Travelers (22 page)

It was a fully worked-out plan, noble and beautiful in its
conception. Students and teachers would come from East and West and from all other parts of the world. Each civilization was to have its own department in which to delve deeply into its source and meaning. Then the different departments would meet and discuss together, and in this meaningful interchange a deeper understanding would be reached not only of other cultures but also of one's own, thereby transcending insularity with a true world-view by means of which peace, harmony, and understanding would be achieved forever.

The old man spoke with such controlled fervor that it was a pleasure to listen to him. At the same time Raymond also listened to sounds from above: Asha must have reached Banubai by now and imparted her news. Raymond waited, he didn't know for what. But nothing happened except that the singing continued to gush forth as pure as the waters of a mountain stream.

From an exposition of principles the old man passed to the more practical aspects of his scheme. A site was to be selected in some cool and pleasant hill station and an architect in full accord with the aims of the university was to be appointed. The ground plan would be laid out in the shape of two perfect circles intersecting each other, thus providing on the physical plane a symbol of that wholeness and unity that was to be achieved in the realm of the spirit.

Raymond expressed his wholehearted appreciation. The old man was pleased. “We shall begin as soon as funds become available.” He pressed a pamphlet into Raymond's hand and, while Raymond leafed through it, turned aside modestly to refresh himself on a piece of dried-up chapatti. Raymond read that grants of five hundred thousand rupees each were expected from various industrial corporations as well as from international and government organizations. Private donations would also be encouraged. He turned to the front of the pamphlet and read its dedication: “To the Soul of Mankind.” He was
still straining his ears toward the upper part of the house. But the singing continued undimmed.

A Letter and Some Visitors

Raymond's taxi was waiting for him outside Banubai's house. When the driver asked him where to, Raymond said he supposed they had better go back to the hotel. Since his other sources had failed him, he intended to ask at the reception desk for a suitable doctor. He leaned his head against the greasy car covers: he was feeling tired and dispirited, and it seemed to him that too many things were happening and that there was nothing he could do about them, and in any case it was too hot to do anything.

The traffic was so dense that the taxi had to crawl along. Raymond could not help looking out of the window though he would have preferred not to see anything. There was one street in particular that he wished they could have avoided—the one populated by people who had come to the holy city in order to die there. Some of these were quite close to their goal and lay prone on the street; others could still sit up and even eat a meal. Raymond saw one young man, half naked and entirely emaciated, bend over a tin plate and greedily stuff rice into his mouth while his eyes glowed and his fingers trembled so much that most of the rice kept falling back into the plate.

Raymond remembered Miss Charlotte's letter, which was still unopened in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it, with relief, with pleasure. Miss Charlotte's handwriting was round, small, firm like herself.

“. . . Some of our old people are really stubborn and we have quite a job to persuade them to move. Naturally, everyone likes their own home, although I must say in some cases it isn't always very much of a home. There is one old dear in Kanpur, a Mrs. Grenfell, she has been in India all her life, whom we found living in the most pitiful condition all alone and in what used
to be a stable. Some of these people have such stories to tell of the past, they really are an embodiment of history and I wish one could get it all down just as they tell it. Altogether it has been a most interesting trip, and I have been doing more than my share of combining duty with pleasure!

“I have been to Agra too to meet Mr. Tompkins, such a nice old gentleman who first came to India fifty years ago to be an assistant in Phillips' (a very smart gentleman's outfitter; it closed down in '47). Now he lives in the servants' quarters of a local hotel and every day he takes up his place in the veranda of the hotel and sells ivory bookmarkers and other curios to tourists. We are sending him to Madras and he is quite happy to go because he doesn't like the north Indian winters. It is curious, isn't it, the way elderly English people find it so difficult to stand the cold here although it is nothing compared with the cold at home. But I think it is because the blood gets very thin in this climate. Of course while in Agra I paid several visits to the Taj Mahal, by day and by night although as luck would have it there was no moon. Can one ever, ever get tired of it? Each time it is more beautiful. I also took a little trip to Fatehpur Sikri and it was an especially happy time to go because an anniversary festival of Salim Chisthi was being celebrated and there were some moving religious festivals. So you see I have been quite indulging myself, and now I intend to indulge myself a little more and hope to pay you all a visit in Benares. Please tell Lee and Margaret too that I look forward to meeting them again and hearing all their news. I shall be staying at the Benares mission, or I should say what used to be the mission but now it has been taken over by the local church. . . .”

