I began to wait for Anna to go out, so that I could get in her room and search for her gun. It is strange to go secretly into someone’s room—this was my first experience of it—for they seem to be as much in it as when they are actually there; or even more so, maybe because you are thinking of them so intensely, and afraid they might come back and catch you. This inhibited me from searching very thoroughly; besides, I didn’t know where to search, where people might hide guns. I opened her closet and chest of drawers, stuffed with clothes; she had an immensely large wardrobe, so many little dresses and shoes to match them, and silk shirts and cashmere sweaters. Otherwise there was nothing—no photographs, no letters she had kept, or any object or memento: just clothes, and her dressing table full of cosmetics. I must have gone in there two or three times, in fact every time she went out, which wasn’t very often. I never stayed long, always thinking I heard her coming back. But the thought of that gun had got wedged in my mind, and I imagined every sort of situation, especially at night when Crishi was sleeping.
One day when Anna had gone out, Michael was home—this was rare too—I could hear him showering, and I went in the bathroom and sat waiting for him to finish. It was a long time since I had seen him without his clothes. We didn’t avoid it but it didn’t happen, probably because we were no longer together as much as we had been. I had forgotten how very white he was—peeled—or maybe it hadn’t struck me so much before I got used to Crishi’s color. When he turned off the shower, I told him about Anna’s gun, and he wrapped a towel around himself and went straight in her room with me. He searched much more thoroughly than I, more skillfully too; and he wasn’t a bit nervous that she might come back. There was something nice about being there with him on this secret search—not the actual search but the two of us doing something together after such a long time. He didn’t find a gun but he did find a folder with her passport—or rather, passports. She had three—he showed them to me—one British, one French, one Iraqi.
Something else that was happening at this time was that Babaji’s health was really going down. He still spoke of returning to India, and the two Devis told him they would take him there, but I could see they were not as hopeful about him as they pretended. He remained cheerful—he kept trying to sing and some very high, cracked notes came out, driving Crishi crazy when he was there so he would tell me to go and shut the old man’s door; but I wouldn’t do it because I knew he liked to have it open to see everyone passing. Whenever he saw me, he would call me in—it got so that when I was busy I crouched down to get past without his seeing me. Once when I went in, he said to me, “Do you know where I’m going?” I said “Yes, to India.” “Right,” he said and beckoned me closer, closer, closer; he had always done that, so he could pat my cheek or whatever, but now it was so I could put my ear near his mouth because his voice had become very weak.
“I’m going home,” he said. “Do you know where that is? It’s by a river and I shall swim in it; bathe and sing sing, pray pray, all day long. When the sun goes down, all the birds fly home and they sit in a tree and make a lot of noise and then they’re asleep. I’m asleep too, in my little hut. Yes, I have a little hut by the river, and when I get up at night to relieve myself, the moon is shining on the river and also on the water I’m making, and my water is a clear pure shining silver stream. . . . This is what I cook and eat: a handful of rice, a turnip and an onion, and one piece of pickle—do you like pickle? It burns but it tastes good, hm hm, hot. I wish I had it right now—just now—call the Devis—tell them Babaji wants his pickle. Run! Quick!” But when I ran to Nina Diva, she said “Oh no he mustn’t. Poor Babaji.” She returned with me, but he was talking about something else then: “They gave me a watch—a big big watch, I never took it off, I could tell the time and the day and the month; and then they gave me a radio and the radio was as small as the watch was big—tiny tiny tiny—and then they said you have to have an airplane. I said all right. They all came with me in the plane, all singing, and we landed on the mountain and they built a big beautiful place with air-conditioned Meditation Hall. They came from everywhere to be with me—Germany—all the countries. I taught them everything. I had to, because they didn’t know anything—nothing at all—only eat, sleep, fuck, that’s all. I taught them. I taught you,” he told Nina Devi. “You didn’t know anything.”
