Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (35 page)

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 a
dhoti.
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 my
dhoti.
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 of
bhang-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 called
Varanasi 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, why
not
a kangaroo?’ People threw bright flowers as a greeting, touched its big feet, draped a marigold garland round its drooping Victorian shoulders. A sandal-paste
tilak
was applied to its forehead. The kangaroo held its paws together and bowed slightly in an approximation of the
anjali
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. People thought the kangaroo might jump into the Ganges, but it seemed reluctant to do so. Probably it had read in the
Rough 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. Unlike the kangaroo, Ganoona had no qualms about the Ganges. This was the otter in him. Clambering over the warm rim of the pouch was easy, like climbing onto a low wall, hearing the chant of Ganoona, leaning forward and letting go, leaning on nothing.