Dreams of Rivers and Seas

by Tim Parks

  JOHN STOPPED. IT was most unusual for him to write off the top of his head like this. Except for the small electric fans over every workstation, the crowded room might have been an Internet café on the upper Edgware Road. The people looked much the same, intent and elsewhere, with their bits of food in paper, their heads jerking up and down from keyboard to screen.

  It’s great that they called you from the theatre, especially after you thought you’d screwed up.

  He stopped again. His girlfriend had sent three or four text messages in rapid succession: they had phoned her; she had gone to see the director; he was okay after all, rather sweet in fact. John felt again that he was in the wrong part of the planet. His body seemed acutely aware of this geographical dislocation.

  Typing with two fingers, he started to say how much he was looking forward to making love to her again. He paused. He couldn’t decide whether to write fucking or making love. There was a facile patter they used: the bald cavalier would once again rise and pay homage to the bearded lady, etc. etc. It was childishly stupid, but cosy. He yearned to be back in that cosiness. Had it actually been necessary to come to his father’s funeral? He imagined Elaine’s elastic body yielding to his; bliss; after which, all day in the lab with the centrifuge, the computer, the samples in the big fridge. That was the life that made sense. John broke off, opened another copy of Explorer, called up Google and typed in: ‘Albert James anthropologist’.

  The screen filled with entries. Most of them seemed to be references to articles in obscure journals of years before. Nothing recent. John’s eye ran down them with a strange anxiety. This was what was left of Father. Virtual fragments. They might drift out here on the Net for decades, long after his ashes had been carried down to the ocean. Nothing ages or decomposes on the Net. On the third page he found: ‘James, Albert: The Originality of Sin, paper delivered at the Theosophical Society, Zurich, 1989.’ Remembering Dr Coom-whatever-he-was, John clicked and scrolled:

  ‘And behold the world was symmetrical,’ he read, ‘and as such, largely redundant. Every animal had its mate. The female could be deduced from the male and the male from the female. Every living thing grew into its necessary shape. This was a world of specular form. That is why it was called a garden. Its symmetrical nature annihilated time. Every element reflected its other half in perfect stasis.’

  John scrolled rapidly down the text. Dad had lost the plot even before the nineties. He checked his watch. Any moment now his driver would come to get him.

  ‘… officially, of course, the Serpent tempted Man with the lure of knowledge. This is possibly the most extraordinary red herring in history. Or rather, it is the red herring that makes history possible. Consider, ladies and gentlemen: the real crime, surely, was not to eat the apple for knowledge. How could we feel ashamed of wishing for knowledge? The sin was to eat the apple – to think of eating any apple – for a reason that had nothing to do with apples, a reason that was not appetite, not part of the ecologically perfect symmetry of the garden. Behold, the beginning of magic and technique.’

  What on earth was the man on about? John stared at the screen. All his life his father had been obsessed by the forms and shapes of things: of crabs and leaf veins, of beetles and crystals. ‘The shape of behaviour,’ he used to say. ‘The shape of life.’

  ‘The demon, then, is the impulse to use something for an alien purpose, to abandon …’

  ‘Mr John, sir,’ a voice said.

  John, turned. His driver had appeared together with a man wearing a smart grey suit. Mother had even booked a guide. John closed down the computer without sending the mail.

  They had driven through a misty morning, now the sun was bright. Outside, the driver had parked in a street where mud and asphalt crumbled together around kiosks whose small and colourful products, mostly sold in foil and plastic, John couldn’t figure out.

  ‘We cannot go right to the Taj itself, Mr John,’ the guide explained, ‘because of spoiling from pollution. No polluting vehicle is to be allowed within a half a mile. It is a very sacred place. So we are proceeding to the parking, then you have three choices: you can go on foot, you may take a bicycle rickshaw, or, and I recommend, you may take the electric bus, which departs every fifteen minutes and is free of any charge.’

  To irritate his guide, John chose to go on foot. He was feeling nauseous. At once he regretted the decision, because now, along a broad pedestrian avenue with high walls to each side, he had to deal with a pressure of hawkers such as he had never previously encountered. Everybody was selling souvenirs of the Taj, photos, ornaments, embroideries. The guide pressed on regardless. John shook his aching head. ‘No, thank you, no thank you,’ he muttered.

