Open Heart (12 page)

In the meantime the first light of morning broke in the hazy sky, and a large round sun rose from an unexpected direction. Thus the day of the long journey to Varanasi began, in the glow of dirt roads, huts, and villages slipping slowly past the dark windows and the radiant, aromatic dimness of the big stations where we suddenly stopped among trains of various kinds and colors with droves of passengers getting in and out. During the few minutes of the stop, Lazar would sometimes hurry out to the stalls crowding the platform and bring us sweets or chapatis or bottles of unfamiliar effervescent drinks. His wife, if she didn’t join him, would stand at the window so as not to let him out of her sight. I had noticed their craving for sweet things in Rome, and even in India they hesitate suck and chew all kinds of candies whose names the Indian passenger taught them to pronounce. He himself had already changed his spotted old suit for a kind of white robe, which gave rise to a pleasant, intimate feeling, and indeed he was soon deep in conversation with Lazar’s wife, who seemed amused by his views on life and the world, but who was careful to question him in a tactful, friendly manner. This won him over to such an extent that he soon opened his little suitcase, took out an old deck of cards illustrated with all kinds of gaudy gods and demigods, and tried to teach us a kind of Indian poker, whose peculiar rules made her laugh so merrily that it seemed she had completely forgotten the purpose of our journey.

In the afternoon the Ganges appeared in all its vastness, flowing slowly not far from the train tracks, and the Indian’s dark face glowed in the abundant yellow light. Overcome with awe of the holiness flowing next to him, he stopped playing cards and chatting to Lazar’s wife, rose to his feet full of power and
vitality
, and retired to the corridor to sink into meditation opposite the holy river. But while the Indian was evidently growing stronger in anticipation of the baptism awaiting him, the sleepless Lazar was growing weaker; his eyes kept closing, his head nodded, fell, and jerked up again. “Try to lie down and rest for a while, don’t be so obstinate,” his wife urged him, but he was unable to let go of his tension: “It’s too late to sleep, we’ll be there soon.” Finally she succeeded in persuading him to take off his shoes and lie down on the seat, and even to overcome his embarrassment at my presence and lay his head on her round stomach, while she held his head firmly between her hands as if
to absorb his anxiety into herself. And it worked, for after a few minutes of vacillating and grumbling, Lazar plunged into a deep sleep, his breathing very relaxed, as if he had fallen out under the hands of a practiced anesthetist. His wife tried to engage me in conversation, but I stopped her. “We shouldn’t disturb him,” I whispered, “now that he has finally fallen asleep.” My reaction surprised her, and for the first time I noticed an offended blush spreading over her cheeks, as the faint down covering them glinted in the sunlight. But she obediently took off her glasses and closed her eyes, and an hour later, when the train slowed down in preparation for its ceremonious entry into the last smoke-shrouded station and Lazar emerged from the abyss of his sleep, he discovered that his wife had fallen asleep with him.

The elderly Indian passenger, who had been so friendly and talkative during the long journey, had now become estranged and remote in anticipation of its ending. His relatives, dressed in white as he was, were already waiting for him on the crowded platform, and they immediately swallowed him up without a trace. The three of us were left staring, dumb and paralyzed. The crowds we had seen on the streets of New Delhi looked sparse and quiet compared to this one. We were obliged to stick close to each other and hang on tightly to our suitcases, which seemed to have taken on a life of their own as they jerked about in the frenzied crowd. We had to stop at Varanasi to make our
connection
to Gaya, but we had had no idea how many tourists and pilgrims would be engulfing this major attraction at the height of the tourist season. While Lazar was haggling with a lively, dwarfish porter who had attached himself to us, one of the Lazars’ two suitcases was carried away by the crowd. At first Lazar gave way to despair and seemed on the point of tears. But then he recovered and plunged into the crowd, pushing and
shoving
in search of the thief, refusing to resign himself to the loss even though his wife was already trying to comfort him. In the end they left me in a corner in charge of the cart piled with the rest of the luggage while they set out with the dwarf to search for the suitcase. Again I found it ridiculous that they had to do
everything
together.

