For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

  “Do you have money?” he asked.

  “I can change some more.”

  “Good. You can fly to Mysore City. I will show you what to do after that. I only wish I could go with you. Elliot and I have a firm friendship.”

  Mehrotra led her into his shop. He shoved several volumes of Schopenhauer, Hume, and Tagore onto the floor. Several notebooks he pushed more gently onto his chair. From a drawer he extracted an ancient atlas printed in German, and paged through the faded color areas.

  “This is the Cauvery River,” Mehrotra said matter-of-factly. “It is like the Ganges, a holy river.”

  Janice watched, fascinated as the lean brown finger traced the path southeast from Mysore City into the mountains and then to the valley of the upper Cauvery.

  “You see? Not so far,” he said smoothly. “From Mysore City there is a train. To Kotagiri. Then you must take a bus—I will write down its name—going east toward Erode, then it goes south. Right here”—he indicated an area where few village names were inscribed on the map—“is the ashram.”

  The empty area on the old map looked intimidating. There were German phrases in parentheses which seemed to indicate the central mountains were poorly explored.

  “How do I know when I get to the ashram?” she finally asked.

  “It is a Hindu temple and it is dedicated to Tejo Lingam—the fire incarnation of God. I can write that down for you.”

  Mehrotra sat at his desk and in a lovely calligraphy wrote out the name of the ashram. On a separate sheet of paper, he wrote a brief description of the ashram’s location, in various languages.

  “In case nobody speaks English, just show them this,” he said, handing her the letter. “But pilgrims go there all the time. You will have no difficulty.”

  Janice gingerly took the letter. She folded it and put it carefully into her handbag. For a long time, she looked at the gleaming brassware on curved trays, many hanging from silver chains over the shop.

  “Please tell Elliot that I—” Mehrotra faltered. “That I have been unable to come this year, but that I look forward to seeing him again in Benares.”

  Moved by the depth of his feeling, Janice agreed. She thanked him, they shook hands, then Janice stood up. Mehrotra looked very sad.

  “You will have good luck. I will pray for you.”

  She smiled, waved good-bye as she stepped away, and it was only when she reached the empty boulevards of the residential area that the anxiety returned. She stepped resolutely into the hotel.

  12

  I need to fly to Mysore City,” she told the desk clerk. “Can you connect me with the proper airline?”

  “Mysore City?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Of course.”

  In fifteen minutes, all was set. At 9:55 in the morning, a plane would leave, stopping only once at Hyderabad. Trains for Kotagiri left only twice daily, but there seemed to be an hour for her to make the connection, provided she reserve a seat immediately. She did so, through the clerk, and he advised her to wait until they reached Kotagiri before attempting to locate the proper bus.

  “Mrs. Templeton,” the desk clerk asked, in a changed tone of voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Excuse me, but why are you going to such a place?”

  “To visit an ashram.”

  “But there are plenty of ashrams, much more famous, much more beautiful.”

  Janice looked at him quizzically. The desk clerk cleared his throat.

  “What I mean to suggest, Mrs. Templeton, is that this area has been under attack.”

  “Attack?”

  “Not exactly attack. One should say, a small rebellion. Really, they are only bandits with a flag, but still, I would advise you…”

  “Is the area unsafe?”

  “Not exactly unsafe. Only there are no conveniences. The post offices are not reliable. There is no television. Even the telephones are a matter of good karma.”

  He laughed feebly at his own witticism. Janice smiled.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be very careful.”

  “If I could advise you…?”

  “Yes. Please do.”

  “When you go south of Kotagiri, do not travel at night.”

  “Thank you,” Janice said, smiling graciously. “Good night.”

  She slept well, considering that she felt she had just walked off a gangplank. All decisions had been made. If not tomorrow night, then the night after, she would finally see Elliot Hoover. Surely he would know the trials she had gone through to see him. Kindness was the core of his being. That alone would force him to respond, to help them. And if he didn’t?