  ‘Hello! You like elephant?’

  A young man stopped him, actually blocked his path, chest to chest.

  ‘Look, sir, green stone, hand-carved elephant! Hello! 600 rupees, sir.’

  In his hand the man held an elephant perhaps five inches high, roughly carved in some glazed green stone. He was smiling brightly from stained teeth. John shook his head, but the peddler wouldn’t move aside.

  ‘Stone elephant! Only 600 rupees, sir.’

  John smiled wearily.

  ‘Bargain!’ the young man insisted. ‘Is very good price.’ He was wearing a grey shirt, washed to tissue. They must be about the same age. John tried to walk away. The hawker protested. ‘No, sir, hello, hello, you not understand. You think one stone elephant – but look, look! – inside one stone elephant, sir, two stone elephants!’

  As if performing a conjuring trick, the young man slipped his hand from under the ornament to allow a smaller elephant of the same design to drop out of it. ‘Not one, two stone elephants!’ the man cried, feigning amazement. ‘Two stone elephants, sir. Green stone. Hello. Very precious, sir. Only 500 rupees!’

  ‘Really no,’ John replied. ‘Really, no thanks.’

  But the young Indian had got the Englishman’s eye and held it. His teeth were pink with betel, his eyes shone. The whole face was intense and mobile. ‘You don’t like stone elephants? 500 rupees, sir. I am giving the best price?’ He laughed in disbelief. ‘Look, one stone elephant’ – he reinserted the smaller ornament in the larger – ‘no, not one, sir, two stone elephants!’ He pulled the smaller one out again. ‘400 rupees, sir,’ he said.

  ‘No, thanks. Very kind, but no.’

  John tried to get away from the Indian’s bright gaze. He looked towards his guide who had moved on a few paces. Dressed in European clothes, the man’s accent had suggested time spent in the USA. His face was chubby, moustached, subservient, his hair neatly cut and creamed. Now he stood watching in the busy pedestrian avenue, a hint of mockery on his plump lips: this was why one shouldn’t walk to the Taj.

  John started to move, but the hawker wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Sir, sir, not two stone elephants. No!’ He shook his head theatrically. ‘Not two elephants. Sir! Three stone elephants! Three! 350 rupees.’

  John couldn’t detach himself. Something about the young man seemed to mesh with his feelings of sickness.

  ‘You hold, you hold, please,’ the peddler said, ‘not buy, just look, sir, hold please!’

  He thrust the larger elephant into John’s hands, then from under the smaller, he slipped a third elephant, a tiny stone creature no more than an inch high. ‘Three stone elephants, sir! 300 rupees. Very good price for smiling elephant. The smiling elephant. God of happy family, sir. Domestic harmony. India. Three elephants sir. Shiva, Parvati, Ganesh. Family, sir. Sacred family. Three elephants.’

  John was at a loss. The young man was looking him straight in the eye. His shirt was stained with sweat, his trousers tattered. Elephants, elephants, elephants. He seemed to be in the grip of some sort of intoxication.

  ‘One, two, three elephants, sir. Green stone. Very precious. Only 300 rupees, sir.’

  John pulled out his wallet, counted three hundred-rupee notes and handed them over. A group of Americans who had been s
tanding a few yards away and following the pitch with interest burst into smiles and applause.

  ‘But you keep the elephants,’ John said tartly. ‘Take the 300 rupees, but keep your elephants.’ He tried to hand back the one that had been given to him.

  The young man backed off. ‘No, sir. Three elephants, your elephants, sir.’ He had already thrust the money into his pocket and now wanted to push the two smaller elephants back where they belonged inside the larger. For a moment there was almost a tussle.

  ‘I really can’t carry all this weight around,’ John protested. He didn’t want the things. He felt dizzy. ‘Take the money, it’s a gift.’

  ‘Your elephants, sir! Three elephants.’

  John began to wonder how much English the boy knew. Shouldn’t he be delighted to get his cash for nothing?

