The Rebellion of Yale Marratt

by Robert H. Rimmer

  Should she tell Yale that she had missed her period? Two weeks . . . it could be nothing. What would it accomplish anyway? She had literally asked for it. More than once when he was about to use a contraceptive, she had told him it was all right, knowing that he was as reluctant to interrupt their embrace as she was. And there was Cynthia. Could Yale ever escape his desire for her? Certainly not because some blonde stranger announced she had fertilized his seed.

  "Baba achchha, manzur hai?" Anne parroted the words at the slowly comprehending woman. She wondered if her pronunciation was correct. The woman smiled. She repeated the achchha several times, patted the baby's rump, and hurried along toward the center of the village.

  Yale, sitting in front of the basha with Chatterji, caught sight of her.

  "Hey, I've been scared to death. It's nearly seven o'clock. Chatterji has baked a chicken. We are having a feast." He hugged her affectionately. "You're too beautiful to be wandering around alone at night. I think I'll have to make you wear a purdah, and just look at me."

  She undressed, complaining about the dusty two-mile walk to the village. With a wet cloth and soap he lathered her body, and then led her in back of the house where there was a well. He threw buckets of water on her while Chatterji, embarrassed, but still enjoying himself, watched them defy the Hindu customs that forbade the exposure of one's body.

  "Stop it! Please," she pleaded, shivering. Droplets of water coursed over her body. "Ten minutes ago I never thought I would be cool again." He helped her dry herself and watched with delight as she clumsily wrapped herself in a sari.

  They drank gimlets which Yale had taught Chatterji to make. He asked her why she was late.

  "Well, you know how it's been today. Everyone on the base acts stunned." She wound her fingers in his. "I guess I feel a little bewildered myself, Yale. I talked with a couple of G.I.'s who actually were crying. It doesn't seem possible that he's dead somehow. It's as if a world had died; a way of life. Some of the soldiers actually wonder if we can win the war now that he's gone.

  "It's funny," Yale said, "I come from a family who have probably said 'Thank God . . . at last he's gone.' Now the Republicans will come blinking into the sun again, after so many years . . . but I feel the way you do. I'll miss his 'My friends . . ." At the same time be glad that all leaders are mortal, too. It's unfortunate that Hitler couldn't have gone first."

  They ate the meal Chatterji had prepared and told him how delicious the chicken was. They both were a little worried as to what sanitary measures Chatterji had taken. "Tastes as if it were boiled in ghee," Anne said, wrinkling her nose.

  "You've got to eat it," Yale whispered. "He's so proud of his culinary ability." He had to admit that it was very greasy. "The liquor will cut the fat," he said, and poured her another drink. "Anne, I want to marry you."

  She looked at him in surprise, a chicken bone suspended in the air. "Oh, Yale . . . that's nice." Yale made the statement so matter-of-factly that Anne at first didn't grasp the words. When she understood she couldn't restrain her tears.

  "I asked Mat Chilling if he would marry us but Mat said no." Yale shook his head disgustedly.

  "Why not? Who does he think he is, -- God?" Anne demanded angrily. She brushed the tears out of her eyes. "He has Cynthia."

  "It's not that he objects," Yale said, ignoring her reference to Cynthia. "It shakes down to this. To make it legal, it has to go through Trafford and then be okayed at Headquarters. Mat is absolutely certain we'd be turned down. He thinks the best thing is to wait." Yale kissed her cheek. "Anne. A marriage is in your mind. A ceremony doesn't make a marriage. Mat feels that we are married. Why proclaim it? It's just asking for trouble. Trafford would get one of us transferred."

  "I know," Anne said dully. "He's right. I have a feeling we will never be married. So what? When we look back on it we can say: He was nice. She was nice. It was fun while it lasted. What lasts in the world, anyway?"

  Yale led Anne toward the bed. He waved goodnight to Chatterji who grinned understandingly. Chatterji bid effusive goodnights to them. Anne lay on the bed unresponsive to Yale's touch.

  "I didn't tell you that Sundari has talked with Surya Gupta," Yale said. "Mat asked him to. It was Mat's idea. We could have a Hindu marriage! Right here in the village."

  "You mean like Sunanda suggested all of us get in a circle?" Anne demanded fiercely. "I won't do it!" She started to cry. "Oh, Yale, I'll do anything you want, I love you so very much."

