in love with Rita.
There were hours when he hardly thought at all but lay still watching her, wondering whether the curious lights he saw were real or something imagined and due to his injury. Punch a man’s nose and he sees things. Men with the willies see spotted mice and pink snakes — imaginary? Why? Simply because other people can’t see ’em? Hokum. Booze may open a man’s psychic faculties until he sees things on a fourth — fifth — sixth dimension. Brain may be too sodden to interpret ’em, but that doesn’t prove he sees nothing. Opium — same thing; poor chaps fall in love with what they see on other planes and want more of it, more of it. Must be plenty more than three dimensions; any fool could understand that if he’d only think a minute. Funny why so many scientific people don’t think — suckers get all sogged up with facts — like getting drunk on dust same way that bankers get drunk on statistics until banks go broke — biology class at college — studying frogs’ corpses to learn what life is. Jesus!
And he wasn’t seeing pink snakes. They were colored lights around Rita. Like bubbles, only much more beautiful. And they moved with a marvelous motion as if they had power inside ’em. Colors — awfully difficult to catch and name ’em. Rose predominant — like early morning rose with dew on it — blue — yellow — green — violet — the colors of the prism; only he had never seen such perfect color in a prism, or even in a rainbow — even in a garden in the early morning. And when he almost closed his eyes and watched her she seemed to have a rose-colored outline that faded away into daffodil-yellow and larkspur-light-blue as you see it through the mist on Monhegan Island.
The Hindu doctor who came in at intervals to stare at him and sometimes to examine his wound had a green outline — green and rich brown of the shade of oak-leaves in the autumn. Practical-looking fellow, Joe thought — practical, and maybe proud of it. He’d be good for a line of credit at the bank if he could show a statement that was even half presentable. Trust that bird; he wouldn’t crack; he’d stick to it long after other men quit; you couldn’t lick him; he’d have resources up his sleeve; he’d come through. On the other hand, there was a pink edge around the assistant who sometimes came in with him with a mysterious kit of implements on a silver tray. Lousy color, pink; Joe hated it. No guts — not one thing or the other; sentimental — silly — easily deceived — no vice in him, but no determination either.
“Hell’s bells, how do I know it? Am I growing wise, or something? Or am I dead after all? I know I’m feeling as weak as a wet rag. But I don’t feel actually sick any longer. And I don’t feel stupid. Can’t be dead. But if I’m not, where’s mother — and what’s happened anyhow?”
When he thought of his mother he saw a mental image of her that seemed very much alive; and it was colored, too; but the colors had mud in them. Cummings, on the other hand, was pink and not particularly muddy. He might have known that. Futile nincompoop — he hadn’t guts enough to get mud in his eye; perhaps that was why his mother liked the pompous little specimen, he would never have guts enough to contradict her; he would go with her to Greenwich Village parties and feel devilish when female men and spider-women blasphemed everything they couldn’t understand.
When Annie Weems came near him he could almost feel the mother-mood exuding from her, and he enjoyed it, because it was a new experience to have a mother who didn’t bully-damn and hell-drive, and set traps, and disbelieve every decent motive. He liked Annie Weems a million times more than he had ever liked his own mother; and he knew, without exactly knowing how or why he knew it, that his mother would tear Annie Weems’ character into fouled and dishonored shreds if she were given half a chance.
But what would Rita say to him? There seemed to be nothing remaining to say to Rita. He seemed to have said it all, long ago, only he knew he hadn’t — unless he said it in delirium.
What in thunder should he say to Rita? Tell her he loved her? It was a safe bet that she knew that long ago. Tell her he wanted her? Like a guy going into a bank and asking for a loan without security. Fat prospect. What had he to offer? Money? More likely a law-suit. His mother would claim her trust-deed privilege and try to disinherit him with one stroke of the pen. All right, he’d fight her. What for? Oh, because. Nobody but a damned idiot would want all those millions. But there were things to be done with the money — decent things she’d never dream of. If a man inherits money, he’s a stinker if he doesn’t use it, and a coward if he quits.
