by Talbot Mundy
“Must not?” He rebelled at that word. Iron crept into his gray eyes. But she no more feared the iron in him than she did his eloquence. Her own eyes laughed an answer to the challenge.
“Joe, the truth is sometimes deadly.”
“All right. Turn it loose and let’s see who dies.”
“There are some things worse than death, Joe.”
“As for instance — ?”
He thrilled as her right hand touched his shoulder — then his head. She had done that dozens of times while he lay between death and life with four walls crowding him, when nothing but her touch could keep the overbrooding life from leaving the tortured body. It had calmed him. Now it fired him.
“Rita, I won’t accept an evasive answer from you, and I won’t wait. Yes or no — and now! I love you; and, as you told me, time hasn’t a thing to do with it. Damn the consequences. You’re the woman, not a woman. I don’t care who you are, or how you came here. You’re the only creature I have ever met with whom I can share full confidence and not regret it. I feel I know you, and you me. I’m offering you, without reserve of any kind, the utmost that a man can give. I’m willing to stand or fall by it — to live or die by it. And I’m entitled to an answer. Do you love me?”
He knew then that he had known it long ago. But how shall a man know what he knows until knowledge leaps like light in him? And shall less than an answering beacon satisfy him?
“Say it, Rita.”
“Joe, I love you.”
Naked honesty — a craving to be honest — a contempt for sham of any sort — that underlay all Joe’s motives broke through now and challenged her — himself, too.
“I’m making no concessions to temple vows or any other kind of limitation. Do you understand that, Rita? I’m not even a Christian. I don’t know anything about Platonic, or sexless, or what the puritans call pure love. When I say I love you, I mean with all my heart and every faculty I have.”
“Aren’t you funny! Do you think I could love you, Joe, be afraid of you, and rob you, at the same time? Or do you think I’d rob me? I have loved you more than all the other people in the world all put together, since the night I saw you by the jail gate. And I loved you before that — before you saw me. I knew you were coming.”
“Kiss me, Rita. For God’s sake-I can’t get up and—” For a second he felt like a fool because he had no strength to take her in his arms and make her feel his manhood with every vein and nerve of her body. But she overwhelmed that self-consciousness; he lost it in the perfume of her breath and in the rhythm of her heartbeat as she crept into his arms and it was she, not he who yielded. Lip to lip, heart to heart, her arms around him, she let the vibrance of her being flow into his senses. And he knew then it was true that he had never loved or been loved before he met her — knew he had never known what love is or what its vibrance does to the springs of the deep of man’s inmost consciousness. He discovered he had senses, super-physical and secret from him until now, that mocked all limits and all habit — that denied both strength and weakness, since they seemed to be a law unto themselves — senses that opened flood-gates and released in torrents that were color, light and music, cosmic consciousness and cosmic rhythm. For sixty seconds he knew that ecstasy is unconditioned, absolute, and no more to be reached by material means than the Pole-star or the source of music — something to be tuned into and to become aware of, not to be imprisoned, limited or made.
“Do you believe me now, Joe?”
“God, yes. You believe me?”
“I never doubted you.”
“I suppose I’m easy to believe. You’re difficult. You’re almost too good to be true.”
Rita sat on the arm of the chair and let him hold her hands against his breast and press them to his lips. She had governed the very gates of nature and her restraint now was as rhythmically potent as the flood-tide had been. Her calm made Joe feel as if he had been half drowned in the thunder of organ music and was listening now to melody like sunshine after rain. There was almost a scent of sprinkled earth.
“Joe, dear, learn my language. Too good to be untrue. Why not? Why pay homage to the gods of chaos? They only take advantage of it to inflict more cruelty. The only truly true things in the universe are so good that we almost daren’t imagine them. And because they’re true they’re everlasting. Too bad to be true might make sense. But we all dishonor truth, and honor lies, so readily that unless we carefully guard our speech we get lost in a plausible swamp of untruth. We need phrases to remind ourselves to take the high view and the long view.”