  "You mean you'd go through a Chakrapuja for me?" Yale grinned at her. "Well, baby, get it out of your head. Surya Gupta can't have you!" Yale hugged her, and kissed the wet corners of her eyes. "You dumb dodo. This would be an ancient Vedic marriage ceremony. Very nice. Very sacred. Something we could kind of hold onto until the war is over."

  She lay in his arms, feeling the fulfillment of their love inside her -- and Yale's warm breath on her cheek. The nervous quiet of the night presaged the monsoons. Somewhere in the methodical rows of tea bushes a turkey buzzard flapped its wings. The shrill night yappings of the jackals as they howled their discontent with the world rolled to a crescendo. Soon . . . as they did every night, their plaintive calls would mysteriously cease. A hush would descend on the village and the night would be more intense and restless without their shrill howls. Anne could feel the warm perspiration from their bodies; the boniness of Yale's chest, and the curve of his stomach, wet and damp against her breasts and belly. She kissed him softly and fervently as he slept.

  7

  Dressed in a pale purple sari woven with gold threads; a huge pearl, a wedding gift from Yale, suspended on her forehead, Anne nervously watched the crowds of villagers gathering for the wedding ceremony. Looking from the window of Surya Gupta's house, she could see the ceremonial tent. The accumulative excitement of the past two weeks had built to almost a kind of hysteria for her. What had started out as a joke, being married in a Hindu ceremony, had suddenly been embraced with great seriousness by Yale and Mat as they studied the ancient ceremonies with Sundari.

  Mat told her she would be taking part in a ritual older than any known marriage ceremony. When she protested to Sundari that it was sacrilegious for her and Yale to go through a ceremony they would scarcely understand, let alone believe, Sundari had smiled. "Many people today are joined by religious ceremonies they obviously don't believe. The important thing for a man and woman seeking the divinity is the accumulation of shared experience. For you and Sahib Marratt, this will be an experience that will add one more link in the chain that binds you, and will merge you with the Atman . . . until you both together can say, 'I am He' and your cry of joy in this discovery will be the pinnacle of your ecstasy with each other."

  During the past month their bungalow in the village had become a kind of literary and intellectual gathering place for those at the Army base who had been accepted into their magic circle. On Friday evenings, which was Anne's day off at the Red Cross club, Mat Chilling, Sundari, Surya Gupta, and his wife Sunanda, Chris Powers, and Helen Axonby (who told her husband that she was helping at the base), and several pilots that Yale had met and trusted, gathered, and aided by beer, Indian whiskey, and the exotic village setting, discussed philosophy, politics, and life. In the intimacy of their shared knowledge, enchanted with the quick probing mind of Sundari, Yale and Anne would forget the Army for a little while and delight in the warm companionship they had engendered for each other.

  "It's you and Yale," Helen Axonby told her. "Your love graces the entire village and transforms these evenings. I'm amazed at how much Indian culture you have assimilated in such a short time."

  Anne had been surprised at Yale's obsession with learning. "The finance office is running itself," he told her. "Oh, once a month there's some activity, but mostly there's just a wonderful expanse of time. I could spend it playing endless games of gin rummy or drinking at the officers' club or out at the tea planters' club, but I have you and the vast world to know."

  Anne remembered the day he ha
d said it. A Sunday, when they had their basha to themselves. Yale was outside, lying naked on a charpoy, a pile of books he had brought from Dacca on the ground. He had been trying to converse in Hindustani with two naked Indian boys about five or six years old, who regarded him with merry black eyes. They choked with laughter at Yale's awkward pronunciation.

  Yale had tried to persuade Anne to sun bathe with him, but she had declined. "I come from the Midwest, honey. I'm not used to your wild ideas. Besides, look at Chatterji. If he could blush, he would do it for you."

  Surya Gupta had told Chatterji that the village was a little shocked at Yale's lack of modesty. Amidst sighs and smiles Chatterji had tried to convey this to Yale. Yale had looked at him with a dense expression, enjoying Chatterji's confusion.

  "Nanga Sahib," Chatterji shrugged. He looked hopelessly at Anne. Anne thought it wonderful. Nanga meant naked in Hindustani. She had called Yale her Nanga Sahib ever since.

