Three Continents (18 page)

I said “But he could have told me himself.”

She laughed outright: “He said he was too shy.” She laughed louder, at the absurdity of it. It was absurd—Crishi shy! And on such a topic: and when he had just been with me himself—he must have gone straight from my bedroom to hers. I couldn't help laughing too, so we both did together for a while.

She said “Poor boy, we shouldn't laugh. Because he's really very serious about you, Harriet darling. He says he feels about you as he has never before felt for anyone, dear.” She put her finger under my chin to tilt up my face, studying it to see if I was worth so much consideration. She seemed to decide that on the whole yes, while with her other hand she lifted up my hair and rearranged it a little, trying out whether it wouldn't suit me better that way.

“He's a funny boy,” she went on, smiling again at the thought of him. “You'd think he is a very bold and dashing type—and he is—if I were to tell you the things he has done—”

“Yes, tell me,” I said.

“I will, one day. But today I want to tell you about the other Crishi. The little boy Crishi. The shy little Crishi who came to me last night and said ‘Rani, help me.' He can be so sweet, Harriet, I can't tell you. Just irresistible.”

She was still playing around with my hair, but I put my hand up and disengaged myself from her.

“He's like my own son to me,” she said. “Sometimes I think that's why he's there—why he was sent—to take the place of my own little boy who was taken from me. No I don't want to talk about that now, Harriet,” she said, deeply sad. “But I will one day.”

When she started playing with my hair again, I let her. At the same time I surreptitiously studied her: Was she really old enough to be Crishi's mother? I was sitting very close to her, beneath her peacock chair. Her skin was absolutely smooth and glowing, peach-colored; her eyes and deep-auburn hair sparkled with health; and the only indication that she was not quite young anymore was a certain fullness of her chin and jawline, hardly yet the beginning of a future double chin.

“One day I'll tell you about him and me and all of us, Harriet. How we found each other. What we are to each other.”

“Hadn't you better tell me now?”

She stroked my cheek and smiled at me—on me—very lovingly. “That's not what he asked me to talk to you about. Not at all. Not about him and me but about him and you. A very different story altogether, Harriet dear.”

I was beginning to feel smothered. She was too close to me, too large and smooth, too creamy and perfumed: a fleshy flower of too strong a scent. Or was it that my mind was in such turmoil with what she had told me, and hadn't told me, that I had to put some distance between us to allow me to think. I got up abruptly, and the stool she had pulled up for me fell over. I exclaimed “I don't understand this!” and began to pace around the room, which was too small for much pacing and full of little wicker stools and tables to stumble over.

“Oh dear,” said the Rani, “I've made a mess of it.” Although she was blaming herself, she remained calm and self-possessed: “I put it wrong. It's my fault entirely, Harriet; absolutely.” She went on, still relaxed and in command, “I did my best, but you have to admit that it's something very, very difficult to do for another person. It's impossible. He's just put me in an impossible situation, that's all. He should never have asked me.”

“But why did he! Why did he ask you!”

“I wish you'd come and sit down.”

There was a hint of sharpness in her voice. I hesitated for a moment—why should I obey her? Nevertheless, I did. After all, I did want to go on talking because what she was saying was of such overwhelming interest to me: more interesting than anything that had ever been said to me in all my life.

“That's better,” she said, when I picked up the stool and seated myself at her feet again. “You can't shout this sort of thing across a room. It's difficult enough as it is.” She fondled me again—my hair, my cheek, my neck; and as the Rawul had been tender as a father, she was so as a mother. And physically, in spite of her youthfulness and beauty, there was something maternal about her; probably it was her abundant bosom, so different from Lindsay's tight little breasts, which
I had inherited. I felt tempted to lay my head on that bosom—perhaps she wanted to tempt me that way, knowing in what great need I was at that point of love and support.

