The World Goes On

by László Krasznahorkai

  A DROP OF WATER

  The circle he must have drawn himself with some white powder on the sidewalk, then he must have stepped into the middle of the circle, launched himself into the air into a handstand, and then—after stabilizing himself by propping the soles of his feet against the wall—shifted his weight to one hand, the right, thereby freeing the left, and ever since then he has been standing there on one hand, only the one, while beginning to gesture with the other, he must have started like that, and he has remained like that, who knows how long he has been standing here on that one hand, while with the other one, the left, moving only this hand from the wrist, the left, he signs, he points, he communicates, for these are obviously signs, communications, words of a language no one understands except for him, bunching the fingertips together and then suddenly spreading them so they fly apart, then he starts all over and keeps it up for minutes on end, or else he revolves this left hand from the wrist to the right, and then once more to the right, or he makes a fist, then opens it, shuts, opens, shuts it again, and finally very slowly, he turns it once again from right to left but never from left to right, so that it seems he is able to turn this hand around completely in one direction; or else he extends his index and pinky with middle and ring fingers curled under, while flexing his thumb almost all the way back, a seemingly never-ending variety of finger and palm positions, all the while standing upside down, on one hand, for how many hours? how many hours now?—his legs in the air are slightly bent at the knee, the soles of his feet are leaning against the wall, though even so he may waver slightly from time to time but no one among those who surround him, not one tourist or pilgrim, can endure to watch until he collapses, until he can no longer keep it up and collapses on the sidewalk in the middle of the circle made of powdered pigment, because he can bear it longer than anyone who stops to stare, standing on one hand he can stand it longer than anyone, his greasy white beard so compact that upside down, it barely bends back toward his mouth and nose, but his long, thick, and luxuriant white hair tumbles down in dreadlocks toward the ground and from time to time these knots stir in the feeble breeze, only this greasy beard and the dreadlocks and the two hanging ends of his purple loincloth stir at times in this feeble breeze, while his eyes are open and unblinking and he stands on one hand and tirelessly keeps sending signs in the middle of the circle made of sprinkled white powder and nobody is able to wait it out until his body drops, until that one hand wearies, incredible, the tourists and pilgrims mutter, this is impossible, says a thin European woman, why doesn’t someone take him down and set him on his feet, do something for god’s sake, she can’t look on any longer, her companion at last leads her away, and our man keeps on standing on his right hand here at Manikarnika Ghat, while carrying on with the left hand in a language no one understands, beside him, his skin is gray but this skin had once upon a time probably been black, now it is gray, as if coated by cement dust, and it is covered in many places with running sores, his feet, trunk, hands, arms have no flesh, only this skin, he sits at the feet of the giant elephants of the Annapurna temple and he does nothing else but look at the passersby with enormous burning eyes, his left thumb and index finger pinching that parchment-like skin over the bone of his right upper arm, showing that there is no flesh there, and then he spreads his arms and extends his hands forward, his palms are stretched out, in case someone will take pity and throw him a rupee, or at least a few paisas, but no one does, so he again pinches the skin on his right upper arm, pinches it and with his left thumb and index finger pulls it away while looking at the passersby with those extraordinary, flaming, enormous eyes, to show that here, take a look, he has not an ounce of flesh on his body, then he extends both palms forward, maybe someone will toss him a rupee, or at least a few paisas, but no one does, meanwhile next to his emaciated body music blares from a cassette tape recorder, a man’s voice, the voice of Baba Sehgal says Memsaab oh Memsaab, and he again pinches the skin, to show that he has not an ounce of flesh on his body, extends both palms, perhaps someone will throw him a rupee or at least a few paisas, but no one does, the music by his side blares, Memsaab oh Memsaab, Baba Sehgal blares from that weatherbeaten tape recorder near the feet of the giant elephants, frightful multitudes throng the street, everyone is in a hurry, everyone has something urgent to do, for millennia they have had urgent things to do every single moment, but meanwhile men and women—a group here and a group there—stop to discuss deeply absorbing matters, one after another, suddenly finding time in this vast forest of humans, men stroll by holding hands, tuktuks dash across inconceivably congested intersections, five or six tuktuks simultaneously from different directions, at the same time that taxis and rickshaws race across, then cows, dogs, and an enormous throng of people, no one collides with another, which cannot be possible, because as a matter of fact people charge at each other in the intersections, yet all are unharmed when they reach the other side, and that’s how life goes on during each and every minute of the day, because the intersections, too, run counter to every rational expectation; in the vicinity of the Bharat Mata temple, around a banyan tree’s immensely broad trunk with its pale-gray smooth bark and immensely complex web of aerial roots, a very old woman in a saffron-colored sari is circling with hands held out waving them up and down and propelling herself as if in mimicry of flying, she circles round and round around the banyan tree without saying a word, her eyes are shut but she makes no mistake, her movements are as confident as if she had been circling here for millennia, and perhaps that is the case, her hands flap as if they were bird’s wings, her body sways, then she opens her eyes, and now one can see that these eyes contain nothing, they are empty, dried-out sockets with functioning eyelids, dark, wrinkled pits in place of the eyes, the saffron-colored sari sways left and right, and she circles, circles tirelessly, her hands rise and descend, the banyan tree’s thick aerial roots protrude from the trunk above ground and twisting and turning around their axis these awesome aerial roots reach all the way down to disappear in the ground and anchor the banyan tree which clings to the earth with a seemingly supernatural strength, but it is impossible to tell whether it is merely bracing and supporting itself here next to the Bharat Mata or whether it is the tree that holds together the earth by means of these spectral, serpentine, giant aerial roots, keeping the earth from caving in and collapsing, opening up the forty steps to the Sesa Pit, as it is called here, the approach to the lower worlds; one lazy wave of the Ganges plashes on the river bank and languidly melts away, a few hundred meters past Assi Ghat, at the fourth large bend of the horrendous putrid sewage canal bearing the same name—Assi Ghat—not far from the temple of Durga, in the courtyard of a House of Dying, ancient old men sit and lie around in the sun, someone has more or less cleared the weeds in the courtyard, crumbling cloisters surround the yard, as if sheltering them, these forty-odd old men who, judging by their looks, must have arrived here mostly from Meghalaya, West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, to wait it out here until death does away with them, in the morning they are given some thin mush, but not all of them want even that, for there are some who refuse to take any food, let death arrive that much sooner, they do not talk to each other, each one is solely focused on the place he occupies sitting or lying down, focused on the body that is still his, they are sitting or lying down, waiting from morning to night, and from night until morning, waiting for long-desired death, their eyes do not say anything any more, they merely stare in front of themselves but without the least bitterness, sadness, or desperation, least of all fear, on these wrinkled faces, instead it is peace that reigns over every feature, peace within these men, and around them, peace and quiet, even if it is not unbroken, since external noises from the street and alongside the sewage canal naturally filter in, at times a sharp cry or car horn or sounds of music, but in here nothing, no TV, no radio, no cassette player, just peace, and waiting, weeks must have passed, and weeks will pass like this, until one after another, seated or lying down, these men topple
