Travelers (26 page)

“You know perfectly well why I can't sleep.”

I was really getting annoyed by his attitude, and that he should be so relaxed and casual when I was—well, the way I was.

“No, why not? Tell me.”

He spoke with a sort of fake “genuine interest” that made me quite mad. I began to shout. I didn't care about waking the
people sleeping outside the door, I didn't think of them. And he seemed not to care either if anyone overheard us, for he didn't try and stop me but let me go on and say what I wanted. I reproached him for everything he had done to me over the past weeks, I demanded explanations, and I pleaded for justice. He heard me out. Once when he thought I had finished, he began to say something, but when he saw I hadn't he stopped and said, “Oh, sorry,” and let me go on. I became more and more worked up, and yet it was such a relief, after all this time, such a relief to be able to say these things to him.

When I had said everything, I stood there trembling and as if a great torrent had rushed through me and swept away bridges and boulders. After a time he asked quietly, “You have finished?”

It was very, very still in the hutment. I noticed that the slight snoring sounds that had come from outside had stopped; the two disciples must have woken up and now they too were holding their breath so as not to disturb whatever was going to happen next. I stood awaiting this. I think we all knew what it was going to be. Probably I had known before I came.

Now I was sitting on his bed with him. He was stroking me but it was as if he were doing it wrong, like stroking a cat's fur the wrong way so that the thrill consisted mainly of distaste. But I think he did it that way on purpose. He was saying, “How stupid you are, what a stupid little fool”; he said it in quite an affectionate way but that was only the beginning. He soon stopped being affectionate. He said terrible things and he did terrible things. I wanted to cry out and ask him to stop but my voice got stuck in my throat and came out in a funny whimpering sound. It was hot, stifling hot in the hutment. I didn't feel as if I were a person any more, only this awful sensation like an electric shock wriggling in the dark.
He
was the only person there. He was terrible, terrifying. He drove right on into me and through me and calling me beastly names, shouting them out loud and at the same time hurting me as much as he could.
It went on for a long time. I was exhausted but he seemed able to summon up unending waves of new energy so that he rose on them and grew stronger and stronger. I loathed him. He revolted me both with what he was doing and the vile words he was saying. The strange thing was not only did I suffer but I got bored too because it went on so long and wouldn't stop. I even began to think my own thoughts. These took me back to the time I had been with Gopi up in the hotel room overlooking the mosque. How happy that time now seemed to me, how idyllic and good. I remembered the sound of the phonograph coming up from the café downstairs and the sounds from the mosque and the market. There had been a smell of incense, or had Gopi worn a dash of some sweet scent? But next moment the memory was wiped out in a flash as Swamiji drove home again: he shouted abuse and lay panting on top of me. The hutment was dense with a greasy hot smell like of a goat, and the only sounds were my funny whimpering and his animal breathing.

When he had finished, he turned me out without another word. And I must say I was too glad to get away to want any further conversation. I got out so quickly that I caught the two disciples by surprise; they were both sitting up on their beds with their ears tuned toward the open door and their mouths dropped open. When they saw me come out, they flopped down at once and made a ridiculous attempt to pretend to be asleep. As if I gave a damn for them. I dragged myself across the compound, feeling wounded and torn; my clothes were literally torn. The dust storm had worked itself up more and the columns of dust were denser and rose high, filling the air and obscuring the moon, which was already dim enough. Now a pack of jackals began to howl, and I joined them, though not very loud but again in the same whimper I had heard coming from myself in his hutment; only now it wasn't so much in pain as in rage and disgust.

Bulbul Sings a Folk Song

After her boat ride, Asha's thoughts began to work along a line that pleased Bulbul very much. Asha spoke often now about Maupur and their home there: she spoke nostalgically, and Bulbul too was filled with nostalgia for this place where both she and Asha had been born and had grown up. Bulbul said, “Let's go, sweetheart,” with a sigh of longing, and Asha also sighed in the same way though next moment she said what was Bulbul thinking of, why should they go there, and called her fool and idiot. Bulbul was quiet then, but she was happy; she knew that an excellent start had been made. The days passed and they kept coming back to the subject of Maupur. They also spoke about Gopi. One day Bulbul quite simply brought these two subjects together by wondering how Gopi would like it in Maupur. She said she thought he would like it very much.