At the reception desk Raymond was told that some people were waiting for him. The hotel clerk—a smart young man from Kerala who had learned to speak English with an American accent—looked at him strangely as he delivered this message, as if he did not altogether approve of Raymond's visitors.
Raymond found them waiting for him in the lounge, sitting side by side on a sofa. It was Swamiji accompanied by Lee and Margaret. There was no denying that they looked odd in these surroundings. Not Swamiji—his dignity and poise could assert themselves anywhere—but the two girls: Margaret was in a handspun cotton sari and Lee in one of her long peasant skirts. They both looked bedraggled.

Raymond rushed up to them. “How are you? Are you better?” he asked Margaret. She didn't look better.

She waited for Swamiji to speak. He said, “You were worried about her, so I brought her.” He spoke simply and frankly, as one who hoped he had done the right thing.

Raymond took them to his room and at once telephoned for the hotel doctor. He tried to persuade Margaret to lie down on his bed. She refused, but not in the surly manner in which she had spoken to him in the ashram. She was gentle and kind.

Swamiji also urged her. “Lie down. Take your rest. You are tired from our journey.”

Then Margaret lay down on Raymond's bed. Obviously it was a relief to her. She still looked sick and yellow, but all the same there was contentment in her face. She lay there and her eyes were fixed on Swamiji as if she were grateful to him for the good care that was being taken of her.

Lee sat slumped in a chair. She was so silent and listless that Raymond suspected there was something wrong with her too. But when he hinted at this, she brushed him aside scornfully.

The hotel doctor, diagnosing infectious hepatitis, said Margaret must be removed from the hotel immediately. He was terribly anxious that no rumor of this sickness having been allowed to enter the hotel should reach the other guests. He hurried off to report to the manager. Raymond said, “We'd better take her to the hospital.”

“Oh, no,” Margaret said at once. They all looked at Swamiji but he made a gesture to show that the whole matter rested only with Raymond. Margaret didn't say anything more but she seemed anxious and frightened.

“It'll be best for you,” Raymond urged her. “You'll get well quickly and then you can go back to the ashram.”

“Lee will stay with you,” Swamiji said. He told Lee, briskly, not looking at her, “Evie will bring your things.”

Lee said, “Why should she go to the hospital? It's just hepatitis. She can easily get cured in the ashram.”

“Who told you that?” Raymond asked.

“I've met lots of people who've had it. Almost everyone gets it in India. It's just a routine thing.”

Margaret confirmed this. She said, “I'll get better much quicker in the ashram.”

“But the doctor, the doctor!” Swamiji implored her.

“You don't believe in doctors,” Margaret said.

“Who am I to believe or not believe? I'm a completely ignorant person. We must put our trust in Raymond who is well versed in the miracles of modern science.”

Just then the manager came to the room and called Raymond outside. He was a pale, flabby Swiss and was very agitated. He said that Margaret must be asked to leave immediately, that she should never have been allowed to enter the hotel at all. He said he had a sacred responsibility toward his guests to protect them against the terrible diseases that stalked the land. He had been in India for thirty-five years and knew more, more than enough about them. It was his life's task to see that every drop of water in the hotel was boiled, and to make personal inspection of every lavatory in it—yes, even the
servants'
lavatories, that was doubly important, for it was through the servants that so many of these fateful, filthy germs were carried. He implored Raymond to remove his dangerous visitor without a moment's delay. He also implored him to take immediate injections himself as a safeguard against the disease. He described cases he had seen—of people swelling up, they went into a coma, their livers were eaten away—oh, he could tell a thousand terrible things, and remembering them, he cried out in fear and clasped his white, white hands. Raymond, trying to calm him, assured him that Margaret would be leaving at once.