over for good, topple and stretch out, to be taken away by the staff, the untouchables responsible for burning the corpses, they quickly wrap the body in a shroud, and are already running with the body freed of the soul to the cremating Ghats, while a brass band clad in the most garish colors imaginable is approaching on Raja Sir Motichand Road heading slowly toward Maulvibagh, and the players do not create the impression of a band since each of them seems to be giving a private concert, at times drawing completely apart, so that the trombone player could not possibly hear the notes played by the trumpeter, they are that far apart, one would think that therefore the music would likewise fall apart, but no, the band is playing in perfect unison, without the slightest hitch in rhythm or harmony, it is unfathomable how they do it, possibly the explanation lies in the Sewak logos on their fancy headgear, but no one bothers to look for an explanation, obviously there is no need to do so, there are many locals and many pilgrims here, also many cows and dogs, street urchins are running around, back and forth, they seem to be in near ecstasy, and a goodly number of tourists with cameras hanging from their necks, and about the same number of rats (in other words, hordes of them), the street urchins follow the musicians on both sides, the fife players, drummers, horn players, tuba players, and of course the trumpeters and trombone players, the latter are obviously the street urchins’ favorites, at times a trombone player turns toward them to blow a note, even poking one with the tip of the slide, provoking flight amid great squeals of delight, they are playing British military band music, “The British Grenadiers,” in one endless repeat, as they advance down the length of Raja Sir Motichand Road in the direction of Maulvibagh, but they aren’t followed by a decked-out car carrying some bride or groom, nor a carnival float with an enthroned maharajah, neither wedding nor procession, neither funeral nor holiday, none of that, they simply keep marching and blasting “The British Grenadiers” relentlessly for the locals, the pilgrims, the tourists, the rats, the street urchins, the cows, the dogs, and the vendors who stand in their shop entrances taking it all in, until, by this time near Maulvibagh, this extraordinary band with its unknown purpose suddenly disbands all at once, as if they had stopped playing upon some prearranged signal, they instantly lower their instruments, however they don’t depart as a band all together in the same direction but rather each musician goes his way wherever he pleases, in his expensive, colorful, fringed, and medal-spangled uniform, one going this way, another that way, indeed they scatter in all directions as if this were the normal course of events, and perhaps that is the case, for no one is amazed, everyone takes cognizance of it, the locals and the pilgrims, street urchins and vendors, the tourists as well as the rats, and they all continue where they had left off, the tune of “The British Grenadiers” doesn’t die right away, but for about another half minute it fades in the air above Raja Sir Motichand Road, and only after that does the hubbub of the street resume its rule over the city, and this hubbub flares up again like a flame, and indeed it is just like a malignant conflagration that nothing can put out, nothing can abate, alongside speeding vehicles, street philosophers, handbill distributors, and humming thickets of cables crisscrossing the air, the great stars of Bollywood pop music are blaring from radios, TVs, even from loudspeakers rigged on tuktuk cars, they blare I burn on the pyre of eternal love for you, and in this wildfire of noises he comes to the decision that he must leave, because he is in mortal danger here, demanding not only certain safety measures, not only an elevated attention level, but the realization that he must immediately beat it from here, perhaps the best way would be to withdraw cautiously, retreating step by step, backing out of this place, the upshot of it being that he absolutely must leave the city, he must right now take the first steps toward this end, by now he is like a bowstring drawn taut to the point of snapping, and so, tensed, he is now looking at a backpack lying among his belongings on the indescribably filthy bed, thinking that at least this backpack must be ready when the moment arrives, the backpack must be packed and ready to go, to avoid any needless delay when he would have to leave, meanwhile however the greatest question being when that moment of departure would arrive, he knows that is vitally important, the right decision made at the right time, the correct choice of the overture to either a cautious sliding away or a headlong flight at the greatest speed imaginable, for if he were to miscalculate the right moment, then he would lose his only chance of finding that opening in the midst of billions of things, an opening, for him, for among the billions of things this one reality staggers the mind, indeed forces the mind to a standstill, his mind at least, making him a minor character in a nightmare that has no meaning whatsoever in its totality or in its parts, which is why it is so difficult, almost impossible, to pick the right time, furthermore the greatest problem is not knowing whether there is indeed a correct moment at all, and not simply the seemingly endless labyrinth of wrong moments in which he must wander and inevitably lose his way, an unbearable thought, so that after a while he obviously has to pick another one, which would lead to choosing yet another moment, and of course that wouldn’t be the right one but he happened to choose it, meaning now he is left with a total of only sixty-six steps, for a mad cow would trample him, a tuktuk would run him over, a huge chunk of stone masonry from the window of a sacred tower would be dropped on his head, as if by mere chance, an accident, that sort of thing, but no, they could also stab him in the kidney from behind at Vishwanath temple, or trip him up in an alley on the steps leading to Kedar Ghat, or wrestle him to the ground in the vicinity of Sanskrit University, not in order to rob him but to gouge out his left eye with a giant spike, for some reason only the left eye, and then—again, for some unknown reason—they could beat his head to a pulp with a large cudgel painted red, in other words, do away with him, and then instead of throwing him into the sacred river, leave him in the vast Dumping Ground stretching northwest to northeast past the great station of Varanasi Junction, toss him on top of the largest mound of garbage, that would be that, and then the giant vultures would arrive, wild dogs, roosters, beggars, rats, and children, to devour him piecemeal until not a shred of flesh remains, as the sun is setting now over the Ganges, he can see from the light hitting the walls of the building across from the hotel—the hotel?!