The Schopenhauer Cure (16 page)

if you do not wish to be taken into the honourable Philistine order, I, my dear Arthur, truly don't want to put any obstacle into your way; it is just you who have to seek your own way and choose it. Then I will advise and help, where and how I can. First try to come to peace with yourself... remember you must choose studies that promise you a good salary, not only because it is the only way you can live, for you will never be rich enough to live from your inheritance alone. If you have made your choice, tell me so, but you have to take this decision on your own.... If you feel the strength and heart to do this, I will willingly give you my hand. But just don't imagine life as a complete learned man to be too delightful. I now see it around me, dear Arthur. It is a tiring, troublesome life full of work; only the delight in doing it gives it its charm.

One doesn't get rich with it; as a writer, one acquires with difficulty what one needs for survival.... To make your life as a writer you have to be able to produce something excellent.... now, more than ever, there is a need of brilliant heads. Arthur, think about it carefully, and choose, but then stay firm; let your perseverance never fail, and you will safely achieve your goal. Choose what you want...but with tears in my eyes I implore you: do not cheat on yourself. Treat yourself seriously and honestly. The welfare of your life is at stake, as well as the happiness of my old days; because only you and Adele can hopefully replace my lost youth. I couldn't bear it to know that you are unhappy, especially if I had to blame myself for having let this great misfortune happen to you out of my too large pliability. You see, dear Arthur, that I dearly love you, and that I want to help you in everything. Reward me by your confidence and by, having once made up your mind, following my advice in fulfilling your choice. And don't hurt me by rebelliousness. You know that I am not stubborn. I know how to give way by arguments, and I will never demand anything from you I won't be able to support by arguments....

Adieu, dear Arthur, the post is urgent and my fingers hurt. Bear in mind all I send and write to you, and answer soon.

Your mother

J. Schopenhauer

In his old age Arthur wrote, "When I finished reading this letter I shed a flood of tears." By return mail he opted for liberation from his apprenticeship, and Johanna responded, "That you have so quickly come to a decision, against your wont, would disquiet me in anyone else. I should fear rashness; with you it reassures me, I regard it as the power of your innermost desires that drives you.'

Johanna wasted no time; she notified Arthur's merchant patron and his landlord that Arthur was leaving Hamburg, she organized his move and arranged for him to attend a gymnasium in Gotha, fifty kilometers from his mother's home in Weimar.

Arthur's chains were broken.

15

Pam in India

_________________________

It
is noteworthy and remarkable

to see how man, besides his

life in the concrete, always

lives a second life in the

abstract...(where) in the sphere

of

calm

deliberation,

what

previously

possessed

him

completely

and

moved

him

intensely appears to him cold,

colorless, and distant: he is

a mere spectator and observer.

_________________________

As the Bombay-Igatpuri train slowed for a stop at a small village, Pam heard the clangs of ceremonial cymbals and peered through the grimy train window. A dark-eyed boy of about ten or eleven, pointing to her window, ran alongside holding aloft a raised rag and yellow plastic water pail. Since she had arrived in India two weeks ago, Pam had been shaking her head no. No to sightseeing guides, shoe shines, freshly squeezed tangerine juice, sari cloth, Nike tennis shoes, money exchange. No to beggars and no to numerous sexual invitations, sometimes offered frankly, sometimes discreetly by winking, raising eyebrows, licking lips, and flicking tongues. And, finally, she thought, someone has actually offered me something I need. She vigorously nodded yes, yes to the young window washer, who responded with a huge toothy grin. Delighted with Pam's patronage and audience, he washed the pane with long theatrical flourishes.

Paying him generously and shooing him away as he lingered to stare at her, Pam settled back and watched a procession of villagers snake their way down a dusty street following a priest clad in billowing scarlet trousers and yellow shawl. Their destination was the center of the town square and a large papier-mache statue of Lord Ganesha, a short plump Buddha-like body bearing an elephant's head. Everyone--the priest, the men dressed in gleaming white, and the women robed in saffron and magenta--carried small Ganesha statues. Young girls scattered handfuls of flowers, and pairs of adolescent boys carried poles holding metal burners emitting clouds of incense. Amid the clash of cymbals and the roll of drums, everyone chanted, "Ganapathi bappa Moraya, Purchya varshi laukariya."

