Out of India (10 page)

Not only did it not go on forever, but it had to stop quite soon. Running from the direction of the ashram, stumbling, waving, calling, came a lone, familiar figure: “Yoo-hoo!” shouted Helga. “Wait for me!”

She was out of breath when she caught up with them. Strands of blond hair had straggled into her face, perspiration trickled down her neck into the collar of her pale cerise blouse with mother-of-pearl buttons: her blue eyes glittered like ice as they looked searchingly from Swamiji to Daphne and back. She looked large and menacing.

“Why are you walking like two lovebirds?”

“Because that is what we are,” Swamiji said. One arm was still hooked into Daphne's and now he hooked the other into Helga's. “We are talking about kitchens. Let's hear what you have to advise us.”

“Who cares for me?” said Helga, pouting. “I'm just silly old Helga.”

“Stop thinking about yourself and listen to the problem we are faced with.”

Now there were three of them walking, and Daphne was no longer quite so happy. She didn't mind Helga's presence, but she knew that Helga minded hers. Helga's resentment wafted right across Swamiji, and once or twice she looked over his head (which she could do quite easily) to throw an angry blue glance at Daphne. Daphne looked back at her to ask, what have I done? Swamiji walked between them, talking and smiling and holding an arm of each.

That night there was an unpleasant scene. As usual, Daphne was sitting writing up her notes while Helga lay in bed and from time to time called out, “Turn off the light” before turning around and going back to sleep again. Only tonight she didn't go back to sleep. Instead she suddenly sat bolt upright and said, “The light is disturbing me.”

“I won't be a minute,” Daphne said, desperately writing, for she simply had to finish, otherwise tomorrow's avalanche of notes would be on top of her—Swamiji was so quick, so abundant in his dictation—and she would never be able to catch up.

“Turn it off!” Helga suddenly shouted, and Daphne left off writing and turned around to look at her. From the high thatched roof of their little room, directly over Helga's bed, dangled a long cord with a bulb at the end: it illumined Helga sitting up in bed in her lemon-yellow nylon nightie, which left her large marble shoulders bare; above them loomed her head covered in curlers, which made her look awesome like Medusa, while her face, flecked with pats of cream, also bore a very furious and frightening expression.

“Always making up to Swamiji,” she was saying in a loud, contemptuous way. “All night you have to sit here and disturb me so tomorrow he will say, ‘You have done so much work, good girl, wonderful girl, Daphne.' Pah. It is disgusting to see you flirting with him all the time.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Daphne said in a trembly voice.

“Don't know what you're talking about,” Helga repeated, making a horrible mimicking face and attempting to reproduce Daphne's accent but drowning it completely in her German one. “I hate hypocrites. Of course everyone knows you English are all hypocrites, it is a well-known fact all over the world.”

“You're being terribly unfair, Helga.”

“Turn off the light! Other people want to sleep, even if you are busy being Miss Goody-goody!”

“In a minute,” Daphne said, sounding calm and continuing with her task.

Helga screamed with rage: “Turn it off! Turn it off!” She bounced up and down in her bed with her fists balled. Daphne took no notice whatsoever but went on writing. Helga tossed herself face down into her pillow and pounded it and sobbed and raged from out of there. When Daphne had finished writing, she turned off the light and, undressing in the dark, lay down in her lumpy bed next to Helga, who by that time was asleep, still face downward and her fists clenched and dirty tear marks down her cheeks.

Next morning Helga was up and dressed early, but contrary to her usual custom, she was very quiet and tiptoed around so as not to disturb her roommate. When Daphne finally woke up, Helga greeted her cheerfully and asked whether she had had a good sleep, and then she told her how she had watched poor Klas stepping into a pat of fresh cow dung on his way to meditation. Helga thought this was very funny, she laughed loudly at it and encouraged Daphne to laugh too by giving her shoulder a hearty push. Then she went off to get breakfast for the two of them, and, after they had had it, and stepped outside the room to cross over to Swamiji's, she suddenly put her arm around Daphne and whispered into her ear: “You won't tell him anything? No? Daphnelein?” And to seal their friendship, their conspiracy, she planted a big, wet kiss on Daphne's neck and said, “There. Now it is all well again.”