—the way this light gradually withdraws from the world, having turned dark orange, after which it is like blood—thick, leaden, sticky and filthy as well—as it glows above all the garbage, this is the Varanasi twilight, and it occurs twice a day, once in the morning when the light appears and once in the evening when it departs, this is the only place in the world where all this needs to be explained, because morning here is as if it were the only one ever and the evening likewise, as if there were to be no other mornings, or evenings, because that’s how this city works, as if every one of its stinking moments suggested it had only one day, after which nothing would remain in place, everything would be swept away by this one and only evening, swept away by the sunset that in Varanasi can only occur just this once, for the light would never return here, this is what each and every alley radiates and in every alley every dimly outlined figure, and every minuscule star showing in the weary sunset, reflected in the dim eyes of every figure, and this is how it has been every blessed day for millennia, for tens and hundreds of thousands of years, each day it seems impossible that there would come another day, and perhaps there really is no other day, only this single one, or not even this, which amounts to the same thing now in his quivering brain, and the same holds true in this brain regarding the stories, those too had given his brain a good scare, for in vain there might be ten, a hundred, a thousand million stories day after day in this insane inferno, on that one and only day, or not even then, in vain does this or that happen and keep happening ten, a hundred, a thousand million times in the alleys and major intersections, on this one and only day, or not even then, it’s as if among all those stories only a single one were true, or not even one, so that the succession of days one after another, or the stack of stories mount
ing up one on top of the other: neither of them holds up, neither exists, one cannot rely on them, cannot rely on anything, here everything operates under the aegis of a raving madness, albeit not at a command from above or below but because each and every element of existence is insane in its own right, raves solely in and of itself until it’s done, things in Varanasi do not refer to anything else beyond themselves, positioned side by side in this insanity, but without setting ablaze some great big conflagration of madness for in fact each thing possesses its own individual madness; he stands by the window one shoulder leaning against the wall, sheltered by the imitation leather curtain decorated with giant rosette motifs, so that no one can notice him from the street, while through a chink he can observe what goes on down below, he stands there leaning against the unspeakably grimy wall, looking at the street below, then at the foul bed with the backpack on it, and finally he sees himself with the backpack on his back, taking the utmost care he first opens the door a crack to take a peek and then slips out, tiptoes down the stairs, without paying he glides past the rose-pink solid cast plastic desk resting on enormous elephant feet in imitation of a nonexistent palace or temple, constituting the reception desk of the now completely empty hotel, then he is out on the street and he is off, taking the first available turn, then once again—mind you not four times, and not always to the right, or always to the left, this is what the siren screams inside his head, not the same turn four times, because then I’m back where I started from, he thinks, terrified, and they will find me, of course they must know what I am up to, that’s for sure, they knew all along what he was trying to do, allowing him to leave the hotel room, allowing him to glide past the reception desk without paying, they must obviously have a way of following him sure as death, as he turns left, then right, then left again and right, they know exactly why he is frightened, and after this insane rush disguised as a tourist’s leisurely perambulation he finds himself out on the steps of Hanuman Ghat precisely where he least wanted to be, here at the ghastly scene of ritual bathing, for this—the mere proximity of the ghats—means it is utterly hopeless to think of an escape, the Ganges is death, the ghats are death, the women resplendent in their brightly colored saris at the ghats are death, the men in their loincloths at the ghats are death, but the Ganges is death supreme, this unsurpassable incarnation of sewage, this millennia-old constant of filth flowing and frothing past, his only chance would be going in exactly the opposite direction, he cannot hire a rickshaw, cannot take a cab, cannot board a train, the one and only direction (if any such exists) may offer a promise of hope only if he proceeds mindlessly, only if he doesn’t premeditate the where and the how, his only chance is trying not to think about what the sole possible mode of escape could be, consigning himself solely to his panic, that should do, and there is plenty of it, ever since he set foot here, ever since he arrived in Varanasi, and set eyes on his first ghat, set eyes on the Ganges, he knew that he should not have traveled here, in fact the whole plan to visit India had been ill-conceived from the word go, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t wanted to come here, I never wanted to, not I, but I simply couldn’t say no when I could and should have, and written to the man from Bombay whom I’d met in Sarajevo that it wasn’t a good idea, after their meeting and his own rash and courtesy-prompted show of interest he should have replied to the letter of invitation from Bombay that no, after all this was not the right time for a trip to India, always say no, always, without exception, that is what he should have done, he had so many chances to do so, he could have at the time of buying the airplane tickets, he could have done so afterwards, when he already had the tickets, he could have still changed his mind right before the departure, or even after arriving in Delhi, seeing that things were happening too fast, when you act without thinking, when you simply take things as they come, however he had not only been rash but downright reckless, irresponsible and dumb, a man out of control, it wasn’t the first time this had happened, with him this was a chronic condition, and since he knew himself well, why had he not noticed that there was a problem, there would be trouble, that he shouldn’t think of going to India, he should not allow things to just happen to him, because then one fine day you find yourself in India . . . but he allowed things to happen and so he found himself in India, what is more in Varanasi, the last place he should have allowed himself to visit, where he fell and kept falling and was unable to stop falling, he was caught in a trap, he knew right away that he was trapped when, having arrived at the main station after a brutal train ride he managed, in spite of every stratagem of the skin-and-bones tuktuk man, to have himself transported to Assi Ghat, where he immediately became aware that this should not be happening, as he caught sight of the Ganges, and regarded the winding river, the rows of tumbledown buildings with their crumbling forms and fading colors—they were heaped upon each other on the hills curving all along these bends in the Ganges, this was already enough, this first hour, this miasmic air shimmering in the filthy, muggy heat was in itself enough, the timeless bathers in the septic water, who had been there ever since the time of Vishnu, dipping into and drinking the disgusting water of the Ganges, it was enough to see the appallingly oafish, clueless, and shameless herds of fat and not-so-fat tourists with their prohibitively expensive photographic equipment attempting to make something of the fact that this city was a sacred place for hundreds of