Travelers (11 page)

They were a mixed lot of Westerners and Indians, but he encouraged them to think of themselves as one family and quite often they managed to do so. It was easiest when they were all grouped around Swamiji and he was giving them one of his beautiful discourses or leading them in singing devotional songs. One of the hutments had been fitted up as a communal prayer hall and here they gathered morning and evening for their devotions. Although this hutment was as utilitarian and cheaply furnished as all the others, it had been decorated by loving hands and a beautiful atmosphere prevailed. The room was dominated by a large, colored picture of Swamiji's own guru, a very holy man who wore no clothes and sat on a deer skin. Underneath this there was a big velvet armchair with an antimacassar embroidered by one of the disciples and here Swamiji sat with two devotees waving a peacock fan over him. They all faced the picture of the holy guru and Swamiji sitting beneath it, and then how they sang! With what inspiration! Of course it was he who inspired them to call after him—“Rama!” he sang, “Gopala! Hari! Krishna!” in his melodious, smiling voice, and then who could resist following him and also calling out those sweet names and being filled with the savor of them. But however loudly, however devotedly they sang, it was never enough for Swamiji—always he begged for more, always he led them higher and higher, to sing out louder and louder—“Rama! Gopala! Hari! Krishna!”—he incited them to break out again and again in those names, to fetch them forth out of hearts that must be coaxed to overflow with the love of them. Then the human voice alone was no longer enough, there must be cymbals too and conch shells to proclaim that joy: but still above all that holy din and all those voices rose
his
voice, forever ahead of them, almost mocking them to come up there with him, to soar as high as he did. And they tried and tried, they tried their very best, and he led them on to such a pitch of excitement and frenzy that it became almost unbearable for them, the joy of it exhausted them, and who knows what would have happened
every morning and evening if he hadn't known the exact point at which to stop them? Then they all fell silent and smiled and felt happy and light as if simultaneously they had been relieved of and had achieved something.

When Lee and Margaret first came to the ashram, they did not find it easy to sing with the same abandon as the others. They were stiff and shy, locked up within themselves. But slowly, as the days passed, cunningly, he enticed them out of themselves. To each of them it appeared and became clear beyond doubt with each successive meeting that he was concentrating only on her. At first Lee thought she must be imagining it—after all, there were all these others, all intent only on him and drawing their inspiration only from him—what was so special about her that he should single her out from among them? To cure herself of her misapprehension, she would lower her eyes away from him but she could never do so for long because he seemed to be drawing her back, beckoning to her, telling her come, look up, look at me. And when she did, sure enough, there he was smiling at her—yes! at her alone!—so that she had to smile back and sing the way he wanted her to and cry out “Rama! Gopala! Hari! Krishna!” with as much abandon as she could manage. And afterward, when he distributed the bits of rock sugar that served as holy offering, then too at her turn, as he put it into her mouth, there was this special message for her, this speaking without words that went right through her and reached, it seemed to her, into regions which no one had hitherto penetrated. So was it any wonder that, whenever she left his presence, she felt dazed and wanted to go away by herself and not speak to anyone? And she began to notice that Margaret behaved in the same way—she too would be quite silent and sunk in her own thoughts and for hours together they would lie like that side by side on their string cots in the hutment they shared. And when they did speak, it was in a gentle distant way as if their thoughts were distant, and each imperceptibly smiled to herself at something beautiful within.

An Old English Lady

The first person Raymond looked up on his return was Miss Charlotte. She was very pleased to see him back again and eager to hear all about his trip. She was, however, on the point of going out to pay a visit and she invited Raymond to accompany her. They took a short cut through the old British cemetery. It was quite shady here with many old trees growing over the old granite graves. Miss Charlotte allowed Raymond to relieve her of the large and heavy gunny-cloth bag she was carrying. From time to time she pointed out some interesting grave to him. Although most of these dated from the nineteenth century, there were a few more recent ones, and indeed some belonged to people whom Miss Charlotte had known when she first came. She showed him the resting place of the Reverend Mellow, who had been in charge of the mission at that time and had died of cholera contracted during an epidemic. He had been in India for twenty years and had been so attached to his work here that he had never once bothered to go on home leave. How sad he would be today, Miss Charlotte said, if he knew that his dearly beloved mission was to be closed down.