  Mercifully, sleep came before an answer did.

  This time the flight seemed to last days, not hours. It was late afternoon when she touched down at Mysore City. It was early evening by the time she secured her seat on the train. The night was sultry, and it smelled like stagnant water.

  It was not until 10:45 that the train chugged unevenly into the dirty town of Kotagiri. Remembering what the desk clerk in Benares had recommended, and longing for a clean bath and some sleep, Janice went in search of a tourist office. It was closed. There were no taxis.

  She carried her small suitcase down the street. A small “hotel” sign blinked on and off. No answer. She knocked again. A sound of muffled steps. A man in a dirty undershirt looked out at her, blinking in surprise.

  “One night,” Janice said, holding up a single finger, gesturing sleep.

  The man nodded. Janice entered the hotel and instantly regretted it. It smelled of stale beer and urine. Outside, Kotagiri looked even worse. The man closed the door. From his desk, he pulled out a battered ledger, turned on a small amber desk lamp and pulled out a black fountain pen, carefully shaking it three times. He wrote out the cost and handed it to her on a slip of paper.

  Janice paid him the rupees. He seemed surprised that she did not argue. He beckoned her to follow, and they went up a narrow staircase. Her room was barely wide enough for the bed and standing room. The bathroom was down the hall.

  As she undressed, she smelled the changed atmosphere in the South. It was impregnated with rain, and yet the rain remained in the clouds. Unwilling to bathe in the dirty bathroom, she washed standing up at the cracked basin. Mrs. Templeton, she thought wryly to herself, you have stayed in fleabag hotels in your time, but this one not even a self-respecting flea would come to.

  On the street below, a police car drove by, and behind it a dark convoy truck with about ten soldiers bumping along in the back, rifles pointed up.

  Janice felt reluctant to climb into the sheets. The smell of rain increased, and several times Janice looked out the window. Rain would have been lovely since it would have broken up the pressure in the atmosphere. But each time she looked, it was the identical dusty, caked iron railing that she saw. Perspiring in the hot night, she fell into an uncomfortable sleep. In the morning, she needed something to drink, but she refused to touch the water from the tap. At the bus station, not far from the train station, she bought a warm bottle of Coca-Cola.

  The morning was overcast and even more humid. A bright, painful haze was scattered over Kotagiri, so that nobody cast shadows. It was all subsumed in the overcast heaviness of a rain-filled sky that did not rain. Janice waited in line behind short, round-limbed men who argued excitedly among themselves. She was reminded of Mexico, the relaxed pace of life that had something lethal in it.

  She showed her note to the man behind the ticket cage. He wrote out the cost with a contemptuous air, and she paid. At 11:25 there was an announcement over the loudspeaker; the ticket seller waved to get her attention, then pointed to the bus coughing smoke outside. Janice emerged into the main yard, followed the dark-coated men into the bus, and sat down in the back. As the bus pulled away, a few spires rose into view, and some leafy streets, but Janice hoped she would never again see Kotagiri for the rest of her life.

  As the bus continued east, then cut to the south, Janice saw mountain ranges to
both the east and west. The land was rolling, green and gray where the boulders were stacked, and there were no fences. It looked unbounded, wild, and primitive. The villages the bus rumbled through were composed of mud-encrusted wood huts, many with thatch intertwined on the roof, and rusted iron which helped support the porch pillars. Children watched in amazement, a curious passivity on their lovely faces, as though the bus belonged to a different, and superior, solar system.

  The road turned pink, then red. The villages were fewer and farther in between, smaller, and now no children came to gawk. Army soldiers watched, bored, at key crossroads.

  Janice felt certain that the ashram could not have taken this long to reach. She went to the front of the bus and showed the driver the note that Mehrotra had written. The driver became so confused, he stopped the bus in the middle of the highway and engaged the entire crowd of passengers in a heated argument concerning its location. Then he gestured for Janice to sit down, and he started the engine and serenely drove on.