  "Tell Surya Gupta," Yale had told Chatterji, "that I am a reincarnation of Krishna. Memsahib Anne is one of the Gopi girls. I'm filling her with love."

  Anne had blushed for Chatterji as much as for herself. She wondered how much Chatterji, who looked at them in awe with solemn black eyes, understood.

  "I don't think Krishna is ever represented without clothes," Anne said to Yale. "You're thinking of Shiva and Parvati."

  Yale flipped the pages of one of his books. "Look, Chatterji. What do you think of this?" Chatterji stared at the photograph for a moment which showed a sculpture of Shiva and Parvati. Parvati was holding Shiva's lingam in a tight grasp. Chatterji bobbed up and down grinning. "Very good, Sahib, very good."

  Anne chuckled. "You've struck a common chord of male delight. He likes the idea."

  "Look," Yale had said, ignoring her. "Shiva's naked. Parvati's naked. I don't understand you Hindus. Nowadays, so far as I can see, even when Hindus take a bath they wear dhotis."

  "Long time ago," Chatterji said. "Now Hindu man very modest." He stared at the photograph again. "Memsahib Anne. She Parvati. Very good. All women Parvati."

  Sunanda came into the room. She smiled at Anne. "You are very beautiful, Mrs. Wilson. It will be only a few minutes now. Sri Sundari has obtained the assistance of the priests from two nearby villages." Sunanda was wearing a flowered print sari that Yale had brought her from Calcutta. She looked at Anne, her large brown eyes sparkling with excitement. "There are so many people. All the people from our village and from Taon. They want to see a blond memsahib. Every Indian man thinks about this marriage. They wish in their hearts they were Sahib Marratt."

  "Oh, Sunanda, not when they can have a lovely Indian girl."

  "Indian women get old quick. Sunanda will be an old woman at twenty-five." Anne knew that Sunanda was seventeen. She had had two children already. The philosophy is fine, Anne thought. The Hindu adores women. He accords the female supremacy, but practically . . . she withers before his eyes, and he can do nothing about it.

  When Sundari and Mat Chilling came out to the village later that day, they found out what Chatterji had meant by his statement that all women were Parvati. Anne remembered that Sundari had looked at Yale with amusement. He made some comment about white men lying naked in the sun to achieve the color of the Asians they despised.

  "It's not the color," Yale said, grinning. He made no attempt to dress, although Anne had appeared with his pants. "It's the cool breeze blowing across one's testicles . . . gentle as the touch of a woman who loves you."

  Sundari had been delighted. He turned to Mat. "I think this young man already understands the Sakta theory . . . that the ultimate and active principle in the universe is feminine. I do think that since Sahib Marratt and his Memsahib have asked me to officiate at this marriage I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to give them an understanding of Bhakti Yoga and some of the Hindu concepts of love."

  Anne had asked him if this was what Helen Axonby had meant by "Love Yoga."

  Sundari smiled. "What I tell people in my lectures is an ancient formulation, based on the Tantras. Love Yoga somehow fails to render the idea. It has journalistic overtones in my mind." Chatterji opened cocoanuts for them. They had sipped the cool milk as they talked.

  Anne remembered that Yale had pointed out to Mat that it sounded to him a little like Mat's idea of "Seek the True Love."

  Surya Gupta interrupted Anne's reveries. He bounced into the room with a happy grin. "We are ready for the bride, Memsahib."

  Her legs trembling, Anne listened to the sigh of approval as Surya Gupta led her through the crowds of spectators forming a pathway for them to the wedding tent. She saw only a blur of faces through her veil. In a moment she was kneeling yoga fashion before the sacrificial fire. Yale dressed in suntans was beside her. She caught a glimpse of admiration in his smile. He touched her hand gently. Sundari was busy chanting in Sanskrit what he had told them would be an extended invocation to the ancestors. As he sang the verses, assistant priests to his right and left fed rice and ghee into the fire. The tent was crowded. The sides were lifted. In every direction Anne glimpsed happy brown faces following the ritual with great seriousness.

