Pack Up the Moon

by Mary Anne Kelly

  Blacky, acting as though all of this were nothing more than one more thing to deal with, went off to the swami’s welcome room to see what he could dig up in the way of more knowledge to go. I proceeded to chew off my fingernails, something to go with the buns. After a while I washed myself at the pump and then cleaned my assortment of lenses. Blacky had come across volumes of books on the shelves about the Dalai Lama and announced that he planned to look through them. This would take hours. I was beginning to realize he was a bookaholic, it didn’t much matter in which language. Maybe he really didn’t care if I had money. I was very unsure. Not knowing what to do with myself, I swung back and forth on the macramé hammock there behind the courtyard. When Narayan saw me sitting in the garden, he decided to show me the town.

  He was a wonderful guide and I wound up spending almost the entire day with him. He took me all sorts of places, the most memorable of them the Monkey Temple. It was exotic and marvelous and thoroughly overrun with darling, precocious monkeys. I asked him to remove his shirt while the monkeys climbed all over him. He had a way of looking at the camera with this pleading happiness. There was so much life and excitement to him. He practically exploded with it. He reminded me of me when I first came to Europe, which led me to think of my bad news. Never mind, I told myself. I could make money with my pictures. I would make money with them! Then I let Narayan shoot my picture while the monkeys traveled over my head, jumped lightheartedly into my arms, scrupulously checked for fleas on my scalp. I started to feel a little overwhelmed. They were becoming a swarm. They must have heard the fear in my voice as I called frantically to Narayan but, enthused as he was with his new job, he just kept taking pictures. At last I got through to him and he plundered through the rush of smelly creatures, who’d by now enveloped my entire body.

  There was one saucy one who wouldn’t be put down. It turned vicious and latched on to the flesh behind my knee with its demonic teeth. I cried out and Narayan threw me to the ground, clearing it and the others off in a scatter. He yanked me away before they could climb back up and we ran, terrified, Narayan’s shirt gone for good. One monkey slithered through the branches overhead with it draped around its shoulders like a lucky shawl.

  When we got back to the inn we were laughing but it hadn’t been funny at the time. I shuddered as we told our tale to Blacky and Swamiji, who listened with his bright eyes. There was a wonderful ambience at the Alpine Cottage, like there was something genuine going on. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something holy there. You wanted to be good. It was that little swami. Even if you weren’t talking with him—and Blacky was doing a good job of monopolizing him—he made you want to please him.

  Narayan was quite taken with my makeup bag. I’d never thought of it as valuable, but suddenly, here, it became his focus. His eyes would follow it when I would carry it past him on the way to the outhouse. Suddenly he would come up to me and caress it from beneath, his raisin eyes glittering, his perfect white teeth gleaming. The next afternoon I sat in the window in a shaft of light and there he was suddenly, ogling my stupid, old-as-the-hills JCPenney bag. “Tch,” I said, losing patience, aggravated at being caught clandestinely tweezing my chin hairs. “Take the darn thing.”

  He stood up, offended. He looked as though I’d slapped him. “Oh, no,” he wiggled his head in that funny, wobbly way they have, “not like that.” He went away.

  And I’d thought he was shallow. I felt really ashamed. I looked around. Really. These people had nothing. I went out and sat on a canvas chair in the garden. My fault, too, the letter had said. Well, that was just it. At home I was always just “Me, too! Me, too!” And I hated it.

  Narayan reappeared. He climbed up and stood on the garden wall. He put one slender brown foot in front of the other, balancing himself like a tightrope walker. Behind him palm tree fronds moved, thick and green and yellow.

  “Where is Dr. Blacky?” I asked him, hoping to start fresh.

  “Dr. Blacky is in the meditation room,” he said, “trying to meditate.”

  For some reason this aggravated me. “How’s he doing?” I inquired.

  “Trying too hard.” He shrugged.

  I laughed, pleased. I didn’t really mind if Blacky beat me in the holier-than-thou game, but I’d heard that part of the requirement for enlightenment was relinquishing sex. That I absolutely could not have. We were just getting started.

