Max looks at the photograph again and feels himself moved back in time to see, through the eyes of his father, himself as a naked baby. Max was named after Maxim Gorky. Max’s father, Alexander, had seen Gorky’s play, The Lower Depths, and had read it many times. ‘To write like this,’ he said, ‘is to see the whole world in what you look at.’ Alexander Lesser was a homeopath. Max was born at the Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia, which was named after the founder of homeopathy. His father sat his patients at an optical device on which they propped their chins while he examined their irises and explained why their circulation was bad or their bones ached. He took Max to the pharmacy where his prescriptions were filled. It was cool and dark. It smelled like midnight gardens, dusty caravans, secret caves. There were tall cabinets of many drawers with white china knobs. From the blue lettering on the white porcelain label plates Max copied some of the names: valerian; veronica; calendula; melissa; belladonna atropa; primula. They were like the names of beautiful women, he liked the feel of them in his mouth. These magical ingredients were dispensed in little bottles with complex instructions. Alexander Lesser had loyal patients who claimed to be helped by the medicines and came back again and again. Max too, when feeling not quite right, propped his chin on the iridology device and was given little bottles and instructions.
‘Think of it,’ his father used to say – ‘in a thousandfold dilution, the memory of a single drop of medicine persists and works its cure. Only the memory! In a single cell of a human being is the memory of the whole design. In each of us is the memory, however inaccessible, of the beginning of the universe. We are the memory of the dust of stars.’ He would press his forehead against Max’s. ‘In you,’ he said, ‘there must be memories inherited from me. I know I have these from my father – black trees, the smell of snow, the sound of cossacks. Ravens.’
Remembering his words, Max sees again Noah’s Ark stranded on the mountains of Ararat behind the boiler. He sees the raven loop the loop and fly away and wonders if Victor will remember it. ‘A single drop,’ says Max. He recalls that when he had chicken pox and measles his mother called Dr Farber, a regular GP.
45
Not a Retreat
December 1997. ‘Diamond Heart,’ says the brochure, ‘is not a retreat. It is a centre of dynamic calm in which mind and spirit gather energy for the next forward move.’ On offer are yoga, tai chi, feng shui, and Zen disciplines including meditation, gardening, flower arrangement, archery, snooker, and poker. Vegetarian, kosher, and halal cuisine. Acupuncture, reflexology, aromatherapy, and homeopathic medicine. Tuition in classical Indian music with Hariprasad and Indira Ghosh. The photograph shows Mr Ghosh sitting crosslegged with a sitar. He’s wearing a proper sitar-playing outfit just like Ravi Shankar. He looks like someone you could trust.
Diamond Heart, established two years ago, has given a new lease of life to the defunct herring port of Port Malkie on the Firth of Moray. The harbour is almost empty, stretching out its arms to the past. The tide comes in, goes out around coastal features known locally as Kirsty’s Knowe, Teeny Titties, and Deil’s Hurdies. The wind sighs in the grasses. The pebbles rattle in the tidewash, the sea-shapen rocks abide. There are plenty of gulls, shags, and cormorants but no herring. Port Malkie, however, now buzzes with new businesses supplying goods and services to Diamond Heart.
Diamond Heart is not cheap. The one thing its varied clientele have in common is that they can all afford it. There are ageing hippies, youthful rebels, stressed-out executives, ex-husbands and ex-wives, broken-down pop stars, actors in the throes of expanding consciousness, and everything between. Cannabis is not compulsory. The Diamond Heart complex has many large and small dome-shaped buildings (called tholoi in the brochure) overlooking the sea. Lola and little Noah occupy a medium-sized tholos which is designated as a family unit. It has a small but adequate galley and is equipped with a washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher. The town is geared up to deliver everything necessary to the residents of Diamond Heart twenty-four hours a day. Although only recently arrived, Lola settles in quickly and is already known among the other residents as the E-type from Belgravia.