  A sudden spasm shook her abdomen, making her gasp. Silently, she cursed whatever it was that made Western digestive systems vulnerable to half the world.

  The driver stopped the bus and motioned for Janice to step forward. As she came near the driver’s seat, he pointed to a small dirt road just off the highway.

  “Ashram?” Janice asked again and again, and showed him her note.

  He brushed her note aside and pointed to the dirt road. He opened the door and ushered Janice out into the blazing day. Another man gently handed her the suitcase and with a smile pointed to the dirt road. The bus coughed, ground its gears, and rumbled on, ever uphill, toward the distant southern peaks.

  Janice had never felt so lost. She fought back tears. Who the hell knew how far away the ashram really was? Was it just a short walk up the road? Or far across the valley? Or in some no-man’s-land where the soldiers forbade entrance to tourists?

  Janice walked down the road raising brown dust over her trousers. From time to time she paused, catching her breath. Though she was thirsty, she would have to wait until she got to the ashram. Not only would they have a well, they would take pains to boil the water for her first. Janice came to the top of the slope. There was no ashram.

  There was a gentle valley, covered in loose deciduous forest. She noticed that the road continued down the slope toward the forest. Maybe the ashram was tucked among the thick trees. It made sense, that feeling of being reclusive in the woods.

  Janice crossed the top of the slope. The road twisted down into the darkness of the forest. As she walked, she felt certain that the ashram must be around the next curve. Monkeys leaped among the treetops, screeching. The trees became so dense and the clouds so dark, that it was like night. The sweat had long since ruined her blouse and her trousers, and the ubiquitous red clay soiled her sandals like a tanduri food dye. The suitcase pulled heavily at her arm. She looked for the orange robes among the trees, but saw only the thick, tangled roots of trees that seemed perched halfway into the air.

  She became frightened that she might pass the ashram without seeing it. It might be disguised in the thickets, the shrine being no more than a conglomeration of vines, branches, and a tiny stone sculpture. Perhaps it had a secret entrance. Janice had heard of religious orders holed up in caves turned into temples.

  The forest cover became so thick that, had the rain finally broken, she would not have noticed. She listened to the birds making a raucous din overhead. The whole of India seemed to be screeching at her, warning her not to enter. At least, if the animals of the forest set up a racket, she thought, the ashram would immediately know a stranger had come. Surely at least one member would have the curiosity to take a look. A Western woman in the foothills. Hoover would have to catch wind of that. If Hoover was anywhere around at all.

  There was a sound of heavy wooden wheels. Janice stopped. Out of the gloom of the down-winding road came a farmer, his ragged black hair plastered down with dirt and sweat. His clothes were so dirty that there was no color under the caked earth and dung on them. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Janice. As she approached, she took out Mehrotra’s letter and gently showed it to him. He backed away, being illiterate, frightened of the script. He picked up the support poles of his cart and began hurrying up the trail.

  “Ashram?” Janice shouted after him, feeling like a fool.

  He cast one dark glance backward over his shoulder, turned the corner and was gone. Janice listened to the silence. It was an uncanny silence. A second ago the monkeys, birds, and chattering insects had kept up a din of voices, and now it was silent. As soon as she had shown the farmer the note, like a magic talisman, everything had become still. Now when she walked, her own footsteps made the only sound.

  Her sandals padded softly on the dark red clay, winding down, down toward the river. There were no clearings in the forest, only the rank, primeval growth. Gradually, as she walked, distraught, the chatter of the forest began again, until the air was filled with a shrill crescendo of screams.

  Then she saw a marker: a post painted red at the top. Within the red paint was an image. She leaned closer. It was a crude carving of a tiger. A smaller path led from the post into the depths of the forest. She paused. It was obvious that something lay at the end of the path. But what? Tejo Lingam meant incarnation of fire, or something about fire—not tiger. Still, the path invited her. It wound gently into the darkness, through the creeping vines and the glossy plants that looked like a hothouse gone rebellious. What attracted her was that the path was neatly cut. Somebody tended it. It was the kind of activity that a religious order would do—like the Temple in Manhattan—that neatness, that manicured care which expressed internal harmony.