  But then Blacky and Swamiji, deep in conversation, strolled into the garden and sat beside us.

  Imagining I’d gain points with Swamiji, I presented Narayan with the makeup bag. I’d thought the things inside were what had appealed to him but he just tumbled the entrails onto the ground and attached the bag to his holy beads.

  “What a rubble!” Swamiji remarked about the pile of stuff.

  “That’s the one thing about Claire,” Blacky sold me out without a thought, “she’s a clutter bug.”

  I was a little stung by that remark because although it was true, I tried my best to be tidy in front of him.

  Narayan said, “Goodness, Claire, your leg is festering!”

  I twisted my body to see. “Yeah. I thought it wasn’t much, but it seems—”

  “Let me see that!” Blacky took hold of my leg. He changed his glasses and looked more closely. “Looks mean,” he murmured, pressing the swollen flesh.

  “Pity,” Narayan said, combing his coconut-oiled hair with my clean brush.

  “Those monkeys have rabies.” Swamiji wrinkled his brow.

  “Oh, no. It couldn’t be.” I shook my head. “Those animals were healthy. They—”

  “Oh, we have four or five deaths a year from rabies,” Swamiji interrupted, pursing his lips. “Not pleasant.”

  Blacky and I looked at each other.

  “Is there a health clinic nearby?” Blacky asked.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” I said.

  “You’re going to have to have rabies shots,” he said sternly.

  “Oh, no, I’m not,” I said, remembering hearing tales of agony from childhood. Something about needles directly into the stomach and excruciating pain.

  “I’m afraid we can’t take that chance,” Blacky said.

  “No,” I shook my head vehemently, “not after all I’ve just been through.”

  “Especially because of it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You can’t not.”

  Swamiji went into the house. We sat on the swept ground and waited. No one said a thing. I remember there was a snake, a little one, taking the sun. It was very still. We were all very still.

  Swamiji returned a short time later with an address. “Here we go. It’s across the border in Nepal. But it’s not far at all. Their clinic is quite good. Better than ours. It’s just—” He stopped. “Well. If you can bring your own needles …” He moved his Adam’s apple up and down carefully. “Their needles are awfully thick. Quite painful, I’m told.”

  “Oh, I have my own needles,” Blacky assured him and looked at me with those sea green, don’t-worry-about-a-thing eyes.

  I began to tremble.

  Swamiji walked over to me and put a hand on the top of my head. Immediately I stopped trembling. It wasn’t anything eerie, it felt more loving: like a favorite uncle’s touch. “Claire,” he spoke softly, “no one will make you do anything you don’t want. All right?”

  “All right.” I nodded, immediately feeling better.

  “That’s right,” Blacky reassured me, “we won’t even leave until you’re ready.”

  Swamiji padded over to the banyan tree, unwound his cloth, and folded himself into the lotus position. We all watched him. It was as though he’d left us, gone far away. We sat there for a long time watching him.

  Blacky and Narayan discussed astrology, which Blacky knew nothing about. He had only scorn for astrology when I talked about it. I thought of what it would be like when we rejoined the others. Every time before th
is Blacky had reverted to being Tupelo’s fiancé. But he was my sweetheart now. He couldn’t deny it. I took his picture sitting there. And I wasn’t going to let the past ruin everything. I thought of the film and how it would be when we hooked up with them all again. “I miss our friends,” I said, a tear slipping out.

  “But, darling, we can leave today.” He took my hands in his. He’d never called me darling before. He pushed his glasses up with his pointer finger in that endearing way he had. “A week or so more and we’ll be with the others.”

  My heart leapt with joy. Then I realized that his did, too.

  He said, “It’s all been too much for you. Once it’s over and we get you your rabies shots we can head for the village of the Dalai Lama. Just think of it, Claire! We’re that close. In all our lives we will never meet another living god. It’s so exciting. Come. We’ll get your rabies shots taken care of in Nepal. I’ll be with you the whole time. Every minute. All right? And then we’ll drive up to Dharamsala and rejoin the gang. I’ve cabled ahead.” He wrinkled his forehead. “I mean, I can’t be sure they got it but they most probably did. I know Wolfgang will be thrilled to see you looking so well.” He narrowed his eyes in a pretense of jealousy. “I’m not sure I like the thought of that.”