millions, it was enough for him in the horrendous smog to catch a glimpse of temple buildings, palaces, towers, shrines, and terraces heaped one atop the other along the hilly banks of the winding river in order to see that each one was useless and senseless; these first impressions should already have sufficed to make him realize what he had gotten himself into, but actually it took the stench of Varanasi to make him truly panicked, the omnipresent putrefaction, the overpowering, stifling, cloyingly sweet, acrid, gluey smell of decomposition, because even if he didn’t right away attribute a fundamental importance to it, he did so upon waking after the first night, when he could feel it in his mouth, lungs, stomach, and brain, and then on his first outing after a few steps he stumbled upon the first open sewer drain and the endless succession of dungheaps with cows browsing around them along with stray dogs, rats and children, and the odor hit him—from which one couldn’t free oneself, this was, such was, the smell of Varanasi, and after that he kept smelling it, sleeping and waking, it permeated the roof of his mouth, his throat, lungs, stomach and even his brain, it was stifling, yes, and cloyingly sweet and acrid, gluey and murderous, which latter, this murderous potential, contained an especially cruel element, namely that according to locals and pilgrims Varanasi is at least as much the city of peace as of death, there is no crime here, announced the smiling young men walking hand in hand, oh no, there is no robbery here, laughed the women on the banks of the Ganges, believe me, no one comes here intending to do harm, insisted everyone from the street barber to the skinny craftsman of fancy leather goods who also repaired remote controls, because beside peace, this was the city of Kashi, as they called it, the city of longed-for oblivion, but don’t let that put you off, explained the policeman wielding his long, crooked staff at the intersection, don’t be astonished by that, growled a lanky meditator at a Shiva temple, in response to which, like everyone else, he at first kept nodding, yes, he understood, naturally, of course—but afterward, and most certainly by this day, he stopped doing that, and he was no longer willing to take part in what for him was a devastating game: how can he do so now when he no longer understands anything, understanding is impossible here—he plunges into the first alley after the first turn from the hotel—because how can one be reconciled to the fact that at least three million people live here who mistake the abnormal for the normal, maybe this has been so for millennia; for now, hoping he is at last making his escape, he reflects that in this city pervaded by the very smell of death, children and grown men will find a suitable spot of even a few square meters and instantly start up a game of cricket, no, this cannot be normal, he thinks, that whereve
r there is a small open space between two dungheaps which five or six kids or adults consider qualified to be a playground satisfying the minimal requirements of the game, why, the bowler is already throwing the ball, the fact that such multitudes of infinitely pitiable humans (at least three million every day) not only know that there is such a thing as cricket but actually play it, well, this cannot be called normal, there are batsmen and bowlers, in place of cricket balls they use tennis balls, or anything vaguely similar that can be thrown and batted, and this game is played by horrendous masses of people who thrash about in the world’s most destitute inferno: they play the game, as if it were the most natural thing to do in the midst of this smell of death, that is insane, he thought after his first few hours here, and he still thinks this now, as slowing down his steps, slowing down to keep from breaking into a run, he roams through the alleyways as he had resolved to do: mindlessly, not even relying on his instincts, relying on nothing, simply tramping on, turning right, then left, something is bound to happen, something other than what he can count on happening with high likelihood, but nothing happens other than what has already alarmed him more than once, for as he walks along every few meters at least one person wants to sell him something, it hardly matters what, something, anything ranging from a delicious glass of chai with milk to the unexplored mysteries of Varanasi, and they are all very thin, with delicate bones, enormous brown eyes, white shirts, light gray pants made of synthetic fabric and ironed to a sharp crease, shod in flimsy Chinese flipflops or not even that, but the essential fact is their touch, for as he advances, he keeps feeling their touch, and he has never encountered this kind of touch: not aggressive, not invasive, not impertinent, not rough, on the contrary, they are the tenderest of touches, absolutely singular, gentle, warm touches, taking hold of his arm or hand, or rather they only graze his arm or hand, his waist, back, or shoulder, quite tenderly, he should have gotten used to this but he could not, on the contrary, he had a horror of these tender touches, and he has a horror of them now as he walks on and can feel another one, and yet another, and once again, and again, it will never end, he refrains from looking at them, because then he would be lost, because then he must stop and hear out why he should drink a delicious glass of chai with milk right now, why he should go ahead and hire a tuktuk now, why he should purchase a carpet, a transistor radio, an authentic Sony mini-TV made in Japan, a necklace talisman for good luck, or possibly a large quantity of quicklime, or a lot of garden lanterns or ten wagonloads of bamboo sprouts, please come with us, these touches entreat, come to a much finer hotel than where you are staying, please come with us, here are Bengali music and dance the like of which you have never experienced before, please do come, you will learn where the Sesa Pit leads into a realm in the bowels of the Earth, come, do come, it matters not where the Pit leads, because something will await you there; and he doesn’t wave them off, because then he would be lost, he gives no sign of acknowledging these offers, although it takes the greatest effort to ignore the accompanying touches, to not pull away his arm, his hand, to keep his shoulder from shuddering, because that would already be taken for a sign of compliance, a response to the offer, and then once again he would be lost, because they would distract him from proceeding where he wanted to go, which is anywhere away from Varanasi; even as he is about to run away, he mustn’t lose his self-possession here where these touches take place, because that would get him swept away, and detoured back toward Varanasi instead of out and away from it, back down into the depths, ending up inevitably at the ghats of the Ganges, where death awaits, where—as he was told at the very beginning—death is more than a joyful liberation, and that is precisely what he refuses to accept, he wants liberation not from death but from Varanasi, for him the Ganges is not sacred, he doesn’t know what it is, nor does he want to know, the Ganges is a river carrying dead dogs and dead humans, moldy shreds of linen and Coca-Cola cans, lemon-yellow flower petals and planks from a flat-bottomed boat, anything, everything and forever, he would love to rave now as he forges ahead, going somewhere, anywhere, but he cannot afford to rave because his raving would immediately fit into the reality of Varanasi, as a raving madman he would be instantly accepted and absorbed by Varanasi, and of course it is still possible that would be his fate, that suddenly he would break down and go stark raving mad, overwhelmed by a desperate seizure, and then it would be all over for him, because Varanasi would swallow him up, it would take him in, that is from then on he would belong to Varanasi, but for now he is