Outwardly, Asha's life with Banubai continued unchanged. She still cooked her meals for her, slept in her room at night; sometimes they still laughed and had fun together. But they were no longer close—or rather, Asha was no longer close to Banubai. Banubai was as she always had been, there was no change in her, she was there; but whereas formerly Asha had drawn strength from her being there, had as it were illumined herself from Banubai's flame, now she was turning away from her as if she no longer wanted or needed her.

She even began to feel uncomfortable with her. This was tolerable during the day when many people came to see Banubai, but at night, when they were alone together, and she knew Banubai to be lying there wide awake in the dark, then sometimes Asha had a queer sensation. Not of reverence, but something else. Once it became so overwhelming that she could not bear to stay with her but had to get up and leave her. She stood outside the door. She kept listening for some sound or movement from inside, but there was nothing. Yet she knew Banubai was awake: wide awake as always. Sometimes Asha suspected
that Banubai never slept at all but lay there all night in the dark, utterly silent and yet giving out a sense of tremendous activity as if she were busy spinning endless filaments of light and spirit.

Asha went into the little storeroom where Bulbul slept. Bulbul was making ugly breathing sounds through her nose; Asha hated these sounds which always accompanied Bulbul's sleep but now she was pleased to hear them. She touched Bulbul's prostrate body with her foot, and when Bulbul didn't stir, she did it again and harder. Then Bulbul gave a cry and started up. “Who is it, what?” she cried into the darkness.

“Idiot.”

“Oh, it's you, sweetheart. How you frightened me. I thought it was that witch Banubai.”

Asha stretched herself on the floor beside Bulbul. She was still full of odd sensations. Bulbul got up and began to fuss over her. Asha did not resist but allowed her to do everything she wanted. There was no pillow good enough for Asha's head, so Bulbul offered her own lap. She stroked Asha's temples, lovingly brushed the hair from her forehead: slowly, under these ministrations, Asha began to feel soothed. Her eyes closed. Bulbul began to sing. She started off with the lullabies that she had sung when Asha was a baby. “Sleep, baby, sleep, you have eaten bread and sugar, now sleep.” Then she sang a folk song about a girl looking out from her father's fortress to see if her lover was coming over the ravines. Bulbul's voice was hoarse and grating and rather wicked; with relish she sang of the awaited lover, describing his round strong arms and his thighs which were also round and strong. Asha's eyes opened and closed, closed and opened; a delicious drowsiness swept over her and yet she didn't want to sink into it because what Bulbul was singing was even more delicious.

“Again,” she said when Bulbul's song had ended.

“Go to sleep, darling.”

“No, again.”

So Bulbul sang that song again.

Lee

Asha didn't ask too many questions and didn't seem much surprised either when I said was it all right for me to stay there. She said okay and made Bulbul drag away my bundle and bedroll and dump them somewhere. She did ask once or twice about the ashram, but when I wasn't inclined to answer she didn't insist. I think it wasn't so much out of tact but because she wasn't all that interested. She wanted more to talk about herself.

Because she looked different I thought she would be different—that being here and living with a spiritual person, she would have changed. But she hasn't. She does nothing but talk about Gopi and how unhappy she is because he's going to get married. She has this fantastic plan to take Gopi away with her to that place she comes from and keep him locked up in the desert fortress or palace or whatever it is she has there. I said, “But if he's going to get married?”—and her eyes went hooded the way they do when she has tragic thoughts and she said she only wanted him for herself for a short brief while before that, to snatch a last morsel of happiness before old age and despair closed in on her forever.