  ‘Mr John!’ The guide hurried back to join him. ‘Mr John, please, you have paid for the elephants. You must take them. This man is not a beggar. He will be offended.’

  John breathed deeply. Something in the air had exasperated him. He hadn’t wanted a trip to India, only to see his father’s body one last time. He managed a tired smile and let the man push the elephants into his hands. They were heavy. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, sir, thank you.’ The peddler was already backing off. ‘Three elephants, sir,’ he said, eyes widening in a farewell smile that must be mockery, John thought.

  And now, as they approached the compound gates, the guide began to give him the rigmarole about the great love of the Sultan Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, a name which means: the chosen one of the palace. ‘These two were very much in love,’ the guide repeated, ‘even after nine years of marriage, when the beautiful Mumtaz—’

  ‘Do you want to know my father’s thoughts on love?’ John asked abruptly.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the guide said. ‘The beautiful Mumtaz—’

  ‘My father,’ John continued, ‘believed the word “love” had a special linguistic function. It didn’t denote anything real, but you introduced it into a relationship to put the other person under obligation. It was a sort of weapon, to have people accept a pattern you wanted to impose on them.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ the guide repeated.

  They were standing in a queue now, leading to a rather modest gate in a sandstone wall. With a polite smile, the guide asked: ‘And what does your mother say about this?’

  ‘My mother?’ John shook his head. ‘Mum loved Dad to death.’

  The guide laughed. John’s head cleared a little. Meantime, the queue edged forwards. Foreigners, it seemed, must pay ten times more than locals.

  ‘Because you have ten times the money,’ the guide explained complacently.

  John was still holding the elephants. ‘What were those names the boy said?’ he asked. ‘When he talked about sacred families?’

  ‘He is just saying very silly rubbish for tourists,’ the guide protested. ‘Shiva and Parvati are not elephants. Only Ganesh is the elephant, and only his head.’

  ‘I’ll give them to my girlfriend,’ John told him. Not one elephant, not two elephants, sir, but three elephants! He could hear himself mimicking the peddler’s accent for Elaine.

  ‘You love your girlfriend very much?’ the guide enquired. He was bantering now, as if John’s account of the late Albert James’s position on love had created a sort of complicity between them. But John answered: ‘I do actually.’ He was surprised to hear himself say this. He had never said it to her face.

  Then he was told he must hand over his mobile to a guard. ‘No telephones are allowed in the compound, because this profanes the sacred space,’ the guide explained. ‘It is distracting the mind. Maybe you start to phone your girlfriend, no?’ He laughed. ‘He will give it back, sir, don’t worry.’

  A few paces then and they were looking at the Taj Mahal. The famous white façade floated on a lake laid down as a mirror. There was the great central dome, the minarets to each side. Only now did John realise he had seen a thousand photos. He knew the place already and was not impressed. The guide once again felt obliged to launch into a long spiel: ‘Since Moghul architecture permitted no additions after completion, the building had to be planned to perfection from the start. Hence the marvellous symmetry, you see, of the layout, the balance of—’

  ‘What did you study in the States?’ John cut in.

  ‘I was beginning to study, but there was a problem with money, sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ John said.

  ‘You must take your time,’ the guide told him. ‘It is very beautiful. Stop as long as you want.’

  John refused to admire the reflection of the façade in the captive water. He set off briskly toward the monument itself. It was irritating having to carry the elephants.

  ‘I have never come with one who visits so quickly,’ the guide was wailing.

  ‘But that’s better for you, isn’t it?’ John asked. ‘You’ll get home sooner.’ ‘Presumably, what your father wanted you to do,’ Heinrich had remarked as they rode back in the rickshaw the previous evening, ‘was to visit these two very different tombs one right after the other.’ ‘Of course! He wants you to look for some meaning in their comparison,’ the perfumed Sharmistha had added. Why did I allow myself to be bullied into coming here? John wondered. Why am I always being treated as a student?

  Now he had to take off his shoes at the door.

  ‘You may tip the keeper of the shoes, but only if you want to,’ his guide told him. ‘It is not obligatory.’

  John didn’t. ‘So shoes are like phones and car fumes?’ he asked.