still hanging on, he has unplugged his brain, his instincts, he has completely shut down everything inside him, for he is certain that otherwise he would not have the ghost of a chance: away, get away, not even this is throbbing inside him any more, nothing is throbbing inside him, he keeps walking, from the alleys toward the wider streets, then back to the alleys, pretending to be a tourist, his movements mimic distracted rubbernecking, to lessen the likelihood of being accosted, to make those touches go away, but of course they do not, he shudders at the thought of these touches, but is nonetheless able to master his trembling, as another dull wave of the Ganges thuds against the shore, unseen but heard by him, as he hears it dying away on the lowest stone step of the nearby embankment, that means he has once again found his way to the riverbank, therefore he turns quickly around and sets out in the opposite direction, keeping on for a while, in order to get as far away from the deathly tranquil sites of ritual bathing, trying unsuccessfully to walk around the enormous, flattened yellow-green cow pats, as he steps into one he stops to scrape the shit off his shoe against the edge of a curbstone, and he is already surrounded by them, they say please by all means buy a hair dryer, or for a thousand rupees they’ll take him to Sarnath, or else for a very reasonable price they know of original Dancing Krishna paintings from the period of the Bundi School, strictly speaking it makes no difference if some of it remains on his shoe, the important thing is to get rid of the bulk of it so he won’t slip and fall, the stink is all around him anyway, for this type of shit smell plays a dominant role in Varanasi, as it does during the cooler winter months when the city is heated, for the ones that more or less solidify in the dust of the street are harvested, it is the sole livelihood of one class of untouchables who have been collecting it assiduously for millennia in small push carts to heap them up in towering stacks, ripening or drying, depending on what they are destined for, although actually in some instances their purpose doesn’t matter, for it can happen that the heated ammonia explodes, demolishing one of these towers of shit and then it is a total loss, so that passing one of these shit towers—and the inner city is full of them, one better be careful—after the first few weeks the visitor’s attention is called to these, he is very cautious by now, as he passes one of these shit towers, the stench is thicker than usual, he gags, he can smell the ammonia but there is no explosion, he has squeaked past; a sizeable covey of small schoolchildren darts past him wearing sailor blouses, book bags on their backs, one in the center of the group holds an iPhone and all the kids want to see it, there is something very interesting happening on it, this is how they pass him, swirling like a whirlpool around the hand holding the iPhone, he can feel he is getting tired, on the go all morning, and still dawdling here in the inner city; this is getting impossible, it is endless, he must try to think straight now, so he decides to plug back in, to reconnect his brain, but he needs a place for that, a secure zone, which presents itself as he passes behind the Ashok Nagar post office where he comes upon a bit of green—lawn and shrubs and trees—of course the place is also full of people, perhaps because of the shade, at any rate after a lengthy search he encounters an ancient old man, bare bones, with coal-black skin and a thick crop of white hair, wearing a loincloth, sitting in a yogic pose with his eyes closed, this will do fine, he settles down by the man’s side and turns his brain back on, what to do now, he thinks, and this is precisely what he’d believed he must avoid at all costs, that in fact there is nothing else he can rely on, nothing but the
Ganges, for at least the river has a direction which he can follow to get out of Varanasi, there’s no other way, he thinks by the side of the ancient old man with coal-black skin and luxuriant crop of white hair, who, his eyes closed in deep meditation, has also chosen total immobility on this forenoon, and he too closes his eyes, he needs rest; his shoe stinks of shit, his feet are burning with fatigue, his waist and back hurt, his neck hurts, his shoulder hurts, his head is about to fall off, something is stinging his eyes awfully and his tears well up, and now maybe on account of these tears—for his eyes are full of them as if he were weeping, perhaps as a result of the murky, insidious power of the sunlight filtering through smog—here comes one offering picture postcards of London, Paris, Rome, and won’t you buy some cast-iron frying pans, come, I’ll take you there, to see what no tourist has ever seen before, I’ll take you to Baba Ka Ghar, Baba Ka Ghar, you can see it for two-fifty, three boys are sitting around him now, probably he had fallen asleep and they didn’t want to miss this opportunity, here, look at this compact manicure set with a mini Taj Mahal in the middle, buy this complete Placidomingo, the best buy in CDs, believe me, so that he cannot remain here any longer, somehow he manages to leave those three behind, although evidently they still have plenty of other offers for him, where were they going to take him? never mind, he must reach the Ganges, which is not difficult to do, he knows from past experience, no matter which direction you set out in—and this is precisely the problem—you always end up by the Ganges sooner or later, and so he too arrives there not much later, it takes barely an hour, and he is there already, stopping at the top of the flight of steps leading to Dasashwamedh Ghat, down below through the thick crowd of men and boys a single possible path opens up, only to immediately close behind him as he makes his way in their midst, the men are seated tightly packed side by side on the steps, staring at their navels as the saying goes, chatting, contemplating the scene, there really is no other way down to the water’s edge besides what they, sensing him, open up expressly for him, as if they were guiding me, he thinks, but immediately decides it is better if he again shuts down all thinking and intuitions, so that reaching the lowermost step of Dasashwamedh Ghat, toward where he is now descending through the throng, he may set out downhill, facing the Ganges, downward, that’s how it should be, but when there remain only a few steps between him and the riverbank, he bumps into an unexpected obstacle in his passage through the temporary path that continuously opens up and then closes behind him, although this is not the way to describe it, every word is inaccurate: unexpected and also obstacle are inaccurate terms, and so is “bumps into,” since throughout his downward progress he has had a feeling something was about to happen, so that it was not unexpected, and how could he call it an obstacle when it is that well-known Varanasi hand, that familiar soft touch that stops him with gossamer delicacy, something you can’t bump into, since it is the merest caress grazing his leg, a signal that won’t let him pass on; naturally on account of the downward momentum he wishes to move his leg away from this touch, but the touch is determined, determined to stop him, so what else can he do but stop, he sees a man of uncertain age, an obese figure that is unusual, in fact extraordinary among Hindus, he could possibly belong to the highest caste, on the other hand he is practically naked so it is hard to tell, he has only a dirty loincloth and great big ears with elongated lobes and thick snow-white hair held together by a rubber band in the back and outsized, bulky, black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, as leaning on his elbows he contemplates the water in front of him, then he turns his head left and looks up at him, his three enormous jowl-creases echoing the movement in an amusing