by Janet Sola
For company I have my little water pitcher in the form of a copper cow that Jason gave me when I left the ashram in disappointment. The idea was, he explained, that when you put sacred water from the Ganges into the cow’s body, she would bless your dwelling, or your bus, or a project you were working on with libations that came from her nose. I don’t have water from the Ganges, but I have my tea. I perform a small ritual, filling her belly and letting the tea run from her nose onto the pages of my notebook. Perhaps Saraswati, goddess of the water as well as the arts, will choose to pay me a visit. So far my notebook has been empty.
I sit down to write, but immediately I’m overwhelmed with a flurry of images, sensations, and hazy thoughts that won’t translate themselves into words. For inspiration, I pick up a book I brought with me—a small volume of poems and other writings by Indian women. It begins with an ode to joy written in something like the sixth century BC by a Buddhist nun named Mutta, one of the few women who were allowed to join those early Buddhist communities. How wonderful it was, she says, to escape from her domestic chores and her tyrannical husband, into the peace of the sangha.
So free. So splendidly free am I
From three binding things set free
From mortar, pestle, and my twisted husband
I have hurled away
All that imprisoned me
Free from death and rebirth am I
That long-ago poet comes alive in those words. How little has changed. Even then, women sought an escape from drudgery and oppression. I am not a good meditator, but I close my eyes and try to imagine what life might have been like for these women. A shaft of sunlight is pouring through the small window into the gloom of my room. In my imagination, it expands into a rising tide of water that sweeps me out into the lake, where I’m floating among flickering iridescent shapes that might be fish or swimmers. I take big butterfly strokes as I reach out to touch them. But something is holding me back. My arms and legs are so heavy that I can move only with the greatest effort. And yet it seems enormously important that I reach these shimmering things, even if my lungs might burst with the effort. Then I understand. These are the images of my unlived lives. They are beckoning to me, waiting for me, if I can just reach a little farther, be a little braver. The daydream, or vision, or whatever it is, fades. I am again in my dim room with its stone walls, its one glassless window that looks out to the lake. But maybe, just maybe, my expedition to search for the master painter is a beginning.
“Cathy,” I say later in the courtyard as I’m waiting for the painter to show up. “I’m curious. How did you learn to tell people to fuck off in Hindi?” I’m a little shocked at that coming out of my mouth. In fact I’m not even angry with her anymore. Maybe she’s just an unenlightened being, too full of herself to be aware of the world around her. Not unlike the rest of the cast of characters of Western travelers I’ve met.
My remark seems to have caught the attention of the others at the table: the surly Brits and the silent German couple, plus other new arrivals—a redheaded woman from New Zealand and a Frenchman, who seems to be on drugs or nursing a hangover. They all look up and squint in the white sunlight that illuminates the courtyard. Cathy takes her dark glasses off and looks at me with what seems like new respect.
“Well,” she says, looking at her watch, then at me. “I’d be happy to tell you. But I’m not sure if you have time to listen. Don’t you have to leave soon for your date with Johnny Depp?”
I sigh and shake my head. There’s no point in explaining. “It’s not a date.”
“Oh? Excuse me. What is it then?”
“It’s an excursion.”
“Oh,” she says sarcastically. “Hey, anybody want to go to the Lake Palace for drinks this afternoon?”
There are no takers and she picks up a Bollywood magazine and hides behind it. I ask the German woman the time and she, still silent, holds out her wristwatch. My painter friend is late by more than a half hour.
Cathy catches my nervousness and shrugs. “Indian time. Or more generically, third-world time,” she says. “I wonder if they all go to the same school—you know, the driving school, the time school, the checking-out-women school.” I’ve only known her two days, but already I see vintage Cathy.
An hour later I know he is not going to show up.
The journey to the Lake Palace for cocktail hour with Cathy is on a slow motorboat that takes us into the middle of the lake. The late afternoon sun is turning everything a soft gold: the shimmering surface of the water, the ghats of ochre-colored stone, the honey-hued dwellings perched on the hills, the amber-skinned people immersed up to their knees or waists, bathing or playing or doing laundry.
I have to say this for Cathy. She is making an effort not to say “I told you so.” In fact, she’s made a minimal nod to local standards by covering her long limbs with white pants and a blouse. She actually looks rather elegant.
I’m trying not to show my disappointment. I don’t know what to think. This young artist seemed so sincere, so ebullient, so willing to be my guide. I feel foolish, naïve, taken in. I thought of what Jason would say in these circumstances: Something like “There are many guides along your path, but it is still your path.” Had he actually said it? What did that mean anyway? What did any of it mean? My eyes blur from the effort of trying to figure it out.
Then I have another thought. Maybe something happened to the young painter. “Maybe something happened to him,” I mumble.
Cathy shakes her head. “You really just don’t get it, do you?”
“What don’t I get?” She makes me feel like a child.