“Nothing,” she confirmed. She grasped his hands—“Dear Babaji, everything has come from you”—but he pulled them away and said “Don’t touch me! You’re old. I want her—let her do it to me.” I knew he meant me, though I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do to him. When I looked inquiringly at Nina Devi, she said “Babaji has to rest now. For the journey. You want to be nice and fresh for the journey, don’t you Babaji?” “What journey? I’m not going anywhere.” “Why Babaji—we’re going home to India.” He waved her away—“You don’t know anything about that place.” He turned his face away from us and didn’t try to stop us when we left.
Of course the two Devis were tremendously sad to see him sinking but, like him, they remained happy and cheerful. And they too kept harking back to the past—they couldn’t tell me enough about it, how nice it had been. The Devis were always dressed in white cotton saris with Jesus sandals on their bare feet, and they wore their hair Indian-style and that red mark on the forehead; but they looked and spoke and were as English as you could be. Nina Devi was short, sturdy, and apple-cheeked; a wonderful manager, a wonderful gardener, full of common sense, calm, pleasant, affectionate. Before joining Babaji’s movement, she had taught English and geography in a girls’ school, and she was the sort of person you would want to be your teacher. Maya Devi had also been a teacher, but only for a very short time because she said she found it too consuming. I could imagine how she would get very involved with some of the girls and have these very strong favorites and care nothing for the rest of the class at all except for disliking some of them. She was herself like some English girls I had gone to school with; she had the same gawky figure and columnar legs and big hands and feet she didn’t know where to put. She was always starting up with pleasure or anger, but having been so long with Babaji, she had learned to curb herself more—at least she tried to; you could see her doing it, rearing up and then making herself get down again as if she were both horse and rider; and if she didn’t manage it herself, there was Nina Devi to gently warn “Maya Maya,” whereupon Maya Devi would strike herself about the face with her fist and say “I know I know I know,” in an absolute passion with herself.
They had both been among Babaji’s earliest followers and remained part of his most inner circle right through his high tide of public success when he had had many rich followers and a few famous ones. It was never those years the Devis dwelled on, but the beginning, when there had been just a handful of them living in old army huts on vegetables and goat milk. It did sound very beautiful—the river Babaji had spoken of, where they had bathed and prayed, and the sunrise and sunset reflected in it, and the trees, birds, and hymn singing—everything was pure and bright and so were they when they spoke of it. They were middle-aged, old even, but their eyes shone and their voices skipped a bit and they tripped each other up with laughter when they told how it had been.
Unfortunately, at this time the house was very noisy. Led by Michael, the followers had their usual arms drill and other martial exercises; they ran and marched around Nina Devi’s flower beds, and they pinned a board for air-pistol target practice on the shower curtain in one of the bathrooms. In addition, there were the preparations for Founder’s Day, involving a lot of hammering and moving of furniture, so Babaji certainly couldn’t get the silence and rest required for a sick man. Nina Devi decided she would have to appeal to the Rawul, and one day she came to call on him in the downstairs flat. I was surprised to see her and the way she was dressed—not in her usual sari but in a baggy brown skirt and jacket, which must have dated back to when she was teaching school. She sat on the black-and-gold sofa in the drawing room with her
flat-heeled shoes dangling over the Persian carpet, very patient and determined as she waited to be admitted to the Rawul’s presence. There was always something of being “admitted to a presence” with the Rawul, but Nina Devi was one of the people who met him with an equal dignity. She was small and shabby, had come to him as a supplicant, yet with the air of an ambassador representing a power as important as the Rawul himself. The Rawul was silent for a long time after she had made her plea to postpone the celebration. His eyes were downcast, looking at the floor, and when he raised them again, they were full of sorrow to have to refuse her. He explained how utterly it lay beyond his, beyond any person’s power to change a date that lay within the rotation of the movement’s calendar. I felt that it wasn’t up to me to point out that it had in fact been changed—that when it was thought better to leave the country because of the police inquiries, the date of both his birthday and Founder’s Day had been moved forward. Nina Devi listened as patiently as he explained; and when he had finished, he got up and moved in his stately way to the door, which he opened for her. He bent down toward her and took her small hand in his and kept it there, while assuring her of his concern for Babaji and sending heartfelt wishes for a full and speedy recovery.