“Am I a coward? Don’t know. We’ll find out. What’s to be said to Rita? Tell her that Mrs. Beddington — the famous — no, the infamous Mrs. Beddington, who — hardly to her son’s knowledge, but to his very shrewd suspicion — had perhaps not murdered but had helped Tom Beddington to die when he had signed that trust deed — tell her that Mrs. Beddington would stop at no conceivable cruelty in order to punish her for daring to seduce her son? She’d call it that. And she’d stop at nothing. Nice enticing prospect to offer a sensitive girl!”
But take another view of it. There are things a man does, and things he doesn’t do for any reason. Probably he might be able to bluff his mother into acquiescence. There were things he knew about her that she certainly would not want known; they were things he could prove. Nothing — not even torture — could make him tell them; he knew that; but his mother did not know it and was not even capable of believing that any one, even her son, would be so loyal in the final show-down. He might threaten her, and she might credit the threats. She might go through all the motions of accepting Rita, spend an idiotic sum of money on the wedding and announce to the world that she was proud of her daughter-in-law. But her revenge would be something so damnably ruthless, and so intricately worked out, that it would almost rank as fine art. It might entail poison; it might not; prison was likelier.
He worked himself into a fever about it, until Annie Weems spotted the rising temperature and Rita began singing. But the song was too late. For a moment or two he felt quiet steal over him. But then everything went blood-red once more and he saw the ayah’s face — soot-black — with eyes like eggs at the end of lobster-tentacles — glittering green rays emerging from them. Roaring in his ears again — waves of it, followed by tension like the fore-feel of a typhoon, in which he could hear Rita’s voice like writing on a wall a long way off, and it seemed natural that he should hear what was written:
“Ram-Chittra Gunga, come at once; I need you. Ram-Chittra Gunga—” Silence. He felt some one near him and then lost consciousness.
CHAPTER XIX. “Cradled in the destinies of thousands lies the future of your soul and mine.”
“Yes,” said Rita’s voice, “I know it.”
Joe’s recovery was almost sudden when he turned upgrade at last and began climbing back to strength and health. But he learned of it indirectly first from Annie Weems, who told Rita, entering from the sunlit courtyard, what the doctor had told her in ten or twelve words in the vernacular only a few minutes ago.
“Then you speak to him first,” said Annie Weems, and retired somewhere behind the head of the bed, where Joe could not see her. There was a screen there and he supposed she went behind it.
Rita came forward and stood by the bed. She was dressed in some sort of pale-rose cotton stuff that made her look almost Chinese, what with her dark hair and the Kwan-Yen curve of her figure. She was silent for a moment. Then:
“Hello, Joe from Jupiter. Have you forgotten how to speak?”
“Pretty nearly.”
“Almost flew free, didn’t you? But you’re back in your cage and we’ve mended the hole. You’re condemned to stay more or less dead for a number of years.”
“You mean I’m crippled? Paralyzed?”
“Not you. You’ll probably be stronger than you wer
e, and more active. Perhaps I had better say you are back in school again, and no vacation for a long time.”
“Quit kidding, Rita.”
“Oh — you mean, talk your language? Why not learn mine? You almost escaped out of your body but we dragged you back, and now you will have to continue in it for a number of years. You haven’t a genuine chance again to die like a steer in a slaughter-house until nineteen forty-two according to your horoscope. And within a week from now you will know so much that even if nineteen forty-two should catch you napping it won’t really matter. Nothing matters when we understand it. Do you know who stabbed you?”
Joe knew. But something made him hesitate before he answered. There was a double impulse to answer, and not to. He compromised; he shook his head. He knew then instantly that there were two good reasons for not telling, or at least reasons that seemed good to him. The ayah had been Rita’s wet-nurse to begin with, and her faithful watch-dog during all the ensuing years; it would hurt Rita to be told the truth, whether or not she already knew it — although it would be strange if she did not know it, since she was standing so close when the stabbing occurred. The second reason was the better one; he felt toward the ayah as he had once felt toward a friend’s dog that had bitten him; the dog had acted simply from mistaken loyalty and he had insisted on sparing the dog’s life, although the bite was serious.
Rita stood watching his eyes while he remembered details.
“They will try to force you to tell who stabbed you,” she said.
“Who? Why?”
“Mr. Cummings — your mother — the public prosecutor — Hawkesey — Maharajah Poonch-Terai — and the priests and some newspaper men. And why not me, too? They have accused me of having stabbed you.”