As soon as possible she goes to sign up for private tuition with Hariprasad Ghosh. When she shows up at his studio he’s sitting crosslegged on a Kelim. He’s wearing jeans and a green sweatshirt on which is a gold-tinted photograph of a Kola bronze of Shiva Nataraja with the words DIAMOND HEART arcing over Shiva’s ring of fire. Mr Ghosh is a man of slight physique with a face that makes it difficult to guess his age. When he stands up to greet her she feels as if he can read her mind. His bare feet look ingenuous but not naive. Cushions and hassocks lie about. There’s a long table with various instruments on it, sheet music and music paper with handwritten notation. Lola recognises sitar, tabla, flutes. She’s been thinking sitar but now another instrument is talking to her. ‘What’s that one?’ she says, pointing.
‘That’s a sarod,’ says Mr Ghosh. ‘Like the sitar, it’s a thirteenth-century instrument. Eight main strings and this one has sixteen resonating strings. The body is hollowed-out wood but the top is leather and the fingerboard is metal. You use a coconut-shell plectrum. It’s not like the sitar, it hasn’t got any frets. You have to find the notes by yourself, as with a violin. Because it is more difficult to learn than the sitar it is not so popular here. It requires a good musical ear and hard concentration.’
Lola takes the sarod in her hands, feels the weight of it. It’s the instrument Clint Eastwood would choose, it’s the .357 magnum. ‘This is the one I want to learn,’ she says.
‘Are you a musician?’ says Mr Ghosh.
‘I play the piano a little.’
‘The sarod requires great dedication and patience,’ says Mr Ghosh. ‘It will take a lot of time.’
‘I’ve got the time, and I want lessons every day.’
‘It is my wife who teaches sarod,’ says Mr Ghosh. ‘If you wish to go ahead with this, she will see you tomorrow.’
‘A woman,’ says Lola. ‘Yes, I’d like to be taught by a woman.’
‘The fee is forty pounds an hour. You want to do this every day?’
‘Yes.’
The next day Lola loads Noah into his pram and returns to the studio to meet Indira Ghosh. She is a small woman in a red sari. She has a red bindi on her forehead. Her face is round, and at the first glance childlike. But it is the face of a child who cannot be fooled by anybody or anything. She smiles when she sees Noah and greets him with a little bow. ‘What is your child’s name?’ she asks.
‘Noah.’
‘A good name.’ Hearing this, Noah smiles.
Lola lifts the carry-cot out of the undercarriage and puts it on the floor so that Noah can see her. Mrs Ghosh notes this and nods approvingly. ‘You wish to learn the sarod?’
‘Yes,’
‘Why?’
‘I want to be able to compose a raga of my own,’ says Lola, ‘and I know that it must come through familiarity with a classical instrument.’
‘Ah,’ says Mrs Ghosh. She shakes her head. ‘This is not the way to begin. You are putting yourself ahead of the music, the lesser ahead of the greater. Humility is required here.’
‘Forgive me. I have an arrogant mouth but I am truly humble.’
Mrs Ghosh looks at her as if she, like her husband, can read Lola’s mind. ‘Why the sarod? Why not the sitar, which is less difficult?’
‘When I saw the sarod, it spoke to me,’ says Lola. ‘Something in me wants to make music with this instrument.’
Mrs Ghosh looks sceptical. ‘You may have formed an opinion of the Diamond Heart Centre,’ she says. ‘It is after all a commercial enterprise. There is a demand for Zen snooker and Zen poker so those disciplines are taught here. My husband and I are not commercial. We have to make a living but we are here to introduce those who have ears for it to the spiritual essence of Indian classical music.’
‘I understand,’ says Lola.
‘In this there is a tradition,’ says Mrs G
hosh. ‘It is called gurushisyia parampara. Do you know what that is?’
‘No.’