  Janice looked down the path, walked twenty paces, and saw the path emerging from the woods into the sultry fields again. She returned to the tiger post. She glared down at the hideous face, cut so deep that the vermilion paint had filled in the carved lines, making a pure red against the grain of the wood. Janice took a deep breath and entered the narrow path.

  13

  No sunlight filtered down through the woods. Only a gray, leaden light that seemed to belong to the Pleistocene Era, it was so rank, so humid. Orchids burst into glorious sprays of white overhead, but they no longer looked beautiful, they looked carnivorous in some strange way. She avoided huge, glistening black beetles under her feet.

  There was a second tiger post. The path continued, meandering into thickets. The birds flew low under the canopy of overhanging leaves, diving among the vines. There was a third post, a fourth. Then she smelled smoke far away, coming in low through the cool, dry odor of rotting roots and dead logs. Janice paused to catch her breath.

  She knew Elliot Hoover was near. This was his landscape. Primeval. Frightening. Yet strangely beautiful. He would have the courage to live here, in prayers and ritual, afraid of nothing. There was something savage in his faith, some power that Janice never comprehended. Yet it was for that strength, for that charismatic compassion, that she had come so far, against every shouting voice in her conscience. For Bill. It seemed so strange that her destiny had led her to such a hideously lovely forest, so far from home, so alien to everything she knew. She suddenly wondered if Bill knew where she was. And was there something deep inside her that wanted to see Elliot Hoover, not for Bill, but for herself? Janice became frightened. The thoughts had a life of their own, as though the tangled wealth of forest creepers, flaming flowers, and glittering leaves had whispered their own ideas into her brain. Was she just frightening herself with false ideas? Or was a dark truth emerging, now that she was on the threshold of finding him?

  She walked on. Abruptly, there was a pair of tiger posts, and then a clearing. Yellow, dry grass grew where the forest had been cleared, an island of tranquility surrounded by dense undergrowth. The yellow grass was parched, sloped upward to a small house made of forest logs tied together. Inside the hut—it had no door—was a smooth, polished floor, and it looked like burnis
hed mahogany. There was brass, or gold, gleaming inside the hut, and a vermilion image of a deity rising from the painted flames, and next to it several ocher bowls hanging from the roof.

  Next to the shrine was a second, longer house. Janice now saw men on its porch, and her heart raced violently.

  They were all Hindus, their bodies short, rounded, faces down low to the ground as they conversed. They wore carmine cloth tucked up into their belts, and their hair was so greasy or pomaded that it glistened from across the empty field.

  Janice desperately looked between the two buildings. There was no Hoover. A figure came from behind the long house, carrying a bucket of water. The figure was tall, his slender shoulders sloped slightly from the weight of the load. Janice gasped. As the figure turned, she saw that the face was aboriginal, flat-nosed, nearly black, and the slim limbs graceful and jet black. Two more figures came into view as Janice walked slowly toward the compound. They tended a rusted can strung over a fire by a single wire on stick supports. Neither was Elliot Hoover.

  Janice took another step, left the path, and entered the compound itself, where a small gate had been erected with a small brass bell. Suddenly, one of the men tending the fire leaped to his feet and raced forward, his orange robe flying behind. He waved his arms violently at her.

  “No woman!” he shouted. “No woman!”

  “But I must find—”

  “No! Forbidden!”

  Backing away at his vehemence, Janice was appalled at the ferocity of his black pupils, the narrow slits of anger that the eyes had become. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would kill her if necessary to preserve the sanctity of the ashram.

  “Elliot Hoover,” Janice called from the path where she had retreated. “An American! Is Elliot Hoover here?”

  But the man only glared at her. Janice backed away farther to the edge of the forest. Satisfied, the man walked slowly back to the fire and sat down cross-legged, poking at the coals with a sharpened stick.