The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (48 page)

 

 

Now nearly three months later she knew that she had been wrong. In the
twenty or so times they had "escaped" from the base, Yale had created for
them a world of warm friendliness. Distant at first, the Hindu villagers
soon responded to Yale. Anne was amazed at the rapidity with which he had
grasped Hindustani. She recognized in the persistence in which he filled
notebooks with Hindustani phrases a dynamic energy that was frightening
in its powerful drive. "I can't help it, Anne," he told her. "I am driven.
Have you ever read Thomas Wolfe? Remember him trying to absorb the entire
Harvard library? Read every book in it. Know everything. I can understand
that. A Faust-complex. It comes out in strange ways. I've heard so damned
many Americans deprecate this country and these people that it makes me
sick at heart. Here we are with an opportunity to learn about the culture
of Hindus and Moslems. What do most of us do? We call them dirty wogs.
Here is the oldest civilization in the world, but we are so sure of our
own machine superiority that we look on these people with disgust.
The Communists understand these things. In the bookstores in Dacca
are thousands of books printed by the Russians in Hindustani and sold
to these people for a few annas. We will lose India after the war to
Communism because we ignored the mind of Indians. We think feeding their
bodies is enough. Some day we'll find it isn't."

 

 

Often, they were invited to Indian ceremonies in the village, ceremonies
that were part of a seemingly endless procession of holidays whose
meanings Anne and Yale tried to understand. There were village dances,
and feasting. They ate rice wrapped in large palm leaves, and they sat
cross-legged on the ground, enjoying the friendliness of the villagers.
Yale brought back from Dacca, on his twice-a-month trip to the bank,
several books on Hindu beliefs and customs. Anne and he studied them
avidly.

 

 

One day Anne made the discovery that the villagers were Tantrics. She and
Yale were naked on their rope bed, idly playing with each other's body,
finding sheer delight in a caress or touch. The gasoline lantern Yale
had taken from the finance office sputtered on the table. It cast weird
reflections on the wall and open ceiling, making a checkered pattern of
shadows through the mosquito net.

 

 

Anne held Yale's penis gently, examining him with interest, a mischievous
grin on her face. "This is a silly thing to worship," she remarked. She
pinched him lightly. "Do you know something, Yale Marratt! The people
in this village worship the lingam and yoni. They believe in 'Circle
Worship.' Sunanda Gupta told me yesterday. I'm supposed to be privileged
to know. It's a very secretive thing." Anne rested on her elbows. She
looked at Yale seriously, trying to divert his attention from her dangling
breasts. Yale knew Sunanda Gupta. She was the wife of Surya Gupta, the
head of the village. Sunanda had learned to speak English at a British
school in Calcutta.

 

 

"She's a very pretty woman," Yale had said. "I can't figure out why she
wants to live here. I know they believe in Chakrapuja. It's a ritual
based on the belief that this is the Age of Kaliyuga . . . a time on
earth when men have come so far away from the ultimate godhead that they
cannot worship in any ascetic way. Since for the Hindu all paths lead to
Brahma, the Tantrics seek Salvation, for this time in the life of man,
through something called the five Makaras: Madya, liquor; Mansa, flesh;
Matsya, fish; Mudra, corn; and Maithuna, sexual intercourse. Wine,
women and song, for the West." Yale kissed her nipple. "I knew Sunanda
would talk to you. Surya Gupta asked if we would like to participate
some evening." He looked at Anne with a wide grin on his face.

 

 

". . . and what did you say? Yes, I suppose." Anne had demanded. "Let's
not let our curiosity run away with us, chum! I've been reading, too!
Chakrapuja is where men and women sit together, naked in a circle, with
their wife on one side and their 'spiritual' wife, meaning the wife of
the guy next door, on their other side. Then all the men play house with
the girls next door."

 

 

Yale had choked with laughter. "They do that in the United States,
only it's not in fun. It ends up in divorce courts."

 

 

"I think that Sunanda wants to try you out," Anne said bitterly.

 

 

"Maybe Surya Gupta wonders how a white woman would be," Yale said and
then was sorry that he had carried the kidding too far because Anne was
crying. He had soothed her.