‘If you accept me as a teacher I become your guru. I become as a parent to you and must have your total trust and respect the same as your mother and father. And I must give the same love and education to you, the shisyia, as to my own child. For the shisyia there must be total surrender to the guru. And the guru must repay this trust with teaching that will guide and nurture the disciple in every way. This is something that will take years and it is a big commitment for both of us. Your son will already be starting school before you can think of composition. Will you be here that long? Do you have the dedication and the years to give this?’
Lola feels as if she’s standing on a mountaintop. All around her is the sky. ‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Then let us begin,’ says Mrs Ghosh. She takes up the sarod and assumes the playing position on the Kelim. The woman and the instrument become one, as compact and contained as a Tanagra figurine. She plays a scale, singing the notes as she sounds them: ‘Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.’ In the acoustically dry room the sound of the sarod is surprisingly full and commanding. Mrs Ghosh’s voice, low and unforced, seems a quietly resounding string of the instrument.
‘Ah!’ says Noah.
‘It helps if you sing as you play,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘Because music is created in the mind before it comes from the instrument and the singing helps you to imagine it. The instrument is made by man; man has given it a voice, but our voice is from God, and through it we can learn a lot. Once you start getting the hang of the notes, then you bring the embellishments into your playing.’ The sarod sounds again, and with it her voice and the voice of what lives in her. Lola is transported. What she hears puts her in a place she’s never been before. Tears well up in her eyes. She is humbled, left with nothing to say.
‘Ah!’ says Noah.
‘Good,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘I see that both you and Noah are hearing what there is to hear. I think your son is hungry.’
Lola puts Noah to her breast and he shows that he is indeed hungry.
‘As your breast is to Noah, so must this music be to you,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘We will continue tomorrow. You may call me Indira.’
‘Thank you,’ says Lola. ‘Would it be possible to borrow the sarod so that I can begin to get the feel of it?’
‘No,’ says Indira. ‘You cannot borrow this one and you must not buy one. At this point you are not to touch the sarod except in our lessons. From the very beginning, your hands and your mind must only do what is correct.’
‘Is there a book I can get to help me learn the positions of the notes?’
Again Mrs Ghosh shakes her head. ‘I will teach you the positions of the notes. If you want a book, get Buddhist Wisdom Books, The Diamond Sutra; The Heart Sutra, translated by Edward Conze. There are several copies in the library here and they might have it in the shop as well.’
Lola and Noah are off to the library then. It’s dome-shaped but the straight shelves are chords to the arcs of the circle, so that in plan they form a hexagon. The endless wall is white, the shelves, floors, tables and chairs are stripped pine. There are only three other people there besides the librarian. No one is smoking but the reek of cannabis hangs in the air. Noah’s nose twitches a little but he’s not too bothered. A tall thin man with a scraggly beard and a prominent Adam’s apple comes over to Lola. He’s wearing a red poncho striped with black and yellow. ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘I’m Poncho.’
‘Hi,’ says Lola. ‘Lola.’ His handshake is wetter than she’d like.
Poncho sniffs her. ‘You smell milky,’ he says. ‘Can I have some?’
‘Go away,’ says Lola. She leaves him standing there with his ardent Adam’s apple and goes to the shelves.
‘In Grapes of Wrath a young woman suckles an old man,’ says Poncho. ‘It’s a beautiful scene.’
‘There’s a good suckling scene in Les Valseuses,’ says a sturdy young woman in a T-shirt and jeans. The T-shirt says NE WAY IS OK. ‘It’s with a young man who can’t get it up temporarily because he’s been shot in the crotch. He’s hoping it’ll turn him on but it doesn’t.’
‘You have a kind T-shirt,’ says Poncho. ‘Let me know if you start lactating.’
‘You could have a long wait,’ says the sturdy young woman (her name is Morwen), ‘but I’ll bottle-feed you if you like.’
‘Your tholos or mine?’ says Poncho as they leave the library.