“Oh, Indian men,” she says with a dismissive flap of her hand. We are just pulling up to the portage of the very grand hotel. Several well-built attendants in dazzling regalia, crowned by sparkling turbans, stand at attention as we disembark. From far way, the Lake Palace is ethereal, a floating flower. Close up, it is the embodiment of oriental luxury. Once it was the summer palace of a maharajah, built on this tiny island out of pure white marble. At some point, when he could no longer afford it, it was turned into a hotel, and now the fabulously expensive rooms are inhabited by affluent tourists. We are seated at a table in the courtyard, surrounded by carved marble facades and tapestries of overdressed elephants and warriors.
“For the price of a gin and tonic, we can pretend we’re filthy rich,” Cathy says when we order our drinks. We are surrounded by what look like wealthy people—Westerners with designer handbags and sunglasses, beautifully dressed Indian women loaded with gold jewelry. As we wait for our drinks, we try to determine who is really rich versus who is just dressing the part. I find my mood starting to lift. Our drinks arrive, long tall glasses dripping with moisture. The gin goes down like a cool waterfall, further easing my pain.
“So do you still want to tell your story?”
She responds by taking off her sunglasses. “Look into my eyes,” she says, leaning toward me and batting her eyelashes. “Notice anything?” I do. I see that her irises are a rich brown, in contrast with her blond hair and pale skin.
“Dark eyes?”
“I have huge brown eyes because I am . . . .” She pauses for dramatic effect. “I am Indian.” I try to take in this amazing information. “That is one-quarter of my genes are of Indian origin.”
“So is it your mom’s side? Or your dad’s?”
“My grandma came here from England. That is, she trailed along meekly after her husband.”
“Your grandfather.”
“Well, actually no. That’s part of the story. Anyway, they both came here in those days when the sun never set on the British Empire and all that rawt,” she says, affecting a British accent.
“Let’s see, the sun actually did set in, what was it, 1948?”
“You’ve got it. Anyway, Grandma Rose came with husband Hector. She was one of those porcelain-skinned babes with big boobs and big blond ’40s hair. Hector had a job ordering Indians around. Rose spent her time going to la
wn parties until she got very bored. Anyway, long story short, Rose became interested in spiritual matters and ended up having an affair with an Indian man—a medical doctor and a follower of Krishnamurti. A fatal attraction, you might say.”
By now I’m no longer hearing her words, but imagining the story she’s telling. I see Rose’s pale face flush with excitement as she makes an excuse to her husband and flees the house—with its tea-at-five and fresh-linen-every-day propriety—to meet her lover in the garden where the great Krishnamurti holds forth. His enormous black eyes shine in his thin face as he speaks, ever so thoughtfully. The two of them are rapt at his feet. But they’re even more enthralled with each other. What was it Krishnamurti used to preach? Something like: Understanding yourself only takes place in a relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, to the earth, the world around you and the world inside of you—something like that. I remember his famous quote, oft repeated by Jason. “Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed,’” I say out loud. I had always loved that idea, although I hoped it was not my true self that was revealed in my relationship with Peter. Surely not.
“Huh?” Cathy says. She flicks her long fingers at a lone fly circling her drink. “I would think this ritzy place was a no-fly zone.” She grins and shrugs. “Sorry. Can’t help it. What were you saying?”
“Oh nothing. Just citing the spiritual master.” I repeat the quote.
“Now that’s interesting. I’ll have to think about that. But, you know, Rose wasn’t the only English babe fooling around with a very dawshing native. The fatal part was when Hector was sent back to England. Rose refused to go with him. She couldn’t bear to leave her lover. So it all came out kind of horribly, and Hector divorced her. Her Indian lover, you see, was from a pretty wealthy family, and he pretty much promised to marry her and take care of her. And he was kind of pretty too. My mom showed me photos of him.”
As Cathy speaks, I picture him: big, half-closed eyes, sleek hair, a cruel mouth. “It sounds like a novel.”
“Oh, it gets worse. They had a kid a year or so later. Hello, mother! It was uncool enough to be a biracial couple, but to have a biracial child. Oh my God! She was rejected by the Anglos who stayed on here and totally rejected by the Indians. She was a little girl named Jasmine, my mother, and she couldn’t even get into a school. She told me she remembered her father being kind to her when she was small. And I guess he supported them to an extent. But the pressure from his family was too much. Eventually, my grandmother’s wonderful, oh-so-spiritual Indian lover married an Indian woman with a big dowry. He started treating Rose like a concubine—you know, visiting her once in a while when he was in the mood.
“So Rose homeschooled my mom in proper English subjects until she was a teenager, and then she had the sense to send her back to England while she stayed on in this half-life. My mom lived with relatives in London, went to school, and started to have sort of a normal existence. By that time it was the swinging ’60s. She was so gorgeous. Instead of blond hair and dark eyes like me, she had that smooth tawny skin and pale green eyes. Anyway, she fell in love with a big, tall, blond American guy who came over to do the British music scene, and they moved to Chicago. Actually a pretty cool guy, my dad. And then there was me, la de da! So I guess in some ways it was a happy ending. Except my mom died a few years ago—cancer. You’d think that would be enough to make me quit smoking.”
Cathy lights up another cigarette and takes another swig of her drink.
“So what happened to your Grandma Rose?”