"Pardon me, can you tell me what they're chanting?" Pam turned to the copper-skinned man sitting opposite her sipping tea, the only other passenger sharing the compartment. He was a delicate win-some man dressed in a loose white cotton shirt and trousers. At the sound of Pam's voice he swallowed the wrong way and coughed furiously. Her question delighted him since he had been attempting, in vain, since the train commenced in Bombay to strike up a conversation with the handsome woman sitting across from him. After a vigorous cough he replied, with a squeak, "My apologies, madam. Physiology is not always at one's command. What the people here, and throughout all of India today, are saying is 'Beloved Ganapati, lord of Moraya, come again early next year.'"

"Ganapati?"

"Yes, very confusing, I know. Perhaps you know him by his more common name, Ganesha. He has many other names, as well, for example, Vighnesvara, Vinayaka, Gajanana."

"And this parade?"

"The beginning of the ten-day festival of Ganesha. Perhaps you may be fortunate enough to be in Bombay next week at the end of the festival and witness the entire population of the city walk into the ocean and immerse their Ganesha statues in incoming waves."

"Oh, and that? A moon? Or sun?" Pam pointed to four children carrying a large yellow papier-mache globe.

Vijay purred to himself. He welcomed the questions and hoped the train stop would be long and that this conversation would go on and on. Such voluptuous women were common in American movies, but never before had he had the good fortune to speak to one. This woman's grace and pale beauty stirred his imagination. She seemed to have stepped out of the ancient erotic carvings of the Kama Sutra. And where might this encounter lead? he wondered. Could this be the life-changing event for which he had long sought? He was free, his garment factory had, by Indian standards, made him wealthy. His teenaged fiancee died of tuberculosis two years ago, and, until his parents selected a new bride, he was unencumbered.

"Ah, it is a moon the children hold. They carry it to honor an old legend. First, you must know that Lord Ganesha was renowned for his appetite. Note his ample belly. He was once invited for a feast and stuffed himself with desert pastries called laddoos. Have you eaten laddoos?"

Pam shook her head, fearing that he might produce one from his valise. A close friend had contracted hepatitis from a tea shop in India, and thus far she had heeded her physician's advice to eat nothing but four-star-hotel food. When away from the hotel she had limited herself to food she could peel--mainly tangerines, hard-boiled eggs, and peanuts.

"My mother made wonderful coconut almond laddoos," Vijay continued.

"Essentially, they are fried flour balls with a sweet cardamom syrup--that sounds prosaic, but you must believe me when I say they are far more than the sum of their ingredients. But back to Lord Ganesha, who was so stuffed that he could not stand up properly. He lost his balance, fell, his stomach burst, and all the laddoos tumbled out.

"This all took place at night with only one witness, the moon, who found the event hilarious. Enraged, Ganesha cursed the moon and banished him from the universe.

However, the whole world lamented the moon's absence, and an assembly of gods asked Lord Shiva, Ganesha's father, to persuade him to relent. The penitent moon also apologized for his misbehavior. Finally, Ganesha modified his curse and announced that the moon need be invisible only one day a month, partially visible the remainder of the month, and for one day only would be permitted to be visible in its full glory."

A brief silence and Vijay added, "And now you know why the moon plays a role in Lord Ganesha festivals."

"Thank you for that explanation."

"My name is Vijay, Vijay Pande."

"And mine is Pam, Pam Swanvil. What a delightful story, and what a fantastical droll god--that elephant head and Buddha body. And yet the villagers seem to take their myths so seriously...as though they were really--"

"It's interesting to consider the iconography of Lord Ganesha," Vijay gently interrupted as he pulled from his shirt a large neck pendant on which was carved the image of Ganesha. "Please note that every feature on Ganesha has a serious meaning, a life instruction. Consider the large elephant head: it tells us to think big. And the large ears? To listen more. The small eyes remind us to focus and to concentrate and the small mouth to talk less. And I do not forget Ganesha's instruction--even at this moment as I talk to you I remember his counsel and I warn myself not to talk too much. You must help by telling me when I tell you more than you wish to know."