  “As if you had to give him a second thought,” I sneered, heartened by any insecurity on his part, even if it was feigned to make me feel better.

  “I wouldn’t mind one of Isolde’s omelets right now,” he confided.

  “Me, too. The way she whips it up with her finger! Or a song from Chartreuse’s guitar.”

  “Even Reiner’s complaining I could take.” He smiled.

  “I’m dying to see if Daisy’s still smitten or if he’s driving her mad with his endless quotations.”

  We both laughed.

  “And I miss Harry’s observations,” I said. “I think I miss him most of all. I can’t wait to see them.” I was just about to say something about Tupelo when I realized so was he and at that moment, fearing saying the wrong thing, we both stopped ourselves and—not wanting to break the spell of closeness—said nothing.

  As much as I looked forward to it, I was troubled with the prospect of leaving. The truth was, I was frightened. I felt as though the closer we got to the others the sooner we would be jimmied apart. I wanted to tell Blacky this but I was afraid it would break the trust between us. “Fine,” I said at last, “that would be fine.”

  Out of nowhere came the voice of Swamiji. “When there is fear, Claire, you must run like the wind through the rain. But you must run,” he shook his head in that rubbery, Indian head-shaking way, “toward the fear.” I was sure he’d been eavesdropping. Then I remembered I’d been talking to myself.

  “Swamiji?” I turned to the little man cross-legged under his banyan tree. “Is that right, Swamiji?” It’s impossible, I thought. Had he read my mind?

  But Swamiji had gone into heavy meditation. Or light meditation, depending how you looked at it, I guess; his eyes were, if you can believe it, turned back in his head and the whites gave him the look of the blind. The wind continued to rise and objects flew over the wall into the garden. A pair of shredded bloomers dropped in and then flew out. Then a sheet of copper flapped in with a dark rattle. Narayan picked it up, puzzling how to make use of it. “Do you think I could become a film star in your country?” he asked me.

  Startled, I looked at him, his shoulder-length hair and slender waist. “If that’s what you want,” I said. “I mean, you could always take a shot.”

  “Will you give me your address in America?”

  “Oh, Narayan. I don’t live near Hollywood at all. I live near New York.”

  “That’s good. New York is veddy good!” he said excitedly.

  My heart sank with weary premonition. There would be my mother at the front door and this Indian would stand there with his cardboard suitcase. They would call the police. “I will give you a letter from me, okay?” I said finally.

  “Yippee!” Narayan cried and jumped down to the ground. He ran to the house, presumably to look for paper and pen. The palm trees above me rattled, living oars against themselves. I sat there beneath this umbrella of shade. The grassless dirt was raked in harmonious, undulating lines, Narayan’s creation. It stayed powdery and still with perfect dust, untouched by the stirring wind. The cloying smell of incense reached us even out here. It rose in snaky fumes that widened into clouds of jasmine and sandalwood.

  Swamiji said, “Claire. Come and sit close to me.”

  “I’m afraid to go over there. There was a snake there.”

  “Ah. That would be a good thing. A sign. Come. I’ll tell you a secret.”

  I walked shyly over to where he was.

  “This is from the Bhagavad Gita.”

  “Okay.” I strained to listen well.

  “The mind has to be concentrated on God, and not on any other deity or nature.” He looked past me at Blacky then back at me, his eyes prickling with good humor. “See?”

  “Yes.” I smiled back at him. But I didn’t. I didn’t understand until much later. When I would run like the wind through the rain.

  We left the Alpine Cottage the next day. Although it was Blacky who’d spent most of the time with Swamiji, it was me to whom the old man presented a gift. It was a large book made of burlaplike material. It was the Bhagavad Gita, what you would call the Hindu Bible.

  “But, no,” I said, “I have nothing for you.”

  “Don’t let the last word be no.” He bowed in a presentational way.