  ‘They bring in dirt from outside, yes. This is a sacred place.’

  ‘Logically, then, I should hold my breath,’ John said. ‘Start and end with breathing,’ his father had written. What on earth could that mean?

  Yet once inside the building John did finally stop and look. Despite the crowd, the pushing, the general profanation, the Taj was awesome in its ambition and paralysed whiteness.

  ‘You see also the perfect symmetry of the flowers inlaid in many-coloured stones. How they are twining everywhere. This is amber. And the Arabic lettering also, you see – this is topaz – it has been specially adapted to be perfectly geometric, so it seems the words are coming from the same perfection as the flower patterns.’

  For a few minutes John studied the walls and columns. He waited his turn to get close up to the inlaid letters. They meant nothing to him with their lavishly coloured dots and tails. What is language if you can’t read it? All around, people milled and fretted while everything about the building itself was dazzlingly balanced and still.

  ‘Looks like bacteria under an electronic microscope,’ John told the guide with deliberate provocation. He would have liked to touch, but it wasn’t permitted. Each separate pattern was fitted onto the next in unending spirals of repetition: grey flowers of bas-relief marble; red, blue and gold blossoms of semi-precious inlay. John’s grandfather had been a botanist.

  ‘And in the exact middle,’ the guide was saying, ‘of all these marvels, you see, this cenotaph …’

  ‘With the lady’s corpse.’

  ‘No. Actually not. When it came to it, the sarcophagi of the princess, and later the sultan, were buried under the floor. For convenience. But the original idea was to be putting them in these inlaid tombs behind the jewelled screen. Here the stone latticing, you see, is of the most extreme delicacy, like the centre of a web really, an enchanting artefact that is second to none in the whole world.’

  John hurried out. He would ask the driver to head straight back for Delhi. He didn’t want to stay a night in Agra. He didn’t want to see the fort he had been told about. He wanted to talk to Mother.

  ‘You must see the river at least,’ the guide insisted, ‘and the mosque and the jawab.’

  John agreed to walk behind the mausoleum for a glimpse of the river. ‘A glimpse,’ he insisted. ‘And what’s a jawab when it’s at home?’

&nbs
p; ‘A jawab is something you make only to be giving balance to something else,’ the guide said. ‘You see, the mosque is the mosque, on one side of the Taj, and the jawab is balancing the mosque on the other side, but it is not a mosque. It is not anything. But a jawab.’

  John shook his head. They reached the parapet behind the mausoleum and looked down on the wide emptiness of the river valley and a serpent of water far away, meandering through sand-flats against a backdrop of low hills. The dominant colour was brown. Beside the river, miniature figures in brightly coloured saris – yellow, purple, green and gold – had scored fragile lines on the formless terrain.

  ‘They are turning the ground to plant melons.’ The guide wouldn’t stop talking. ‘It is very fertile there by the river. When the rains come everything grows very quickly.’

  John stared at the tiny figures in their bright clothes, labouring through the afternoon. A camel picked its way across the water with a huge grey bundle on its back.

  ‘What’s it called?’ he asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What’s the river called?’

  ‘This is the river Yamuna.’

  ‘I really want to go now,’ John said.

  After he had recovered his mobile at the compound gate, he asked: ‘Did the child die by the way?’

  Again the guide didn’t understand.

  ‘The one whose birth caused the beloved princess’s death.’

  They had already boarded the electric bus. ‘Gauhara Begum was the fourteenth baby of Mumtaz Mahal.’ The man was pleased to have a last chance to show what he knew. ‘Gauhara grew up and lived a long life. Mumtaz was the sultan’s second wife,’ he added, ‘but his favourite.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE DRIVE TO Delhi was three dull hours. John’s mind was trapped. He couldn’t follow the driver’s chatter. It was long dark when he returned. His mother was sitting at her place beside the table under a sharp electric light. ‘But the hotel was already paid for, love!’ She seemed at once worried, yet – John couldn’t understand – younger. Not wanting her to comment on the elephants, he hurried them into the bedroom. He needed a shower, he said. Now a message arrived from Elaine; she was eager to know the exact time of his return. But it was impossible to engage in the back and forth of text messages.