“I’ll be good, dear, but you’ll have to educate me. Tell me: why did you refuse to answer when I first asked you.”
“Joe, I’m ashamed. I made no fight at all. I didn’t even try to fight.”
“Fight what, dear? For God’s sake — me?”
“Yes, you — or me — or destiny — or something. Joe, I knew about you nearly a year before you came. I even saw you.”
“You mean, you knew what I look like?” She nodded. “You came to me at the worst time — at the terrible time, when Poonch-Terai had begun to try to get me. I went at night to Ram-Chittra Gunga, and I told him Poonch-Terai had spoken to me. Poonch-Terai had spoken to the priests, too, and I told him that, although he knew it; he is really the high priest here and knows everything, although he sits outside there like a hermit and pretends to know nothing. That is because he has grown beyond rite and ritual, although he knows the need of it in others. It was Ram-Chittra Gunga who accepted me into the temple when Amal first carried me here.”
“Good luck to him. I wish I understood the old bird.”
“He is too wise to be entirely understood. He says I understand him best, and that must be true, because he never flatters any one. It was he who let me go to Annie Weems’ school. He taught me psychic things, while she taught me Latin and Greek and poetry and Western music — history — mathematics—” “Come closer. You were talking about Poonch-Terai.”
“Poonch-Terai has power here, although he may not go below the temple floor. He can’t get by the guardians. They test him, and he can’t pass. But he has hereditary rights. Almost two-thirds of the temple revenue is derived from his estate in the form of endowment, which he has the right to cancel if the rituals are discontinued or changed, or if unauthorized people are admitted into the temple on any grounds whatever.”
“Me, for instance?”
“This is no real part of the temple. This place is a guesthouse where distinguished visitors are entertained. But me. He was direct at first and tried to tempt me, but he saw at once that I could see right into him and read his aura. You would think that would make him hesitate; he must know that his aura isn’t a tempting thing to look at, it’s all murky cobra-color and a sort of sour green with shots of muddy indigo.”
“What color is mine, Rita?”
“Just now? Blazing blood-red.”
“And yours?”
“Look and see.”
“I don’t know how. You look most awful sweet to me. Is that your aura? Go on, tell me about Poonch-Terai. Am I hurting?”
“You? I wouldn’t mind if you did. Poonch-Terai asked questions, and he soon learned I am what I think the West calls psychic. That means, I have certain faculties that most people haven’t developed. He learned that the priests were admitting me into the crypt, and that I am favored, and free, not in virtual bondage like the nautch-girls, although I have been trained in all their ritual. He has the right, by ancient privilege, to select a nautch-girl every six months for his own use. He selected me. So the priests explained to him that I am not a nautch-girl; and they told him I am psychic, and that they use me in the mysteries. He knows what those are, though he has never seen them.”
“Hasn’t he tried to see them?”
“Oh, no. He knew he could never do that. He knows it is impossible to begin, let alone finish them, with one unauthorized person present, even if the person is in hiding. A spy got in once — an Englis
hman who knows a great deal about occult things, but not enough to know the uselessness of the attempt; he only delayed things a short time. He was like dirt in the wheels of a watch. So nothing happened, until Ram-Chittra Gunga poked him with his staff and made him come forth out of hiding. He was very frightened, but Ram-Chittra Gunga only scolded him and said: ‘My son, before you try again to unlock mysteries, seek first the key to them within your own soul, and when you have found that you will need no hiding-place. He went out trembling and Ram-Chittra Gunga sent him to the city in an ox-cart.”
“You say, Poonch-Terai understands all this?”
“In a sense, all Indians understand it. That is why they don’t try to intrude. But Poonch-Terai is as famished for occult knowledge as a wolf for warm blood, and he holds mysteries of his own in his palace. All India has heard of them. They say he does terrible things in the dark. So he thought, if I am useful in these mysteries, I may be useful in his dark ones also; and he began to use schemes and threats to get me into his possession.”