  “Okay,” I said, “yes,” and took the book. He started to walk away and then he stopped and turned back to me. He smiled his sweet smile. “May I give you some advice?”

  “Please, yes.” I thought he was going to give shortcut directions.

  He folded his hands. I had to lean toward him to catch the words. “Just remember this: Water is fluid and yielding, but water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox. What is soft is strong.”

  I stood there looking at him. “Thank you. I guess I’ll never forget you. Are those words from this Bhagavad Gita?”

  “No. That’s Lao-tzu.” He shrugged, enjoying himself. “Truth,” his glittery eyes shone with humor, “is international.” Those eyes continued to hold mine as Blacky marched toward us.

  “Thank you, Swamiji.”

  He padded silently away and disappeared into the lush garden trees. “Did you pay them?” I asked Blacky.

  “Of course I paid them.” He shined his glasses with a wet handkerchief. “Well. Sort of a donation. He just wanted a donation.”

  “It wasn’t what I expected.”

  “No.”

  “It was kind of weird. I mean in a beautiful sort of way.” I looked back toward the trees and briskly rubbed my arms. “So many different smells! It’s all so exotic and Garden of Edeny.”

  “Yes,” Blacky said. Then, “There was bird shit on the outhouse seat.”

  “And mice in the cupboard,” I added.

  “Still …”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “We both loved him, though, didn’t we?” I trotted back into the house for a final good-bye but Swamiji was nowhere to be found. I stood in the room, saying good-bye to it. A fine old Victorian clock ticked loudly.

  I went out to the van.

  Blacky emerged from the outhouse, swinging his arms. He sat down at the water jug and fastidiously washed his hands. Then he climbed into the van. He was always in a good mood when we were about to be off.

  I said, “I’ve decided I want to change.”

  He said, “There’s that lovely blue dress you bought in Afghanistan for a special occasion.”

  I sat up. “That isn’t the way I want to change,” I said, wondering fleetingly, though, at the same time where had I put that nice blue dress? I couldn’t find it anywhere.

  Blacky pulled out his great bundle of ro
ad maps. Another minute and he’d be unreachable.

  All right, I said to myself, this is it. With much deliberate aplomb, I said, “Blacky, I have to ask you a question before we drive anywhere, before I go one step further.”

  He was all ready to put the van in gear and resignedly sank back. Yet another delay! His posture sent its aggravated message.

  “I know this isn’t the right moment. God, I can feel that. But this is—well—it’s plaguing me. Look. It’s just this. I know that everything in life is how you perceive it, I know that. And I just don’t quite know how to see myself with you. (I didn’t have the nerve to ask him if he loved me. Love had to be given freely or it didn’t mean anything.) But,” I went on in the softest voice I could muster, remembering the advice of Swamiji, “you have to give me some assurance that you’re not going to throw me over the moment we reach the others.” By “others” I meant Tupelo. Well, he knew that.

  Then he said, “As long as we’re clearing the slate, I have something I’d like to say, too.”

  The sky in the distance had turned an ominous purple. I thought, Oh what have I started? For some reason my heart began to trip.

  He turned and looked deeply into my eyes. He said, “Look, Claire, I know you think that—I mean, well, I haven’t been fair to you, really. I mean about Tupelo.”

  “That’s right,” I whispered, hardly able to speak, “you haven’t.” He hadn’t been fair to Tupelo, either. But this was my moment.

  He combed his fingers through his hair and made a tortured face.

  Here it comes, I thought. At last. I realized he was going to tell me he loved her and he just hadn’t been able to resist my throwing myself at him.

  “It was damned awkward the way it all happened, you see,” he began. “Well, awkward is certainly not the word.” He snorted at the inappropriateness of it. He sounded bitter. He was talking to me but he was somewhere else. “I’d better start at the beginning.” His hands clenched the steering wheel and as he talked he loosened them enough to travel his palms in a distracted up-and-down. “Tupelo came to me one day in April. It was a beautiful day. The trees were all full and—Well. She came to my practice. She’d got my name from Isolde.” He looked past the tall stone wall and Rishikesh down the road. He was remembering.