Travelers (27 page)

Perhaps he was expecting Bulbul—at any rate, he did not have a shock when she turned up. This time she did not come to his uncle's house but lay in wait for him outside the discotheque. Gopi remained cool. He told Babloo to go ahead and join his friends and that he would be with him soon. “Go on,” he said, rather sternly, discouraging Babloo's curiosity and watching him till he had disappeared inside. Then Gopi was ready to follow Bulbul wherever she might care to lead him. He expressed no surprise when she took him into one of the disreputable houses that surrounded the discotheque. They were shown into a room where a great heavy woman lay on a bed smoking a hookah; there were also quite a few other people, most of them untidy young women in rather showy clothes; a man sat in a corner tuning a musical instrument. The fat woman seemed to be a friend of Bulbul's; she greeted her heartily, even deferentially, and was also kind to Gopi, smiling at him with tiny little teeth stained red by betel juice.

The room, although very small, was further subdivided by a curtained screen. Bulbul took Gopi behind this screen, where there was nothing except one bed with a colored quilt on it.
Bulbul told Gopi at once that Asha wanted him to come with her to Maupur. Gopi replied that it was not possible, he was getting married soon, and what would he tell his relatives? But the way he said this it was not so much an objection as a problem which he was presenting to Bulbul in order that she might solve it. And she did solve it quite easily (it was not difficult for her at all). She said he need only tell his relatives that he was going on a short tour with his English friend Raymond and would be back well in time for the wedding. Then Gopi said that Raymond was going back to England, but that too Bulbul did not feel to be an insuperable obstacle. On the contrary, she seemed quite confident that things could be arranged with Raymond in a satisfactory manner. All this took place not in a secret whisper but in raised voices—there was no other way, on account of the noise of music and female talk on the other side of the partition. Gopi kept his eyes fixed on this partition and ever afterward he remembered the curtain, which was green with large pink and lilac roses on it.

Raymond's Plans

Raymond said it was a crazy idea and anyway he couldn't come, he was going home. Asha said reproachfully, “How can you go?”

“How can I go?” Raymond repeated with a laugh. “It's high time I did.”

“And Gopi?”

“Gopi is getting married.”

“Raymond, Raymond, how can you be so cold?”

Raymond knew there was no point in defending himself against the charge of coldness. Self-control, a certain stoicism he had grown up with and used all his strength to develop—these too came under the heading of coldness and were equally reprehensible.

She pleaded, “Only a little while, a few days, that's all.”

“But then it'll have to end anyway.”

“So let it end.”

“And then?”

“Then—nothing.” She made a throw-away gesture with her hand. He didn't know what she was throwing away but it looked like her whole life.

A few days earlier Raymond had written to his mother. He had given her the date of his return. He had also suggested that why didn't she meet him somewhere halfway? For instance, in Teheran or Istanbul. His mother was a wonderful traveling companion. She liked the same things he liked. He had enjoyed every trip he had taken with her, and there was no doubt in his mind that he would enjoy this one too. Later, he had another good idea and at once sat down to write another letter. This one was to Miss Charlotte, and he invited her to join his mother and himself. Miss Charlotte and he would leave from New Delhi and Mother would meet them in the Middle East. He urged Miss Charlotte to come; he said he knew she and Mother would get on famously—perhaps too famously, he joked, so that he himself would end up feeling left out.

After Asha, Gopi also came to ask Raymond to go with them to Maupur. He said it would be a very interesting cultural tour for him. When Raymond said he had already committed himself to a cultural tour with his mother and Miss Charlotte, Gopi urged him to postpone that and not to miss this unique opportunity to see more of India. “Perhaps you will never come back to us again,” Gopi pointed out, making a sad face, and perhaps he was really sad at the thought, but Raymond could see that he was also pretending a bit and his feeling was not so pure now as it had been that day on the river when they thought they were saying good-bye forever.

“What about your wedding?” Raymond asked.