Swamiji was receiving daily letters from America, and he was very merry nowadays and there was a sense of bustle and departure about him. The current meditation course, for which Daphne and Helga and all of them had enrolled, was coming to an end, and soon they would be expected to go home again so that they might radiate their newly acquired spiritual health from there. But when they talked among themselves, none of them seemed in any hurry to go back. The two Scottish schoolteachers were planning a tour of India to see the Taj Mahal and the Ajanta caves and other such places of interest, while Klas wanted to go up to Almora to investigate a spiritual brotherhood he had heard of there. Swamiji encouraged them—“It is such fun to travel,” he said, and obviously he was gleefully looking forward to his own travels, receiving and answering all those airmail letters and studying airline folders, and one of the young men who attended on him had already been sent to Delhi to make preliminary arrangements.

Daphne had no plans. She didn't even think of going home; it was inconceivable to her that she could go or be anywhere where he was not. The Scottish schoolteachers urged her to join them on their tour, and she halfheartedly agreed, knowing though that she would not go. Helga questioned her continuously as to what she intended to do, and when she said she didn't know, came forward with suggestions of her own. These always included both of them; Helga had somehow taken it for granted that their destinies were now inseparable. She would sit on the side of Daphne's bed and say in a sweet, soft voice, “Shall we go to Khajurao? To Cochin? Would you like to visit Ceylon?” and at the same time she would be coaxing and stroking Daphne's pillow as if she were thereby coaxing and stroking Daphne herself.

All the time Daphne was waiting for him to speak. In London she had been so sure of what he meant her to do, without his ever having to say anything; now she had to wait for him to declare himself. Did he want her to accompany him to America; did he want her to stay behind in India; was she to go home? London, though it held her mother, her father, her job, her friends, all her memories, was dim and remote to her; she could not imagine herself returning there. But if that was what he intended her to do, then she would; propelled not by any will of her own, but by his. And this was somehow a great happiness to her: that she, who had always been so self-reliant in her judgments and actions, should now have succeeded in surrendering not only her trained, English mind but everything else as well—her will, herself, all she was—only to him.

His dictation still continued every day; evidently this was going to be a massive work, for though she had already written out hundreds of foolscap pages, the end was not yet in sight. Beyond this daily dictation, he had nothing special to say to her; she still went on her evening walk, but he did not again come to meet her. In any case, this walk of hers was now never taken alone but always in the company of Helga, whose arm firmly linked hers. Helga saw to it that they did everything together these days: ate, slept, sat with Swamiji, even meditated. She did not trust her alone for a moment, so even if Swamiji had wanted to say anything private to Daphne, Helga would always be there to listen to it.

Daphne wasn't sure whether it was deep night or very early in the morning when one of the bearded young men came to call her. Helga, innocently asleep, was breathing in and out. Daphne followed
the messenger across the courtyard. Everything was sleeping in a sort of gray half-light, and the sky too was gray with some dulled, faint stars in it. Across the river a small, wakeful band of devotees was chanting and praying; they were quite a long way off and yet the sound was very clear in the surrounding silence. There was no light in Swamiji's room, nor was he in it; her guide led her through the room and out of an opposite door that led to the adjoining veranda, overlooking the river. Here Swamiji sat on a mat, eating a meal by the light of a kerosene lamp. “Ah, Daphne,” he said, beckoning her to sit opposite him on the mat. “There you are at last.”

The bearded youth had withdrawn. Now there were only the two of them. It was so strange. The kerosene lamp stood just next to Swamiji and threw its light over him and over his tray of food. He ate with pleasure and with great speed, his hand darting in and out of the various little bowls of rice, vegetable, lentils, and curds. He also ate very neatly, so that only the very tips of the fingers of his right hand were stained by the food and nothing dropped into his beard. It struck Daphne that this was the first time that she had seen him eat a full meal: during the course of his busy day, he seemed content to nibble at nuts and at his favorite sweetmeats, and now and again drink a tumbler of milk brought to him by one of his young men.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked her. “You won't turn into a laurel tree?”

He pushed aside his tray and dabbled his hand in a finger bowl and then wiped it on a towel. “I think it would be nice,” he said, “if you come with me to America.”

She said, “I'd like to come.”

“Good.”

He folded the towel neatly and then pressed it flat with his hand. For a time neither of them said anything. The chanting came from across the river; the kerosene lamp cast huge shadows.

“We shall have to finish our book,” he said. “In America we shall have plenty of leisure and comfort for this purpose . . . Mrs. Gay Fisher has made all arrangements.”