“Do you like him very much?” she suddenly whispered to me. “Very very very much?” And then she did what the Rawul had done earlier—she drew me down to rest against her. It was as if that fleshy flower was enfolding me completely, so that I wanted to fly off like an insect from a trap; but also I wanted to stay and sink down there in all her warmth and softness; and when she whispered again, “Do you? Very much? Tell me how much,” I shut my eyes and did sink—or would have if she hadn't pushed me away, smiling a little bit. “Of course you do,” she said. “How can you help it?” and gave my cheek a dismissive little slap.

Normally I would have gone straight to Michael and told him about this extraordinary conversation. But the way things were, I didn't. That evening we went swimming by the waterfall—if I had expected Crishi to give me soulful, searching glances, and perhaps part of me did, it didn't happen. Everything was as usual—that is, cheerful and nice. He didn't come that night, perhaps to let me think his—or the Rani's—proposition over. She didn't mention it again, and I hovered around her, hoping she would. I so longed to talk about it, but the way she and Crishi carried on was as though she and I had never spoken. The routine of the house continued in its orderly, disciplined way, with a part to play for everyone—from the Rawul in the drawing room to the watchmen by the gate and Else Schwamm with her helpers in the kitchen. And underneath everything there was the groundswell of emotional tension I had already noticed among the followers—but drowned out for me by our own disturbances: Michael's and mine, Lindsay's and Jean's, the original inhabitants of the house whose lives had been so plowed up and changed by the Rawul and his party.

One could say that the change was good—anyhow, exciting—for everyone except Jean. We might have gained, but she had lost—her position in the house, her life with Lindsay, her contentment, everything. If I had been less absorbed maybe I would have had more sympathy instead of being as irritated with her as everyone else. She struck such a discordant
note with her tear-stained face, swollen and middle-aged, and the way she dragged around without occupation; and her constant bickering with Lindsay, or outright fights, so that they lived in a state of exasperation with each other, which made Lindsay hide from her whenever possible. Jean could be seen wandering around the house and grounds searching for her and probably unaware herself that tears were running down her face. It was awful, but as I said, none of us had the time to spare any thought for her.

All my thoughts were concentrated on waiting for Crishi to follow up the Rani's proposal. When he didn't, I began to wonder if he was waiting for me to make the next move: to give him my answer, as it used to be called. I didn't think much about what that answer would be, but only how and when I would be called upon to make it. When I wasn't, I became frantic. He didn't even say anything when he came to my bedroom again—at last—the second night after my talk with the Rani. He carried on as usual, and I have to admit that I was so anxious for this to proceed, that I carried on with him; and it was only afterward, when he was very sleepy—he had rolled away from me and was curled up in a sleeping position—that I asked him: “What's all this the Rani was talking about? Or don't you know?”

“Of course I know,” he said, without turning around. I poked my finger in his back; it was firm and smooth and I liked the sensation and did it again. “Ouch,” he said. “Don't.”

“But you have to say
some
thing.”

“What?” he said. “What do you want me to say?” But now he did turn toward me. “Anyway, I thought she'd said it all for me.”

“That's another thing: How could you let her? How could you ask her to?”

“Oh but didn't she tell you?” He was lying on his back looking up at me where I sat over him, scanning his face. “Didn't she tell you I was too shy?”

I continued to scan his face—which he kept very serious for as long as possible. When I saw his lips twitching, I said “Oh God, Crishi,” and collapsed on top of him. We both laughed and kissed and rolled around together, so I guess that was his way of confirming the Rani's proposal.

Anyhow, I assumed that it
was
confirmed and wondered what the next step would be. Nobody made one; it seemed left to me. I decided that I had to tell Michael and thought this would be very hard, but it turned out not to be so. Michael didn't pretend that he had known all along, but he certainly showed no surprise. He seemed pleased rather than anything else; he said it was a good idea.

“A good idea!” I exclaimed. Since I had never thought of getting married, I had never thought how Michael might react: but certainly not like this.

Unaware that he was disappointing me, he went on calmly: “You don't have to be so torn now, about giving the houses and joining the movement and all of that.”