Instead of answering the question, Gopi said, “If you cared for me at all, you would want to come. You would want to be with me.” He lowered his voice and it became soft and wheedling. “We shall have such a nice time, you and I.”

“And Asha.”

Gopi was silent.

“Gopi, you shouldn't go.”

“But why not?” Gopi made innocent eyes. “Only for a little holiday before my wedding. My family are very happy. They say yes, go. Go with your friend Raymond.” He scanned Raymond's face. “You will come? Say yes. Say yes, Gopi, I shall come and we shall have a nice holiday together. Say it.”

“No! I won't!” cried Raymond.

“Just think—perhaps it is for the last time. Perhaps you will never come back to India. Or if you come, many years will have passed and you will be an old, old man, with white hairs, and I shall be fat like my uncle.”

“Ah—don't,” said Raymond, putting out his hands as if to ward off something.

“Yes, with my stomach like this—and my chin
here
.” He tucked it in. They both laughed.

Raymond Changes His Plans

“You see,” Swamiji said, “Lee wants to do only half.”

He had come by himself, unattended by Evie or any other disciple. He had told Raymond quite simply that he would like Lee to come back. He also told him the reason why Lee had run away; that too he said quite simply and smiling a little at Lee's foolishness. Then he said, “You also, Raymond, want to do only half. But with you it is the other half.”

“Are we discussing me now?” Raymond asked. He found himself talking in the somewhat bantering tone he usually adopted with Swamiji. He was rather glad to see him; he always enjoyed his company, sometimes in spite of himself.

“Thank goodness we don't have to discuss you, Raymond. You are not like those girls. They would like to sit all day and discuss about themselves.” The way he said that made Raymond laugh, and Swamiji smiled too and continued, “For them their own
personality is the most important subject in the world. But—poor girls—what personality do they have worth talking about? They are like little mice, quite undeveloped. And when I try to develop them, they run away from me.” He smiled ruefully, one hand outstretched as if appealing for justice and reason.

Raymond said, “It seems you're the injured party.”

“Certainly! I am injured. Very much injured. Please consider my position. Lee came to me, she wanted to be my disciple. I said, very good, Lee, I will take up this burden you have put on me. We are two people signing a contract together. It is signed and sealed. Very good. Then one of the parties decides that he or she no longer wishes to abide by the terms. In such a case, is it right willy-nilly to tear up the contract, to say finished, I don't like it, go to hell? Is it right, Raymond? I leave it to your judgment entirely.”

Raymond said, “I believe she wasn't aware of everything there was in the contract.”

“Oh, I see. She wasn't aware. Then answer me one more question. When we find ourselves born into the world, we are here whole and entire, isn't it? We are not just spirits but also minds, not only minds but also bodies. It is so, there can be no question or argument. Then what would you say to a person who, on discovering this incontrovertible fact of nature, says no I don't want it to be so, I want to be only one or the other? You would say such a person is deficient in his understanding; you would say he is weak up here, poor fellow.” He said, “Everything must be full, whole, round, Raymond. It must be one.”

“Have you been to see her?”

“She is not ready for me now,” Swamiji said sadly. Then he brought his face close to Raymond's. His eyes were bright as with fever, he ran a broad, pale tongue swiftly round his lips. “But I want her to become ready for me again. She must come to me as she did at first: with her hands joined, begging for me to take her. And I will take her, and we shall start again from the beginning. But this time we shall go further. I will take her
far, very far, right to the end if need be—and this time, Raymond, this time there will be no running away.”

Raymond didn't tell Lee about this visit but he did tell her that, if she wanted to go to Maupur, he would postpone his departure and go along with her.