I don't know why I don't like Banubai more. I can see she's very advanced spiritually, but I don't feel right with her. She's not the right person for me, that's all. I know I could never accept her as my guru. Well, that's not surprising because it's not that easy to find a guru, and there are people who spend their lives looking for one and never succeed, or only after years and years. For each particular person there's only one particular guru, and you have to look for him and look for him and when you've found him—then you're his and no one else will ever be right for you again. At least that's what people say. But I don't want to believe it. And even if it's true—all right, then from now on I'll do without anyone.

At first Banubai used to ask me about him. When I evaded her questions, she looked at me, into me, the way he's the only other one I know can look into people. I tried not to let her see anything, I lowered my eyes away from her; but I knew she could see more than I wanted her to. I didn't like that; and there was something else I didn't like and that was the way she seemed
pleased
that something had happened to take me away from him. And after a while when I didn't say anything and didn't answer any of her questions, she began to say things about him. Nothing outright but she insinuated—she said she had heard this and she had heard that, she hinted at all sorts of nasty stories that I didn't want to hear about so that whenever she started on them I got up and went away.

She began to dislike me. In the beginning she had been very friendly to me and had even made quite a fuss over me, always insisting that I should sit near her and she would put her hand on my head and say I was her new little daughter. And all the people smiled at me. It made me feel a fool; and I was also uncomfortable with her hand on my head. So I was glad when she stopped favoring me, though now she began to go in the opposite direction and she was sulky with me and turned away her face whenever I came into the room. Once when there were a whole lot of people there she even attacked me, though in an indirect way. She talked about foreigners who come to India because they are bored in the West. They pretend to be in search of spiritual values, but because they don't know what true spiritual values are, they fasten themselves on harmful elements who only help to drive them deeper down into their disturbed egos; and so not only do they themselves suffer bad consequences but also all sorts of poisonous influences are released, polluting the air breathed in by truly spiritual Indians. She didn't look at me while she was talking, but of course people guessed very easily whom she was referring to. Some of them gave me sidelong glances and I felt everyone was edging farther away from me where I sat in a corner by the door so that
I could not help feeling that perhaps I really was a polluting influence.

Asha told me not to mind. She said saints were always moody people, you never knew from one moment to the next how they were going to behave. But I didn't want to stay there any longer. And Asha said no, why should I, and then she had a marvelous new idea, she said come on, we'll all go to Maupur. Well, I didn't particularly want to go to Maupur, but where else could I go? There wasn't anywhere. She kept urging me and urging me and she said Raymond too would come with us. All four of us—she and Gopi, Raymond and I—would go and we'd have a house party there. She became very enthusiastic about this idea and began to describe the place and the marvelous time we'd have there. Bulbul came in on it too, also very enthusiastic, she kept babbling on and on (of course I couldn't understand a word she said) and she made gestures in the air with her hands as if she were drawing fantastically beautiful pictures there, scenes of splendor and delight.

Gopi Is Restless

Gopi didn't know what was happening to him. He no longer slept as well as he used to; or rather, he slept all right but not dreamlessly as before. Moreover, they were not good dreams. He could never remember what they were about, and perhaps they were not about anything but were more in the nature of sensation. This sensation was one of heaviness, a physical oppression as of a weight laid on him; and when he woke up there really was a weight, right on his stomach, and he realized it was all the food he had eaten the day before—which he had had to eat because of guests coming and going, and to oblige his aunt and the other women who were cooking so hard and urging and urging to take, to eat, to eat his fill in order to build up his strength. There were always jokes about building up his strength which he would soon be needing in plenty. Gopi pretended
to enjoy these jokes, as he pretended to enjoy the food, but really he didn't. He didn't enjoy anything. He felt during the day as he felt in the night—as if there was something too heavy lying on his stomach.

Whenever Babloo proposed an outing nowadays, Gopi agreed at once. Babloo was pleased, but not for long, for when they got to their place of entertainment Gopi remained bored and silent all the time and was soon in as great a hurry to leave as he had been to come. Babloo and his friends were hurt and insulted; but when Babloo reproached him, Gopi shrugged him off as if he didn't care for him at all. He couldn't explain anything to himself, what was there he could explain to Babloo? So he explained nothing but lived on day by day under his weight of oppression and hoped that something might happen to relieve him of it.