way, as that head seeks him out, even as he is still in the process of withdrawing his leg from that touch, but for that to succeed, the ankle should be released, but it isn’t, the man is still holding on, although most delicately, to that ankle, and keeps looking at him, although not in the manner of one accosting another, but rather as one chatting with someone in the middle of a conversation, about to point out a new aspect of the subject under discussion, and the man casually remarks, did you know that according to local tradition a single drop of the Ganges is in itself a temple? his voice is soft and gentle, deep and friendly, and instead of the peculiar local English, the man speaks the most immaculate Queen’s English, which makes him drop his guard for the first time in many a day, and he makes a mistake . . . an error, because he says something in turn so that the man should release him, he flings out something without thinking, it is only a HELLO, but this, this oversight, this mistake, this error, this HELLO is to have serious consequences, that is to say, it already has, because within seconds he finds himself on the receiving end of a vast monologue, which he should not in the least have allowed to happen, meanwhile there is no way back, because it is all over for anyone who utters a single HELLO, and this is what indeed happens, the man with the eyeglasses, partly recumbent and partly twisting and turning his enormously obese body toward him in the midst of the throng, now makes it definitely obvious that he is not moving aside, but maintains the same gaze as before, faintly mocking and faintly commiserating but not in the least bit unfriendly, while holding on to the ankle and saying again that a single drop of the Ganges is a temple, what do you think of that? asks the man, addressing him, and he just stands there waiting for the downward path to open up, he stands there and looks down at the man who is still looking up at him, and far from releasing him, is either actually holding, or seems to be still holding, the ankle of the one addressed, somehow this exerts the same power on him, the thick arms and thighs like four elephant trunks, the entire body like a giant globe of fat, but up above, at the level of the head that is melting down into pathological obesity—and the onlooker is confused by this—the original features can be distinctly made out and the face thus discernible from the vague outlines of eyes, nose and chin is beautiful, and the mouth in this beautiful face now resumes, repeating for the third time, just think, a temple in a single drop of water, did you know about this—however before he has a chance to reply by not replying but giving unmistakable evidence of his desire to move on, the fat man once again employs that special Varanasi soft touch—and now he briefly recounts, again as if they were in the middle of a long ongoing dialogue, that he has been cooling his heels here for a while, and, imagine, he has been musing about why on earth do the locals believe and say that, he has been giving it some thought, and has made some headway which he would be glad to share now, so he suggests that, if you don’t disdain my company, why not sit down here, and hear me out, it will be worth your while, for he has reached some fascinating conclusions, whereupon you try to express by means of a gesture that no, it is out of the question, except that this gesture doesn’t turn out to be too convincing, moreover a hand, the man’s, even assists and transforms this gesture into an overture leading to the movement of plopping down by his side, thus the refusal is nullified and you find yourself sitting on the step by the man’s side, and he crowns his momentary triumph, that is, having you sit down instead of going on your way, by pushing up his eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose and turning his enormous head back toward the Ganges, rearranging the triple folds of his vast jowls under his chin, and he’s off, saying that first of all he merely posed himself the question, since he happens to be somewhat familiar with the physical aspects of the problem, for he works as a production engineer at the Sankat Mochan Foundation, did he himself actually know the structure of water, and he concluded that indeed he knew it, indeed the whole thing was tied in with the geometry of the surface—he looks on at the Ganges—and not only does he not appear to be overbearing, but the beauty of that hidden face is becoming more and more obvious, that beautiful face enfolded within the mass of blubber is anything but aggressive, just like his voice, it too contains something heartening, so that it seems unlikely that these introductory words would turn out to be a preamble to some business proposal, therefore he commits the further mistake of staying put and making no attem
pt to stand up, even though at this point it is still within his power to do so, he remains sitting where the man with that horribly tender gesture of the hand had seated him, and he keeps sitting there, perplexed by a certain innocence, something ethereal, some element of a higher order in this outlandishly fat man’s voice and bearing, all this enhanced by the impression that the man is speaking mostly to himself, as it were, while at the same time he seems to be grateful, bordering on the fraternal, and this conclusively dispels his suspicions, making him vulnerable, so that he must pay attention, that is he must hear out attentively how the man with the eyeglasses had always been fascinated by spheres in general, and specifically by the surface geometry of spheres, for example what holds a drop of water together, and here after all, the man says pointing at the waters of the Ganges, if you sit around here for a while, the question obviously surfaces again, whereupon one with his training first of all had him thinking that it has to do with intermolecular hydrogen bonds, no doubt, and the man smiles at him, no doubt you too know what intermolecular hydrogen bonds are, anyone who has studied physics knows that, well then, if you picture this hydrogen bond as well as the covalent bond and keep in mind the simple fact that water in a liquid state is an alternating system of covalent and intermolecular hydrogen bonds, well then at this point matters start to become interesting, the man winks at him merrily over the top of his glasses, since as matters actually stand water in a liquid state is a pseudo-macromolecule with only a partially regular structure that is held together by flexible hydrogen bonds, as it is taught at school, and if now one considers that it is because of surface tension that liquids, and therefore a drop of water, assume forms with the least possible surface area (which is none other than the sphere), then you will no doubt agree that it’s worthwhile to pursue this one step further, which I—and the man pointed at himself—have indeed done, actually he went back a bit to the problematics of surface tension, that is to say, in his imagination he has bisected a water molecule, whereupon fascinating things came to mind as he listened to the splashing waves and watched the light playing on the surface of the water, because what came to mind was that there are, you see, these oxygen atoms and these hydrogen atoms that form these tetrahedral structures, this much is obvious if you follow me, and equally obviously we may next recall that oxygen carries a slight negative charge, and hydrogen a strong positive one, resulting in a connection between adjacent molecules, these are what we call hydrogen bonds; it wouldn’t hurt, the man thought, and here he chuckled as he turned toward his listener, it wouldn’t hurt at all to collate all this, for curious notions will arise in one’s head, as one sits watching the river flow, for instance he seemed to remember that hydrogen bonds are much weaker than the internal bonds holding a molecule together, meaning the