“You haven't managed to get an extension?” Raymond asked.

“I'm afraid not.” She got down to pluck a few weeds from Reverend Mellow's grave. The stone was plain and inexpensive and rather a contrast to the much grander and older graves surrounding it.

They reached their destination, which was a modest brick structure adjoining the church. Miss Charlotte explained that it was a home kept up by the church for English people in India who had nowhere else to go and no money to live on. “They're all very old people now,” she said. Certainly, the first person they went to see was a very old lady indeed. Raymond had never seen anyone with skin so shriveled, discolored, and hanging in rags from the bones. But she still thought it worthwhile to dress correctly in shoes and a brown polka-dot frock, and
what was left of her hair was kept tidily under a net. When they went in, she shouted, “Who is it! What do you want?” but was reassured at once when Miss Charlotte identified herself.

“And I've brought a nice young man to see you,” said Miss Charlotte.

The old eyes searched in Raymond's direction. They were a strange, rinsed blue and seemed to look from a long way away; one of them was blotted by a cataract. But she did not bother about Raymond for long; just now the gunny bag seemed to be of more interest to her, and to relieve her anxiety Miss Charlotte began to unpack it at once: “Your ketchup—and this is something new—sandwich spread—I thought you'd like to try it for your tea.”

She placed her purchases on a little cane table, which was one of the few pieces of furniture in the room. Everything was very clean—spotless—though somewhat bleak. The walls were plainly whitewashed, and the cement floor scrubbed to the bone.

“Bless you, my dear,” said the old lady when all these goodies had been unpacked. Now truly she could give her attention to Raymond, and again the old eyes searched in his direction; he guessed that she was unable to make him out in detail but was only attempting to delineate him in space.

“English?” she asked.

“Yes, indeed,” said Miss Charlotte. “He's only here on a visit.”

“I'm very pleased to meet you,” said the old lady. “Very pleased indeed. It's a pity I can't get up to greet you but it's on account of my legs, you see.” They were indeed badly swollen and so were other parts of her. “When you get to my age, you have to expect these things. I'm eighty-six, you know.” She waited as if expecting some comment on this fact. Raymond said, “Incredible,” which appeared to satisfy. “Yes, eighty-six on the twenty-first of April. That's my birthday, the twenty-first of April, the same day as the Queen, so it's easy to remember. I'm so sorry, my dear, I can't offer you a cup of tea but you see what
it's like here. Hardly the place to receive guests, I'm afraid. It would have been different in my own home.”

“This
is
your own home,” said Miss Charlotte brightly, but for this the old eyes floated in her direction with a scornful look before floating back again to Raymond.

“Can you smell it?” she asked him.

He hesitated to answer—the room had a smell of carbolic soap emanating from the washed floor and one of old age emanating from her; but it seemed she meant the smell of cooking that came seeping in from outside.

“Mutton stew—when they know perfectly well I can't stand it. I've told them over and over again I want my rice and curry; at least that has some taste to it. But it's because of him upstairs. I think he bribes them in the kitchen. Those people would do anything for a bribe.”

“Don't they cook your curry on alternate days?” Miss Charlotte said. “And look at the chutney I brought you—that'll make everything taste nice.”

“He pretends he doesn't like Indian food. He says it's too hot for him, burns his tongue, he says. Of course that's just his lies and hypocrisy to show everyone how English he is. English, is he? Well, I have a story to tell about that if anyone cares to ask and I should care to answer.” She swayed and smirked but the next moment remembered something unpleasant that made her stop. “He knows very well I know what I'm not supposed to know—that's why he's telling all those lies about me. To pull the wool over people's eyes. Have you heard the latest? He's been telling Ayah and all the servants that my father—
my father
—kept a shop in Amritsar. Really, I ought to laugh and I would if it weren't such a hateful, detestable, wicked lie. Hand me that,” she told Raymond, pointing to a metal plaque propped up in the center of the mantelpiece.