  In the long discussions they had had concerning the Vedic marriage ceremony, Anne knew that it would be some time before they reached the Kanyadan, or wedding itself. Honor must be paid to the Gods. The Spirits must be propitiated. Without understanding the language (something which she had protested to Sundari as seeming a little false to her), Anne was able to grasp the essential meaning of what Sundari was saying. He had explained to her and Yale that very few Hindus understood Sanskrit . . . any more than Catholics understood Latin. It should be easy for them to participate as long as they understood the ceremony generally.

  The heat was overpowering. Kneeling so close to the fire, smelling the ever-present warm smell of dung and burning of rice and ghee in the sacrificial pot, Anne felt suddenly faint. She clenched her hands. She prayed. Somehow she must get through the ceremony. She knew how much effort the villagers . . . Surya Gupta, Sundari . . . all of them had put into the wedding. It was an occasion they would remember, an honor that these Americans had bestowed by accepting their beliefs and rituals. Anne knew the marriage had been a continual subject of discussion in the village for weeks. Sunanda had asked if she really were a Hindu in her beliefs. Anne parried the question by telling her that "all paths lead to Brahma." She wondered as she said it what her religion was. Not Christian, certainly . . . for wasn't living with Yale . . . wasn't this marriage a blasphemy in Christian eyes?

  Again, she felt a wave of dizziness spread over her. She swayed slightly. Sundari continued his oblations. I'm really pregnant, she thought, wondering when she would have the courage to tell Yale. Oh, dear God, let him care for me when he knows. Let not these wonderful discussions of love and philosophy that we have had be just abstractions that fold their tents and disappear when the hard reality is known. What had Mat Chilling said to her that day? Her mind drifting over the peaks and valleys of Sundari's singsong chant, she remembered:

  "You see, Anne," Matt had said, "'Seek the True Love' was a very crude formulation of an idea that has gradually come to obsess me, and made it impossible for me to preach Christianity in the accepted theological ways. For years I have been searching for the ultimate fulcrum that will pry man loose from his hatreds. Idealistic sexuality seemed the answer. Here is a common bond for all men which our established religions have unfortunately renounced. No human consciousness can ever know another human consciousness. We are circumscribed by our own existence. Yet in the sexual giving and receiving of a male and female, not only bodies, but minds themselves, finding the unity of two lovers with the universe, can participate in the Ultimate. Isn't this really the best and only approach to God for man? By our understanding of the microcosm, which is all man, we can approach to an understanding of the macrocosm, which is God. What I was trying to say in 'Seek the True Love,' Anne, was that the truly sacred love of God could be achieved just as blessedly for any man or
woman in a clean warm sexual act, as for the saint or mystic in the transports of his ascetism. Maybe even better . . . because with the communion possible in the sexual act, properly enjoyed and understood, moves not the 'still sad music . . .' but the joyous music of humanity."

  Anne remembered. As she had listened to Mat she wondered about the strange affinity that he and Yale had for each other. She wondered what Cynthia thought about Mat's ideas. Was she, Anne, simply an outsider to an established triumvirate, with the unknown Cynthia in the center?

  She recalled Yale answering Mat, "I think I have always felt this way."

  She remembered he had touched her arm. "This sexual rapport takes a very complete understanding of a man and a woman for each other. Perhaps this molding of two people is as difficult to achieve as Nirvana itself. If it can be brought about, a man and woman will transcend the sexual act itself. It has happened to me."

  Anne remembered the reminiscent tone in Yale's voice. Had he meant with her or with Cynthia? Again, that gnawing doubt.

  Sundari had finished his long apostrophe to Krishna and the ceremony of the marriage itself was about to begin. For several weeks she and Yale had studied their parts like actors in a play. Sundari had translated some of the Sanskrit ritual into the ultimate vows that she and Yale would take. As if she were a spectator instead of a participant, as if the significance of the ceremony were not for her but for some person she was watching with unconstrained interest, she heard Sundari ask,

  "Who giveth this woman?"

  As they had previously agreed, Surya Gupta answered, "I do, acting as the father."

  Oh, yes, Anne thought, Anne's father is dead. But he was alive when Ricky and Anne were married. What would he have thought of this heathen ceremony, Anne, the watcher, wondered? Horrible! Indecent! A blasphemy! Even broadminded Ricky would have been shocked. For Ricky's liberalism embraced science and biology, but, wherever he was now, if he could see his wife pregnant, being married before a fire representing a Hindu divinity named Agni, he would have shouted his protest loudly.