 

 

"I can't help it, Yale. Sometimes all this sneaking around to be together
gets me down. I know you are joking about Chakrapuja but sometimes I get
frightened. We can't plan anything. Either one of us could be transferred.
And that's the end. Some day, when the war is over, you will be sitting
back in your country club in Midhaven, Connecticut, and you will tell the
boys about the nice little set-up you had in Talibazar," Anne sighed.
"It makes me feel a little cheap, and available. I guess it's just that
I know you'll never quite love me, Yale."

 

 

He had protested that he did love her.

 

 

"Do you?" she had asked, her eyes blue-black and bright with tears.
"Do you know how often you call me Cindar? My name is Anne."

 

 

As she crossed the half-mile long dike that joined the village to the road
and separated the rice swamp, she watched a straw-hatted farmer whipping
his water buffalo out of its age old inertia, Onto the dike. The shadows
of night were feeling their way out of China. From some nearby Moslem
village the mournful evening prayers of endlessly repeated nasals were
being cried to the sky. The sadness and eternal longing of the prayers
to Mohammed seemed to blend with the cool night air and become a part
of the aloof and remote quality of India.

 

 

That was a month ago, she thought. Before Mat Chilling had arrived. Yale
hadn't apologized. "Anne, of course, I love you. I love Cindar, too.
If I have called you Cindar, it was a compliment. Why do people try to
live by the idea that love is like water from a faucet . . . that you
draw only when you're thirsty and turn off at will. I can't love that
way. You can't love that way either. Ricky, your husband, is dead, but
you still love him. Only some perverted idea of religion has made the
greatest emotion man can have an exclusive one-to-one relationship."

 

 

"I suppose you love everybody," Anne said, half in joy and half in anger.
"You should go and hold hands with Trafford."

 

 

"I don't hate Trafford," Yale said, amused. "I only wish he could know
a love like yours for me, or care as much as I do for you; then he would
be unable to deny his fellow men."

 

 

Yale was elated the night he told Anne that Mat Chilling had been
transferred to Talibazar. "Can you imagine! I was walking toward the mess
hall, and I saw this long skinny frame approaching, looking down at me
from heaven." Yale chuckled. "Mat Chilling! I guess I yelled his name
at him. He came out of the clouds, and recognized me. Honestly, Anne,
wait until you meet him. He's a good six-foot-five, with a tremendous
lean and bony face. If he weighed about fifty pounds more, he'd look
like God himself."

 

 

Anne felt a strange jealousy for a moment. Yale seemed to be to
inextricably woven with his past. How, she wondered, if what Yale had
told her was true, could he accept and like this Mat Chilling? She asked
him point blank.

 

 

Yale looked at her silently. "I wish I could answer you, Anne. I've always
admired Mat. He has such an inquiring mind. Do you know that he can speak
fluent Hindustani? Somewhere, he studied Sanskrit. Then he got interested
in various yoga disciplines and theories of Vedanta. He learned to read
Hindu scriptures, like the
Bhagavad-Gita
, in the original. That's why
he was sent to India. Actually, he's in Talibazar both as base Protestant
Chaplain, and also to help the Army as interpreter with several local
political problems that have developed."

 

 

Yale handed Anne a package. "It's a sari. I bought it for you to wear
because you just wrap it around yourself. It makes you so nicely
accessible."

 

 

Anne took the package, smiling. "You haven't answered my question,"
she said.

 

 

"I asked him how Cynthia was," Yale said. "She's gone home to New Jersey
to live with her father."

 

 

"Did you tell him that you still love her?"

 

 

"Anne!" Yale said delightedly. "You're jealous." He kissed her. His touch
gradually aroused her and they made love, but she didn't forget about
Cynthia.

 

 

Two days later Colonel Trafford introduced Anne to Mat Chilling. Yale
had flown to Mytikinia to transfer some funds to the finance office in
Burma. Anne had been sitting with Helen Axonby when Trafford arrived
at the tea planters' club. From Yale's description she recognized
Mat instantly, but was unprepared for the deep musical quality of
his voice. Mat introduced them to an Indian, who smiled obsequiously,
showing very white teeth in his dark complexioned face.

