Travelers (20 page)

“It will be very big and costly. I'm glad you will be able to see a real Indian wedding.”

“
Your
real Indian wedding,” Raymond said. After a while he added, “When it's over I'll go home.”

“Oh, no! You must come with us to Kashmir. How can you leave India without first seeing Kashmir? Never. I wouldn't permit it.”

“You're going to Kashmir?”

“For my honeymoon. Why are you laughing?”

Raymond's laughter was full of affection. He was content. He felt everything was working out well. Gopi would get married, and after that picturesque event, Raymond would go home. It would be a fine note on which to leave. Of course there would be the sorrow of parting but even that would have its own sweetness.

Then Gopi said, “Asha is here.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Of course. I often visit her.”

Although Raymond did not ask any questions or make any comment, Gopi suddenly said with great energy: “Everything is quite changed now. Asha is staying with a very saintly lady and under her influence Asha also. . . . She is like a mother to me.”

“Who?”

“The saintly lady. . . . And Asha too.” Suddenly he got angry and shouted, “You understand nothing! Nothing! I don't want to talk to you.” He struggled up from the sofa.

Raymond said, “What did I do? Please sit down and tell me what I did.”

Gopi said, “No, I'm going,” but nevertheless sat down again, looking indignant. “I can see from your face you don't understand! You don't know anything. You have no idea of our culture. In your culture there is nothing—only sex, sex, sex—so how can you understand what it means to be mother and son, what a beautiful relationship it is for us.”

Raymond made no comment but asked instead, “What's the date of your wedding?”

Gopi shrugged in ill humor.

“I'd like to know so that I can arrange about going home. Buy my ticket and all that.”

But Gopi had no interest in Raymond's plans.

An Unsuccessful Meeting

The day Gopi took Raymond to Banubai she was in a very tender mood. There were some people with her, seeking her guidance, but as soon as Gopi entered she broke off her conversation with them and, raising both her hands, cried, “Here he is! My own little son!” She made him sit beside her on the bed. She asked him if he had slept well and what he had eaten for his breakfast; while he answered, she smoothed his hair and caressed his face. She was completely engrossed in him as a mother in her favorite child. She had no time to spare for anyone else. When Gopi introduced Raymond to her, she hardly acknowledged him beyond throwing a swift glance in his direction. This glance reminded Raymond of Swamiji, who looked at people in the same way.

Asha came in with some food she had cooked for Banubai. She too did not have much time to spare for Raymond but greeted him quite casually and as if they had met just yesterday and under similar circumstances. Banubai began to eat, but before every bite she took she first put a morsel into Gopi's mouth. He allowed himself to be fed, opening his mouth with the innocent, helpless air of a child. All the people in the room looked on with admiration. They said that Banubai had made Gopi her son the way the Lord Krishna was the son of his mother Yashoda: that indeed she saw and worshipped the Lord Krishna in Gopi and that all her playing with him was really an act of devotion. They felt privileged to be allowed to witness this act. Only Raymond did not feel privileged—in fact, he was embarrassed and did not
like to look at the charming tableau being enacted on the bed but stared in frowning concentration at the tips of his own feet.

Although Raymond did his best to hide these feelings, it seemed that nothing could be hidden from Banubai. She was very cold to him. Even when her other visitors had left and she and Gopi had finished their meal, she continued to ignore Raymond. But Asha now became very keen to talk to him. She drew him out of the room and said eagerly, “You see, you see how everything has changed.”

Raymond said, “
You
've changed.”

“That's nothing,” she said, impatiently tugging at her coarse cotton sari. “That's just outward—nothing—of no importance at all.” She regarded him with clear shining eyes.

“You look very well.”

“Look, look! That's all you can think of. What can I say to you? You don't understand anything, only the outer person.”

Raymond did not try to defend himself. He thought that perhaps it was true, perhaps he really did not understand anything. Gopi had also said so.

Anxious to change the subject, he said, “I've been seeing Lee.”