He bent down to adjust the flame of the lamp and now the light fell directly on his face. At that moment Daphne saw very clearly that he was not a good-looking man, nor was there anything noble in his features: on the contrary, they were short, blunt, and common,
and his expression, as he smiled to himself in anticipation of America, had something disagreeable in it. But the next moment he had straightened up again, and now his face opposite her was full of shadows and so wise, calm, and beautiful, that she had to look away for a moment, for sheer rapture.

“We shall be staying in her home,” he said. “It is a very large mansion with swimming pool and all amenities—wait, I will show you.” Out of the folds of his gown he drew an envelope, which he had evidently kept ready for her and out of which he extracted some color photographs.

“This is her mansion. It is in Greek style. See how gracious these tall pillars, so majestic. It was built in 1940 by the late Mr. Fisher.” He raised the lamp and brought it near the photograph to enable her to see better. “And this,” he said, handing her another photograph, “is Mrs. Gay Fisher herself.”

He looked up and saw that light had dawned, so he lowered the wick of the lamp and extinguished the flame. Thus it was by the frail light of earliest dawn that Daphne had her first sight of Mrs. Gay Fisher.

“She writes with great impatience,” he said. “She wants us to come at once, straightaway, woof like that, on a magic carpet if possible.” He smiled, tolerant, amused: “She is of a warm, impulsive nature.”

The picture showed a woman in her fifties in a pastel two-piece and thick ankles above dainty shoes. She wore a three-rope pearl necklace and was smiling prettily, her head a little to one side, her hands demurely clasped before her. Her hair was red.

“The climate in California is said to be very beneficial,” Swamiji said. “And wonderful fruits are available. Not to speak of ice cream,” he twinkled, referring to his well-known weakness. “Please try and look a little bit happy, Daphne, or I shall think that you don't want to come with me at all.”

“I want to,” she said. “I do.”

He collected his photographs from her and put them carefully back into the envelope. There was still chanting on the other side of the river. The river looked a misty silver now and so did the sky and the air and the mountains as slowly, minute by minute, day emerged from out of its veils. The first bird woke up and gave a chirp of pleasure and surprise that everything was still there.

“Go along now,” he said. “Go and meditate.” He put out his
hand and placed it for a moment on her head. She felt small, weak, and entirely dependent on him. “Go, go,” he said, pretending impatience, but when she went, he called: “Wait!” She stopped and turned back. “Wake up that sleepy Helga,” he said. “I want to talk to her.” Then he added: “She's coming with us too.” “To America?” she said, and in such a way that he looked at her and asked, “What's wrong?” She shook her head. “Then be quick,” he said.

A few days later he sent her a present of a sari. It was of plain mill cloth, white with a thin red border. She put it away but when, later, he saw her in her usual skirt and blouse, he asked her where it was. She understood then that from now on that was what he wanted her to wear, as a distinguishing mark, a uniform almost, the way his bearded young attendants always wore orange robes. She put it on just before her evening walk; it took her a long time to get it on, and when she had, she felt awkward and uncomfortable. She knew she did not look right, her bosom was too flat, her hips too narrow, nor had she learned how to walk in it, and she kept stumbling. But she knew she would have to get used to it, so she persevered; it seemed a very little obstacle to overcome.

Instead of going on her usual route, she turned today in the opposite direction and walked toward the town. First she had to pass all the other ashrams, then she had to go through the little wood where the sadhus did penance, and the beggars stretched pitiful arms toward her and showed her their sores. In these surroundings, it did not seem to matter greatly, not even to herself, what she wore and how she wore it; and when she had crossed the wood, and had got to the temples and bazaars, it still did not matter, for although there were crowds of people, none of them had any time to care for Daphne. The temple bells rang and people bought garlands and incense and sweetmeats to give to their favorite gods. Daphne crossed the holy bridge and, as she did so, folded her hands in homage to the holy river. Once or twice she tripped over her sari, but she didn't mind, she just hitched it up a bit higher. When she came to the end of the bridge, she turned and walked back over it, again folding her hands and even saying,
“Jai Ganga-ji
,” only silently to herself and not out loud like everyone else. Then she saw Helga coming toward her, also dressed in a white sari with a red border; Helga waved to her over the heads of people and when they came together, she turned and walked back with Daphne, her arm affectionately around her shoulder. Helga was wearing her sari all wrong, it was
too short for her and her feet coming out at the end were enormous. She looked ridiculous, but no one cared; Daphne didn't either. She was glad to be with Helga, and she thought probably she would be glad to be with Mrs. Gay Fisher as well. She was completely happy to be going to California, and anywhere else he might want her to accompany him.