But Babaji died before Founder’s Day. Michael was in the house at the time, together with other followers, working very hard to get the downstairs rooms ready for the celebrations. The Devis had to come down several times to ask them to make less noise, but it was impossible to be quiet in the process of such a major job. Anyway, Babaji died in the middle of it all, and when Michael came home at dawn he either forget to mention the fact, or was too tired from working. I didn’t get to know till one of the Devis called to tell me. Even then, it was some time before I could take her news in, for she told me in a bright happy voice that Babaji had attained samadhi. At first I thought she was telling me he was better, and it was only when she gave me the time and place of the cremation that I understood. Of course I said I would go. I dressed up for it—I didn’t actually have anything black, but I did have a sort of suit Lindsay had once got for me. I had assumed we were all going, only it turned out everyone else was much too busy with preparations for Founder’s Day.
But when he saw me dressed up, Crishi said he would go with me. I was grateful, especially as he too made the effort of changing into a dark suit and sober tie. I thought we both looked very, very respectable, but Crishi wasn’t satisfied and made me change into high-heeled shoes and tie my hair up. I was glad to do it, to be at my most presentable for Babaji’s cremation; only it turned out we weren’t going to the cremation, although I failed to realize that until our taxi drove up to one of those big stone buildings with symbolic sculptures in the city. When I protested, Crishi said it was all right, that he had to see someone about the interest payments on some loan he had taken and that there would be plenty of time to go on to the funeral afterward. I wasn’t too surprised—we had done this before, dressed up in very presentable clothes and gone together to some creditor where Crishi introduced me as his wife. I guess we made a good impression together, for these interviews went off very cordially and the problem, whatever it was, was either settled or postponed. That was what happened this time too—Crishi was very charming, and frank and open, and I was demure with my little purse and gloves. Sherry was called for and brought in by a butler, and afterward there was a lot of handshaking and goodwill, and the whole thing took so long that it was too late to get to the cremation in time.
The Devis brought the ashes back in an urn, and they were very eager to travel to India and immerse them in some sacred river there. To defray their expenses, and maybe also to keep them going in general, they urgently needed the rest of the payments on the house, and Crishi too was anxious to be in undisputed possession before our departure. He had payments to make on the gallery as well, and the rent of the Mayfair office had to be kept up in our absence, and there were many other financial settlements he had to take care of, not to speak of the cost of getting us to India: so there was a lot of wheeling and dealing going on, and I had to make calls to Sonya in New York to ask her for various loans. She was very willing to make them—she always was; asking her for money was the biggest favor you could do her, and she would bring you the check herself as fast as she could. But these were pretty big amounts we needed, which she couldn’t get at without Mr. Pritchett’s knowing. He must have said the usual sort of things to her, I mean, issued the same warnings he did to us: because she rang me back very embarrassed and said was I sure I needed quite so much—not that she wasn’t happy to let me have it, but she didn’t want me to make a mistake. I said what sort of a mistake, knowing all this came from Mr. Pritchett, and that as far as he was concerned, I had already made it, in marrying Crishi. I went on to tell her in a breathless little-girl voice I was surprised to hear from myself—Crishi was sitting there listening and nodding to me in encouragement—about what a great time we were having, Michael and I, and how much we were looking forward to going to India and having an even greater one there. Sonya was so moved and happy with our being so happy she could hardly wait to hurry away to Mr. Pritchett and overrule him: Money and the caution it should engender were to her as foreign as they were at that time to me.