Gopi came out of Banubai's room. He said, “She is calling.” And Banubai herself called from inside the room in rather a testy voice, and when they went in she looked at them suspiciously and asked Asha, “Where did you go? What are you doing?”

“Just think,” Asha said, “Raymond has met Lee.”

Both Gopi and Banubai were interested. Banubai asked, “Is she still with—that person?” She addressed herself to Asha as if Raymond were not worthy of being spoken to.

“Is she?” Asha asked him. “Still with that Swamiji of hers?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And is she happy with him?” Banubai asked.

Raymond hesitated for a moment, then he said, “I think so. Or rather,
she
thinks so. So I suppose she must be.”

Banubai was interested, but she still didn't address herself
directly to Raymond. Instead she continued to use Asha as an intermediary. “How does she think herself to be happy?” And when Raymond could not think of a definite reply quickly enough, she went on impatiently, rapping out her words—“How? In what way? Like someone who is satisfied and has found what she is looking for?”

Raymond tried his best to answer truthfully. It was not easy for him, since he couldn't really tell what was the truth from Lee's point of view, or from Banubai's either. He spoke with English slowness and caution. “She
may
have found what she was looking for. I couldn't be sure. Yes, perhaps she has.”

Banubai flung up her hands in exasperation. “Such things are not may—they are not perhaps! They cry out like a trumpet! With a royal sound! A godly sound! They cry out yes! And again, yes!” Her hands remained raised in the air; she looked and sounded like a prophetess. To Gopi and Asha she was an inspiring figure but Raymond found himself embarrassed again.

Banubai leaned forward keenly. She said, “You can see Asha and my little boy, how they are with me. There is no need to ask are they happy. There is no may here, no perhaps.” This time she addressed herself directly to Raymond and she looked at him directly too. And again, as he met her penetrating glance, he was reminded of Swamiji, and it seemed to him that like Swamiji she was good at reading other people's thoughts.

She seemed at any rate to have read his. She behaved as if he were no longer there. She began to engross herself in her prayers. The beads slipped through her fingers, her lips moved, her eyes filmed over. Asha made a respectful sign to Gopi to lead Raymond away. Gopi too looked very respectful and he tiptoed up to Raymond and took his arm to lead him outside.

“What do you think of her?” Gopi asked as soon as they were outside, but answered himself: “She is a great spiritual person. You know what she is doing now? She is going into samadhi. She is in direct communication. Her spirit is merging with the One. She is a saint,” he said, aglow.

“I don't think she thought much of me.”

Gopi waved this aside: “Saints are different from others. You cannot interpret their actions. Of course she likes you, what do you mean? She loves you.”

“Oh, does she?”

“She loves everyone. She is my mother. She is everyone's mother.”

A Reading in the Ashram

Lee was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her hutment, meditating. She didn't take any notice of Raymond. Margaret was lying on a bed and she also took no notice of him. However, since she did not appear to be meditating, he spoke to her. He said, “Aren't you feeling well?”

She answered in a distinct voice, spacing her words: “I—am—not—ill.” She said it as if it were a gramophone record she had put on for the benefit of people who had been bothering her with such questions.

When Lee had finished, she got up off the floor. She greeted Raymond with “When did you come?” but obviously she wasn't interested in an answer, so he didn't give any. He said, “Asha wants to see you.”

That too failed to interest Lee. She was about to leave the hutment when Margaret called out to her, “Where are you going?”

“Why don't you just rest,” Lee said and went out. Raymond stayed by Margaret's bed. He put out his hand to feel her temperature but she pushed him aside.

“I'd like to bring a doctor,” Raymond said.

She began to cry; tears rolled down her sick face. She said, “Get out, leave me alone.”

Raymond caught up with Lee. He said, “She's very ill.”

“That's what I keep telling her.” She went on walking. Raymond caught her arm and said, “Wait a minute.” She didn't want to but she stopped still. Raymond said, “We'd better get a doctor out from town.”