And indeed, when he returned to the room, Raymond found all three of them ready to leave. Margaret had got up from the bed.

“Do sit down again,” Raymond said. “Let's decide first which hospital.”

There was a silence. The two girls looked stubbornly at the floor. Then Lee said, “We're going
home
.”

Swamiji twinkled at Raymond who, however, remained quite grave. “Is this wise?” Raymond asked. Lee looked more stubborn. Margaret swayed a little.

“Lean on me,” Swamiji told her. When she hesitated, as if not daring to, he firmly took her arm and tucked it under his. Through her yellow sickness, she beamed, she glowed.

She turned to Raymond and in her happiness she spoke to him very gently. “Please don't be worried about me. I'm all right. Truly I am. Swamiji has explained it all to me so beautifully.”

“So has the doctor,” Raymond said dryly.

“Doctors don't know a thing. These diseases that people get in India, they're not physical, they're purely psychic. We only get them because we try to resist India—because we shut ourselves up in our little Western egos and don't want to give ourselves. But once we learn to yield, then they just fall away.”

Raymond asked, “And have you learned to yield?”

Leaning securely on Swamiji, she didn't answer but dropped her eyes in bashfulness. Swamiji laughed and pressed her arm against his side. They walked out of the room together and Lee was about to follow them when Raymond detained her. “What about you?” he asked her. “Have you learned too?”

She shook him off. He watched her walking down the hotel corridor behind Swamiji and Margaret; but whereas they went rather jauntily, she had her head bent and dragged her feet in misery.

An Unexpected Arrival

Banubai had taken the news very well. After Asha had told her, there had been a fractional pause and then Banubai had gone right on singing. Her face like her voice had been full of light-hearted joy. From that time onward, she never spoke about Gopi. There were so many other people who came to her day in day out. She was like the sun and wind that play on all alike. And not only was she universally playful like sun or wind, she was also universally indifferent. It was as if when she no longer saw Gopi she also no longer thought about him. Asha was struck with wonder. Banubai had loved Gopi so much, had so clung to him. And then to be able to forget him just like that—empty heart and mind of him as if he had never been—how Asha envied her for that! Her own case was very different.

She ceased to benefit from Banubai's presence. Other people came and listened to Banubai and went away with their hearts purified and spirits uplifted. But Asha remained sunk in her own oppressive thoughts. She began to feel herself to be a disturbing element and did not spend as much time as formerly in Banubai's room. Instead she wandered moodily by herself around the house. She gazed at people who came and went but saw no one. When they spoke to her, she hardly heard them. But one day someone came up to her and said, “Here I am, sweetheart.”

It was Bulbul. At first Asha could not believe her eyes, next moment she was very angry. She said, “Who sent you?”

“Rao Sahib.”

“You're a liar.”

Bulbul did not contradict. Instead she began to complain about the journey, how hot and crowded it had been in the train, that she had not been able to get a wink of sleep all night nor had she been able to buy anything fit to eat; consequently she was now dying of hunger and exhaustion. Asha took her into an empty little storeroom where Bulbul at once began to make
herself at home, rolling out her bedding and untying her bundle to take out the little plaster figures of her gods and goddesses that she carried with her everywhere. She was arranging them in a niche in the wall when Asha said, “You are going back on the next train.” However, after Bulbul had begged enough, she consented to allow her to stay for a day or two.

Bulbul sighed and wept—but with joy at being reunited with Asha. She described how miserable her life had been without her. Oh, they had been kind enough to her in Rao Sahib's house, they had given her a nice dry quarter and all the servants were very respectful to her and there was plenty of food and hot tea whenever she wanted it, but what was all that when Asha was not there? Was it possible for a person to be happy even in a palace if deprived of the sight of sun and moon? Bulbul went on like that and Asha let her. Then at last Asha told her about Gopi and his marriage. For the first time Asha gave full rein to her feelings. Bulbul held her in her arms and comforted her as only Bulbul knew how. Now Asha was glad that she had come.