A few days before Founder’s Day, Barbara and Manton called to tell me the date of their wedding. Barbara said it was the last possible week—as it was, she had to go to the maternity department to have her wedding dress made; she asked for my measurements so she could order my matron-of-honor outfit from the regular bridal department. The date they gave me was when we would be in India, but I didn’t tell them that because they so absolutely expected me to be present. And later, when I told Crishi, he said that I would just have to fly back from India to New York for it. I didn’t like that idea. When I thought of India, and in particular of Dhoka, it was as a sort of absolute destination from which there was no looking back, let alone taking a plane back for a wedding. But Crishi said “Your old dad’s wedding” in a shocked and sacred voice; then he said “Doesn’t Manton have some sort of trust fund?” Although I protested that he was usually horribly overdrawn on it, Crishi said that surely he could raise a loan for a daughter in difficulties, good heavens. When I called New York, I was tearful and Manton said “What is it, baby?” in his new voice of concern and responsibility. But when he had coaxed it out of me that I needed a loan, he went off the deep end in the old Manton way and said my God, didn’t I know what sort of a hand-to-mouth existence he led anyway, and now with Barbara having got herself pregnant—I heard Barbara on the other line burst into sobs at this reproach, and I too began to sob but managed to say “It’s only till next June, Daddy,” in between my sobs; till Manton grumbled, Well he would have to speak to his accountant and I hung up and smiled at Crishi, who said “Okay, every little bit helps,” in an offhand way but seemed pleased with me.
FOUNDER’S DAY started off as an ordinary family birthday. Bari Rani and the girls came for breakfast, bearing gifts. The Rawul was in his family-man aspect, extending his plump, shaved cheek to each girl in turn to come up and kiss. He was wearing his brocade dressing gown over his undershirt and the white leggings he had got on for later in the day. He smelled fresh and nice of after-shave and eau de cologne and beamed all around in radiant goodwill. It was a big and happy day for him. The girls had made birthday cards and wrapped their gifts very artistically, and he accepted them graciously and put them aside. But the Bari Rani insisted he open them there and then, and she also made him try on the contents because, if they didn’t fit, she was going to take them back right away to change them. He didn’t want to but she insisted, and this ruffled him a bit—in his mood, as well as literally, because of having to pull a sweater over his smoothly brushed hair. But everyone was determined that no cloud should mar this perfect day. Renée and Bari Rani were on their best behavior with each other, and they even joined in protest when the Rawul began to make a little impromptu speech at the breakfast table. “
We’re going to hear enough of that all day,” said Bari Rani, and Renée agreed he should be saving his voice. “Only a few words,” he pleaded, looking around the table. “A few special words to those of you who have made my dream yours.” The girls groaned, and the Rawul defended himself: “It’s not a speech—it’s a declaration of love. For my family,” he said. “Because at heart that is what I am—a family man, in the deepest sense of that term. That is the instinct prompting me—driving me—to make a family of the whole world, to make everyone sit down together in peace and love as we are sitting here around this table—” “It’s a speech!” cried the girls accusingly—“No no no,” said the Rawul, but he laughed and good-naturedly allowed Daisy to stop his mouth with a piece of croissant.
But what he was saying was true, and I too looked around the table at all of us sitting if not in unalloyed peace and love, at any rate in some sort of harmony, which was in itself an achievement. The Rawul sat across from me, partly hidden by the big Georgian coffeepot; beside him sat the Bari Rani and beside her their three daughters. The five of them appeared as the solidly Indian phalanx of our family—not that they were very dark; on the contrary, they were light-skinned, Aryans, Parthians; yet in the timbre of their voices, their deportment, their physical aura, there was something that spoke of different landscapes from those we knew, with strange mountains and rivers springing out of them and flowing over pastures where strange cattle grazed. On the other side of the Rawul sat Renée, and although her skin had an ivory tint to it and her hair was as dark as that of the girls and flashing with the same dark auburn lights, there were other countries and climates compounded in her, nearer home, and not only because she wore Parisian clothes (Bari Rani wore those, too, sometimes, but they only made her look more Oriental). Crishi sat next to Renée—if he had been younger or she older he could have been her son, for he also had an Oriental basis underlying his many other characteristics: but in his case the mixture was even more indefinable, for it seemed to include everywhere he had been, the many places where he had lived and traveled in every hemisphere, and all the things he had done there. And next to Crishi there was Rupert—yes, also a member of the family, tall calm courteous noble English Rupert; and next to Rupert, Michael with his pale craggy visionary’s face and his hair shaved to a bristle; and me, his twin; and next to me Robi—completing the circle and somehow belonging to Bari Rani’s side of it, for he looked as Indian as that side: as though the Oriental quality, which in his mother—and in Crishi—had been overlaid with other strains, had come out pure and strong in him.
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