 

 

"This is Sri Sundari," Mat said. "He is a very wise guru."

 

 

"Sahib Chilling is most kind," Sri Sundari said in perfect Oxford English.
"But he exaggerates my abilities. Guru means 'dispeller of darkness'
and I'm afraid no man in the last analysis can dispel another's darkness."

 

 

Trafford shifted uneasily on his feet. "I don't suppose I can buy you a
drink, Captain," he said, ignoring Sundari. Mat refused for himself and
Sundari. Relieved, Trafford left them for the inner recesses of the club.

 

 

"Your Colonel does not approve of his Indian brothers," Sundari said,
smiling. Mat shrugged. "If we are offensive to you ladies," he said
bluntly, "let's not find it out by innuendoes. I'm sure Sundari will
understand."

 

 

"My! My!" Helen Axonby said. She tapped her cigarette on her fingers.
"You are a rude one, aren't you? It so happens I have heard Sri Sundari
lecture several times on his Love Yoga, or whatever you call it." She
smiled at Anne. "My husband calls it bosh, but I think it's because he
is envious. You have nothing to fear from Mrs. Wilson either, Captain
Chilling." Anne looked quickly at Helen Axonby, hoping that she wouldn't
reveal the many things Anne had told about Yale and herself. "Stop
worrying, Anne. Any confessions you wish to make, you can make directly
to Captain Chilling."

 

 

Mat laughed. "Sorry, but I maintain no confessional."

 

 

Anne knew from the way Mat responded that Yale had not mentioned anything
about her to Mat. She wondered why. Was it because he was ashamed of her?
Was it because Mat's wife had been his beloved Cynthia? Or was it that
Yale didn't really like Mat despite what he had told her? After all,
Mat had taken Cynthia from him.

 

 

"Sri Sundari, I enjoy India," she had said. "It's a privilege to have come
to this country. I am interested in this Love Yoga of yours. I have been
reading about yogas and Tantrics and find some of it rather shocking."

 

 

Sri Sundari leaned against the balustrade. "Memsahib Wilson, I do not
know your background but I assure you, properly understood, there is
nothing shocking about love." He sighed. "Until we are better aware
of each other's limitations, however, I find it wiser to discuss less
febrile aspects of Hinduism."

 

 

Chris Powers and Jane Belcher joined them on the porch with Howard
Tuttle. Tuttle immediately tried to engage Sundari in a discussion
of Moslem and Hindu problems. He asked Sundari whether he believed
in the partition of India. Jane Belcher, a serious girl, who loved to
discuss India and "solve the Indian problem," joined the discussion,
citing Gandhi's theories of non-violence and the "spinning-wheel" as
the salvation of India.

 

 

Anne noticed that Mat Chilling did not participate in the discussion.
She drew away from the group, and he followed her.

 

 

"I'm afraid I'm not a political person," he apologized. "I find most of
these discussions deal only in surface realities and hence tend to fly
in ever diminishing circles."

 

 

Anne chuckled. "You mean like the filylu bird," she said delightedly.

 

 

"You don't think it appropriate that a minister would know that old joke?"

 

 

"I would expect that Mat Chilling would know it."

 

 

Mat looked at her surprised. "You say that as if you know me."

 

 

Anne wanted to say, I have heard nothing but Mat Chilling for the past
two days. Instead she said, "Let me be mysterious, will you? Let me
ask you questions which you must answer without asking me any questions
in return."

 

 

"That's so very feminine. I can do no less than assent."

 

 

She thought, you'll be sorry, Mat Chilling, and so will you, Yale
Marratt. She paused as if framing her first question with great
deliberation.

 

 

"The year is nineteen thirty-nine. You have just graduated from
theological school. You meet a girl named Cynthia. A Jewish girl.
You marry her. Did she love someone else when she married you?"

 

 

Mat looked at her intently before be answered. "There are two possible
reasons for your question. One, you know Cynthia. Two, you know Yale
Marratt. I'll take the last as a logical guess. If that is correct,
you know Yale pretty well."

 

 

Anne could feel her face coloring.