Jitterbug Perfume (14 page)

"Nonsense! Do you mean to tell me that had the Brahmans been interested in your eternal soul instead of your bangles, you would have dived into the flames?"

"Well ... I have much fear of flames."

"Suppose they had wanted you to drown yourself, then. Would you have gone to water more gladly than to fire?"

"Yes. No. Oh, I do not know! Drowning is not such a good way to die."

"What is a good way to die?"

"In your sleep, I suppose. When you are old and your children are grown."

"Oh? Old and in your sleep? After a lifetime of hard work and ill treatment? And how old is old? Is it ever old enough? You could have accepted the painful life of the widow and died unappreciated in your sleep at the age of forty, you could have chosen that instead of the fire, that option was open to you, but you ran away from that, as well."

"You are shaming me. Do you bid me return?"

Alobar put his hand on her shoulder. It was the softest thing he had touched in years. The heat of her flesh, wafting through her boy's jacket, caused fish eggs of perspiration to pop out on his palm. "Not in the least," he said. "I merely want you to admit that you do not wish to die. Not even if it is Shiva's will, or Kali's will, do you wish to die. You want to live and, what is more, you want to live decently and happily, you want to live a life that you yourself have chosen. Admit that, now, and you shall be rewarded."

Kudra eyed his fingers suspiciously. They were kneading her shoulder and seemed to be of a mind to migrate south. "And what is to be my reward?"

Sensing her mistrust, he removed his hand. "The comfort and protection of a kindred spirit."

"How can you protect me? Can you not see, I am certain to be reincarnated as a spider for what I have done. A spider or a flea or a
worm."
She shuddered.

"All the more reason to live a long, enjoyable life while you are still human."

"Now I shall probably have to endure a hundred more lifetimes before I reach nirvana and gain my final release."

"What difference does it make if you live a
million
more lifetimes? At least, you can enjoy this one."

"To believe in the reality and permanence of the fleeting everyday world is foolish."

"Then why are you here and not in the ash heap at the cemetery?"

"Perhaps because I am a foolish woman."

"Good." Alobar smiled. "My own foolishness could use some company."

Kudra smiled, too. She didn't mean to smile. It just happened. The smile was an embarrassment to her, as if she had belched or broken wind. She tried to drive the smile away with thoughts of her sorrowful experiences, her disgraceful behavior, her insecure situation, but this was one smile that didn't scare easily, it hung in there like a tenant who knows his rights and refuses to be evicted. Finally, Kudra turned away, but Alobar could see her smiling through the back of her head.

"What is your name again?" Alobar moved closer to her.

"Kudra." The word swam out through her smile like a blowfish swimming through a crack in a reef.

"Mine is Alobar." He slipped his arm around her and

cupped her left breast. It was heavy and jiggled in his hand as if it were full of liquid. Melon water. Or beet juice "The grass is soft here, Kudra."

"A mattress is softer. It is not my habit to copulate in the grass like an animal."

"Well, you had better get used to it. I mean, if you are going to be reincarnated as a bug ..."

"Unhand me, please. I am a widow and do not even know you." The smile was gone now, although whether it had drawn back inside her head or flown off toward the ices of Chomolungma was anybody's guess.

"You know me well enough," said Alobar. Reluctantly, he dropped the satin coconut. He imagined that it gurgled when he let go. "Did not you come up into these mountains looking for me?"

"Not exactly. Back then when I was a child, you informed me that you were traveling to the Himalayas in search of masters who had power over death. When I ran away, I had no place to go, and I thought I must make my way to Calcutta to become a woman of the streets, but first I decided I would have a look for these masters myself. You were kind to me back then, and the promise you extracted from me influenced my decision not to submit to suttee. Partly because of you I took a less virtuous path. But there is a limit to how much virtue I shall allow you to talk me out of."

"If being alive is not a virtue, then there is little virtue in virtue, that is what I say."

"Disgustingly enough, I
am
finding joy in my continued presence in this world of illusions." She turned to face him. The smile came back, surprised them both, then left again abruptly without saying goodbye. "Tell me, Alobar, are these lamas you live with the masters whom you sought? And have they taught you the secret of life everlasting?"

"Um? Well, er, in some ways, I think . . . I'm not sure. Uh-"

"What do you mean? Are they or are they not? Have they or haven't they? They look like Buddhist monks to me, and where I come from, Buddhists die just as regularly as everybody else."

Alobar stood up and gazed at the mountains for a while.

The mountains looked like the white picket fence around the cottage of eternity, although Alobar clearly thought about them in another way entirely. Perhaps he thought of them as storehouses stocked with thunderclap hinges and earthquake parts and dusty bolts of lightning; perhaps he saw them as just another opportunity for the gods to make him seem puny and weak and mortal. In any case, he stared at the peaks for a while, and then he turned back to Kudra.

"When I crossed the border from your land into this one, I asked some herdsmen where the great teachers lived, and they answered, 'At Samye,' so I made my way here. I knocked at the gatehouse of the Samye lamasery, and some men in red robes took me in and gave me food and tea, they heated buckets of water with which I bathed myself, and they supplied me with warm clothes and boots, for my own were in tatters and felling off me. Then they asked what I wanted—I was a curious sight to them—and I replied, 'I wish to live a thousand years.' They looked at each other, and then one of them asked, 'In
this
body?' And when I said
'yes,'
they shook their heads and clucked their tongues. They said they could not help in the fulfillment of my vain, misguided wish, and that after a good night's rest I must be on my way. As I was leaving the next morning, one of them, Fosco, a painter of poems, whispered to me that I might get what I was looking for from the Bandaloop doctors. He said I could find these personages in the foothills caves back down toward India. So I thanked him and off I went."