The Retreat

Asha had taken it for granted that they would have the New Palace to themselves, but when they arrived they found that Rao Sahib was already installed there with a retinue of retainers and helpers. Election time was drawing near, and he was very busy. He drove around the district in a jeep decorated with the flags of his party and a giant photograph of himself and addressed election meetings and met voters. All day party workers went in and out of the palace, which had become Rao Sahib's headquarters. It was known as the New Palace to distinguish it from the Old Palace which was in the heart of the city. The New Palace had been built around 1910 and looked large and imposing with a vast marble entrance hall decorated with marble busts of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, but it had in fact very little living accommodation so that the arrival of Asha and her party was a distinct inconvenience.

Asha took them all away to another house. It was some way out into the country and had been built by Asha's father in the thirties as a kind of private retreat. It was, in fact, called The Retreat. Asha's father had been fond of Western pleasures such as whisky and cabaret artists, and the drawing room had been modeled on a nightclub featuring a bandstand and a bar with
a jazzy mural over it. He had had great hopes of the place but, although he had lavished a lot of care on it, it had not yielded as much pleasure as he had anticipated. This was mainly due to its unfortunate situation in the middle of the desert. There was no water and the sun beat down on a landscape inhabited by jackals and vultures. Struggling hard with tube wells and electric generators, Asha's father had managed to lay out a garden, and in his lifetime there had been a few weekend parties which his guests claimed to have been as good as anything to be enjoyed in London or Paris. But after his death there wasn't anyone to take an interest in the place and it fell into disrepair and the garden died.

Since the country was too rough and sandy for a car, Asha had to take her guests there in a jeep. They passed no signs of habitation on the way, and so it was a shock suddenly to see the house rearing up: a building in the thirties style, with futuristic cantilevers jutting out in sharp geometrical shapes. It had been plastered to resemble raw concrete, but the outside had not been repainted for a long time and had suffered much from the climate. The inside, however, was an agreeable surprise. Contradicting the austere style of architecture, the furnishing was of an Edwardian opulence; and although no one had lived there for many years, the servants had done their best to keep it all up—perhaps in the hope that one day the good times would start again.

Each of the guests was shown into a separate suite of bedroom, dressing room, and bathroom. Raymond's suite was mainly red: red-shaded electric candelabras set into the walls, red plush curtains, and a slippery red velvet bedspread over the double bed. His bathroom had elaborate imported fixtures, but when he turned on the large majestic taps only a trickle of brown water came gurgling out. He heard Gopi calling him in an excited voice from the next room. When he went there, he found a suite almost identical with his own except that everything was in yellow. Gopi pointed out the attractive features of
the room which included a set of old
Punch
drawings framed around the walls. Gopi looked at them and liked them but asked Raymond to explain them to him. They were English jokes of the thirties—mainly of a sporting or political character—and though Raymond tried to explain them, he did not feel he was able to make himself very clear; nevertheless Gopi said they were funny and laughed at them. He was pleased with everything and kept asking Raymond, “Aren't you happy that you came? Aren't you grateful to me that I brought you?” He threw himself backward on the yellow double bed and bounced up joyfully on its springs.

Lee

At first I thought it was a bit like the ashram. Perhaps because, like the ashram, the house is stuck out in the middle of nowhere with nothing growing for miles around as if it's all been killed off by the sun. But of course it's very, very different. I always felt good in the ashram but here I feel—not good at all, for many reasons. One of these is Asha and Gopi. They're together all day. They sit down there in that drawing room with the bar and the bandstand. They both seem to like being here, though they don't do anything except just sit. Oh, yes, sometimes they play cards. Asha's started drinking a lot again, and Gopi drinks with her to keep her company. I think he's beginning to like it too. In the afternoon they're both in Asha's bedroom and there's no sound from out of there hour after hour. I don't know if they're asleep or not. I'm also in my room but I can't sleep because of the heat.

I think of him though I try not to. Now it's not only that I don't want to think of him because it hurts me to do so. But also I feel it's not right to think of him. Not here. If I think of him here it's almost as if I'm desecrating—not him so much but what he's always been for me, what he's stood for. And what I still believe in. How wrong, how bad this place is for me! To think that I've
traveled and traveled and come all this way and now I've ended up here.