“That’s the sad-ending part.” She lets out a ragged breath. I can see tears starting to form at the corners of her very brown eyes. “My mom sent my grandma letters and begged her to come to England. No. Poor old Rose was so addicted to her lover boy that she stayed on and on. He kept treating her like a dirt bag, until, without even her child now, she finally walked into the Ganges or something. Nobody’s very clear on that point. So that’s the Enquirer story in five hundred words or more.” She wipes the tears away and puts her sunglasses back on.
I don't know what to say to such an unexpected universe inside Cathy’s to-hell-with-everything persona. “So it was your mother who taught you Hindi. She remembered it from her childhood here.”
“Yeah. She learned it playing in the street with other children.”
“So let me see if I’ve got this right. This Indian spiritual romance guy is your grandfather.”
“You’ve got it.”
“And you’re here to reconnect with your roots?”
“Yeah, kind of. My mom was bitter about the whole thing, especially after Grandma Rose disappeared. But somehow she remembered her early childhood days here as magically free, the days before she was shipped off to school in England. When she died, I decided I’d try to chase her memories. But I’m not feeling the magic, as is probably obvious. I’m also here for another reason.”
“OK. What’s that?”
“To get even.” She bites her lip, then forces a smile. “I hate my bastard grandfather, and I’m going to track him down. And take him down, if I can.”
“I don’t blame you.” The whole grand tale of treachery fuels my resentment contained in my small story of the painter not showing up. The waiter is back; my first drink has disappeared in listening to Cathy. Another gin and tonic seems exactly the right way to spend the rest of the afternoon.
“You know Elena, I hate him, but I feel also Rose should have stuck up for herself. You know that old model of being female—where you give up everything for your great love. Ain’t going to happen to me.”
“Me either. Let’s drink to that.”
“Men are all different, but they’re all alike in their selfishness.”
“Except for Gandhi.”
“Oh, I’ve heard stories about him too.”
I frown, trying to imagine the tiny saint as a seducer.
“But, India, yeah, it’s a love-hate thing. Hey, do you want to reconsider going to Delhi with me in a few days? As I said before, we could stay in a gorgeous place with a view and my Aussie boyfriend—for free.”
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” I take a deep draught of my fresh drink and then rub one of the ice cubes over my lips. I love watching all these civilized people surrounding us, listening to their murmured conversations, possibly about very uncivilized events like those in Cathy’s ancestry.
“Better than sitting around here, waiting for Lover Boy.”
“He’s not Lover Boy. He’s an interesting person who was going to help me find the maker of my lost painting. Still, you’re right. He’s a flake.”
“OK. Whatever. Anyway, I think my grandfather, the old seducer, might be hanging out near Delhi. According to my sources.”
“He’d be how old?”
“About eighty. Probably still a manipulator. The typical Indian man, professing great wisdom but thinking only of himself. That’s why I get pissed,” she said. “They’re my people in a way, so I guess I can do that.”
“So what are you going to do if you find him?”
“I haven’t decided yet. At the very least, I want to know what the hell happened to my grandma.” A big toothy smile appears under her sunglasses. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But it’s not going to be pretty.”
We clink glasses. By now I’m drunk enough that everything seems beautiful and tragic and funny at the same time. And going with Cathy to Delhi seems like a good idea.
On the boat ride back, I watch the women on the faraway shore slap their laundry. There is a splash of color, and a split second later I hear the thwack. I have always loved the idea that sound moves more slowly than light, that I can see something far away before I can hear it, as if the two phenomena were uncoupled at the moment they escape from the perpetrator, two spirits from the same body, one fast and one slow.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Visit to the Temples
The streets are empty and eerily quiet as I
set out for to the train station to buy tickets for Delhi. Everything seems to stand out against the emptiness, like brushstrokes on a blank canvas. The scent of charcoal and spice drifts from a window. A hollow tin voice from a loudspeaker somewhere calls the faithful to prayer. A black dog slinks around a corner and disappears into the alleyway. I have mixed feelings about going to Delhi with Cathy. I’ve spent the last couple of days wandering the streets, immersing myself in the sights and sounds of this exquisite city, breathing in the scent of frangipani trees, imagining myself as not just an onlooker, but an inhabitant. Yet, I also want to keep moving and, outrageous as she is, I enjoy Cathy’s company.
As I round a corner, I hear a voice call “Hellooo.” Then, like a magician stepping out of the shadows, the dark-haired painter appears beside me. Far from being apologetic for not showing up, he’s smiling as if he has done something wonderful and the world is applauding him. “Good morning, Miss Elena. Did you sleep well?” I’m a bit taken aback at this greeting, which seems at once old-fashioned and intimate in its allusion to beds and dreams and darkness, and inappropriate given the circumstances.
“Good morning,” I say, with as much ice in my voice as I can muster. Just seeing him rekindles my frustration with the whole ridiculous circus. I pull my hat more closely around my eyes and keep walking.
He laughs as if I’m clowning and keeps pace with me. My frigid response doesn’t seem to deter him one bit. “Do you remember me? My name is Sahil. I am the artist.”
I don’t reply.
“Why are you angry, Miss Elena?” I glance at him. He’s wearing fresh clothes, a white shirt, pressed jeans, shined leather shoes. In the glare of daylight he seems less intriguing.