“Tried force, too, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but Hawkesey and some of Hawkesey’s friends prevented that. The schemes were cruel and the threats were no joke. To prevent any British officials from becoming too much interested in me, he spread rumors about my being a half-breed, and about my being loose with soldiers. Then he threatened the priests that unless they turned me over to him as a nautch-girl, chosen in accordance with his privilege, he would stop their revenue on the ground of their having admitted a white woman into the temple. The ancient deed of endowment says nothing at all about color, but it does say that strangers may never enter. The question is, who is a stranger? Am I one? Ram-Chittra Gunga answers no. But it is very easy for Poonch-Terai to bribe the Brahmin council who decide such matters.”
“Can’t two play at that game?”
“Probably. But it’s not a good game, and Poonch-Terai’s purse is much the deeper — to say nothing about Brahmin jealousy that would tip the scale against Ram-Chittra Gunga in any event. He has never paid bribes from the temple treasury and I believe he would rather die than do it; it would be robbing charity to pay thieves. And the worst of it is that a decision in favor of Poonch-Terai would entitle him, at least in theory to recover all the money paid to the temple from his estate since the day I was first admitted. Poonch-Terai sent some one who told Amal all this, and Amal told me.”
“Amal favors Poonch-Terai?”
“She thinks that my greatest conceivable destiny is to become a Maharajah’s favorite.”
“How much would all this money amount to?”
“I don’t know. Millions of rupees.”
Joe remembered that he had been unable, so far, even to pay Hawkes a thousand pounds. In his present mood, if he had had the cash, it would have amused him to outbid Poonch-Terai, or at least to finance a protracted law-suit that would provide time in which to discover weak points in the Maharajah’s personal affairs. He had seen even Wall Street magnates wrecked in that way. But he knew he knew nothing about Indian internecine struggles for financial control.
“I went to Ram-Chittra Gunga by moonlight,” said Rita, “and I asked him to instruct me what to do. He refused to instruct me. He said: ‘You have been taught all I can teach you. It is now time to use your own judgment. What have you? If it is gratitude, use it. If it is wisdom, use it. If it is ambition, use it. You, who have been taught the law that in the end each pays his own bill, put that teaching into practise. As for me, I have finished my part. He refused to add another word to that; he can be as silent as a stone wall when he pleases.”
“Dear, we’ll work this out together,” Joe assured her. There was a wistful sadness in her eyes, that saddened him too. “You and I together deal with destiny from now on.”
“Joe, you don’t know yet. Do you know the Sanskrit saying, that of all the unmerciful forces of nature, the least yielding and the most torturing is love?”
“Sounds like hokum.”
“What is hokum?”
“Blatherum, Hokum and Blaa, sweetheart, are the three great gods whom Lizzie of Hohokus worships. Lizzie of Hohokus is a synonym for Sweet Adeline, who is the Queen of the United States. She inspires our Sunday sermons and she censors art and the motion-pictures. Incidentally, she educates our legislators and she dictates what is known as justice in the courts. She is blind, sentimental, conceited, good-looking, and owns the Marines, who are sent to impose respectability on backward races. Love shocks her; she intends to pass a law that children shall be born in tin cans, certified in New York by the Rabbi, and in the United States by properly elected bishops nominated by the D. A. R. and confirmed by Rotary. Altogether she has upward of seven million laws, about a million of which define and govern love in one form or another, and most of the laws are cruel. Nearly all of them are ignored, except for blackmail purposes or when the cop needs practise with a night stick. Lincoln to the contrary, she fools all of the people all the time, myself included. But she can’t fool me any longer about love. I’m having some. I love you; and sweet Lizzie of Hohokus may go slap to hell, along with her spectacles, bustle, inhibitions, proverbs, superstition, politics, pure meat and certified plumbing. I’m in love from now on. So are you. Let’s see Lizzie try to kink that with her Hokum.”
Rita smiled because she knew he expected it, but there was trouble brooding on her forehead and behind her eyes.
“Everything would be so easy,” she said, “it we might only remain ignorant — and selfish. You and I might run away together—” “Excellent,” said Joe. “I’m game, as soon as I can stand on two feet. Let’s do that.”