resulting arrangement favors the formation of the most stable system possible, so what do you think happens? asks the man raising his eyebrows, well, the most stable arrangement will be if every hydrogen bond aligns with an adjacent molecule, so that each molecule of water is surrounded by four neighbors, thereby forming a pyramid, a tetrahedron, and we know what that is, the tetrahedron, right? this brings Plato to mind and the Platonic solid, leading directly to a likewise well-known fact, namely that two hundred eighty molecules constitute a regular icosahedral agglomeration, and while formerly it had been thought that water in a liquid state is composed of such regular agglomerations, the world has changed since then and nowadays we think otherwise, namely that water fluctuates between regular and irregular structures, since the hydrogen bonds are constantly breaking up and giving rise to new bonds, and at this point, you see, he says pensively, eyeing the Ganges again for a while, at this point, you see, he continues, pushing his eyeglasses back up, one may ponder what’s going on between the tetrahedral water molecule aggregates, or between the solitary random water molecules, for we may as well put it that way, he adds as if speaking to himself, and then the answer offers itself naturally from the foregoing, that the tetrahedral water molecule clusters are located among the solitary, random water molecules, and there you have water—and here the man’s eyes seek his companion’s for a moment but not finding them he asks is he following all this, whereupon the listener, confused, admits that no, he hasn’t been able to follow a single word of this, well then, pay attention to me now, the man points at himself with one of his enormous sausage fingers, according to what we know about surface tension all liquids, and thus drops of water as well, obey the laws of surface tension and assume forms with the least possible surface area, and what do you think that would be? he asks, what form would that be? and receiving only silence in answer, well, it would be the sphere, that’s obvious, isn’t it? the man spreads his elephant trunk arms and keeps looking at him, inducing him to nod in agreement, which the man acknowledges with a sigh of satisfaction, and continues, well then, so this much is self-evident, fine, let’s move on, and let us suppose that it is not quite as self-evident that hydrogen bonds are far weaker than the bonds holding a molecule together, this is not quite so obvious but conceivable, and you too can see it is so, he says, and you can also see that the resulting arrangement manifests the necessity for the formation of the stablest possible system, that is to say—and here the speaker turns back toward the Ganges again, speaking again as if to himself—in other words, this whole thing will have the strongest, stablest structure, you see, when every hydrogen bond finds that neighboring molecule, for then each water molecule will be surrounded by four others, creating a pyramid, which is the tetrahedron mentioned earlier, in fact we have covered all of this, but it needs to be mentioned again so that you too will understand it perfectly, in fact for your benefit I’ll also repeat—and he repeats again—that there is this fluctuation whereby the regular and irregular systems fluctuate, because the hydrogen bonds constantly keep breaking up, and new bonds are coming into existence, so that, what do you think, may we now pose the real question?—again the man turns in his direction, and he gazes back into the man’s eyes, above the thick rim of the huge spectacles, he is looking straight into those wonderfully lit-up eyes embedded in fat, and a cold shiver runs down his back, because in these eyes he glimpses something very strange, mysterious, and inexplicable, he cannot say exactly what, some unknown depth, not of knowledge but rather a depth of time, as if he glimpsed a vista of several thousand years, and this completely befuddles him, after all who is talking here, who is this exceedingly fat man who stopped him in this insane city, to deliver this totally insane talk about water here on the banks of the Ganges, this is what he wants to ask, but doesn’t get very far because the other man’s voice constantly eclipses his own, constantly overrides the questions forming inside him, and gains the upper hand, saying that the surface area of a liquid always strives to be the smallest possible, and that this intention, following from the nature of the previously mentioned bonds and attractions, this intention is most perfectly expressed in the form of a sphere, that is, the intention manifests in the sphere, he repeats this a few times, as if savoring the words, still looking at the water’s surface and not at him, indeed as if he were speaking only to himself, but not really, because as soon as a question presents itself in his head, or even a thought, the other man is able to immediately direct his listener’s attention back to himself, the man’s words constantly overcome the words he is weighing in his head, because he would like to be on his way, because he ardently longs to be freed from the captivation of this man, but he doesn’t leave, his brain has turned on by itself and he cannot unplug it, and the other man, regardless whether he is staring at the water or looking in his direction, seems always to know precisely when his listener’s flagging attention must be directed back to himself, and always manages to pull him back just in time, and he now says that the force of attraction between identical molecules is in every case far greater than that between differing molecules, in other words each molecule strives inward, toward the interior depths of the system, intending to fill it up, and in this intention those
molecules that remain up above, meaning—and the man slowly turns his ponderous body toward him, but only for a slow instant—up on the surface of the water, well then, these molecules desire the least possible surface, simultaneously, and this would be the sphere, isn’t this obvious? the man asks, and his listener replies for the first time since the moment of their strange encounter, he replies that yes it is obvious, whereupon the other man smiles and gives him a questioning glance, shouldn’t we put it in even more unequivocal terms? whereupon he again says, yes, let’s do that, and he nods, whereupon the man smiles again and says, well and good, then let’s say that only those molecules remain on the surface that exhibit a smaller force of attraction, while these too are tugged down and inward by the internal forces of attraction, so that they draw together as close as possible on the surface, we may facetiously say that they demand the least possible surface area, or that the surface itself demands the least possible surface area, isn’t that so? indeed it is, he asks and answers his own question almost triumphantly, it demands the ideal surface which is the smallest, in sum: it seeks the ideal, and seen this way I believe the matter seems to be perfectly clear, the man says and his listener replies that yes it is, perfectly, but now the man turns quite grave, as if a shadow flitted across that handsome face in that massive head, and in an altered voice, somehow softer, he gently asks himself, is it all right this way, and he replies, no, it is not all right, and he casts a glance in his listener’s direction before going on, no it is not all right because all that we have said may be sayable but is not really of any use, because water itself somehow escapes approximations of this sort, because after all of the foregoing it still possesses a tremendous number of other properties that should not exist, yet they do exist, properties that powerfully differentiate it from all other liquids, as if water were something other than a liquid, or not a liquid at all but rather . . . well, yes, pure water, an extraordinary substance, a primal element that