“Joining the movement,” I repeated, feeling sad.

“Yes, you'll just be part of it. It'll make it much easier for Crishi.”

“Oh is that what you think? That he wants to marry me so he can get hold of everything? . . . What are you saying, Michael?” I knew that consideration was there and might even be uppermost in a lot of people's minds; but I hadn't expected it to be in Michael's.

And of course it wasn't; not in such a crude way. “Be reasonable,” he said. “Think for a moment. Stop walking up and down. Come on.” When I was calm enough and sitting close by him, he said “Don't you think it's better to marry more than just a person—to marry
for
something, beyond that person?”

“No,” I said. “No. No. I don't think so. I'm marrying just a person. Just Crishi.”

Michael looked pale and stubborn. There was something he was hiding, didn't want to say. Not that he didn't believe what he said—about marrying beyond a person, for something better and higher, some ideal held in common: Michael did live and think on that level. But not entirely. He wasn't as cold as people thought he was—didn't I know that better than anyone from the feelings he had for me?

I said “If you don't want it, I won't do it. It won't happen.” I hadn't expected myself to say that, but I meant it and was going to stick by it. Let Michael decide. It was a relief. But it made him furious: “What do you mean? What do I know about such things or care about them? You know very well
I'll never marry anyone, thank God,” he said, gritting his teeth. “So don't involve me.”

“Did you think I'd never marry anyone too?”

But it was what both of us had thought. When we were small, I used to say so all the time—how when I grew up, I was going to live with Michael. Later, I no longer said it but still meant it, and I was sure he did too. It was like a promise to each other we had been born with.

Now that was changing, and it was I who was changing it. But I couldn't do so without his consent, and again I asked him for it: “If you don't want it, it won't happen.”

He became more exasperated: “But I've said, haven't I, it's a good idea. I want it. I like it!” he shouted.

“Because I'm marrying a movement?”

He gritted his teeth again and came out with “And Crishi.”

“You're glad because it's Crishi?” I had never been like that with him—pushing him, making him say things that he didn't want to say but I wanted to hear.

And there was something else I wanted to hear but didn't ask: that question between us—did Crishi go to him on the nights he didn't come to me—remained unspoken. But supposing it was true? Supposing we did share him? It seemed ideal that, if I had to marry, it should be someone we both loved—and in such an intense physical way, which was the one way that had been left out of our love, Michael's and mine.

Perhaps he was thinking along the same lines, because he relaxed suddenly and said “It's okay. It really is.”

“What's okay? Joining the movement?”

“Yes that.”

“Giving the house?”

“Yes that.”

“Crishi?”

“Yes that. There—that's three times yes and no sage ever gives more. Which they call
tyad
,” he quoted from one of those old texts he was forever into. He grinned, and I guess if we had been the hugging sort we would have done it. He looked so sweet, with his slightly crooked grin, his seafarer's eyes in his very white face, and his freckled nose: dearer to me than anyone, still, even now.

T
HE interest that my intended marriage to Crishi might have generated at this time was usurped by a publicity event. The Rawul was very keen on publicity, for he considered it the best way to penetrate into—this is how he put it—the minds of men, the hearts of nations, and the core of the world. Up till now his access to it had been limited to our local paper, some call-in radio programs, and the pamphlets and bulletins that were compiled at Propinquity and sent out around the country. As a result there had been some stir of interest, if not quite on a national level, at least from peripheral publications and from groups and individuals of similar belief in global reform. Each of these stirrings was greeted by the Rawul as a straw in the wind, and as we kept on generating our wind of pamphlets, more and more straws came flying in our direction, so I guess the whole thing was really building up. The Rawul was particularly pleased and satisfied—he had a way of gleefully rubbing his hands when he felt like that—because a free-lance writer and journalist was coming to do an in-depth study of our movement. She was called Anna Sultan, and the Rawul seemed to think she was very famous; none of us had ever heard of her. Her visit was being prepared for as an important event, and one that put my own marriage plans entirely in the shade.