"No, not at all. I'm most interested in your comments on iconography."

"There are many others; here, look closer--we Indians are very serious people."

He reached into the leather bag he wore on his shoulder and held out a small magnifying lens.

Taking the glass, Pam leaned over to peer at Vijay's pendant. She inhaled his aroma of cinnamon and cardamon and freshly ironed cotton cloth. How was it possible for him to smell so sweet and so fresh in the close dusty train compartment? "He has only one tusk," she observed.

"Meaning: retain the good, throw away the bad."

"And what's that he holds? An ax?"

"To cut off all bonds of attachment."

"That sounds like Buddhist doctrine."

"Yes, remember that the Buddha emerged from the mother ocean of Shiva."

"And Ganesha holds something in the other hand. It's hard to see. A thread?"

"A rope to pull one ever closer to your highest goal."

The train suddenly lurched and began to move forward.

"Our vehicle is alive again," said Vijay. "Note Ganesha's vehicle--there under his foot."

Pam moved closer to look through the lens and inhale Vijay's scent discreetly.

"Oh, yes, the mouse. I've seen it in every statue and painting of Ganesha. I've never known why a mouse."

"That's the most interesting attribute of all. The mouse is desire. You may ride it but only if you keep it under control. Otherwise it causes havoc."

Pam fell silent. As the train chugged on past scrawny trees, occasional temples, water buffalo in muddy ponds, and farms whose red soil had been exhausted by thousands of years of work, she looked at Vijay and felt a wave of gratitude. How unobtrusively, how gently, he had taken out his pendant and saved her from the embarrassment of speaking irreverently about his religion. When had she ever been so graced by a man? But no, she reminded herself, don't shortchange other dear men. She thought about her group. There was Tony, who would do anything for her. And Stuart, too, could be generous. And Julius, whose love seemed unending. But Vijay's subtlety--

that was uncommon, that was exotic.

And Vijay? He too fell into a reverie, reviewing his conversation with Pam.

Uncommonly excited, his heart raced, and he sought to calm himself. Opening his leather shoulder pouch, he took out an old wrinkled cigarette package, not to smoke--the package was empty, and besides he had heard of how peculiar Americans were about smoking. He merely wished to study the blue-and-white package, which bore the silhouette of a man wearing a top hat and, in firm black letters, the brand name, The Passing Show.

One of his first religious teachers had called his attention to the Passing Show, a brand of cigarettes his father smoked, and instructed him to begin his meditation by thinking of all of life as a passing show, a river carrying all objects, all experience, all desires, past his unswerving attention. Vijay meditated on the image of a flowing river and listened to his mind's soundless words,
anitya, anitya
--impermanence. Everything is impermanent, he reminded himself; all of life and all experience glide by as surely and irrevocably as the passing landscape seen through the train window. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and rested his head upon his seat; his pulse slowed as he entered the welcome harbor of equanimity.

Pam, who had been eyeing Vijay discreetly, picked up the wrapping that had fallen to the floor, read the label, and said, "The Passing Show--that's an unusual name for cigarettes."

Vijay slowly opened his eyes and said, "As I said, we Indians are very serious.

Even our cigarette packages have messages for the conduct of life. Life
is
a passing show--I meditate on that whenever I feel inner turbulence."

"Is that what you were just doing a minute ago? I should not have disturbed you."

Vijay smiled and gently shook his head. "My teacher once said that one can not be disturbed by another. It is only oneself who can disturb one's equanimity." Vijay hesitated, realizing even as it happened that he was awash in desire: he so craved the attention of his traveling companion that he had turned his meditation practice into a mere curiosity--all for the sake of a smile from this lovely woman who was simply an apparition, part of the passing show, soon to pass out of his life and to dissolve into the nonbeing of the past. And knowing, too, that his next words would only take him farther from his path, Vijay nonetheless rashly plunged ahead.