guards its inner secrets, so that we may hold forth here, as I have just done, up to a certain point about what we know regarding water from our vantage but in the end I must confess that actually these attempts I have made just now will not bring us any closer to the essence of its structure, these attempts get us nowhere when we consider water having such properties as memory, for example, which must exist for sure, since after we melt ice back into liquid water, this ice returns to the identical liquid crystal system it had possessed previously, in other words water, even in the form of ice, preserves its structure, nor is it comforting to know that on top of all its numerous anomalies water is able to store information, endless amounts of information, that is, water knows about everything that has happened on Earth, and is currently happening, so that our knowledge is insufficient for understanding even a single drop of water, can you see that, he asks in a husky voice, and now can you see why I sit here pondering why the locals keep saying that a single drop of water from the Ganges is a temple? he asks, but he knows he will not receive an answer, so a profound silence sets in, as if indeed a distance of several thousand years separated the two of them now, he knows he should be moving on, but he doesn’t dare to do so yet, or he simply cannot, he looks at the man’s enormous triple chin with those three folds reposing against the chest, he looks at the giant black-rimmed eyeglasses barely balanced on the tip of the nose in the sweltering heat, he looks on at this other man contemplating the water, and he can see the outlines of the beauteous face buried in that mass of fat that is the head, that beauteous face which he could not possibly have encountered before but that is nonetheless so startlingly familiar, and presently he feels that now, right now he has the energy to make his move, and he makes his move, slowly getting up from the step, and he tries to find suitable words to say before he leaves, but the other anticipates him, looks at him again, and his glance is slightly mocking as he asks, do you happen to have a hundred rupees on you to help me out, hearing which the words instantly freeze inside him and he takes the step down, the fat man moves aside a bit, apparently allowing him to pass, so it is over, he is relieved, and hopeful, and indeed a narrow passage toward the lowermost step is already opening up for him through the throng, he still intends to say something in farewell, but again the other beats him to the punch, and shouts after him, just think! we have considered only a single drop of water from the Ganges, and do you know how many drops there are in the Ganges? to which naturally he doesn’t know what to reply, except nod by way of a goodbye, after which he does not turn around, for there is still a chance that the man could summon him back, after all, if the man were capable of stopping and engaging him to exchange words—something that no one has been able to do since his arrival in the city—if the man were able to do that then indeed the danger exists that he would not be able to free himself from him and he’d have to learn even more about the inner mysteries of a drop of water, perhaps even get to understand the actual essence of a drop of water, right here, next to the scandalous frothing scum of the Ganges, but no, when he looks back after walking about a hundred meters, the man shows not the least sign of any further interest in him, all he can see is that the man is still sitting in the same place as before, that is, more or less reclining on the lowermost steps, that enormous melting body, practically naked, except for the filthy loin cloth and the huge eyeglasses, and that triple chin, and so he is free to move on, he has probably had more than enough of that man, good god, he thinks now, speeding up his steps, how could I be so careless, how could I plunge headlong into this madness, and anyway, what on earth was this absurd conversation, these covalent bonds, these Platonic solids, and surface tension, just what I needed, truly, a conversation such as this, get it out of your head, give it no further thought, don’t try to figure out what it meant, because that was exactly what Varanasi has been doing to him ever since he had arrived here, constantly tantalizing with the possibility that the things happening here, the things he has experienced, seen, and heard possess some sort of portentous connectedness, whereas there is no interconnection whatsoever, only an immense unfathomable chaos, or as this elephantine man would have put it, a powerful disorder, that’s what we are talking about, a universal, all-consuming, infectious chaos, this is what he must find his way out of, if there is a way out, and now he recalls that a few hours earlier he had still been at the hotel, standing by the window, peeking out at the street through the chinks in the synthetic leather lace curtain decorated with giant rosettes, pondering about a suitable moment to make his escape, good lord, how long ago was that, how long has he been walking, he is so weary that even if given the chance, he would not sit down because he certainly wouldn’t be able to get up again, and that was obviously what the Ganges wanted, what Varanasi obviously wanted, to inundate him with madness, so that he would feel at home in it, but no, he still has enough strength to keep going with his mind unplugged, as he had decided, and he trudges on along the bank of the Ganges, mindlessly and desperately, it is difficult to tell which is scarier, the fact that the city occupies only one side of the river, or the reason for the emptiness of the other side, for that is the situation here, Varanasi lies exclusively on the left bank of the Ganges, while the right bank is completely, or nearly completely empty, who can tell what the meaning of this is, no one can tell, and he would not listen anyway, he marches on along the bank of the Ganges against the flow of the current, back, if all goes well, in a westerly direction, but nothing goes well, and once again he sees himself back there in the hotel room, as hours earlier he stood there behind the curtain, looking down at the whirling commotion on the street and for the first time, truly panicking, trying to decide the right moment to depart, he stood there leaning one shoulder against the wall, casting an occasional glance at the filthy bed, at his backpack; and he could clearly recall now on the bank of the Ganges, heading west, what back then, hours earlier up in the hotel room had gone through his unplugged mind, that he must think of his backpack, it had to be packed and ready to go, and so he started doing that, first h
e went out to the bathroom—the bathroom?!—and brought in his toilet articles, and without bothering to organize them he simply tossed them in the backpack, same with the t-shirts, the shorts, the two white summer shirts, the change of underwear, the guidebook, the camera, the phone, the compass, the raincoat, the medicine box, the wallet, and the map, one after another, and when everything was in the backpack, and he pulled the last zipper closed, suddenly he looked up at the ceiling, at the plaster peeling in layers, revealing a long-ago painted torso of Vishnu peeking out from underneath as if in farewell, and he thought, get away? away from Varanasi?! but goddamn, shit, fuck! Varanasi was the world; using the utmost caution, first he looked, then he slipped out of the door, tiptoed downstairs, sneaked past the reception desk of the empty hotel, stepped out into the street and turned at the first corner, and then turned at the very next again—making sure that it was not four times, and not always to the left, or to the right, this is what screamed like a siren in his head, this thought, not four times, not in the same direction, because then there is no escape, then I will be back where I started.