But perhaps precisely because of this, they succeeded in
accomplishing
the impossible, fishing the suitcase out of the stormy sea of people into which it had been swept, not stolen, and loaded by
mistake onto another porter’s cart. Now it reposed on the back of the diminutive porter, dusty and battered, as if in the short time of its disappearance it had traveled across an entire
continent.
And the same thing, it seemed to me, had happened to us. New Delhi had given us the illusion that we understood the rules of India, but in Varanasi we were all gripped by a feeling of anxiety, and Lazar, whose deep sleep on the stomach of his wife had restored his alertness and vigor, instructed me in no
uncertain
terms to stick closely to him and not to start dreaming now; for indeed, with astonishing perceptiveness, he had caught me in the kind of dreaminess that sometimes took hold of me in the hospital at dawn, after a night on call, when I crossed the borderline into a new working day. “But what makes you think that he wants to dream now?” said his wife in surprise. “The dream is what’s happening here around us.” But Lazar didn’t answer her, because at that moment it seemed to him that one of the suitcases was about to fall off the cart racing ahead of us, and he rushed forward to catch it, only to trip and fall onto the platform himself. He sprang up immediately, an expression of wounded pride on his face, and also of offense, as his wife exploded into merry peals of laughter, which continued as she asked him if he had hurt himself while helping him dust off his clothes. “It’s not a dream, it’s madness,” he said, smiling at himself. “What’s going on here is total madness. Let’s get out of this station at least.” But the madness was waiting for us outside the station too, in the seething streets of the dusty, humid city, where the air was full of sweetish, colorful, unfamiliar stench. Without waiting for
instructions
, the porter hurried ahead, accompanied now by a flock of barefoot children, who stretched out filthy little hands to
finger
the smooth leather of the suitcases. “But where is he rushing to, that crazy little dwarf?” asked Lazar in astonishment. “To the hotel,” replied his wife. “The hotel?” echoed the bewildered
Lazar
. “What hotel?”

“He told me about a nice hotel overlooking the river, with a view of the bathing ghats the man in the train told us about.”

“But what hotel, Dori?” repeated Lazar in alarm, unable to believe that his wife had already come to an agreement with the little porter. “A hotel in the old city,” she replied, “next to the river.”

“Have you lost your mind, to follow a character like that to
some hotel in the old city in the middle of all the muck? What’s come over you? I don’t understand.”

But his wife was unperturbed by this outburst. “What harm can it do to try? We’ve got plenty of time. The Indian in the train said it’s the only place to find a hotel, and since we’re stuck here, at least we’ll be able to watch their ceremonies from the
window
.”

“What window?” cried Lazar. “No, no, Dori, we’re not
running
from one hotel to the next to smell the rooms this time. No,” he announced firmly, “it’s out of the question, Dori. We’re not starting to look for a hotel in the old city; even here, in the new city, it’s barely tolerable. We’ll find a decent, civilized hotel—we’re completely exhausted already, and I don’t care how much it costs,” and he hurried forward to catch up with the porter.

The little man tried to argue, but in vain. He appealed to Lazar’s wife, as if she had made him a definite promise, but Lazar cut through his pleas with a wave of his hand, and the porter, no doubt disappointed at the loss of his commission, his feelings hurt by the broken promise, turned back and began trudging through the streets until he brought us to a very fine hotel, which met with general approbation but had only one vacant room. Since Lazar had no intention of allowing us to split up in Varanasi, we set out to look for another hotel, but there were no vacancies anywhere, until we reached a brand-new hotel called Ganga Mata, which had rooms but must have been very
expensive
, for I saw Lazar hesitating, in spite of his previous
declaration
that expense was no object. In the end, however, while his wife maintained a serene silence, he said, “Never mind, it’s only for one night,” and signaled the porter to hand over the luggage to the splendidly uniformed doormen. But then I saw his wife hold out her hand to stop the porter and grab hold of her
husband’s
arm. “You’re so obstinate. If we’re only here for one night, why should we stay at an ordinary hotel, just like thousands of other hotels all over the world? This porter knows about a special hotel, overlooking the river. Why shouldn’t we try it?” she said very gently and persuasively. And Lazar raised his hand hesitantly, as if to stop the doormen, who had already taken down two suitcases, and then laid it on his head with a curious gesture, as if to show the pain of his thoughts. “You
decide,” continued his wife, “not because of the money, because of the view.” And suddenly, without any warning, Lazar gave in, announcing as he did so, “It’s your responsibility, Dori. If you don’t like the hotel there, don’t you dare say you want to come back here.” But his wife made no promises. “Trust my
intuition
,” she said. “This porter knows where he’s taking us. And besides, why shouldn’t we wander around a bit? You don’t have to carry anything. It’s still early in the day—we have time. And you’re not so tired now. You had a really good sleep in the train.”