She took the plaque between both her hands, and when she had gazed at it long enough, she gave it to Raymond and told him to read it. “Out loud,” she said. He read that this plaque had
been presented to Lieutenant F. J. Peck of the 13th Bengal Infantry to commemorate his participation in the relief of Lucknow, December 1857.

“My father,” she said impressively, and indeed Raymond held the plaque with wonder and looked from it to her as she sat there swollen and discolored in her polka-dot frock.

“Put it back,” she ordered. “Now you know what to say next time you hear him tell that lie. The things he's been telling people, someone ought to do something about it. Not that anyone believes him of course, because everyone knows he's a liar through and through. He's just rotten with lies. Rotten and stinking!” she shouted, croaking, apoplectic, but with surprising energy.

“Shall we say our prayers now?” suggested Miss Charlotte.

“All right, dear,” the old lady said at once and meekly.

Miss Charlotte slipped from her chair down to the floor in a practiced, agile movement. The other two remained where they were but lowered their heads respectfully. Raymond thought how hard the floor must be under Miss Charlotte's knees, but he knew she didn't feel it. Surreptitiously he looked over at the old lady. Her head was still lowered but she was looking at him out of the corner of one of her blotted eyes. She closed it at him in a wink that made him look away again quickly. Miss Charlotte prayed out loudly and in a voice full of faith and joy.

Raymond Writes to His Mother

“. . . I always feel strange walking into the High Commission compound. It's so tremendously clean—you can't help thinking that no place in India has the right to be that clean. And all that smart new suburban architecture and the Mums sitting gossiping by the swimming pool and calling in loud voices to their children splashing about inside. When a stranger like me comes in, they glance round for a moment and look at you with those cold eyes, you know, the sort that say since they don't know you
obviously you're not worth knowing. The tennis courts are usually occupied by girls with stout red legs playing men also with stout red legs and they call to each other across the net in those same loud voices in which the Mums call to the children. It's funny, everyone here seems to have this same
commanding
sort of voice, even the children. (Or is it the way English people always speak and I've forgotten?)

“Mr. Taylor couldn't have been more cordial, was very pleased to see me, insisted I have a drink. He's a counselor and so gets a special bungalow, fully air-conditioned of course and with fitted carpets. When I talked about Miss Charlotte, he made a face—in a nice way, showing how he was not hiding his feelings from me—he said yes, he knew about those people, and one did feel sorry for them and no one could deny that they
had
been doing good work—but unfortunately the Indian government was rather sensitive about them and High Commission could hardly afford to stick its neck out for them because alas there were so
many
things the Indian government was sensitive about. . . . Here he sighed, and I could see that he had plenty of troubles of his own. I think he was about to tell me about them when Mrs. Taylor came in and said she hoped he wasn't forgetting the Wodehouses at eight and he hadn't even changed yet, darling. So of course I jumped to my feet, and he got up too and put his hand on my arm and said he hoped I understood his problem and I said I did. And actually I did—things are like that nowadays—it's all right to use those loud voices inside the compound but outside they have to be rather circumspect. . . .”

A Secular State

Rao Sahib's office was done up in wood paneling and had an enormous teak desk with a silver inkstand on it. Rao Sahib sat behind this desk in a carved chair that reared above him like a throne; on the wall behind him hung a colored portrait of the
President of India. Rao Sahib was leaning back in his chair and explaining himself to Raymond.

“You may take note that I am speaking as a secular state and hence these restrictions would apply to all denominations. Our policies are framed regardless of any particular creed but only on the basis of the widest application of principle. . . .”