There’s still a reader left at one of the tables. This is an OK-looking young man in jeans and a wordless T-shirt. He shakes his head and says to Lola, ‘There’s a lot of emptiness around here but I haven’t found the form yet.’
‘Maybe emptiness is the form,’ says Lola.
‘You sound very advanced,’ says the young man. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘No,’ says Lola, ‘but I’m a quick study.’
‘You’re reading this for the first time then?’ he shows her his book which is Buddhist Wisdom Books; The Diamond Sutra; The Heart Sutra.
‘Not reading it at all. I came here to borrow a copy.’
‘I’ll show you where they live. I’m Mick.’ He offers his hand.
‘Lola,’ says Lola. Handshake, dryer than the last one. Mick guides her to an empty space in the shelves. ‘Emptiness,’ he says. ‘They’re all out. Take this one – I can do without the book – I need time to think about what I’ve read so far.’
‘Thanks, I can probably buy a copy at the shop,’ says Lola. Mick puts on his jacket. ‘Mind if I walk with you?’ he says.
‘Not at all.’ The short December day has become twilight. The lamps on the pathways are pinky-orange globes set close to the ground so that the sky begins at shoulder height. Shadows drift past them. No one is singing. Cecil Court and St Martin’s Lane will be bustling with Christmas shoppers now, the Coliseum Shop will be full. Lola imagines Haydn on the speakers, The Creation perhaps. ‘Destiny woman,’ murmurs Lola.
‘What?’ says Mick.
‘Nothing. I murmur to myself a lot.’
The shop, although not Christmassy, is doing a brisk business in books, prints, posters, postcards, playing cards, CDs, videotapes, T-shirts, sweatshirts, baseball caps (all with the Diamond Heart logo), trainers, sandals, judo, karate, and tai chi outfits, jock straps, sports bras, first-aid kits, sports bags, snooker cues, baseballs, baseball bats and gloves, softballs, saris, kimonos, fans, fishing rods, cameras, binoculars, sunglasses, wooden flutes, various drums, candles, incense, hookahs, hand-carved Krishnas, Ganeshas, Shaktis, brass Shiva Natarajas in three sizes, model tholoi, Diamond Heart snowstorms, organic treacle brittle, Diamond Heart rock, and so on.
Lola is told that Buddhist Wisdom Books is out of print so she borrows the library copy that Mick offers. She buys The Raga Guide (which includes four CDs), and a boxed set of five All India Radio Archival Release CDs of the late Ustad Allauddin Khan Sahib on the sarod.
‘That’s a lot of sarod,’ says Mick.
‘I need a lot,’ says Lola. She says good-night to Mick, wheels Noah home, changes him, orders in blinis from Diamond Heart Kosher Takeaway, and hooks herself up to her personal CD player and Disc One of The Raga Guide. Abhogi is the first raga, suitable for early night (21:00 to 00:00).
46
Making it Dark
December 1997. Lola dreams that she’s standing on the Embankment, looking up at the Albert Bridge. She takes aim with the sarod and begins to shoot out the lights.
‘You’re making it dark,’ says a man’s voice behind her.
‘They can always get more,’ says Lola.
47
Form and Emptiness
December 1997. At 02:00 Noah’s lusty demand for room service wakes Lola and she gives him the breast. As always she smiles in pleased astonishment at this complete small person who has come out of her. Feeding him is her delight. His satisfaction makes her proud. Still wakeful when he’s replete, she makes herself a cup of rosehip tea and picks up Buddh
ist Wisdom Books. The much-used copy falls open at The Heart Sutra, page 81. Drawn to the lines in bold type, she reads:
Here, O Sariputra. Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
Lola feels that she has been entered by these words that she cannot take in. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘maybe understanding is non-understanding and the very non-understanding is understanding, right?’ She feels the unknown meaning of the words opening in her like a lotus blossom. She’s never seen a lotus blossom but her mind gives her a convincing image.
Her Name Was Lola Page 10