"But you didn't find them, these Bandaloopers?"

"Oh, yes, I found them, all right, although it was not easy. They had no fine stone buildings, as they have here at Samye, but lived in a honeycomb of caverns, for off the main path."

"But you found them?"

"Yes. Or, rather, they found me. I was resting in a ravine one day, thinking, 'Oh, how I wish I had something to eat,' when suddenly I was pelted with ears of corn. Hard. Very hard. Made my nose bleed and my ears ring. I drew my knife and looked up at the cliff whence the corn had come, and there were three hairy men dressed almost as motley as I, laughing at me. I shook my blade at them, and they yelled, 'Well, you
said
you were hungry.' "

"Praise Shiva. How did they hear your thought?"

"I intended to find that out. After I roasted and ate the corn, I sniffed out their trail and tracked them to a hillside riddled with caves. 'You must be the Bandaloop doctors,' I said when several of them approached. 'You must be Alobar,' one of them replied. 'How did you learn my name?' I asked. 'How did you learn ours?' he shot back. 'A Samye holy man told me,' I said. At that, they all had a hearty laugh."

"They strike me as rude."

"Rude? Yes, they were plenty of that. But, you see, a long time ago, far off in the west where I come from, I met two rude characters, one a shaman, one a god, and though each treated me disagreeably in the beginning, one gave me special courage, the other special fear, both of which I required for this journey that I am on. Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. Moreover, a lout thrashing about in the clear waters of wisdom will dirty those waters for everyone else. So, a man seeking knowledge must be first tested to determine if he is worthy. From what I have gathered, rudeness on the part of the master is the first phase of the test."

"You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?"

"Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may ,feel free to kick his ass."

"Interesting. Is that how it went with the Bandaloop doctors?"

Alobar shook his head. "No," he said. He took another long look at Chomolungma and the runners-up in the world's tallest mountain competition. The sun was starting to sink, and the peaks were pinned with colored clouds, like ribbons designating where each had placed in the contest. It was fairly easy to spot the winner, and numbers two and three. Miss Congeniality was a bit more difficult to identify. "No, that is not the way it went with the Bandaloop doctors. They were alternately hospitable and antagonistic. They would pour me milk to drink, then drop a turd in the cup. They would flatter me, then spit in my face. They would ignore me, then as I made to leave, they'd implore me to stay. It was damnably confusing. And there was no question of kicking ass. They invited me to strike them, but they were so quick I could not lay a hand on them. Their movements were imperceptible, yet they were always a fraction of an inch to the left or right of wherever I aimed my blow. Not one of them touched me, but I beat my own self bloody missing them and falling down."

"You were humiliated."

"My lady, that is an understatement. In my own land I had a reputation as a warrior."

"Did you leave then?"

"I was too winded to even crawl away on my knees. They gave me some oil for my scrapes and scratches and invited me into the caves. What do you think it was like in them? Sharp rocks, cold water dripping from the ceilings, bats screeching by in the darkness? Oh, no, those caves were covered with beautiful carpets and tapestries, thick and warm and opulent. Every nook and cranny glowed with butter lamps, and in little saucers powders were burning that caused the air to smell like orange groves and gardens."

"Incense!" exclaimed Kudra.

"Whatever. And there were women inside preparing spiced lamb and heating wine. Everyone drank wine until their eyes were red. They also smoked pipes of ground-up leaves from the hemp plant—"

"I know the plant. We made
rope
from it. Smoked it, you say?"

"Yes, and it seemed to make them dreamy. They would stare into the fire, laughing for no apparent reason. They offered me a pipe, they offered me wine and meat, they even offered me a woman, or two women if I chose. Of course, I refused. I thought it was a trick, a test of my purity. I fell asleep alone, splitting with desire, only to be awakened in the middle of the night by a bucket of icy water emptied upon my head. Well,
then I
got out, let me assure you. I was angry and confused—and scared. Because, Kudra, no hand held the bucket that dumped that water on me, the bucket was suspended in midair, just tipping itself on me of its own accord."

"Alobar, you were confused, all right. Or else dreaming. Or . . ." She lowered her eyelids, lids that resembled purses sewn from the skins of thick, dark grapes. "Or you are telling me a fable."

"It is all true, I swear it."

"Then I suppose I must believe you. Tell me, did they permit you to leave freely?"

"One of the company—there were perhaps a dozen of them in all, not counting the women—followed me outside to inquire about my intentions. I told him I thought I would return to the Samye lamasery. 'Good,' he said. 'You will learn much there. Then you can come back to us.' Well, that heated me up, to be sure. 'There are not enough demons in this world or the next to drag me back to this accursed place,' I yelled. I swore that I would never return. He laughed and reached into my clothes and pulled an egg from where no egg had been. He cracked the egg on the ground, and a huge dog bounded out of it—it looked exactly like Mik, my own dog from my own city that I had not seen in the span of eight Feasts of Feasts. It licked my feet in a familiar way, and then it ran into a cave and disappeared. ..."