“She doesn't want to see anyone. She says she's all right.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“I know, but she gets so angry. She's terribly irritable. Actually, I think it's her stomach. She hates the food here; even the smell of it makes her sick.”

She looked past Raymond toward the tree where Swamiji sat. Swamiji waved to them and Lee wrenched her arm free and hurried toward him. There was a cluster of disciples sitting around his cot, and Evie was reading to all of them from a big book which lay open in her lap. Lee made her way through the circle and went up to Swamiji's cot. She touched his feet, crouching down like a good and humble disciple, but he had eyes only for Raymond. He beamed with pleasure and said, “So you have come to pay us a visit.” He waved some disciples aside to make room, but Raymond wouldn't sit down. Swamiji looked at him in his keen way and asked, “What has happened?”

“He's worried about Margaret,” Lee said.

“Yes, she's not feeling up to the mark these days,” Swamiji said regretfully. He turned to one of the women sitting round his cot and asked, “Did you give her those powders?”

“She couldn't keep them down,” Lee reported.

Swamiji clicked his tongue in pity. Then he beamed again at Raymond: “You have come very auspiciously. I thought and thought about you all last night and wished oh, if Raymond would come. And today you have come. You must have heard me calling you. So it is true, you see—I have very special powers.” He laughed.

Raymond was still standing. His Adam's apple went up and down in agitation. “I could get a doctor out here or I could take her back to town with me.”

“Let him hold it,” Swamiji said to Evie. She took the book from which she had been reading and gave it to Raymond. It was the same bulky manuscript they had brought to the hotel.

“There it is,” said Swamiji. “Our first fruits. Our first child.” He and Evie both smiled with pride and so did everyone else there. “We are now in your hands,” Swamiji said. “We have
placed our hearts and hopes in you. It is all up to you now.” He waved his hand to express the abandonment of all care for the manuscript.

But Raymond stood holding it as if he didn't know what to do with it. He looked down at it; actually he felt like flinging it on the ground and maybe stamping on it. Swamiji noticed his preoccupied look and gently took the book away from him.

“Come,” he said, “leave it with me for a little while longer. I feel,” he said with his smile, “like the father giving away his daughter to a husband's home—only one moment longer, he begs, let me hold her in my arms for this one last time.” He ran his hands over his manuscript and some of the disciples breathed “Ah” in blessed contentment. He passed the book back to Evie and asked her to continue her reading. She did so joyfully.

“On Friday morning after breakfast we were all sitting under the tree. We were discussing an incident that had happened the day before which had had a very bad effect on some of us. A stray dog had been found lying injured near the ashram. It was in a very bad state and cried and cried and touched our hearts to pity. Lee especially was very much affected. She wanted to have it put out of its misery. But Swamiji would not allow it. The dog howled all night. She went again to Swamiji and begged for his permission but again he would not grant it. He said the dog would be dead in the morning. And so it happened. But Swamiji saw that Lee was still very much upset, so he explained the whole matter to her. He said, ‘Everything must be experienced to the end. This is true for a dog as for a man, as for a bud on a tree. Everything must unfold and ripen. There is sunshine and gentle breezes and there is rain and bitter storms. We must accept and enjoy, or accept and endure, as the case may be. Because we need both enjoyment and endurance, both sun and storm, so that we may ripen into our fullest possibility. Isn't it wonderful that even a dog should be allowed to grow into such ripeness! And if for a dog, then how much more for a human being!'”

There was a murmur of appreciation from the listeners. Swamiji too appeared to enjoy and approve of the thoughts expressed. Evie looked as if this reading had done her good in her innermost soul, and her face was radiant with love and bliss. She looked so gentle, so good, so full of kindness for all created beings that Raymond was stirred to appeal to her.

“I really think she ought to be in a hospital. I could take her back with me now—I have a taxi waiting—or if you think that's better I'll bring a doctor out—”

Before he had finished speaking, she had turned away from him, still with that smile of goodness and love, and fixed her gaze on Swamiji. Everyone else was looking at Swamiji in the same way. Raymond left them to go back to Margaret.