“And leave Ram-Chittra Gunga and all my other generous friends and teachers to pay the price and take the consequences?” She shook her head. “Leave Annie Weems, too, at the mercy of Poonch-Terai?”
“What could he do to her?” Joe felt serious at last. In theory he could sympathize with Hindu priests; in practise his own kind countrywoman’s danger stirred him instantly, whereas theirs left him philosophically unexcited.
“He has already closed her school. The building is temple property, and he has the right to forbid that for the use of foreigners. He has threatened to sue her for twenty years rent, on the ground that the property should have reverted to him the moment it was used for anything but temple purposes, and that she has therefore really been his tenant all these years.”
“But she paid rent to the temple, didn’t she? Let him sue them.”
“No. She paid only a nominal rent. Ram-Chittra Gunga let her have the building for a rupee a month, but he gave her no contract in writing because he lacked authority to do that; and besides, he despises written contracts, which, he says, are usually efforts to keep God from having His own way.”
“God and grown sons! I could tell him something about trust deeds,” Joe reflected.
“What should I do? After I had asked Ram-Chittra Gunga and he refused to give me any advice, I went back into the temple to try to decide what to do. I have a room away up in a tower, and there is a balcony where I can sleep under the stars or lie and watch what looks like a whole world bathed in moonlight. I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed that I might have wisdom to take the right course, whatever that might be, and however difficult it might be. I could see Ram-Chittra Gunga sitting motionless in the moonlight, and I loved the old man. Joe, you have no idea how deeply one comes sooner or later to love a genuine teacher who isn’t afraid to show you your own soul — and his. I decided to go to Poonch-Terai, if he would withdraw all claims against the temple. I decided I would let him use me, if he could, in his black art mysteries, if that would save my friends.”
“Do you mean that your friends would have let you go?”
“They will let me do whatever I wish, if they know that I truly wish to do it. They love me and I love them. They are not such incompetent guides or such ignorant fools as to think they can do my duty for me, or change my destiny, or regulate the fire in which my soul is privileged to bu
rn away its dross. They are good friends, to whom the lesser of two evils is the next step forward. I decided that night I would go to Poonch-Terai. But then you came.”
“How do you mean, dear — I came?”
“You — none other. You were probably asleep in New York. I mean, your body probably was sleeping; in fact, it must have been, because you don’t know how to leave it otherwise. You came and stood there on the parapet, with the planet Jupiter so exactly behind you and over you that it looked like a flame on the crown of your head.”
“You’ve a wonderful imagination,” said Joe.
“I know I have. Imagination is the window through which the soul looks at reality. Without imagination men are blinder than the pigs. There is neither music, mystery nor mirth without imagination. Who said, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’? He knew. They die like rats and so-called scientists and scholars, in a frozen wilderness of adamantine fact, forgetting, if they ever knew it, that a fact is no more than a symbol of a truth unseen by the physical eye. I saw you, Joe. I recognized you, too. And you knew me.”
“And yet I was asleep in New York?”
“Your clothes were asleep in New York. I mean your body was — your brain was. But your brain is only phosphorus and salt and water. Never mind — you will understand that one of these days. You came to me that night. I saw you and I knew you. And you knew me. You said: ‘If others wish to push the stars out of their courses, why not let them?’ And I understood that to mean that I should not make haste, because destiny is working unseen and it is foolish to try to hasten destiny, but wise to rise and meet it when it comes. I answered: ‘Come soon.’ And you said: ‘I will come exactly at the right time, because I also must deal with destiny, and if I come too soon it must all be done over again. Then I knew I should not go to Poonch-Terai until every last expedient has been exhausted. And I knew that you would come in time, if not to save me, at least to lend me courage.”
“Hell, I’ll lend you courage,” Joe said grimly. “Something lend me half a lick o’ luck and Poonch-Terai shall learn exactly where he gets off. Feed me meat and get my strength back, that’s all. How did I return to New York? In an airplane — or on a ray of the moon?”