The little porter, who had been following their conversation
intently
and guessed which way the wind was blowing even before anything was said, became filled with happiness and energy and began pulling the suitcases out of the hands of the elegant doormen and replacing them on his cart. And I said to myself, I’m nothing but a piece of luggage here myself, or a child. It doesn’t even occur to them to ask me what I think; maybe I’m very tired and I’d rather stay in this hotel. I returned the smile beamed in my direction with a sullen look, and hoisted the medical
knapsack
wearily onto my back as if to say, What choice do I have, I’m just a hired hand here. I saw that my sullen look had upset Lazar’s wife, and as we set off she turned to me and said, “
Perhaps
you would have preferred to stay here?”

“What does it matter what I prefer?” I replied with a bitter smile. “I have no say in the matter.” And I saw that this
domineering
woman was hurt, as I had intended her to be. She blushed. “Why do you say that?” She spoke in an offended tone. “Everybody says you should be close to the river—that’s where all the rites take place. And since we’re here for such a short time, we should be close to the main thing, or at least in a
position
to get a good view.”

But before reaching the River Ganges, with the view of the heavy, gray ghats lapped by its waters, we had to make our way through winding alleys so narrow and jammed with people that our agile porter had to leave his cart in one of the little shops and hire two of the barefoot children who had been following us ever since we left the train station to help him carry our luggage. It
was almost four o’clock, and there was a chill in the air, which took on a pinkish tinge. A steady procession of pilgrims, singing and playing on musical instruments, streamed purposefully toward the river, and scattered among them were young backpackers, rubbing shoulders with us on the right and the left and sometimes even smiling at me in a friendly, inviting way, as if I were one of them, for they had no way of knowing that the pack on my back was filled with medical supplies and that I was not free like them but tied to two heavy, middle-aged people in travel-creased gray clothes. Lazar looked tense and worried,
jostling
and being jostled as he hurried a few steps ahead of us in order not to lose contact with the band of children hot on the heels of the dwarf, who because of their smallness sometimes vanished completely in the crowd. The river was apparently close, for the dust of the alley turned muddy and the crowd
tightened
around us. From time to time a slender dark hand would touch my shoulder, asking me to make way for a corpse wrapped in white or yellow winding sheets, which would be carried past, raised up on steady hands, until it seemed to be floating of its own accord over the sea of heads surrounding us. I stole a look at Lazar’s wife, who was trailing behind us, picking her way fastidiously between the sewage canals and the slippery cowpats, slow but light in her low-heeled shoes, looking unsmilingly at the corpses floating through the alley to be burned on the banks of the river. She must be regretting her obstinacy now, I thought, and perhaps because she noticed the mocking smile on my face, she stopped for a moment, wiped the indiscriminating smile off hers, and called out to her husband to slow down. But Lazar was too intent on not losing the porters, who were now crossing courtyards, passing alcoves concealing gaudily painted statues and wild-haired ascetics, and finally leading us into a back alley where a very old but rather attractive country house stood,
surrounded
by dusty trees with tiny vegetable gardens planted between them. At the entrance to the house, which was decorated with dark little statues that were nothing but variations on male sexual organs painted red and black, at which Lazar stared in nervous amusement, a small group of Indians clustered,
apparently
waiting for the dwarfish porter and the new guests he was bringing from the train station. Without asking our permission, they rapidly sent the children on their way, took the suitcases,
nimbly relieved me of the knapsack, and led us up three flights of stairs covered with a torn old carpet, passing rooms full of
people
on the way. On the third floor they ushered us into a big, dim room carpeted with colorful straw mats and containing two very large beds, a closet, and wicker chairs, and without losing a
moment
, they flung open a curtain and took us out onto a little balcony full of flower pots, which in the eyes of our hosts was the justification for our coming and the fulfillment of the promise made by the porter on the station platform. And who indeed could have imagined that we would emerge from that labyrinth of narrow, winding alleys to stand before this rich, spacious view, open from horizon to horizon, with the great Ganges
flowing
through its heart, glittering in the reddening light of the
approaching
evening.